Usa Freedom Reauthorization Act of 2020
Floor Speech
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Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, first, as you know, when I speak on the floor, I remove my mask, but there is a special reason to keep this mask on today. This mask was made by Hickey Freeman, in Rochester, NY-- by American labor, union labor, by a grand and proud and generous company that has been in Rochester for the last three centuries--the 1800s, 1900s, and now the 2000s. It is a wonderful company, and it has kept good-paying jobs in America to make fine clothing. It started making the masks, and it has given them to a local hospital at cost.
So I salute Hickey Freeman. I salute the great trades men and women who work there. May they continue for hundreds of more years to provide jobs in Rochester and help when we need help. Coronavirus
Madam President, yesterday, the House Democrats unveiled new legislation to combat the coronavirus pandemic. The American people need their government to act strongly, decisively, wisely, and this new legislation is the urgent and necessary response to what this crisis demands.
As any one of us could have guessed, the Republican leader is rather predictably responding against the House Democratic bill to address the COVID crisis. His response is predictable because, for weeks, Leader McConnell has been preemptively slandering any legislation that has come out of the House as being ``a partisan wish list''--long before he even saw the bill. It was a paint-by-numbers response from the Republican leader. It continues to be. It didn't matter what was in the bill. In his eyes, not in the eyes of almost every American, it was going to be a far-left, partisan wish list.
To fit the preordained narrative, last night, Senate Republicans were latching onto provisions that account for 0.0003 percent of the total bill--0.0003 percent. Talk about grasping at straws. It is so predictable that the Republican leader would oppose the bill before he would see what was in it, and now that it is so necessary for so many Americans, it is predictable that the Republicans are just saying no.
The Republican leader also called the bill aspirational. The Republican leader should know that it is not aspirational when a family can't feed its children; that it is not aspirational when Americans, for the first time, are worried about losing their homes and being evicted from their apartments; that it is not aspirational when Americans are facing a health crisis in which every one of us is afraid we might come down with a dangerous illness or spread it to a loved one. It is not aspirational. We are talking about urgent and necessary relief, but out of reflective, knee-jerk partisanship, the Republican leadership in the Senate basically declared the House bill dead on arrival before it was even announced.
It is a shocking and incomprehensible position to take at this moment of national crisis. It would be one thing for the Republican leadership to say: Well, let's sit down and negotiate, and let's talk about where both parties can come together to do something for the Nation's well- being at this time of urgent crisis. Yet it has taken the position that there is absolutely no urgency to do anything at all.
On Monday, here is what the Republican leader said. ``Republicans,'' he said, ``have yet to feel the urgency to act immediately.'' What will it take? Are they so wrapped around the hard-right ideology that they can't see the real needs of the American people? Is there no urgency with testing? Talk to your local businesses. Talk to your local mayors. Talk to your Governors. See if there is no urgency on testing. Is there no urgency to provide relief to renters and homeowners? no urgency to prevent firefighters, police officers, and teachers from being laid off by State and local governments whose budgets are underwater in both blue and red States?
I would like to know how many of my Republican colleagues actually oppose providing the assurance to State and local governments so teachers in Iowa, firefighters in North Carolina, and police officers in Kentucky don't get laid off. The support our States need is in the House bill. It is very close to what the Governors--Democratic and Republican--have asked for.
Leader McConnell frequently highlights the heroism of our essential workers, and I applaud him for that. Yet why don't we, in addition to giving speeches on the floor, put a little money in their pockets for the extra expenses they are undergoing? Why isn't there an urgency to provide them with hazard pay? That is in the House bill.
Leader McConnell and President Trump have placed a great emphasis on reopening the country as quickly as possible. That is something we all want to see. So how do we achieve that safely? Far and away, the most important factor in reopening the economy is testing. We are far behind where we should be, despite the President's lies and mistruths about testing. Fauci made that clear yesterday.
Remember that our President said on March 6, I think it was, that anyone who wants a test can have a test. That is even not true today. Deluding the American people and running from the truth to say what pops into your head so it sounds good to the media for that moment, which seems to be the President's MO, doesn't help. It doesn't help.
