Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal 03252020 20240713

U. S. Naval Institute News reporter sam lagrone talks about the role of u. S. Navy hospital ships in the coronavirus response. Washington journal is next. The men and women of the greatest country on earth are going to defeat this coronavirus and reclaim our future. After sleep deprived nights and marathon negotiating sessions, we have a bipartisan rescuent on the largest package in American History. Host republican and Democratic Leaders in the u. S. Senate announcing a deal at 1 30 a. M. This morning on a 2 trillion coronavirus aid package. Good morning. We will get your thoughts on that this morning. Democrats 202 7488000. Republicans 202 7488001. Independents 202 7488002. Youcan join us as well if text us with your first name, city and state that 202 or8003 at 202 7488003 go to twitter at cspan wj. We have learned about what is in the deal the lawmakers have reached. Theres 500 billion for major corporations. 360 7 billion for Small Business loans. 130 billion for hospitals across the country. State and local governments can tap into 150 billion. Also a 1200 onetime check to americans. Those making up to 75,000 with an additional 500 per child theres also 30 billion for Emergency Education funding. 35 billion dollars for emergency transit. There also will be an Employee Retention tax credit that businesses can use to keep their employees on the payroll. For theon dollars Airline Industry and 4 billion to aid Cargo Carriers as well. Chuck schumer also added a provision to ban businesses owned by the president , Vice President , members of congress and the heads of federal executive departments from receiving loans or investments through the corporate liquidity program. The prohibition also applies to their children, spouses and inlaws. That is from the hill newspaper. There is also a ban on stock buybacks as well. On thetson is joining us phone, hes a bloomberg congressional reporter. They reached this deal in the middle of the night. What happens today in the senate . The processstill in of putting together the legislative language. We are expecting votes to move forward and the house adopted. Ith unanimous consent thats the goal. Its very hard to achieve. He would have the ability to come back and lock unanimous consent. Thes extraordinary that house would approve a 2 trillion package. Stimulus bill ever contemplated in the United States without an open debate and vote. That may be what needs to happen because more and more members are selfquarantining. Two have already tested positive for the virus. Both sides are looking to try to do unanimous consent to get this over the line and get those checks out to americans as quickly as possible. When the senate comes in and what time they may vote . They are coming in at noon. The vote hasnt been scheduled yet. This is a huge bill. Not as big as the one the House Democrats are trying to get in. They are really looking to after doing this to leave town until april 20 most likely. It includes provisions to take care of business that needed to be done in may. They may not be able to come back for several weeks to fix any problems in this bill. Host what are the house Democratic Leadership, the speaker and Republican Leadership in the house telling their members about this proposal . Are they shaking saying you should let us do this by unanimous consent . Steve scalise had a call with and said Nancy Pelosis other option is to bring forth this house bill with a host of provisions that republicans rejected. Any business that would receive the Small Business loan would have had to pay 15 minimum wage as a longtime democratic priority. There were things to make the airlines change their fuel in order to reduce carbon emissions. The Senate Bipartisan bill is the best option otherwise were going to drag this out and have pelosi bringing back members to vote on a much more liberal bill. Hes encouraging that. Losey is also facing some questions and resistance. She held her own conference call. Arlier in the day members of the progressive caucus were questioning whether her caucus liberal parties were going to be in this. Shes facing skepticism from her own left flank here. Its very hard to achieve. Louie gohmert was able to delay. Hat procedure this is the third coronavirus package. There was an initial infusion of cash and this is the third one. Steny hoyer has said there will probably be a fourth and fifth. As the needs developed during this ongoing crisis. Tweeting outamash yesterday, this is a raw deal for the people. It does far too little for those who need the most help while providing hundreds of billions in corporate welfare. Massively growing government, and humidity economic adaptation and widening the gap between the rich and the poor. If he or a democrat or to object what would the house have to do . Voteey could have a voice and that requires some other procedural hurdles. That would be another option that pelosi and mccarthy could agree to. They would have yeas and nays. He could voice his no vote verbally on the floor but still it would pass. Or he could request and a bunch of people could demand a roll call vote in which case the house would have to come back. A lot of members are worried about this prospect. Theres 135 districts and travel could bring the virus back to d. C. , making it a toxic environment. There is talk of spacing out votes and having people come in and having people come in in shifts to maintain social distancing. Problem be a logistical and delay things probably for a few days. The president is eager to sign this as early as today. Host it may be a necessity because of the risk of bringing members back to washington. You have some who are quarantine. Cumbersome and ben mcadams is in the hospital with covid19. Congressman ben mcadams is in the hospital with covid19. He said, both parties and chambers must put working Families First. My colleagues to reach bipartisan agreement. Doges a member of the blue coalition. They were opposed to this initial 1400 page house bill in the sense that it did contain some liberal priorities and they felt this was an overreach by some of the liberals. I think the conversation has moved on and i expect mcadams and others to be on board with this agreement. Similar to what mcconnell came up with except schumer got some significant changes. Longer uninsurance. 400 aare going to get week due to the schumer effort. Its a fullple salary. Afford trying to avoid defaulting on their rental payments. The question of whether this will stimulate the economy is an open one. Least avoiding evictions or other problems is an immediate goal at this point. Host when do you expect the president would sign this . Could happen as early as today. There were contentious issues like this Oversight Board put in place to make sure the corporate money has oversight. Very similar to what happened in 2008. It wasnt in the initial deal. The details of that are still being worked out. The president could sign it by tonight. You for your time. You can go to bloomberg. Com to find his reporting. Lets go to bill in cleveland, ohio. A republican. To this toon trillion dollar economic aid package. Timer i think its about we take the car keys away from the 7yearold. Cant we agree to that . Why is it every time theres going to be monetary comfort in this country it does to the wealthy people . Do we really think they know what to do with their money . Sitting in the bank . I think that all Trump Supporters can do because this is a democrat hoax, is refuse medical treatment. Its just a democrat hoax. In the medical treatment was crated by crying liberal sissies anyway. Democratic caller. Evelyn, we are having trouble hearing you. Perhaps you can call back in. Leroy. Indiana. Independent. Caller yes. Im very optimistic with these Congress People getting together and signing that deal. Think the virus in a very short time, a month or so it will be here in the United States as all the American People are working together like 150 and i think thats just wonderful. So im very optimistic. , do you think under the Current Situation where certain governors across the states are calling for people to shelterinplace, closing nonessential businesses, asking businesses to only leave their homes for necessities. Do you think that is enough to get us there . Caller folks around our area are staying at home. Thing. St doing the right so im optimistic. Host the New York Times for aial board is calling National Lockdown writing, President Trump needs to call for a twoweek shelterinplace order as part of a coherent National Strategy for the coronavirus to protect americans and their livelihoods. The u. S. Has passed the point where aggressive targeted efforts at tracking and containment have a realistic chance of success. President trump is anxious for the economy to get going again. Heres what he had to say at last nights white house briefing. The goal is to ease the guidelines and open things up to very large sections of our country as we near the end of our historic battle with the invisible enemy. Its gone for a while, but we win. I hope we can do this by easter. I think that would be a great thing for our country and we are all working hard to make that a reality. We will be meeting with a lot of people to see if it can be done. Easter is a very special day for many reasons. Friendsa lot of our its a very special day. And what a great timeline this would be. Easter is our timeline. What a great timeline that would be. My First Priority is always the health and safety of the American People. Everyone to understand that we are continuing to evaluate the data. We are working with the task force and making decisions based the interestst for of our fantastic country. Your reaction to a deal reached here in washington for more economic aid. And all of the policy being debated about how the government should be responding to this coronavirus out rake. Louisiana. Rt, good morning homer. How are you this morning. My little baby used to have a little saying, clean up, clean up. Need to clean the big house up. To sitentlemen want around and talk about the dams to make themselves look good. And that dont make no sense. Appreciate you and have a nice day. Host teresa in washington. Republican. Caller i guess one thing that is kind of upsetting, i watched all of the debating on the floor. Thing that really host we are listening. Caller it just disturbs me when i watched all the debating on the floor. One thing the government seems to always do, whenever they pass something they kind of go and dip into the self security fund. You can see that history. Every president has borrowed with the exception of this one so far. What i dont want them to do with the new legislation that they just passed this bailout of everybody is i dont want them to take it from other funds that people need badly. Krakow about how the democrats when clinton was in balance the budget. I looked up that information. Clinton, they appropriated the money all from the Social Security fund balance the budget. And thats just a fact. Exactly,dont know they are still finalizing this text. So if youve heard one thing or another i would hold off in believing that until we see the actual text of this legislation. We dont know quite yet all the details to it. We will have to wait and see. Unfortunately in this situation. Thisenate has not passed deal yet. They announced it at 1 30 in the morning. They are coming back in today. They come in at noon. So you can watch the debate again on cspan2 throughout the day. We dont know when they are going to vote but they plan to do so today. Then we will see how they will vote in the house. Unanimous consent would mean that those lawmakers do not have to get back to washington, d. C. There democrats and republicans although their numbers are low from reporting so far who are objecting to what they are seeing. We will have to see how it goes. We will learn more as we go along today and tomorrow. Peter in reading, pennsylvania. Caller yes. I am a construction worker and i am currently laid off because we work seasonal. We do roads and stuff. In the summer months. And something has to give here. Because people need their money. But i dont want to die and i dont want my mother to die. Thank you. John, republican. Caller this is great. Im great. Im over 70 so i may shut in in. m a shot in shut this is what makes america great. Fight, we battle, we have our partisanship that everybody wants their little thing. I was a little disappointed in the Christmas Tree from pelosi. All the liberal agenda. Apparently we got that out of the way. And its a great day and we should all be happy. What else can you say . John, as you are remaining in your home, what are you doing to keep yourself busy . Watching a lot of television . Caller i do that a lot. I walked. I try to do 20,000 steps a day in the house. It works. I got a bike. Why not . Go out to shop a little bit. To get orders try from the supermarket for delivery. For 25ing was booked days. However, to be light i called my local liquor store and i had a case of wine in 30 minutes. So things work. Anyhow i think its great. Its a great day. You have friends in your age group that you know of who have been diagnosed with this and are in the hospital . I dont yet. But you never know. Could be around the corner. I have heard of anecdotal. A friend of mines son was in contact with someone. And i heard my granddaughters jersey, they said someone was in contact. So its just like you are just waiting. The sad thing was we had a close relative die monday. My wifes cousin. And we cant go. Theres no funeral. Theres nothing. We cant do a thing. I think they had the final whatever yesterday. People in a lot of different ways. You dont realize it. Host john in new jersey. New york city, the state is being called the epicenter of the world for the coronavirus outbreak or close to it. The New York Times front page this morning left the city . The officials are urging you to quarantine. If you are new york city, you are being urged to selfquarantine. Listen to dr. Burke yesterday at the white house briefing. We remain deeply concerned about new york city and the new york metro area. About 56 of the cases in the United States are coming out of that metro area and 60 of all the new cases are coming out of the metro new york area and 31 of the people succumbing to this disease. It means because they are still at the 31 mortality compared to the other regions of the country that we can have a huge impact if we unite together. This means they have to be following the president ial guidelines that were put out eight or nine days ago and this will be critical. To everyone who has left new york over the last few days. Because of the rights of the number of cases, you may have an exposed before you left new york. And i think like Governor Desantis has put out today, everyone who was in new york should be selfquarantining