WILMINGTON, Del. – This morning, U.S. Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.) joined Joe Kernen on CNBC’s Squawk Box to discuss the need for another COVID-19 relief bill and the upcoming Senate confirmation hearings for President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Judge Amy Coney Barrett.
On the failure of Congress to pass another round of stimulus bills, Senator Coons said, “There are a lot of different things we could and should do together. I take encouragement from the fact that the CARES Act, six months ago, passed unanimously. I am discouraged by how hard it's been. I'm on the Small Business Committee. Senator Rubio, Senator Cardin, a whole group of us agree on another round of PPP for small businesses. We should be getting this done.”
“Frankly, my hope is that we can do this now because the cost to the American people is just going to get greater the longer we put it off. Yes, it's a huge amount of spending, but it's only because of that CARES Act that we passed six months ago that we are not in the second great depression,” continued Senator Coons.
On the upcoming hearings for Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett, Senator Coons said, “I will participate in the hearings because I think it's important that the American people hear questions of Judge Barrett about her publicly stated views on repealing the Affordable Care Act.”
“[A] hundred million Americans have pre-existing conditions, 7 million more with this pandemic, and those preexisting condition protections in the ACA are on the docket of the Supreme Court the week after the election. Judge Barrett has spoken publicly about how she doesn’t think this is constitutional and President Trump has said he will put someone on the Court who will help repeal the Affordable Care Act. There's no replacement plan. To me, to strip away health care and health protections from a majority of Americans in the middle of a pandemic is grossly irresponsible,” Senator Coons continued.
Full video of the interview is available here.
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