Im not celebrating until i can hug my grand babies. Waiting for that day. Hopefully that will be soon, but thank you. Last night as you know the Senate Passed important legislation. Were very proud of the product. We think it is we did jujitsu on it. It went from a corporatefirst proposal that the republicans put forth in the senate to a workers first democratic workers first legislation. First, lets back up. As i was coming here, i saw nearly 1,000 deaths in the united states. 900 yesterday. I dont know what the numbers are today. But theyre saying nearly 1,000 deaths in our country. Tens of thousands of people are we have tens of thousands of cases. This is a pandemic that we havent even since for over 100 years in our country. Its really such a tragedy, so we had to take important action. Had to take action that puts Families First and workers first and thats what we did when we did our first legislation. The first two bills were about addressing the emergency directly. 8. 3 billion for research for vaccines, for a cure. Thats, of course, a light at the end of the tunnel. Funding for testing, testing, testing. Very important so that we know we can take inventory of the challenge that we face, and more importantly, that we can address each familys concern about this. The next bill was about masks, masks, masks, so that we can test, test, test, among other things. Emergency, the bill that was passed in the senate last night and that we will take up tomorrow is about mitigation. Mitigation for all the loss that we have in our economy while still addressing the Emergency Health needs that we have in our country. Next, well go from emergency mitigation to recovery in terms of where we go to grow the economy, to create more jobs in light of the reality that weve just been through. So right now, we have the legislation that will come to the floor tomorrow. I anticipate i feel certain we will have a strong bipartisan vote. We take some pride in the fact, as i said earlier, Congressional Democrats in the senate and in the house were able to slip this over from corporate trickledown republican version to bubbleup workerfirst, familyfirst legislation. So, again, we have some other things we want to do, but first we want to take pride. For workers, we were able to get, of course, extended and expanded extended from what the republicans wanted and expanded Unemployment Insurance. This is so very, very important. Of course, in terms of funds that go to major corporations or companies or anyone, the direct condition is that, for example, with the airlines, that the money the money that is given to the airlines is given to the workers directly. Just a passthrough. It goes directly to the workers and had some conditions on for other money that goes to any of these companies that they have no buybacks, no dividends, no bonuses. All of those kinds of things that happened before with federal funds infused into their entities. So were very happy about all of that. One of the differences, as i said, theyre corporate down. Were bubble up with workers. As demonstrated last night, can you believe i think it was every republican. 49 republicans last night voted in the senate to deprive those on Unemployment Insurance of the additional 600 a week. How could it be that in this time of stress and strain and uncertainty about health and life and livelihood that they would vote that way . But i think it does demonstrate the point i made that its not about workers first, but the bill got to be there. I thank the Senate Democrats of using the leverage with the 60 votes. I take pride what we have in our house bill thats in the senate bill now. So for workers and for families with all three of our bills. We have put families and workers first. I hope that the u. I. Right now, we want people to take advantage of all of this quickly. The u. I. Will depend on how the states do it, and they are not all uniform, but we want people to know exactly how they can benefit from that, and were putting that all together so all of our members on both sides of the aisle can now how they can facilitate enabling their constituents to take advantage of the opportunities there. So, again, the bill last night and tomorrow will be a large infusion of funds for hospitals, Health Systems and state and local governments. We want more. This is a big, strong step. We need more. Small businesses, so proud of the work of all of our chairmen. They were dazzling in their knowledge, their strategy. Their experience in getting the right kind of bill passed, even though compromising, not getting everything we want, but recognizing that we won the day. Small business, they have for rent, mortgage, eligible for loan forgiveness. I salute madam chair velasquez for what she was able to accomplish there. Students we secured billions in emergency funding. Thank you, bobby scott, on our team, and our appropriators, doing so much work there. Dont get me started on naming my members. I will be talking about all of them. You will see how they present tomorrow on the floor. And we have oversight. There was this idea they put forth that there would be a 500 billion slush fund for the secretary of the treasury with no accountability. Are you kidding . That was a complete nonstarter. I am pleased that the language that was in the house bill and the senate bill, it has an Inspector General for that account, and five people appointed by leaders to oversee how that funding is dispersed. It comes back down to the fact that people are at risk. Tens of thousands of cases, nearly 1000 deaths in the united states. We said from the start, we must have a proposal that is governmentwide so that we can really address the challenge that we face in a scientific evidencebased way. That is not necessarily what has been advocated by by some. It is where we must be if we are going to end this. From a scientific standpoint, we have the best minds working 247, all hands on deck to find a cure, which is the light at the end of the tunnel. But if we do not