for the next 14 days to make sure the virus doesnt spread to others. Gone. Ter where they have cases starting to see new across long island that suggest people have left the city. Very critical that those individuals do selfquarantine in their homes over these next 14 days to make sure they dont pass the virus to others. Based on the time that they left new york. If they are already four days out, its just 10 more days. Who is leading the task force yesterday. New york city is the u. S. Epicenter of this coronavirus outbreak. The New York Times explains why. About 60 of the new cases in the country where in the new york city metropolitan area. The infection rate was eight to 10 times greater than other parts of the country according to the White House Task force. Covering Governor Cuomos daily briefings on cspan. This is how he explained the situation yesterday with new york trying to get the supplies they need to respond to the outbreak there. We have been working around the clock scouring the globe. Weve procured about 7000 ventilators. Minimum ana additional 30,000 ventilators. Cannot buy them. You cannot find them. Every state is trying to get them. Other countries are trying to get them. The capacity is limited. Pieces ofechnical equipment. They are not manufactured in two days or four days or seven days or 10 days. So this is a critical and desperate need for ventilators. So far as to try an experimental procedure where we split the ventilator. Use one ventilator for two patients. Difficult to perform. Its experimental. But at this point we have no alternative so we are working on. His experimental application picture two hospital beds, two people in beds. One ventilator between the two. F them with two sets of tubes again, its experimental. But necessity is the mother of invention and we are working on this as we speak. Because we dont have any other options. There is no other way for us to get these ventilators. We have tried everything else. We can obtain these ventilators is from the federal governor period. That was andrew cuomo yesterday. The president is tweeting, i am working very hard to help new york and state. Dealing with the governor and producing men with endlessly for them. Fake news that i wont help them because i dont like cuomo. I do. Just sent 4000 ventilators. Post inm the washington new york. Andrew cuomos tone shifted to one of anger and unease as he announced that the rate of new cases in new york city and its suburbs now double or doubles every three days. The state will need 40,000 hospital bed to handle the crisis, exceeding last weeks estimate of 30,000. Almost said tuesday that the state has 53,000 existing beds. President trump today townhall interview foxnews townhall interview yesterday. Andriticized Governor Cuomo his request to send more ventilators. Heres what he had to say. I watched Governor Cuomo and he was very nice. We are building him hospitals. We are building him medical centers and he was complaining about the ventilators. He should have ordered the ventilators and he had a choice. He had a chance because right here, i just got this out. He refused to order 15,000 ventilators. Well show this to bill. Take a look at that. What does that say . Says new york a Governor Cuomo rejected buying recommended 16,000 ventilators in 2015 for the pandemic for a pandemic. Established death panels and atteries instead so he had chance to buy in 2015 16,000 ventilators at a very low price and he turned it down. Vying hisosed to be own ventilators. We are building him four hospitals, four medical centers. We are working very hard for the people of new york. And then i watch him on the show complaining. Had 16,000 ventilators that he could have had at a great price and he didnt buy them. Cat in carolina. Your thoughts this morning. My thoughts are that the stimulus package needs to include Social Security recipients and if it does not i havent read it so i dont know for sure that it doesnt. But it needs to include them. And as far as the bill being passed, and anything else they want to put in that bill can wait. Put the American People in front of businesses. Businesses that are making billions of dollars a year do not need more money right now. The American People do. From the hillknow and politico about some of the provisions in this legislation. 500 billion dollars for Major Corporate liquidity. There are Strings Attached to this money. Concession made. Theres 367 billion in Small Business loans. Hospitals will receive 130 billion. State and local governments 150 billion dollars. Theres also going to be a onetime check so far for americans making up to 75,000. With an additional 500 per child. Billion for Emergency Education funding. Will be a retention usecredit for businesses to if they keep their employees on the payroll. Aidalso have 25 billion in to the Airline Industry. They also included in this a fourmonth Unemployment Insurance provision for people to tap into. Mr. Schumer added a provision to ban businesses owned by the president , Vice President , members of congress and the heads of federal executive depas from receiving loans or investments through that corporate liquidity program. The prohibition also applies to the children, spouses, and inlaws. Lets go to barbara in aspen, colorado. Caller good morning. I am wondering if you could post where we need to go to fill out forms front employment. For unemployment. I googledier today, unemployment coronavirus and got several stories that popped up for each state. California unemployment, where to go. There were stories about it. Why dont you try that for your inte of colorado, putting colorado Unemployment Insurance coronavirus and seeing what comes up . Caller we will do that. Host you are unemployed because of this situation . Caller correct. Host what happened . Where did you work . Worked for the School System in aspen, colorado in the valley. Host why were you let go . Close the had to school doors because of the virus. Host what did you do at the school . Teacher at the school between two elementary schools. Host barbara, would you benefit from this 1200 check . Do you make less than 75,000 . Caller yes, definitely. In aspen,ara colorado, looking at a school. I hope you are still watching your television. How to file for unemployment in colorado, new way to file based on last name. It looks like a local Television News station story. Hopefully we can keep that up for another few seconds and you can try to find that yourself online. We will go to another bar grow barbara, a republican. Caller good morning and thank you to cspan. Foran always count on you correct information, which is vital at this time. Here is what i would like to say to those who are complaining about the money going to big business. Please stop and think for a moment. Employs the is who majority of the people in this country. Who are also the people package and process our food. They are the trucking industry, the railroad, the people that deliver our food to the grocery stores. Aboutne is complaining the shortage of toilet paper. Of of the largest producers toilet paper have come out and said there is not going to be a shortage. We are ramping up. We need to help these big businesses in this time. The other thing i would like to say is we are a country that was born of a revolution. We are survivors. We will make it through this. Rememberital for us to at this time. I am sorry. There is one other thing i want to say. Hairdresser, and i actually only see her probably three times a year. I am in my 70s. Me by she has contacted text message over the last two that i should me please stay home and that she is available to go and pick up anything i need, not to hesitate to ask her. Angelsre heroes and unaware everywhere across this country. We are a wonderful nation, and i believe the president is doing everything he can. Sharing thatou for story with us. We will go to madison, illinois, glenn, a democratic caller. Caller good morning. I have a few things on my mind. I am glad they passed this thing if they get it through now. The second, i wish the president would get the clowns off the stage and put the doctor on the straights get dope. He goes on there and he rants and raves about all the money he is losing three days ago just because he is president. If you do not like it, get out of the office. Resign. Take your kids with you. They all have their fingers in the till somewhere. How is he getting his pies over here that he is making in china . I bet they are coming on a boat. That is about it. Host you want to hear more from dr. Fauci, is that what youre saying . Caller that is get the rest of them off of their he has been telling the truth. If he says something trump does not like, he is not there the next day. Host he was there yesterday, and here is what he had to say about the situation in new york. [video clip] the second thing i want to reiterate about new york is it is a serious situation. They suffered terribly through no fault of their own. What we are seeing is people want to get out of new york. They are going to florida come along island, different places. If you look at the statistics, it is disturbing. About one per thousand of these individuals is infected emma eight to 10 times more than in other areas, which means what they go to another place, for their own safety, they have to be careful, monitor themselves. If they get sick, bring it to the attention of a physician. Get tested. Self the idea about isolating for two weeks will be important. Nodo not want that to be a other seating point for the rest of the country. Seeding point for the rest of the country. Caller good morning and thanks for accepting my call. Hope the bill passes all americans should want the virus eradicated as soon as possible. Andpe your family is well you are will also. Host same to you. Caller that is all i need to say. Host ashley in huntington, pennsylvania, democratic caller. Caller good morning. Thank you for taking my call. First and foremost, thank you to cspan. Thank you to President Trump and we Vice President pence for doing this. I am a democrat. I am impressed. Of firstmily responders. All of our men worked in the prisons and have had fevers. We are all in smoke selfquarantine. I would like to urge people to stop with the hate right now. We need to come together as a nation. We are americans. It does not matter if you are republican, democrat, independent. Right now, pennsylvania could use masks. We need masks. When my sun was sent home yesterday with a fever, he was given a linen, homemade mask to use on the inside. Unfortunately, it did not protect him. I know i have h1n1. I have been tested. Stay home. People need to stop hating. This is a wonderful thing that this administration has done. Without the stimulus package, for those who are not working, a lot of people would have been facing eviction, foreclosure, would not be able to keep families. This package will help many. My sun just got hired. He does not have the vacation time. He would have to call us for a loan to pay his bills. This is a godsend. For not if it were not for President Trump, i felt crazy saying this because i was not a supporter of this administration, but i this man is a saving american lives. Youru said you are husband and sun work in prisons. What is the situation in prisons with the coronavirus . Our prisoners getting it . Caller right now, nobody has tested positive that we are aware of. We know the mask is mandated. That came down the pipe the other day. Correctional officers have fabric. They are made out of kitchen whites sewn together like an oldschool surgical mask. Inmates have paper masks. Some of them are refusing to wear it. No visitation. They are not going to get it. They are probably out there being a Safe Community because they are being tested going in, all staff. If you have a fever, you are sent home, automatic two weeks. That has happened to everybody in my family. Thank god we have been there long enough to where we have time on the books. These young trainees just coming in do not. Families have set up videoconferencing so they can at least have video visitation. I would hope that everybody understands that there are people on the inside safer than we are on the outside. Pray that america stays together. Put politics aside. This should have been done a couple days ago and it was not, but i have a lot of respect for President Trump. I used to be one that said he is not my president. He is my president. Host i will leave it there. Critical care doctor writes in a about her experience at the hospital, writing, in my hospital, as in many others through the country, we banish most visitors. It is a tough decision to leave patients to suffer through their illnesses in a medical condition version of solitary confinement. I took care of one patient who was incubated. He started coughing up blood. He was alone in his room come on face time with his daughter when it started. That is the last image she has of her father, on a shaky , blood staining his hospital gown. I offer her updates over the phone, but the truth is i am not sure when she will be able to see him again, or even if she will be able to see him. This is written in the new york who works atoctor a hospital in boston. Kevin in huntington, california huntington beach, california, and independent. Caller i am here. I am the owner of a small construction company. If you have questions or me, i will let you know what is going on. Host telus. Tell us. Caller everything is on the up and up. I like the bill getting past. I think my employees were going to benefit from everything. Really i am taking it in a good shade of light. Thiso bring light to negative thing going on. In vero beach, florida, republican. Caller thank you for taking my call. I am a home health nurse. I do not see anything in a rescue package. We pay for our own supplies under contract of our companies. What is going to happen when all of these patients get to the point they are well enough to come home but they need Home Services . If we do not have the supplies if hospitals cannot get them, you know we cannot. I have gone to three places looking for gloves, looking for masks. It is a desperate situation for us. We love our patients. We want to go in and service our community. Like almost it is putting the knife to our throat, whether we should go into these homes or not. Host are many of these people you service at home elderly . What is the population like . Caller they are elderly. Florida is a Senior Citizen state. It is not uncommon. The other thing i have a real concern about is who is protecting our president . You see him up at the podium. You see other people at the podium. They are all touching it. I do not ever see it sanitized. They are not wearing protection. They are part of the vulnerable package, too. Our protect and save president. Host they are taking precautions at the white house. You may not see them wiping the area down, but anybody who enters the White House Press corps, etc. , their temperature is taken before they are allowed to come into the white house. Seen severale people up there with the president wiping their noses on their hand, not even a kleenex. To me, that is disgusting. I am sorry for having to say it. Governors need to be aware. Practice what you preach. Show us that you are protecting our president. Do not just assume we know you are doing it. Is our next caller, democratic caller. Good morning. Caller good morning. Arnold joseph white. Like you said, i am from tennessee. I called into cspan was on march 19 of 2003. The topic of discussion that day was because we were about to invade iraq, whether or not to cancel the Ncaa College Basketball championship thing. They did not. They went ahead and had it. I bring that up because when i 2003 i wasack in very nervous. That was my first time to call in. Thatally, all i said was 33. Wants us to read ezekiel since that time, i have called in i do not know how many times. Every time i have called in, i have tried to Say Something without actually saying it. Here is what i want to say. I gave you my name and you can find me on facebook through my name. I have been appointed by god to be a watchman, to speak as a watchman. Basically, what god has asked me to say is god is love. Leave it there. Janine in manassas, virginia, independent. Caller good morning. Host go ahead. Caller first, thank you for taking my call. I was just wondering, with the stimulus package, i am an out of work teacher. Also working at walmart. , is thisdering stimulus package that they are is it more of a bandaid instead of a realistic and futuristic resolve for the issue . I know some senators were talking about that once a month they do not see this as resolving the issue. I agree with them on that on so many levels. Know what you are referring to when you say resolving the issue. Thespeaker of the house and other key negotiators have been telling rankandfile members that this is not the last economic aid package. They expect they could be passing one to two more. Is that what youre referring to . Caller yes. That clears that for me. It did not seem like the amount that they were giving americans it seemed temporary. Doingy are talking about more in the future, that is wonderful. I have been trying to hear it when i can. To make sure more planning was going into this. Definitely rural areas are in need and not forgetting about them either. Illinois, democratic caller. Caller how are you doing . Host good. How are you . Caller i am fine. I was going to complain, but i changed my mind. I want to thank all the medical personnel and all the doctors and nurses for doing such a great job. True heroes in this country. Interstate 55. I can see the highway from my house. Trucks thatng the go up and down this highway. Seconds, so goods are moving. God bless them Truck Drivers for keeping it going. That is all i have to say. Host are you pleased with what happened in washington yesterday and the prospect of the senate today approving this to trillion dollar economic aid package 2 trillion economic aid package . Aller i think that would be wonderful thing for everybody. I do not want to see corporations and businesses get a lot of money because they just keep it. Money is the lifeblood of this country. If you cut it off to certain people, that part dies. It is just like the blood in your body. If you cut off the blood to your hand, your hand will fall off. I think it is a good idea. We can certainly use the money. I was concerned about this Lieutenant Governor in texas. Is this guy serious about old people taking one for the team and just going out there and dying . I do not get that at all. I do not know how people like that ever get into a position of governance in this country. Tweetedtt romney yesterday at 4 00 p. M. , thankfully, i have tested negative for covid19. Guidance for my physician consistent with cdc guidelines requires me to remain in quarantine as the test does not rule out the onset of symptoms during this 14 day period. Also tweetingp this morning, 7 36 a. M. This is great news. I am so happy i can barely speak. He may have been a terrible president ial candidate and even worse u. S. Senator, that he is a rhino, a republican in name only, and i like him a lot. Responding to the banner that mitt romney has tested negative for coronavirus. That is the president tweeting in response to the news that mitt romney has tested negative. Republican. A soda, minnesota, republican. Caller i wanted to call and let people know how proud i am to be. Republican our president is fighting every day for the American People. , whetherng all people they are republican, democrats, independents, or whatever will know that without a strong would not bes where it is at right now. That is all i wanted to say. Everybody that works so hard for all of this. The Financial Times of the headline that the leader in india has told 1. 4 billion indians to stayathome to fight the virus. You also have this from the New York Times. Light at the end of the tunnel for italy. Two weeks after italy was complete lee locked down, the number of new cases and deaths declined for the second day in a row. The number of patients hospitalized in the Northern Region of italy, devastated by the virus, also declined by about 175. In china, nearly two months of lockdown ended for most of the wuhance of hubei, but will remain sealed off. Ame epidemiologists worry resumption of daily life, including work and travel, could bring on another round of infections. That is the latest from italy. The washingtonom post. Ambitious plans in europe to pay private sector salaries. France, germany, britain, and others have decided to take over the payrolls of struggling companies so workers do not get laid off. The hope is by paying people to stay home governments can slow the viruss spread while diverting economic depression. If theble could work Coronavirus Crisis lasts a few months. Many economists say companies would be able to exit frozen status almost immediately. If restrictions drag on, Financial Support could settle governments with gigantic bills while failing to everett the collapse of businesses. It would result in smaller rises in unemployment and a big rise since many European Countries have similar social safety nets programs already, ill bit albeit in more limited forms, amidalary it was easy widespread consensus. That from the Washington Post if you want to read more about how they are responding. Newsof you may have seen stories about numbers in germany being low, death rates low. The Washington Post says the biggest reason is germany worked in the early days of its outbreak to track, test, and contain infection clusters. Also, the age differences between germany and italy come about largely they point to testing. The second headline is russias low count raises skepticism even with moscows mayor. A population of around 145 million but just 1290 five confirmed cases. Statistics have prompted skepticism of testing and weather an uptick in pneumonia cases could be the disease. The president said the situation in our country looks better than europe and was under control. State Television Shows him wearing a hazmat suit while visiting a coronavirus hospital yesterday. Dawn, and independent. Caller my question is about people. I am a home health patient. Andlieve Home Health Nurses people that come visit need to have more ability. Any masks they need masks. They should not have to buy them themselves. Do not know what we would do. Help withve we need what the president is doing. For people who are home on disability, we need to be able to buy food. When we buy it, we need to buy it in bulk. When we find it, we are lucky. Some now, i wish we had for people who are like me to buy more food. There is nothing in this program for people like me. I am glad theyre helping people who are working, but i do not have a job. I am not going to get none of the stimulus package. If i could have come up maybe i could stock up on food. I think that needs to happen for people on fixed income. Darrell in new jersey, democratic caller. Caller good morning. How are you . Host how are you . Caller i am fine, thank you. Just paying attention and keeping myself inside. My family is doing well. We sit here and read and listen to jazz. We are just really taking this and with a grain of salt. , one ofould like to say my points is that, with the that both sides pulled their heads out of their and thoughtutts about getting the job done. My only thing is, though i know ,his is just a primary package i would have felt a little better, though i know there is more coming, i would have felt better if they would have if some of the numbers were switched. Say that you gave the Small Businesses, because they are the ones who are going to need more of the money than the big corporations. And the hospitals and workers. I would have liked to have seen more in that. I guess there will be more coming, so i will hold off until i see more. That i would like to say please come everybody out there, be aware of the phony, ridiculous information that is out there. Go to cdc and get information. Do not listen to these people telling you to get this and that. Go to the cdc. We have people that already died. There was a story i read yesterday about a couple. The husband died because they took you know what i am saying. They took stuff that killed fish parasites because they saw the ingredients listed on the back of fish parasites killer. Please stay calm. Pay attention. The ingredient, chloroquine, which some and the president are hoping will help with treatment of covid19, i believe that was the ingredient this fish tank caller right. When you put out information, you have to make sure it is solid. You cannot just say this is what is going to happen. You have to have the facts behind you. People what is driving to get toilet paper and all of this stuff, the wrong information. People, when they get wrong information, start losing their minds. They start going into survival mode. Im just saying be smart. Pay attention. And get thec site right information. Host you can also go to coronavirus. Gov, which rings you to the cdc website. Caller exactly. I hope you and my fellow americans stay proud. Host same to you. I wanted to share this story because it is related to what darrell is saying from the New York Times. Doctors are prescribing potential treatments for themselves. Medicationshoarding by writing prescriptions for themselves and family members and stockpiling has become so worrisome in idaho, kentucky, north carolina, and texas that the states have issued emergency restrictions and guidelines on how drugs can be dispensed at pharmacies. States are expected to follow suit. We will take a break. Onn we come back, focus Income Housing. Yentel talk with diane of the National Low Income housing coalition. Later, we will talk about Small Businesses and learn how they are doing from Kevin Kuhlman of the National Federation of independent businesses. First, yesterday during a press conference with the governor of new jersey, Health Minister gave an update on coronavirus cases in that state. The Health Commissioner gave an update on coronavirus cases in that state. [video clip] the number of cases in our state continues to rise quickly. A. M. , new jersey now has the secondhighest number of cases in the nation. With the ongoing spread of covid19, i am once again emphasizing that social distancing is vital to slow this process. Countriesen in other that taking aggressive action can flatten the curve and decrease the number of new cases. Strict enforcement of these initiatives has led to dramatic decreases in these countries. In south korea, they have used social distancing as the main effort of mass reduction. Becauses stayed home they recognized it was the right thing to do to protect their communities. The relatively high transmissibility of the virus, the impact of social distancing on the epidemic and the potential delay of the peak is likely to depend on the early measures that the governor has put in place. According to the study by the European Center for Disease Control and prevention, it is exactly what you must do. This reinforces our stance that these aggressive social distancing initiatives can have similar effects in new jersey. We do not expect to prevent every case, but we are trying to limit, or to spread out, the number of new cases. Similar to what has been seen across the u. S. , we are seeing a significant amount of cases under the age of 65. About 35 of our cases are between 30 and 49. 24 of those individuals have been hospitalized. This is just a reminder to younger individuals that they are not immune from covid19. They also need to take steps to reduce their risk of exposure. Washington journal continues. Host diane yentel here to talk about low Income Housing and the coronavirus outbreak. Can you estimate how many economically distressed, low income homeowners and renters there are in america . Guest sure. At the national Income Housing coalition, we look at extremely low income renters and housing needs. We know that nationally we have a shortage of seven million homes, affordable and available to the lowest income people. Another way of saying that number is for every 100 of the lowest income renters, it is seniors, people disabilities, and others. Out of 100 of them, there are 36 Homes Affordable and available to them. Ofause of this shortage homes for the lowest income millionthere are over 8 extremely low income households who are paying more than half of their income toward rent. 60, of them are paying 50, 70 of their income every month just to keep a roof over their heads. When you have such limited income to begin with, you are one financial emergency away from not being able to pay the rent and facing potentially eviction or homelessness. For many of these families, coronavirus will be that financial emergency. They are losing hours at work. They are losing their jobs. They are getting sick and they cannot show up to work. There are millions of families who are right on the cuts of cus of potential ofelessnessp cusp potential homelessness. There are half a Million People who are actually homeless. To give our viewers more numbers, 43. 7 million total renter households in the United States, nearly 11 million have incomes at or below the poverty median air of the come income. 46 are seniors or a household with a disability. 37 are in the labor force. Question is, will this 1200 check that the government is poised to pass for every adult american help these people . Guest there will be some help, but it is not enough. The packagee in that congress has negotiated and hopefully will soon pass that can help people who are homeless , especially when we look at the population of people experiencing homelessness. They are very vulnerable to the oldness, to getting very sick from the onis and potentially even dying. Illness and potentially even dying. When you are homeless and sleeping in a homeless shelter or in an encampment, youre living in close quarters. To do not have the ability selfisolate or quarantine if needed. It is just another reminder of how housing is health care, especially when our collective Health Depends on our ability to stay home. If there are people who are on house, who are not we are not able to actually contain this pandemic. The bill congress has negotiated, there are some significant resources that can go to homeless shelter providers and Homeless Outreach workers to help them change the way shelters work so they can allow people to social distancing and isolate if needed. More importantly, to work toward getting people who are homeless into affordable homes. There is not enough in the package to do that part of it, but there is some. It is a start. We will need to work with congress to get more, to make sure everyone is stably housed during this pandemic. Host according to your group, there are other urgent needs for income renters. Moratorium on evictions and foreclosures, rental assistance at eviction prevention, emergency funds for Public Housing and other housing providers, access to Legal Services and eviction crisis counseling. Have you seen those needs be met by the administration with an executive order or with what congress is proposing . A little bit. S there is not enough in the agreements in congress or at the state and local level. Towards some momentum the solutions. We talk about a moratorium on evictions and foreclosures, this is crucial. Everybody should be assured that if we are affordably housed now we are not going to lose our home during this Public Health emergency. Uniformeds to be a federal policy that gives us that assurance through a moratorium on evictions and foreclosures. That is not the final package that congress is about to pass. This point, about a dozen states and two dozen cities that have passed these moratoriums on evictions or foreclosures. That is a start. It is not enough. Also Fannie Mae Freddie mac. They have implemented foreclosure moratoriums. In order to get mortgage forbearance, they first have to commit to not evicting any tenants and their properties. There are some preventions being put out there for renters, for low income homeowners, but we need more to assure everybody they will not lose their home. Too. L is critical, it is critical that it be tied with eviction moratoriums because we want to make sure that it the end of this crisis, when these moratoriums are lifted, that low income renters do not have a cliff theyre going to fall off of in terms of back rent that is owed. We do not want low income renters at the end of this defined they are settled even more with debt. At the same time, small property owners, small landlords can continue to maintain and operate units if they do not have rental income coming in. We want to end the crisis without having lost the Affordable Housing stock in this country. You have to provide tens of billions of dollars in rental assistance to ensure we keep the Affordable Housing stock that exists and protect low income renters from increased debt. Rental assistance, there is a small amount included in this federal bill that will be passed soon. There is other money that can be used for that same purpose, through disaster funds potentially. Workll have to continue to and Push Congress to do more. Host we have divided the lines. Enters, 202 7488001 homeowners, 202 7488000. All others, 202 7488002. Before we get to your calls, some breaking news on cnn. Prince charles, the queens suntan first in line to the british throne, has tested positive for coronavirus. Your question or comment about this issue. Caller i have a couple briefly. Thank you for being on. Thank you for cspan. Homebuyer. Time i bought i am a firsttime homebuyer. I bought my first house. I closed the day the market crashed. I am curious how you see housing prices persisting through this process. I am fortunate enough to be able to cover my mortgage, but i guess i am curious. In order to encourage people to the home and to accommodate economic issues, why can we not just freeze everything for two months, freeze all rents, all mortgage payments . I know that would cause a huge cascade of issues i am sure i am not thinking about. Has that been considered . Realistically, what would that look like . Guest that is a great question. Rent freezes are part of the conversation. There are some communities in california. I believe there was one city yesterday or county that either put forward the proposal to have a rent freeze or may have passed it. Things are moving so quickly it is hard to keep up with state and local changes that are happening, rent freezes or eviction moratoriums, foreclosure moratoriums. Who, are a lot of people whether they are firsttime homebuyers, new homebuyers, or longtime homeowners, are worried now about how, over time, they are going to be able to pay their mortgage, especially if you are at risk of losing work hours because of the shutdowns insidious or if you are losing your job for the same reason in cities or if you are losing your job for the same reason. People are getting sick or family members are getting sick and they are having to lose work hours. This is the reason we are pushing so hard to give both renters and homeowners and assurance that they can keep their homes during this emergency and that they will not be saddled with debt as a result when this crisis ends. There are a number of different proposals that have been enacted or are under consideration that will give some of that assurance. Some of it is at the state and local level, where they are passing moratoriums on any kind of foreclosures or mortgage forbearance. Provisions ofr the bill being considered in congress on the income side. Part of the reason people are concerned they may not be able to pay rent or mortgage is they might have lowered salaries, lowered incomes. Congress has been working to expand Unemployment Insurance. I do not know the full details of what is in the final deal just announced. I know that the democrats were certainly pushing hard and republicans were agreeing that there needs to be significantly expanded Unemployment Insurance that would cover all workers, including workers in the gig economy or selfemployed people and would provide full salaries for up to four months. Again, giving some assurance to people that, even if there is not specific programs or funding coming in on rental assistance or mortgage assistance, that people who have jobs now, whether or not they keep those jobs, they would maintain that income for a period of time to get us through that crisis. Correct that it seems, according to reporting by the hill and politico this morning, that they have agreed to four months of Unemployment Insurance. E will see what else we have to wait to see the Details Behind that, but it does appear they have agreed to that. Do you have a thought on that . Guest that is significant. That will certainly help people who would be at risk of losing hours or having income go down as a result of the crisis. When it does not do is help the , le who are already before coronavirus, we had 8 million households that were already low income. Many are already working, multiple jobs, even lowwage jobs, and they are barely able to make ends meet. It does not help those households that are on the cusp of homelessness even before coronavirus happened. Host shall be a homeowner. Shelby, a homeowner. Diane, fornk you, your work, and also cspan. I would like to comment on the retirees that have worked hard all their life trying to make ends meet. The socalled increase in our the amount on it dont hardly come over 10 plus on your income, which is to me laughable. I do not know if they think we are uneducated and do not realize it, but i did. I compared. I am trying to consider thinking what kind of job extra could i orwith my Health Condition what my ability can be to make ats meet, to do things here the home that needs repairs that i do not have the money for. It is sad. Couple years back with human services. It is so laughable. To get any help, you cannot make over 1250 a month to get any help. That is ridiculous. Take any income from Social Security because i do not even fileh now to taxes. I used to work all my life. My spouse passed away. I do not have that income. The i used to make good money and was fine. I considered myself middleclass, but now i am in a low class income rocket. Host im going to have diane yentel respond. Your sharingeciate your story. You are not alone. Certainly a lot lots of seniors across the country are struggling with their Health Care Needs and housing costs. Segmentbig part of the of the population that we focus on, especially when we look at people who are extremely low income. There are about half of the households are seniors or people with disabilities. The other half are mostly working but working lowwage jobs and the kind of jobs where it is difficult to cobble together enough hours in the week to make ends meet. The challenges are real. People are struggling to be able to afford to pay their rent every month or to pay their mortgage in the case of homeowners. They are having to resort to impossible choices between paying the rent or buying the medication they need or paying for the books their child needs for school or keeping a roof over their heads. These are impossible choices that nobody should have to make, especially in a country as wealthy as ours. It is why we push so hard to increase the solutions, to increase funding for solutions to make Homes Affordable for everybody, especially targeting resources toward those most in need, which are the lowest income people, including seniors, people with disabilities, and lowwage workers. Cnn is interviewing the minority leader, Chuck Schumer, democratic reader of new york. The senatororting saying the checks included for americans in this legislation, the 1200 checks, he expects they could be out by april 6. Diane yentel, do you have thoughts on how that turnaround . Does that help . Guest it is important. Rent is due april 1 for many millions of people across the country who are, like our last caller, wondering how they are going to pay that rent or their mortgage. Some cash and peoples in peoples pockets quickly will help. It will not be enough to meet all of the needs that this virus, this illness is creating in our country. The struggles at the lowest that the lowest income people are facing as a result. Billther resources in this , we need to make sure they get out as quickly as possible to local communities. I am thinking especially of the 4 million that will be appropriated for Emergency Solutions that goes to homeless shelter providers and outreach workers. These are frontline workers who are doing incredibly challenging work with overwhelming demands. They are on the front lines but without any of the equipment that doctors and nurses have to keep them safe. The Homeless Outreach workers who do not have hand sanitizer, much less gloves or masks. Or you have shelter providers who have people experiencing homelessness in their shelter a confirmed positive with coronavirus and they do not have the ability to isolate them from others in the shelter. Resources for these communities are badly needed to allow shelter providers to lease hotel rooms, to put people into apartments, to even build out new wings or put up structures that allow them to separate people within their shelter so they can implement social distancing and keep people safe if they are if they contract the disease or are in contact with someone who is. Hose 4 million are needed once this bill is signed by the president , we need to work with hud and make sure those dollars get to as quickly as possible so they can put them to who are homeless see from this disease. Rouge,lets go to baton louisiana. Mickey, you are a renter. Caller yes, maam. Host go ahead. The situation we are president ugh, for the doing what we need to be situation. Ck to my i am a renter. , two bedrooms. Se struggle to pay the rest of the bills and eat at the same time. They are going to put 1 billion for americans to survive. Every american, 1 billion. Spend taketo care of their business. Anybody who needs to work got to work. Host ok, mickey. Muffled. St a little i cannot hear some of the details of what youre saying, but what i got from that is you are struggling despite working. Youre struggling to pay the rent because rent is too high and your income is too low. You are not alone. There are millions of families who are in a similar situation nationally. Before coronavirus came to our country, we had a significant housing crisis that we were facing. A policyn our country where only one in every four households who is eligible for Housing Assistance and needs it gets any. Like mickey or others who are working hard but have low incomes and cannot afford rent get no Housing Assistance at all. They are having to wait in line and add their names to waiting lists that are years or decades long. It is essentially a housing lottery system and it is wrong. Asecially in a country wealthy as ours, it is wrong. The good news is we have a solution to the housing crisis. We have Proven Solutions to ending homelessness and poverty. Programs like the Housing Choice Voucher Program or the Housing Trust program. The problem is we do not fund these solutions at the scale necessary to meet the need. Is more than ever, when it clearer than ever that housing is health care, we have to start funding these solutions. Everybody is safely and affordably housed. Good morning, host host roger, tampa, florida. Good morning, roger. Caller the number of coronavirus in russia is not believable. They seem to be too low. About a caseard count density of it in mexico, which is right beside america. Numberse any accurate about how serious this is in mexico . It does not look serious on the maps. Our mexicans coming with or without the virus going to be housed in america as immigrants during the current period . To thei cannot speak accuracy of numbers from russia or mexico for coronavirus. I look to the cdc for accurate numbers. I cannot speak to those numbers. Before thehat, even thisavirus occurred we had significant shortage of Homes Affordable for the lowest income people. Now more than ever, we need to ever we need to fund the solutions. When we look at the Solutions Congress is considering related to coronavirus, housing or health or food assistance, we have to ensure that those resources are available to everybody, regardless of their immigration status, regardless of whether they have liveilities, whether they in tribal communities. We have to ensure that everybody has access to these resources, because the virus is not discriminating. We arent able to make sure the virus only impacts, say, documented immigrants. It is impacting undocumented immigrants as well. Our collective Health Demands we ensure that everybody in the country get the resources they need to stay healthy and stay can so that as a country we recover from this crisis. Host we have a text from a viewer, pete in south bend indiana. I havent heard anything about relief for seniors and disabled people barely making it on Social Security income. Are there any provisions in the bill for them . There are. I think the cash assistance will be going to everybody. For the Housing Assistance, that is where it comes back to the need for more, frankly. There is money in the supplemental for what is called Community Development block grants. That will go to local cities and counties to do a whole host of things. One thing they can do with those dollars is provide rental whether it is people who are currently homeless, seniors or people with ,isabilities who are homeless or struggling to pay their rent could get assistance from there. There is also in the whatemental 30 billion in is called Disaster Relief funds. That adds to the 40 billion already in that pot. That is very flexible funds that can go to states and cities to use for a whole variety of purposes, including rental and thece, potentially, for of structures needed people who are homeless or doubled up or overcrowded in their housing to separate out and selfisolate when needed. Harpers bill,n new york. A homeowner. Caller hello . Host you are on the air. Go ahead. Caller i have a big problem. Homeowner. I have been homeless several times. Now. A homeowner the only reason i am a homeowner now is because my mother gave me the home because she died, ok . I am on disability. I get very little bit of money. I get food stamps. Im not making it. I am not making it. Taxes that you have to pay, the rent you have to pay, stuff like that are too hig h. They go up every year. People are getting murdered by it. You spokee yentel, about this earlier, but if you could repeat what you said. Guest again, you are an important example of why it is so important during this pandemic we ensure that people who are in homes stay in those homes. This is why we need to make sure moratoriums on foreclosures and evictions. We cannot risk having people lose their homes and add to the number of people who are homeless during a Public Health emergency. It is also an example of why we need more assistance to people who are struggling to afford their homes. Aree are many people who seniors or people with disabilities on fixed income. Their incomes are not going to go up but the rent keeps going up. They need assistance to stay housed. There are millions of people who are working very low wage jobs. The kinds of jobs that do not keep up with the rising cost of rent. When it comes to jobs and incomes and people struggling to pay the rent, we know that will be a challenge for the foreseeable future. The department of labor projects the jobs that will have the greatest growth. Seven out of 10 pay less than what it costs to rent a one bedroom apartment. These challenges existed before the coronavirus came along. They are more acute and urgent now, but we have solutions to challenges. We are not funding the solutions to the scale necessarily and it is Time Congress started doing that to keep people affordably housed. Especially now. Host mike, a homeowner. Caller yes, good morning. Host good morning. Caller my question is, i am a homeowner. Ihave two small apartments rent. I am concerned these people they work for construction. Could be taken away because of this. Not because they are sick, just because of the economy falling down. My concern is how i am going to protect myself, being a landlord, and moratoriums, and that type of thing all this talk is about 1200. Is this monthly or a onetime shot . The 1200 i believe is a one time deal. It will also be pretty enhanced extendedded and Unemployment Insurance. All people, i dont have the details in front of me, but i know they were working towards gigring all workers, in the economy, selfemployed, or other ise would get four months of full salary that would ensure people who can currently pay the rent will continue to. What youve raised is a really good example of why, when we are talking about the need for moratoriums on evictions, which we have to have, it has to be paired with significant rental assistance. That is because small landlords like yourself and others cannot afford to continue maintaining and operating the rental units without income coming in for rent. If it is not coming in for the individual because they lost perhaps theand Unemployment Insurance doesnt cover them, we have to ensure there is rental assistance. That is not just to assist small landlords to make sure we are losing precious little Affordable Housing stocks through the crisis, but to ensure low income renters dont end the crisis with more debt in terms of back rent that now needs to be paid when the lifted. Ums are we dont want to create a cliff that low income renters fall off of. It is a very important point that we have been pushing. When there are moratoriums on evictions, we have to make sure there is rental assistance as well. Learnif yours want to nlihc. Org. An go to struck in the senate for a 2 trillion aid package. It is likely the senate, when they convene at noon, will be voting on this. It could go to the house unanimous consent if they can get agreement by all 435 members of the house, then to the president s desk or the signature. Your reaction. Phone numbers are on the screen. Yesterday louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards gave an update on the Coronavirus Impact in his state. [video clip] a major disaster declaration for louisiana from the federal government. I have directed that request of President Trump in order that we might receive Additional Support for state and local agencies as we continue to combat the spread of the virus and deal with all those individuals who actually have the disease, covid19. Stated,ticipated and and sadly, the number of cases in the louisiana continues to rise more drastically than we would like. 1388 cases we have and 46 deaths. That is 216 more cases than at noon yesterday, and 12 more deaths since the report yesterday. I want to remind you we are updating the numbers once a day at noon. It just became too much to try to manage with all of the various testing labs and reports that had to be coming into the state, aggregated, and making sure they were accurate. We are going to do it once a day. Across the state, and this information is there for you to 1252a look at it, we have individuals who are covid sorry. We have 1250 two people in hospital beds. 271 have tested positive for covid19. Andhave or will be tested are waiting for the results. We call these individuals puis. Persons under investigation. Individuals who we know have are onirus, covid19, ventilators currently across the state of louisiana. It is important to remember with respect to the persons under investigation, the 981 currently in the hospital, if recent history holds true somewhere around 60 of those individuals covid19. Positive for the rest are in the hospital because of the flu or other respiratory ailments they have. Certainly not all of these fact, thes in minority of these individuals should prove to be covid positive. They are in the hospital taking a bed space because they need to be in the hospital, they are using ventilators, and so forth. It is part of our overall challenge in delivering health care for those who need it. Washington journal continues. Host we are back with more of your phone calls after a deal was announced at 1 30 a. M. This morning between the two leaders of the senate, Chuck Schumer and mitch mcconnell, the two sides along with the white house and key players in the house have agreed to a 2 trillion economic aid package. The senate is slated to vote today. You can watch our coverage of the senate if you go to cspan2. They are coming into session at noon eastern time. Keep your channel on cspan2 to watch the debate uninterrupted and devote potentially today. President trump could be signing the legislation as early as today. Bloomberg with this tweet on the latest on the coronavirus. Prince charles, who is first in line to the throne behind his mother the queen, has tested positive for coronavirus. Spain reports its deadliest day with 738 fatalities. Germany sees an increase in cases. World ventilator demand is now 10 times whats available. Financial times also put out these charts this morning. Excuse me, before we get to the charts let me show you more news about spain. Spain becomes the second country to surpass chinas coronavirus death toll with 3434 deaths, up 730 from yesterday. Times, thenancial newest chart tracking death tolls in cities and regions. Madrid 272 deaths, higher than any day in wuhan. New yorks death toll is surging. Was,n is where lombardi the Northern Region of italy, at the same stage. Keith in indiana, republican. Your reaction to the news from capitol hill . Pelosi is is sad that being stubborn through all this stuff that everyone is having to go through, but its over now. I did want to make one question. I was at the hospital a long time ago. They had a machine in the surgical room that was putting out light. It killed all of the viruses putting out ultraviolet light. He said it killed all the viruses. I was wondering if the scientists could use ultraviolet kill almost every virus. I was wondering if the scientists could use ultraviolet light, through transfusion or whatever they have the brains. Is there any way they could use this technology to help with this . Host we are going to take more of your calls in just a minute. First, joining us on the phone this morning is congressman mcgovern, the chair of the rules committee, democrat from massachusetts, joining us on the phone about a new report put out examining the options for congress to vote during this covid19 pandemic. Thank you for your time this morning. Guest my pleasure. Host tell us why congress cannot vote remotely as it is right now. Guest we would have to change our rules to do that. If one person objected, we would be forced to have a vote, and everyone would have to come back and cast a vote. If we move forward on anything, any changes, it has to be in a bipartisan way where there is no objection. There is a growing consensus given what is happening in this country, that there are some members who just cant get here. We have to figure out a way to deal with that. One way to deal with that is to try to work and a bipartisan way on the nature of legislation that will need to be dealt with and pass it by unanimous consent where everyone is ok with it. We will see if that can happen with the bill today. Not we cantw, if do bipartisan consent, we will have to find other ways. Some people are suggesting we vote remotely. Others are suggesting may be proxy voting. That would, again, have to adjust the rules. All of these alternatives, we have some constitutional challenges, logistical challenges, security challenges. Even though some of these things sound simple and matteroffact, in real life it is pretty complicated. Host what are your options . How would it work, some of the options you have . Guest for example, if we had proxy voting by unanimous consent we would pass a measure that would change the rules. Members could notify a member how they wouldup vote on something and that person could cast the vote for the member that couldnt be there. Some talked about remote voting by ways of facetime and other means. Technology has clearly advanced, but that is challenging too. To everybody is hooked up the appropriate technology to be able to do this right off the bat, number one. There are Security Issues if china, russia, or iran wanted to Block Communications they can mess things up in terms of members being able to communicate directly with what is happening in washington. We are going to figure this out. I have had a lot of good bipartisan conversations. For now, my hope is that whatever the final package is that we are going to vote on will be something that might be able to move by way of unanimous consent. Host how quickly are you trying to figure this out . Are you trying to put this in place before the vote on the package . Is this something youre looking at for additional packages in the coming weeks . Again, if we have a problem with todays vote, we will have to do something immediately. More for this is future bills we might work on consensusot have the that i hope the bill today will have. Well see. The deal was reached last night and many of us have not read all the details. We know we made some progress in areas, but i havent been able to look at everything it. We will find out at everything yet. We will find out how this plays out later in the day. Host when were you told the house will attempt this unanimous consent vote . Guest we havent been told anything yet. The bill was reached last night and we need to review it. My hope is we will act on this bill one way or another, by unanimous consent or figure out another way to do it as expeditiously as possible. Our economy is at a standstill. Are inf my constituents a very desperate state right now. A lot of them are out of jobs. A lot of Small Businesses are shut down. We need to do something to help regular people. What we have insisted on, the package cannot just be a bailout for fortune 500 companies, and only help the welloff and wellconnected. It has to help real people, average people, working people. It also has to help those who are most vulnerable. I think we have made some progress in that direction. We will look at the bill today and determine if we have made enough progress. We need to do something right now. Speaker told you that they will try today to have a unanimous consent vote . Guest i havent communicated with the speaker this morning us, but my view is all of are committed to moving something expeditiously as possible. We have a crisis on our hands, us people are none of could have anticipated we would be here. People are in desperate need of support. There are a lot of Small Businesses who need help. There are cities and towns that need help. First responders that need help. You can go right down the list. We need to do something by unanimous consent or figure out another way so we can cast votes. We need to do something as quickly as possible. We should have been on this, to be honest with you we should have been dealing with this crisis a lot sooner. We were told by our intelligence agencies this would turn into something very severe. For too long this administration has been very easy street. This package will help. I dont think it will be the only package. We will have to come back on at least another occasion, may be multiple occasions, to deal with multiple packages. We will have to make sure we have a process in place that will allow everyone to dissipate and vote. I think we can work with republicans on this, or alternatives that make sense. Then we have to figure out, once we get through this crisis in the long term, how we deal with this in the future so we arent dealing with it in the middle of a crisis. Back if you have to come and vote again, and you want to make changes, as we were discussing from the report you put out, that would allow members to vote remotely or proxy vote, what are the constitutional questions with that . Know, one it is a major change. The constitution talks about congress gathering together, people gathering together. Check with constitutional experts. There are a lot of constitutional scholars who say there is no problem. There are others who say we are not so sure. When we get to proxy voting, there is a history of proxy voting in committees. Not on the house floor, but in committees. If anyone wants to challenge it, there is some precedent. I think we could deal with that. The challenge is always in the logistics, how you implement this. Proxy voting would probably be easier in the short term than remotely voting by way of facetime or other technology. Some of this is manageable, but we need to work out the details. Here is my hope. At least in the immediate term we can come together in a bipartisan way and do what is good for the country. I have no doubt that this bill that is coming before us is not going to be to the liking of everyone in the house. It is certainly not perfect from my point of view. My values are not the same values of the president. But nonetheless, at the end of the day, we have to decide if there are enough things and they are that i think are important for my constituents and the away with the things im not terribly thrilled with. That is the question all members will have to ask themselves. The overall package, when you weigh all of the equities, is this something that will benefit our country come help our constituents . That is where all of us are going to be what all of us are going to be asking ourselves today. In the preliminary reports i have received, speaking as a democrat, there are things we have made progress on. I want to thank leader schumer and speaker of the house nancy pelosi for insisting this bill become more focused on people than corporations. There are some safeguards in there to make sure this is implemented in a way that will actually help the people and businesses we want to help. Host thank you for spending some time with us this morning. We appreciate it. Guest my pleasure, and be safe. Host back to our calls. Michelle in midland, georgia. Democratic caller. Your reaction to what is happening in washington . Caller i want to applaud the democrats. They are the ones doing the work. This diaperwearing man in the white house is not doing his job. Host lets not do the name this morning. Or any morning, for that matter. Lets keep it civil. Ray in dayton, ohio. Caller i am looking for the immediate to take some responsibility in this. They have the power. If they would just use it they could call together kenton, carter, and barack obama. Every morning they could have an hour show, or whatever they deem necessary. They have all this experience to weigh in on the problems for the people, for their networks. Veryow the white house is slow to execute anything. It is called executive, but they dont execute. We dont need to keep looking for them and covering their stories that we have known for years what kind of people are there. We have to wake up. Congress, my god. Mcconnell, waiting for those people . They are working 200 years later. They are still wrapped up in the constitution is why they cant move. All they are doing is proving they are inadequate. It is time, it is time. Thecountry is going, as saying goes, to hell in a basket. They have to wake up. It is unbelievable how much they can talk about things and not legislate. Host our producer tweeting florida gop senator rick scott will be returning to the senate. He has been in selfquarantine due to coronavirus exposure since march 12, but had no symptoms. He missed the phase three procedure will bill, but will be in the senate for the final passage. Blocked two attempts by republicans to move on the phase three economic bill. They got recessions from republicans and added provisions they wanted to see in the bill. We are learning from the hill and politico a breakdown of some of the bigger provisions in this bill. Lets go through them real quickly. Five hundred billion dollars from major corporations. 360 7 billion for Small Business loans. 130 billion dollars for hospitals. 150 billion dollars for state and local governments. On one time check of 1200 for those making up to 75,000. Billion dollars for education. Employee retention tax credit is also included. You have 25 billion in aid to the Airline Industry. There is likely a lot more provisions in this. This is what we know at this point. Tweeting from capitol hill, reporters reporting minority leader schumer sent a letter to Senate Democrats attesting to the wins. Expansion and reform of unemployment benefits, 150 billion dollars for health care, 8 billion of which is for tribal governments. Republican. You are next. Caller i have a question about the stimulus package. Life, paid myy last year of 2019 i left my job to put myself in rehab for drug addictions. I have not worked since then. Qualifyfused if i even for the stimulus package, not working in 2020. Host questions there. Jenny leonard who covers business for bloomberg tweeted night, Trump Administration is considering whether to defer payments for tariffs on all imported goods for 90 days. That will keep a lot and needed companies pockets. Domestic industry is not ok with this. Lisa abramowitz, Mortgage Applications plunged last week the most since 2009. Independent, good morning, bill. Caller good morning. Hope you are doing well. Host same to you. About a couple of points the stimulus package. At one point they had 500 for every child of a person making 190,000 a year, which is ridiculous. The second thing is i hope it is transparent. That it will be audited. That we know how the money is being distributed, who is getting what, how they are paying it back if its a loan, and i hope they are mostly loans. The last point i want to make is people got to understand, this stimulus or economic stopgap but we, is necessary, are going to have to pay it back eventually. When taxes start going up, or inflation, dont be surprised and dont be complaining about the taxes going up. It is going to be a result of the stimulus. Cnn, more on that from what this means for americans. Under the plan single americans will receive 1200. Dairy couples get 2400 dollars. Parents get 500 for each child under 17. They phase out for individuals with adjusted gross income for 75,000. Those making more than 99,000 would not qualify at all. 250 billion aside for the socalled recovery rebates. Democratic caller from tennessee. Hi, tammy. Caller good morning. This week on the stimulus payment i have a couple of questions and then i would like to make a comment. People who tried to dodge the taxes, like the cruise industry, how much are we providing those people and are we going to have it on the backs of our taxpayers . Should i think congress supply the American People with how they are going to bring the stimulus package as far as the oversight. It is going to land on the backs of the taxpayers sooner or later. Third, i dont know why congress, the senate, or the administration as far as that goes, not to call no names, but havent kept this virus under control. The cdc and the president should go toaid lets maintenance medicines for a couple of months. I have a sick mother and a sick father. They are being required to go to the doctors for maintenance medicines. For the first time, their doctors are wearing scrubs. , i know fornavirus a fact where i live, i dont think it has been reported on correctly. Nicu. Told there were two i would like to know why it is not being reported correctly and why they dont test every american. Butow that that is costly, if we are going to get a grip on theydisease, why doesnt shut doctors down for maintenance medicine, quit doing colonoscopys for people it is not necessary. Host many places have stopped elective proceduress, elective medical procedures. 74 ofter just tweeted voters support a national quarantine, suggests neither the government nor state nor local officials will comply with a trump order to reopen the economy. We showed you earlier the New York Times Editorial Board calling for a national twoweek lockdown. We will focus on Small Businesses and how they are doing. We will start with Kevin Kuhlman for the National Federation of independent businesses. People learn about the u. S. Naval ship that has been called to help with the outbreak. Sam lagrone joins us later in the program to tell us more. Tvouncer American History on cspan3 looks back at the influence of pandemics of 1918 and 1957. Saturday night on lectures in history Stony Brook University professor compares the 1918 influenza epidemic compared to today. When they tell us not to shake hands or to sneeze in your elbow, that is social distancing. In exactly the same stuff they were telling americans to do at the turn of the last century. Why is this important . Even though we have made astounding improvements in the health sciences, we still cannot care a virus cure a virus. America, the reel film the silent invader about a new influenza virus that emerged from asia. Approximately one Million People. If we had this you would have approximately 200,000 people who would become ill in a 46 week six week span. Washington journal continues. Host Kevin Kuhlman here in cspan, in another studio as we practice social distancing. With thelman is National Federation of independent businesses talking about the impact on Small Business owners. What type of businesses is your group represent . Businesses of all sizes and industries. The vast majority are the smallest, the mom and pop shops on main street and in the alleys down main street. ,e cover a range of industries of business sizes. The vast majority have fewer than 20 employees. Heard a nfibe survey that 70 of your members said their business has been negatively impacted. 54 percent have slower sales. Sick employees. Do you expect those numbers have changed . Have been monitoring how the covid19 situation has been impacting Small Businesses in a couple of surveys. If you wouldve asked me a month ago i wouldve said Small Business optimism is near a record high. The Small Business half of the economy is booming. Business owners are creating jobs, investing in their businesses. You fastforward three weeks circumstances have changed significantly. Three quarters of Business Owners have been negatively impacted. If you go back 10 days we did a Different Survey and it was one quarter. In 10 days that has increased 300 . We will monitor the impact in our businesses, and i anticipate the percentage of owners impacted will increase further. Only 1 of Business Owners are not concerned. It is a concern for everyone and three quarters have been negatively impacted. Host we want to hear from Small Business owners this morning. Our line, 202 7488000 all others, 202 7488001. This aid package has not been approved yet. It is the third phase. We have coming from the house the Families First act and paid sick leave which requires Smaller Companies to provide two weeks leave if related to covid19, extended family medical leave at no less than two thirds of pay, and tax credits to offset these costs. What does this mean for businesses . Guest businesses have been put in the center of administering and providing assistance to employees. Three quarters of Business Owners already provided some sort of paid leave. They just require more flexibility often times. They are not used to the rigidity of paid leave mandates in many places. Business owners have new obligations. They will receive some sort of payroll tax credits on the back and to help fund the paid leave dollar for dollar, but they need instructions from the irs to do so. Our concern has been a cash flow and liquidity concern. The third bill considered by the senate, and hopefully the house after that, and signed by the president quickly after that, works to address some of the cash flow issues by providing forgivable loans to Small Businesses. Our preference would have been to deal with the cash flow first, then the mandate, but we find ourselves in this reality. Host we understand the price tag in phase three is 367 billion for Small Business loans. How this work for Small Business owners wondering, how do i tap into this money . How does this work . Guest we have been pouring over every draft we see. We havent seen the final one, but as we understand it the Paycheck Protection Program that you referenced, Business Owners will apply for a forgivable loan through a bank. That will be equal to as much as 2. 