PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) – Gov. Gina Raimondo and Lt. Gov. Dan McKee will hold a joint coronavirus briefing on Wednesday, marking their first public appearances in Rhode Island since last Thursday’s announcement that Joe Biden had tapped the governor for his cabinet.
Raimondo and McKee, both second-term Democrats, will share the stage at the Veterans Memorial Auditorium at 1 p.m. They will be joined by leaders from the R.I. Department of Health.
It will be the first time Raimondo has spoken publicly in Rhode Island in three weeks, dating back to her Dec. 22 coronavirus briefing. She did appear on stage in Delaware on Friday when Biden formally announced her nomination as commerce secretary.
Raimondo is expected to remain in her current job for a number of weeks as she moves through the Senate confirmation process, which could take until the early spring to complete.
McKee has been in quarantine since Saturday after a coronavirus exposure, so Wednesday will also mark his first time taking questions from reporters since the formal announcement that he will be taking over as governor to complete Raimondo’s remaining two years in office.
Excluding the annual Memorial Day ceremony, it will be the first time Raimondo and McKee have had a news conference together since May 2019, when they held a joint event in Newport to promote legislation cracking down on utility companies in the wake of the Aquidneck Island gas outage.
Ted Nesi (tnesi@wpri.com) is WPRI 12’s politics and business editor and a Target 12 investigative reporter. He is a weekly panelist on Newsmakers and hosts Executive Suite. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook
