CNN "CNN Newsroom" - Transcript: Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) Is Interviewed About How He Feels After 14-Day Self- Quarantine

Interview

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Meantime in this country, President Trump says a short-term quarantine could be enacted on New York and its surrounding metro areas as soon as today. It comes just one day after Florida Governor Ron DeSantis ordered travelers entering his state from nearby Louisiana to do a mandatory 14-day self-isolation. Florida Senator Rick Scott joining me now on the phone after completing a 14-day quarantine of his own after he met with a Brazilian government aide who tested positive for the virus.

Senator Scott, we spoke last weekend, you were still under quarantine. Now you're out but how are you feeling?

SEN. RICK SCOTT (R-FL): I'm feeling fine, but it hasn't been much changed because what I'm doing all day is trying to connect with people. I'm talking to hospitals and doctors and mayors and county commission's and cabin members and basically hasn't changed much. I'm in the House and making phone calls.

WHITFIELD: Oh my goodness. And -- are our people feeling overwhelmed? Are these medical facilities feeling overwhelmed all the personnel that you're talking to?

SCOTT: I think that, you know, what they're worried about is -- first off, they have lost over elective surgeries. So there's, you know, they're losing money, a lot of them. Number two is there -- they don't have enough. They're concerned about having a protective gear and inhabiting up ventilators. And so I've been trying to connect them up on ways to get more of a protective gear.

What's interesting is, you've got -- you've seen some of the stories now about people at their house or sewing facemask, which is wonderful. And you saw the University of Minnesota doctor that came up with a homegrown ventilator system. And so you've got a lot of ingenuity and I know a lot of people are -- they're going to do everything they can to pitch in to help everybody.

WHITFIELD: Yes. Maybe making a little bit of a dent but the volume and the need is so great. So Senator Scott, you know, what's your reaction now to President Trump saying, you know, a short-term quarantine could be enacted in New York while Florida imposes its own restrictions. And of course, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo was asked about this whole idea of quarantine, he said he didn't have that conversation with the President. But what is your thought about the idea of it for city and nearby jurisdictions?

SCOTT: A couple weeks ago, I put out a 30-day plan and part of it was, let's shut down aircraft of domestic and international. And let's enforce quarantine. Let's make sure that if you -- if you -- if you've been tested positive or you around somebody is you got to quarantine yourself, you kind of stop this. And then all of us if we can be home, let's be home. And then of course, we've got to continue for -- (CROSSTALK)

WHITFIELD: But for it to be mandated a more widespread effort in involving a city or perhaps even state that the President would be involved in?

[13:30:02]

SCOTT: I don't know -- I don't know how he would do it. But the bottom line is, all of us are in this. We've got to do it to ourselves. I don't want to and you don't want to infect your family or friends or co-workers. We've got to take this very seriously. And if we do, we're going to stop this.

I've been putting out a report every day on the growth rate by state. You can see what other people are doing. And that's where I want people to do, what I did in my business life and as governor. Who is doing the best? And let's do those things. Part of it is more testing.

WHITFIELD: Hey, the numbers are sobering. According to your state's health department Web site, just moments ago, there are 408 new cases, 3,600 cases total for Florida. Do you feel like your state is doing enough, individuals, government, doing enough to help stop the spread?

SCOTT: I think that, one, we don't have enough testing. And we're not getting the results back to people fast enough. I did a telephone town hall with thousands of people yesterday. And many of them told me they got the test 10 days ago and still haven't gotten the result.

So the testing we have to get it in more counties. It's got to be more robust. Get answers back faster. My experience in talking to people, they want to do the right thing. And they want to -- if they are positive, they want to quarantine.

Now if they can go to work, they want to be able to go to work, though, too.

WHITFIELD: The New York -- I'm sorry, the presidential primaries under way. New York, according to the governor, he said he's moved the presidential primary from April 28th to now June 23rd. Florida already had its primary earlier this month.

In your view, you know, should states be considering changing their presidential primary elections?

SCOTT: I think what you have to do is, you want people to vote, right? I always say, we want everybody to vote. We don't want any fraud. You have to make sure people have the opportunity to vote.

If you don't believe people are going to have the opportunity, don't feel comfortable going out to vote, then you ought to move it.

In Florida, we have early voting, absentee voting. So you should, even before election day, you have lots of opportunities to go and vote and you can vote by mail. We have a robust system here. Most states, I think, have that,

although not all of them. So we ought to be -- we want people to get out to vote. That's part of who we are as Americans.

And so I hope everybody is going to look at that and say, how state by state, how can they make sure people get out to vote.

WHITFIELD: President Trump assigned the largest relief package into history yesterday, meaning help is on the way for Americans, negatively impacted by coronavirus. Just about everybody has been impacted in some way, shape or form. We're talking about $1200 to families making $75,000 or less and then there's a reduced amount for families or individuals making $99,000 or less. $500 to -- for each child.

How helpful do you believe this is going to be?

SCOTT: I think it's very important that we've got stimulus done. It was very important to me that we used the existing unemployment system, bolstered that and got it to people that had lost their jobs and we got it to the people like the Uber drivers and the Lyft drivers, people like that, the tip workers, things like that, and helped our small businesses.

What I don't believe was smart was, I think we're going to hurt our recovery when it's now we've created incentive for somebody to stay home rather than go to work because they make more money being at home. I know people want to work, but --

(CROSSTALK)

WHHITFIELD: But if they're telling people -- how is there an incentive when people are being told, for health reasons, for everyone's health, to stay home -

(CROSSTALK)

WHITFIELD: -- are responding to that urgency, right? So that --

SCOTT: I completely agree.

WHITFIELD: -- that won't de-incentivize that wanting to get out and work later.

SCOTT: I completely agree with you today. But when we open up this economy, which I'm hoping to open up this economy again. When we open up the economy, I know people are going to be eager to go back to work. But you can't create an incentive for people to say, look, I get paid more money for not working.

I talked to a restaurant owner yesterday and he said he just wanted to open up his restaurant to -- to prepare some free food for health workers and his employees said, look, we're applying for unemployment. We're going to get paid more money.

I want people to be eager to go back to work. I want these small businesses to reopen quickly. I want to make sure we help people that got hurt.

(CROSSTALK)

WHITFIELD: Don't you feel like most people want to get back to what they know as normal, but for the sake of the public's health, you know, family health, elderly health, people are trying to respect the edict of staying home?

SCOTT: Oh, absolutely. They want to do -- people want to do the right thing. But we always have to remember, we've got to get back to work. We've got to get back to work as soon as it's logical. We've got to get back to work. And people want to get --

(CROSSTALK)

[13:35:07]

WHITFIELD: When it's medically logical? What's the measuring stick? When it's logical.

(CROSSTALK)

WHITFIELD: You mean when for the public's health it's logical?

SCOTT: -- that's going to be safe for Americans. We're going to figure that out. I'm talking to county commissioners and mayors. They're trying to figure out for their communities. We can't overwhelm the health care system.

But they know, when you shut down the economic system -- but I represent the poorest families. I lived in a very poor family. My mom was paycheck to paycheck. It was day by day when she got paid. People need to make sure they have income.

WHITFIELD: Senator Rick Scott, we'll leave it there now. Thank you so much. Be well.

SCOTT: All right. Have a good day.

WHITFIELD: We'll be right back.

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