5 times their payroll. The goal is to keep employees on the payroll, or rehire employees that have been let go already. If employers keep those employees on payroll, or use the money for rent, lease is, mortgage, utilities, or debt financing, in eight weeks that loan will be forgiven. It is a 10year loan with a maximum of 4 interest rate. A lot of details need to be revealed when they release legislation. We are cautiously optimistic this will provide needed liquidity and cash flow Small Businesses need. A detail that we believe is being reported is businesses that apply for the loans can get helpnt 10,000 grants to with immediate cash flow needs. Host what is the difference between a grant and alone . A loan. Guest many businesses are reluctant to take on a traditional loan. Anu have to pay back a lo with interest and many are adverse to taking on new debt as they are suffering from problems related to covid19. This forgivable loan is more promising. So long as you follow the requirements, you can get the loan forgiven. The grant i described come the 10,000 grant, is even more beneficial because it will provide instant liquidity and wont have to be paid back. Castle,na in new delaware. Your question or comment about the impact of the outbreak on businesses . Caller my son has a small iness and only employes employees five or six people. He is waiting any day for them to come and tell him he has to close down. I said the democrats have drugged their feet drug their feet and are so interested in the impeachment of the president , they could have been doing Something Back then. But now, they were interested in something else. They dont care about their constituents. They could have voted three times. They said there are things in there we dont want. They put things in there we dont want. Host has this delayed cost delay cost Small Businesses that they will not come back . Guest our fear is that this is too little too late. Many businesses have had to take action to lay off employees, even though they are doing everything they can to try to help employees and keep the doors open. When you have forced closures, stay in place orders, sometimes that decision is made for you. I hear annas frustration, and many of our members with five or six employees feel similar frustration will stop especially with the setback when the bill failed to proceed in the senate. We got the news at 1 00 a. M. The deal was struck. We will see bill language of this morning and a vote quickly thereafter. Im hopeful it is not too little too late, but for many it may be. Host what do you make of the 500 billion for big businesses versus the 367 billion for Small Business loans . Is that equal in your mind . Been i confess i have focusing more on the Small Business portion, the four forgivable loan portion, and not so much on the Large Business guaranteed loan fund. The Large Business guaranteed loan fund was the hangup. I know that hang up and those delays caused by that was frustrating for Business Owners who need the assistance now. I confess i have been focusing more on the Small Business side then the Large Business side. Host understandable. What is your business . Caller i have a Home Improvement company. Host go ahead. Whatr i just want to say i think the lawmakers should do is to help Small Business owners upfront as they can, because we are the ones with jobs for employees. If they dont have businesses, how can they work . Discussions at 1 00 a. M. Businesses are cannot go employees to houses to do this work and put food on the table. If i dont have business i dont have jobs. I think if they want to save their jobs they have to save our businesses. They have to save our businesses. They have to help Small Business owners so we can keep our businesses and employees. It is great, but how far will that get them . That is just a 10th of their income. They havent said anything about the Construction Industry. Host what have you heard about the Construction Industry . Guest the Construction Industry has been, and past recessions, severely hit. What we were hearing a month ago with the Construction Industry, the biggest problem was finding qualified employees. Now they will take a hit from this. A remodeler is not allowed in peoples homes if they are occupying it now out of quarantine and concern on social distancing. I think that the problem will be felt in Different Industries and different geographic locations where there is a local or state shutdown order. Excellent makes an point that if there are no Small Businesses there are no small jobs. Ss that is half of the economy. Small Business Owners are looking for a light at the end of the tunnel. They are generally optimistic, but they need immediate financial assistance, some of which is being provided in the bill today. We view this as a necessary step, but not the final answer. We will view how this is implemented, if it is working, and we will be back advocating for our members if steps are needed. Host what is your business . And i i am a gift shop allow people to sell things at my store. I will try to make it quick. I have been on Social Security a couple of years. Door with as oneyear lease of september last year at 1200 a month in store. I came back here and hadnt opened until december. I came back in january to my house to make sure everything was ok. I cant go back to the store and open my doors to people. In the city where i opened my store there are two coronavirus incidents. I cannot go back. I called my landlord and said i will do my best to pay you every month like im supposed to, but i have double bills at my house and my store and i wont be able to keep up, and im on Social Security. I know your time is limited. Thank you so much. Guest i hear you, and i appreciate the call, and i know the situation is tricky. What we are encouraging members to do is to explore all options. Been keeping apprised of the legislative and regulatory efforts, as well as other financial opportunities that may exist at our website nfib. Com. That. Urage you to visit what we have now is Disaster Assistance loans passed in the inst bill, up to 7 billion Disaster Assistance loans. Those have to be paid back with a 4 interest. Many people are adverse to taking that out. In the new program we have 367 action in the paycheck program, forgivable loans, that can be used on rent payments and utilities. That may be an option in the hope that this gets implemented quickly. We would like to thank senator rubio, senator collins, senator shaheen for working on this. I anticipate they will be paying a lot of attention to the regulators so implementation goes quickly, thats another option. Many members have reached out and more are doing so every day to their bank to explore other options. Time. In a very uncertain i totally understand the situation that kathy is in. Like i said, Business Owners are just looking for a little light at the end of the tunnel. Says alla governor nonessential businesses have to close, can they get relief from the State Government . Guest it depends state to state. I would encourage Small Business owners to explore what states are offering. Many have Deferred Sales or income tax payments that may be able to help with cash flow. Others may be providing grants. It is really tricky. Especially when Business Owner hands are tied by the shutdown orders. I think everyone hopes that we try to clear, get clear of this. That we take the hard medicine now and get clear of the Public Health emergency before it turns into a dire economic emergency. Annieany in california in california. Caller i am so sad to see all the businesses shuttered around here in the bay area. Host do you have a question . Caller yes, i do. It is sad to hear the Business Owners coming in. My question was, i know the gentleman is not a doctor, but do you think mr. Trump is right that we need to open businesses at this point . Could they be opened with careful safety procedures . Aret Small Business owners very sensitive to the Public Health situation going right now. We have to put our faith in the Public Health experts. Like President Trump, many Business Owners just want to see can open theirey doors. I cant say with certainty what the appropriate time is, but they want to open their doors. They really want to help employees. For example, i talked to mike outside of dallas, texas, who tried to take out a loan from his retirement account from a previous job. The bank said he couldnt do that, but he wanted to take it out so he could pay his employees. I spoke to another Business Owner in boston who owns eight restaurants and pubs and was very much looking forward to the st. Patricks day parade. When that was canceled he was very concerned about his employees. I have one positive story because entrepreneurs are problem solvers. John, who owns a Charter Bus Company lost tons of business because of a lack of tourism and because sports teams canceled their seasons. In order to help his 60 employees, he opened two new businesses. One utilizes an industrial cleaner that he purchased after the h1n1 epidemic and is offering to clean banks, schools, and childcare centers. We need more entrepreneurship to help solve the Public Health problem. Host heres a tweet from a viewer. I will read a couple of them. I am in northeast pennsylvania, closed since last monday. I am my only employee. Where do i turn first . Guest they will expand Unemployment Insurance, including to Business Owners. The unemployment system, which will be administered through the state, is an avenue that Business Owners paid into with their taxes. We hope that taxes do not go up on the back end, but that may be an option. As was reported earlier, there will be checks sent directly to the american public. That may be an option. Veteranam a retiring caught between starting a business. I purchased a building and cant get support to update it so it can be occupied. Banks will take a risk on a new startup at this time. Is there anything that can help me in the meantime . Guest that is an excellent question. I dont know of anything that will help that particular circumstance. One of the tax relief provisions will allow for the immediate expensing to upgrade for retail and restaurants. This was a technical error from the 2017 tax law. That may be something the tweeter wants to look into. I wish i had a better answer. The loansdo we access and grants . If we dont pay employees use the money to pay rent, vendors, insurance, and loans, will it be forgiven . Guest in the draft i have seen, paying rent, and debt servicing will be forgiven in addition to payroll. We will see what is in the final version, but that is something that nfib pushed hard for. To have other business expenses besides payroll to be included. How to access, implementation is supposed to happen quickly. Within one week. They will be accessible through private banks. The treasury will get involved and try to expand the network further, but they will be administered through banks. Host welcome to the conversation. Caller good morning. Host good morning. Caller the question i have, will this also help us . We are a Service Industry and have been hit with a double whammy. For 14 of the last 16 days i have not been able to go to work. I kept my employees on the payroll and paid. The coronavirus hit and now we are having some of the national contracted accounts to cancel until further notice is. That means im losing work because of the weather and because of the coronavirus. I have also had residential customers canceled their services until the coronavirus is completely over with because they dont want us in their yards. Charles, thank you for keeping your employees on and taking care of them. That is a theme we are hearing from members. How can i continue to take care of employees, and where will that assistance come from . Small Business Owners are also suffering from poor sales and lack of demand. I would encourage you to look at the paycheck retention program, which is the Forgivable Loan Program included in the bill today. Other options are the Disaster Assistance loan. I should payroll,trous loan for i dont think you could use the same payroll protection, the forgivable loans for the same purpose so if you are to wait on a disaster loan, i would advise them to do so to take advantage of a new program that is not like a traditional loan. Host karen in alabaster, alabama. Caller i just wanted to say that this new deal they have, they are going to pass seems like a pretty good one and i agree we have to help Small Businesses. We are going to use our relief check to spend in our Small Businesses in our area, but i believe we can go back to work as long as we follow the 15 steps the cdc put out, and the doctor reiterated that yesterday , that if you go out, all of the 15 steps. I just wondered if he could comment on that. Host go ahead. Guest thank you, karen. I think Small Business owners were following those cdc guidelines to the t basically. Many did follow those guidelines and protocols so they could continue operations. They practiced steve safe staffing and distancing in their places of employment or businesses. It is my hope that we can practice safe distancing to keep everyone safe and healthy, as well as restart these businesses and help the Small Business after the economy. Host tom in flint, michigan. Caller good morning. The question i had was, i have been hearing about if you dont get paid, you dont have your money, you cannot pay your rent and you get evicted. To get evicted, you have to have so much time and it has to go to the court. The other side is the landlord needs to have money because he has to pay his property tax. If he doesnt pay his property tax, they will foreclose on him. Are those courts open right now . Evictedle actually get through court . Can people lose their homes . Host i am not sure you know the answer to that right now. Guest i know local and State Governments are trying to take steps. Many landlords, my hope is they will be forgiving and patient, but i am not aware whether those courts are open. I know the rules will vary between whether local jurisdictions. Host jim, frederick, maryland. Caller i am not a Business Owner but i was curious bringing a nonBusiness Owners perspective. My wife has a start up in a fulltime job so we are not in any concern. I am sure we will learn a lot of lessons as a nation whether it be health or business. There is a part of me that is concerned. Americans are told we should save a number of months of savings just in case of a disaster. It concerns me a state can shut down businesses and within a week or two, so many Small Businesses in jeopardy. ,he way we as a Nation Companies small and large are prepared for inevitable situations, whether it be giant snowstorms or pandemics like this, maybe we are just as a just aas Business Owners little bit not preparing for these things, so we have exposed ourselves to the problems that we shouldnt be on such short notice. , what aboutkuhlman having reserves . Guest it is not for lack of desire. It may be for lack of ability. Business, they have more difficulty with building up those reserves as opposed to an older business or a more legacy business. I dont think it is because of a lack of desire. I think it is a lack of ability, but you make a great point that we will emerge from this crisis and when we do, those Business Owners will have learned valuable lessons and learned that more reserves may be necessary. Lets not lose focus that this event totally unpredictable. We went from a great Small Business economy and in less than a month, it will probably take a precipitous drop in economic conditions, in unemployment as well as Business Owner optimism and plans. Being prepared for unforeseen events is important. Coast, florida, Small Business owner. Caller hello, good morning. Host what is your business . Caller i have a Land Clearing service and i do wildfire to cut strips so firefighters can get inside to save peoples homes next door, and hazardous treatment removal, and i have been in business for 13 years. In 2007, this fiasco 2008 when they wanted to give out small checks to individual people, but really when you were talking a 2 trillion amount, that is a humongous amount. It should be like 10,000 for person per person. The Small Business administration, if you have been in business, i am sure to get a loan you have to have everything money,or a long time, properties, investments, a lot of stuff to get a loan. I am a small Owner Operator and me and my wife are the only employees, and i am finding that right now my customers are not calling because they are so frightened they dont know what will happen in the future with their properties. Some of the stuff i have to do is mandatory by the city where i live, and the municipality, but it has to be done. Fors an awful lot of money cruise ships and airplanes and all of that, and these people make billions of dollars a year profits. Respond. In kuhlman can guest i have been more focused on the Small Business portions of the bill than the larger business guarantee fund that held up much in the negotiations. The one thing i will say