Everyone knows, until this crisis is over and on into the future, we are going to need personal protective equipment to begin safely returning to work. As I mentioned, I wore this mask on the floor--a mask made in Rochester by Hickey Freeman. The House bill includes crucial support for the supply chain and manufacturing of PPE. Should we wait on that? Is that not urgent? Is ambulance workers and healthcare workers not having the PPE they need not urgent? Who believes that? Does Leader McConnell? Does President Trump? Do our Republican colleagues?
It is just baffling that at this time of, probably, the greatest crisis we have faced in decades, both in health and economically, the Senate Republican leadership, instead of working with the Democrats to find common ground on these crucial issues, has decided it will be against taking urgent and necessary action to help the American people--in a time of national crisis--unless, of course, that means there being liability protections for big corporations. That seems to be their No. 1 concern.
More than 30 million Americans are now unemployed, and more than 80,000 Americans have died. Just how many lost jobs, lost businesses, lost lives will it take before Senate Republicans begin to feel the urgency
Madam President, on another matter, last week, Americans learned that the Trump White House had blocked the release of a document by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that contained guidance for safely reopening up the country. According to media reports, this guidance was painstakingly prepared by the CDC to help the country determine when and how it could begin easing social distancing without causing undo risk to public health--the further spread of COVID, the recurrence of a second wave, and more infections and more deaths.
The CDC guidance includes detailed information and flowcharts to help guide States, local governments, businesses, schools, churches, religious institutions, and individuals as they consider these very challenging questions. Businesses want to know how and when to open. Citizens want to know how they should behave to protect themselves, yet get the country open. The CDC guidance includes detailed information and flowcharts to help.
Now, a version of this document appeared in the media, but we still don't have the official document as completed by the CDC. Of course, all Americans, regardless of where they live or what parties they belong to, want to get back to normal as quickly as possible. I know every Member of the Senate wants that to happen as soon as it possibly can. I certainly do. Yet making the wrong decisions about when, where, and how fast to reopen could result in the loss of precious lives that could be saved, and the recurrence of a COVID second wave--God forbid-- could be worse than the first.
In order to make these decisions widely, the country needs guidance from the Nation's best medical and scientific experts. These are literally matters of life and of death, and that is exactly why the CDC prepared this guidance. Yet the White House has blocked the release of the CDC guidance, reportedly so the President and his political appointees can make changes to it. As we all know, the President is not a doctor, and the President is not a scientist. Many don't even believe he is a stable genius like he thinks he is. It has become painfully clear over the past 2 months how unfamiliar he is with the disciplines of science and medicine. Anyone who would say drink bleach--use bleach--to protect yourself is not much of a medical expert. So it is difficult, if not impossible, to imagine any legitimate, constructive purpose in the desire by the President or his staff to edit the CDC's work.
I wish President Trump and his aides could be trusted to tell the American people the truth about this public health crisis. I wish they could be trusted not to engage in the political censorship of the medical and scientific judgments of our Nation's foremost experts, but at this point in the crisis, after all of the faults, after all of the disinformation, after all of the transparent attempts at political spin, every American knows full well that the President and his staff simply cannot be trusted to tell the truth about the coronavirus.
Just yesterday, the President claimed that COVID-19 cases are falling everywhere in America, but another report that is also yet to be released by the President's own coronavirus task force is said to show that its infection rates are spiking to new heights in a number of large and small communities around the country--places in Tennessee and Iowa, Texas and Kentucky. The point is that America needs and must have the candid guidance of our best scientists that is unfiltered, unedited, and uncensored by President Trump or his political minions.
The CDC report on reopening the country is an important piece of guidance, and the Senate should unanimously support the uncensored release of that document. Therefore, I will now offer a very simple and brief unanimous consent request, and I hope all Senators will support it Unanimous Consent Request--S. Res. Res. 572, expressing the sense of the Senate that the report of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, entitled ``Guidance for Implementing the Opening Up America Again Framework,'' be released immediately. I further ask that the resolution be agreed to and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.
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Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, two quick points. My friend, who is my friend from Indiana, said the White House has always been transparent and believed in transparency. Does any American believe that? Does any Senator believe that? Does my friend from Indiana actually believe that the White House has always been transparent?
Second, he has said that America leads the world in testing. Does any independent scientist believe that? Is there anyone who believes we are leading in testing; that we have done as President Trump said--that we have accomplished everything in testing? Does anyone outside the White House and their acolytes believe that? I doubt it.
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