WILMINGTON, Del. — Today, U.S. Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.) joined MSNBC to discuss Congress’ continued response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“There have been some preliminary negotiations between Senator McConnell and Senator Schumer but the Democratic caucus believes strongly that the road map for going forward is the bill we passed two weeks ago unanimously. That bill had desperately needed money to support small businesses and large businesses, but also resources for our hospitals and for our health systems and for our state and local governments,” Senator Coons said.
“There's no reason we can't do both. There is a simple package the Democrats have put forward that should be taken up and passed promptly,” Senator Coons said.
Full video available here. Full transcript available below.
Q: Joining me now Democratic Senator Chris Coons of Delaware. He serves on the Appropriations, Foreign Relations and Small Business Committees. He’s also Vice Chair of the Ethics Committee. Senator, it’s always a pleasure to talk to you. Thanks for joining us this morning. Let me first get your reaction to how Democrats are prepared to respond in the event the President tries to adjourn Congress to get these nominations through.
Sen. Coons: Well, Ayman, rather than picking fights with Congress, forcing all of to us go look at a very obscure provision of the Constitution that has literally never been invoked and could not possibly work the way the President is imagining it would work, instead of picking that fight with us, I think our President should be working with Congress to make sure that we are delivering the urgently needed funding to support small businesses, hospitals, our health care system, and our state and local governments. Democrats in the Senate have put forward a plan that would do just that. We should be taking it up and passing it today. I'll remind you; he's got a lot of vacancies among his senior leadership because he loves to fire people who disagree with him. Our President has a penchant for shoving out the door cabinet officials or senior advisers whose advice he doesn't want or like. He actually floated the idea of firing Dr. Fauci the other day, retweeting a suggestion from someone that Dr. Fauci should be removed because he was offering suggestions that ran counter to the President's narrative. So rather than picking fights with the World Health Organization in the middle of a global pandemic or with the Congress citing an ancient and never-before-used provision, I think he should be working with us and we should be working across the aisle to get a package passed promptly that will put more money to support a balanced approach towards helping us recover from this pandemic, and reopen our economy when that's safe and possible.
Q: Okay, let me pick up on that point because Democrats and Republicans, they still have not agreed on how to replenish the Paycheck Protection Program, which as you mentioned helps small businesses. That is about to run out of money. Where is this Senate in negotiations as of this morning? We have more unemployed Americans. I believe 300 out of the 350 billion set aside for that have already been spent as of Wednesday and yet there’s no movement on it in the Senate.
Sen. Coons: There have been some preliminary negotiations between Senator McConnell and Senator Schumer but the Democratic caucus believes strongly that the road map for going forward is the bill we passed two weeks ago unanimously. That bill had desperately needed money to support small businesses and large businesses, but also resources for our hospitals and for our health systems and for our state and local governments. All of them are seeing a record loss of resources.
Q: Senator, why not do those two separately? Let me jump in on that point. Why not do those two separately, why not get money quickly to small businesses, who many of them are about to go bankrupt and then once that money is done, once that bill is done, focus on the issues that Democrats also want done, which is more money for hospitals? Do you not believe you'll get that money and that's why the Democrats want to tie it all in together?
Sen. Coons: Yes, and two points if I could. Here in Delaware, I've been hearing from lots of small businesses and nonprofits, that they weren't able to get in the door. They weren't able to get their applications in for this Paycheck Protection Program. I'm on the Small Business Committee, I enthusiastically support the PPP. I'll remind you the SBA has had less than two weeks to get this money out the door, and they've had lots of challenges in partnering with banks and making sure the money gets out and gets out quickly. Democrats are trying to modify the program so that this next $250 billion that Republicans are pushing for, we can make sure that some significant portion of it goes to the smallest businesses and nonprofits, sole proprietors and goes through things like community banks and credit unions and community development financial institutions. We have a small package of modest modifications to this PPP that frankly if accepted, I think would be a great path forward. I haven't had an update this morning on how the conversations between Senator Schumer and McConnell are going but Senator Schumer is proposing very reasonable modifications to this PPP program. We should take them up and pass them, but I'm also, Ayman, hearing from hospitals, particularly our rural and our Medicare dependent hospitals that they are struggling financially, and that in order to keep their folks at work, in order to get access to the testing and the PPE that should be delivered from our federal government through a coordinated response, they need resources as well. There's no reason we can't do both. There is a simple package the Democrats have put forward that should be taken up and passed promptly.
Q: Let me switch gears for a moment as a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, I want to get your reaction to reports that the U.S. Government is investigating the possibility that the coronavirus originated in a Chinese laboratory. NBC News has not confirmed reports about the investigation and our reporting still points to lab origins not being the case. I want to play for you the soundbite from U.S. General Milley, Mark Milley about what he had to say. Listen to this --
General Milley: There's a lot of rumor and speculation. We've had a lot of intelligence take a hard look at that and I would just say at this point, it's inconclusive, although the weight of evidence seems to indicate natural, but we don't know for certain.
Q: Is the Senate looking into this? Is this something you think your committee and others should be probing? Have you gotten any briefings on it?
Sen. Coons: I haven't gotten any update from the Foreign Relations Committee. I do think that if you listen closely to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, that was a very careful statement, where he's saying a majority of the intelligence here still points to this being a virus that came about that jumped from animals to humans in one of these wildlife meat trafficking markets that are called wet markets. They are widespread throughout the developing world. There's a bipartisan group of us in the Senate on the Foreign Relations Committee who are urging China to take steps to close down these markets, where people sell both live and slaughtered bats and snakes and pangolins and all sorts of animals, and frankly throughout the developing world, there are markets like this, where hungry people rely on animals that are caught live or killed in jungles or forests, and I do think there are things we can and should do on a bipartisan basis to address the origins of pandemic viruses. SARS came from that kind of a wet market. MERS came from that kind of a wet market. There's some who argue that Ebola and HIV/AIDS emerged from that kind of wet market. This particular pandemic, the novel coronavirus that's causing COVID-19, we should investigate thoroughly its origins, but that's frankly exactly why we should continue to partner with the World Health Organization. Make sure that we understand their commitment to transparency, hold China accountable for its failure to promptly share with the world in the early days of this pandemic the warning that they needed to send, but frankly it's why we need to engage with the world.
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