about the situation and your concern for having every record in order , in order to be eligible for the loans previously, it is my understanding that for these new loans, the requirements have been lowered. You essentially have to have been in business by february 15 this year and paying income and payroll taxes to be eligible. That is in the interest of getting this money out the door quickly. You must self certified that you will use this for payroll, rent, interest, mortgage, utilities, as well as debt obligations, but the process will hopefully be much quicker than what is previously a traditional loan. Host will people be able to. Com asformation on nfib u. N. Your staff start to sort through this legislation . You and your staff start to search through this legislation . Guest it will be a good resource. We are updating it continually with labor guidance and irs guidance with how the paid leave and paid leave tax credits will work. We learned yesterday from the department of labor that the paid leave requirements start on april 1, and that is likely when the tax credits will begin as well, although we await irs instructions. M sit nfib. Co webpage. Ur coronavirus we have webinars on how to prepare for this virus, how to deal with the obligations. One ourwe did typical webinar is on specific issues but we did one on coronavirus. We typically have 500 registration and last week we had 5000. We have 8000 questions submitted that we will respond to. There is a thirst for information and Business Owners are looking for operations. Host Kevin Kuhlman, thank you for the cup conversation. Guest thank you. Host when we come back, we will talk with sam lagrone about the role of Naval Hospital ships in this coronavirus outbreak. We will be right back. This weekend on book tv, saturday at 8 30 p. M. Eastern in her book recollections of my nonexistence, the author recounts her journey to becoming a writer and feminist. Certainembered at a point, why wasnt i political when i was young and realizing to be political you have to feel like you have something in common with other people and you have power, and i started out with neither but ended up with both. Sunday at 9 00, Eileen Zimmerman looks at whitecollar drug addiction in her book. Someone struggling with an addiction was struggling with life,conditions in their struggling with a Mental Illness that was untreated. They were someone i would see on the side of the road living under the bridge panhandling on the subway. I was wrong. There are plenty of people at the top of the socioeconomic ladder struggling as well. Watch book tv this weekend on cspan two. Washington journal continues. Host with us this morning is sam lagrone, reporter and editor for naval Institute News taking your questions about the use of Navy Hospital ships to respond to the medical needs of those in this country with coronavirus. If you have questions about this and live in the eastern or central part of the country, 202 7488000, mountain or pacific, 202 7488001, and active military, 202 7488002. Going andthe ships how are they going to be used . Guest there are two hospital ships. A 2000. Navy maintains bed hospital ship, one on the east and one on the west coast. The uss mercy based in san diego will go to los angeles and the idea is it will pull into port in l. A. And will serve as a extra beds and extra capacity for the Regional Medical facilities to treat noncoronavirus patients. Host noncoronavirus patients. Why is that . Guest these ships are essentially designed for battlefield wounded and battlefield medicine. These are good platforms for trauma, so if you remember the Television Series mash where you have surgeons elbow to elbow in an operating room with a lot of different beds nearby, that is not necessarily the best environment for treating Infectious Diseases. The idea is by deploying the ships, you add extra noncovid19 capacity to these systems getting strained while youre more traditional betterls, which have protection for Infectious Diseases take the bulk of the covid19 cases. Host who will go on the ships . Guest the crew is blended between military sailors and merchant marines as part of the military sealift command. That is a crew of about 70 or so by 1000, buttressed 1100 military medical personnel from across all of the services, depending on what the mission is. It is mostly navy active and i am sorry,cine sailors from the bureau of medicine. Host what kind of patients would go on this ship . Guest to activate these ships, if somebody is in a car accident or a trauma situation where they need an emergency room and they dont have any indication they have covid19 or any type of infectious disease, they would be routed to the hospital ship. The idea is inside of having a trauma patient or car accident patient come into a regular hospital in los angeles, you would route them to the Trauma Center and the trauma surgeons hospital, the mercy. Host so how will they determined that you dont have covid19 . Will they have tests available, rapid tests, or are they just going to take somebodys temperature . Guest that is yet to be determined. The chief of Naval Operations they wouldorters and be focused on noncovid19, but the methodology to make sure somebody does not have the signs , that has not been made abundantly clear yet. There are a couple of spot tests they have been doing in the hotspots like singapore and taiwan where they do temperature checks. In terms of doing a rapid test determining whether somebody has covid19, that has not been determined. Host george in windsor, pennsylvania. What is your question or comment on navy medical ships being used . Caller i think the military should be used. I see them doing it in china. , you should take orchard sprayers, farm sprayers and spray at night. Everybody should, at least in the city. They will slow this thing down. I dont see any disinfectant being sprayed hardly at all in the country. Host what about a wider role for military in this country for people stationed here . Guest some of the Lessons Learned that the pentagon will be deploying here were from u. S. Installations, so if you think about south korea, that is home employees, and navy personnel. They have had disinfectant programs falling in line with what the south korea government is looking, so the u. S. Has released fixtures of soldiers in pretty heavy gear with disinfectants weaving through bases, making sure they moving through bases, making sure they are disinfected. How much of that will come here and be controlled by the pentagon is yet to be determined. If you look at the national guards, a lot of those states have needs on how to deploy those soldiers and airmen and Army National guard to go and do that work. A lot of that has yet to be determined on a federal level, but im sure it is happening on a casebycase basis. Host david in San Francisco. Caller i want to know, we are pretty concerned being an International City and the San Francisco bay, when the cruise ship, i believe it was the princess came through, they tried to improperly drop off their trash. They apparently let their staff leave without being tested. They basically botched the job and tried to override controls. There is the famous old esop fable about do not aesop fable about do not put all your eggs in one basket. Atting a bunch of people on ship, you can cause problems with that ship in the long term. And id more local clinics want Homeland Security to start paying for things that really matter like good, clean water, making sure that there are clinics around so you dont put all your eggs in one basket, that there is dormitories for the medical staff so that they dont take stuff home to their kids. Lagrone, what cautions, Safety Measures will the navy take to protect the citizens in california and new york of the trash, the staff that is on board, etc. . Guest this is one thing the navy is particularly good at. We have tight controls and restrictions in line with International Law in terms of trash and handling waste. If you think about it, the staff aboard the mercy and comfort have a lot of experience handling biological waste, making sure things are cleaned and disinfected. In terms of the effect they will have on a community, i would expect that to be minimal in terms of trash and garbage. In terms of capacity outside of the ships, to go to the callers point, in addition to these facilities there is across the country, Washington State and new york have been mentioned for sure, they will bring smaller that youeld hospitals can set up very quickly that have about a 1000 bed capacity that you can have pretty much anywhere you have the water and power to hook them up to. Evenlly, some of them not the power, you just need the space. There is capability for where to stage these medical the medicals and professionals will be active duty military folks pulled from their assignments. Host melvin in bannock, illinois. Urbana, illinois. Caller i was wondering why the focus was put on noncorona patients when you can only get a limited number of those treated on the ship anyway, and it is a misnomer to call it a naval response when actually the commander in chief is the one, the president is the one who supplied and vento supplies the masks and ventilators. That is where the focus should be, not your response to limited orders from the president. Host sam lagrone. Guest in terms of the andagons response to masks ventilators, mark esper released about 5,000,095 masks for the military stockpile for Hospital Systems across the country, and there is some number of ventilators the dod is making available to the public in terms of what they feel they can still conduct their military missions the missionsficing they have ongoing, and support the general public. Host where have these ships been before they were asked to go to california and new york . Guest the hospital ships have been around since 1986. , theare a cold war concept idea that you can bring large trauma hospitals remotely. Back to the royal navy in the 1600s, but typically from each coast, the mercy and comfort will take on good will missing Goodwill Missions so get the crew on board. The comfort just got back from a goodwill trip to the caribbean. You pull into port and provide free medical care for anybody who needs it as part of an Outreach Program the dod and state department put together. Mercy out of the west coast will do a similar operation in the south and western pacific to bring a goodwill response. You have the diplomatic effort from the u. S. To show goodwill some other places, and at the same time you sharpen the skills of these folks who need to get activated in the event of wartime. Once a year they go out and do a mission and come back in. Host how long will these ships stay and could others be mobilized . Guest yet to be determined how long the ships will be there. Mercy still hasnt pulled into los angeles yet, so once they get there, they will get an idea of how best they can be used. Comfort is slated to leave early next month. We are not clear. In terms of other capabilities the navy has in particular, they have large amphibious ships, amphibious warships with pretty extensive medical capabilities as well. There aircraft carriers have slightly less capacity to go into medical work, but they do have complete surgical rooms. It would probably be in a similar scenario as the mercy and comfort. As to where the medical staff will come from as to be able to populate additional ships is still unclear. Remain lot of questions around the use of these Naval Hospital ships. You can follow sam lagrones reporting at usni. Org. Thank you for the update on this. Guest thank you very much. Host we are going to go back to calls on the 2 trillion deal struck fairly early this morning. And majorityleader leaders striking a deal with the House Speaker and the Republican Leadership on that side of congress, as well as the white house. The senate is convening at noon eastern time. You can watch our coverage on cspan two. We expect there will be a vote today so you can watch the debate unfiltered on cspan2. Anticipating, waiting to be determined if the house will pass this by unanimous consent. The hopes are the president will sign this by the end of the week. Gary is in springfield, oregon, independent. We are going to go until the house gavels in for a pro forma session around 10 00 eastern. What are your thoughts . Caller things are going as well as expected. A quick question on Social Security. Is there anything in there for anything on test for anybody on Social Security . For anybody on Social Security . Host have not yet, because the text is still being written. We do not know yet and we will have to wait and see. When the senate comes in at noon, we will see if they have more debate, what they will do to move forward, but i encourage you to watch cspan to and listen to what the senators have to say as more details are reported. Herbie in moss point, mississippi, democratic caller. Caller i think this whole thing is just like the war in iraq. I think it is just a way of robbing poor people of their money and giving it to the rich people come to the haves and the havenots. If you Pay Attention to it, bush did the same thing, obama did the same thing but he bailed out automobilegages, and companies. If they would have gave the money to poor people they would have bought cars, put money in the bank, paid their mortgage. This is a way to keep fatcats rich rather than applying it to poor people. If you gave it to poor people we wouldnt have poor people in america and all the legal immigrants could work for us. It is the haves telling the havenots with a need. Host andrea in milford, connecticut, a republican. Caller this was a time for both parties to come together. The republicans were almost close. I know we have gone through this and hopefully when it gets over to the house hello . Host we are listening. Caller hopefully when it gets over to the house it will pass without ms. Pelosi putting her special projects into there, which i dont understand 35 Million Dollars going to the john f. Kennedy center needs to be put in when there are people including myself that were mandatory quarantined, and my daughterinlaw is a nurse, and she was working with a doctor who was positive and they hardly have any masks. Bipartisan. To be everybody has got to come together for the good of our country. We have been giving to everybody and it is our turn to get some of our tax dollars back. We need to help those Big Companies because when this is over, where is everybody going to work . Host i encourage you to read the bill. House is in a pro forma session today at 10 00 a. M. Eastern. They are not in washington but they will gavel in for a bit of time and then they will go out. The senate, noon eastern time on thean2, expected to vote on bill they passed last night, 2 trillion aid coronavirus package, and we can see the unanimousng by consent. We will end the program now to bring you to the house