heed the advice of the Scientific Community about isolation and avoiding as much communal contact as possible, then the light at the end of the tunnel may be a train coming at us, the proverbial train. Every day, every week that is wasted on not taking that warning seriously is a problem. It is a problem. So let us thank our Health Care Providers, our health responders, firefighters, and the rest who are responding to this, but initiating their own efforts. Sometimes risking their lives to save others lives. We need to get them more personal protective equipment. That is absolutely essential. It is a shortfall right now. We would hope the government of the Production Office agency would be called upon to call upon industry to make ventilators. Testing, masks. Ventilators. What is the mystery . We need many more. And the ventilators are not about making you breathe easier, it is making you breathe period. It is vital for life and death in many cases. We need an unlimited number. Lets think of it that way, an endless number of ventilators, just to name one thing. But everyone, the farmers, producers, grocers, everyone who is keeping america fed, our truck drivers, postal workers, delivery people, everyone who is making this survival possible we thank. We thank our scientists for striving to find a cure. Tomorrow, we will go to the floor for this legislation. But as i have said, there are so many things we did not get in any of these bills yet in the way that we need to, so that the next step would be, among other things, we want to have better definitions of who qualifies for family and medical leave. I can give you some examples if you wish. Stronger osha protections for our workers. Essential to life. Pensions. We had a proposal on pensions in the legislation that, my understanding was, and i trust it is true, that the president supported, but senator mcconnell would not do it, but said we will do it in the next bill. So we are ready for that. Increase snap. One disappointment in the bill was they would not increase we were asking for a 15 increase in food stamps at this very fragile time. They would not do that in this bill. More money for state and local governments. I spoke with the secretary this morning about how we are just not doing enough for state and local governments. That is just the way it is. We had 200 billion, and we ended up with 150 billion. Neither of those figures is enough. I mentioned to him that the fed, and i talked to chairman powell about this, that they would expand the opportunity for, shall we say, helping out state and local government, municipalities, and the rest. In the bill, we call for that. We are enabling the secretary to do that, but not requiring it. The administration did not want the requirement. They say that is what they intend to do. Hopefully that is the case, but we will still need more money for state and local governments, municipalities, and the rest. One important thing that we have to insist upon, we said free testing. But with free testing, the visit to the doctors office, the treatment that goes with it, and that has to be free as well so that we encourage people to be tested. And if they need treatment, they are not fearing the test because they cannot afford the treatment. This is all a Public Health issue. It is in everyones issue that everyone be tested who needs to be tested. Not everyone, but anyone who qualifies to be tested, but that they do not incur a huge deductible or whatever, copayment, whatever, for being tested and having the followup treatment. And there is just one other this came as quite i dont want to say it a surprise because nothing surprises me around here, but it is curious that in this bill they decided to treat the district of columbia in a very discriminatory way. It really makes no sense, unless you have some other motivation. The district of columbia has always been treated like a state in terms of distribution of funds. Under that formulation, they would have gotten well over 1 million. Under the formula, they decided to treat them like a territory now. Maybe half a million left. But it is very significant. Say it is one third less than what they were getting when they were fighting this challenge here in the district of columbia. It doesnt make any sense, and we have to have legislation on it. I dont know if you saw senator Chris Van Hollen last night during the debate spelling this out. I know it is a concern for mr. Connelly and mr. Meyer and our colleagues from this region. Mr. Raskin. The list goes on. It does not face the realities of the Public Health crisis that we have in our country. It goes out of its way to do something so out of the ordinary. Lets just hope it was a decision. It was not an accident, it was a decision. So lets make a decision to correct that. But let us all be very prayerful about how we go forward. The american people, they need to wash their hands and hydrate all the time, but to understan that we view them as our bosses. They are our bosses. We are responsible to them. On sunday morning when we met, mcconnell, mnuchin, mccarthy, mcconnell, mnuchin, mccarthy, schumer was there. Since its sunday morning, begin with a prayer. My part of it. His holiness pope francis called for a world prayer. I dont i wont do it justice but what he did was to pray that those who have the responsibility to care for others would be enlightened to take that responsibility. And act upon it. When i finished my prayer, the secretary said, well, you have quoted st. Francis pope francis. Ill quote the markets. So thats kind of how we gosh knows we want the markets to succeed. Thats very important. Markets are not going to succeed unless we take care of people. And we restore their health. Whether there is a cure or whether theres behavior that reduces this tragedy in our country. But let us Work Together in the most bipartisan way possible to get the job done as soon as possible. It wont happen unless we respect science, science, science. And for those who say we choose prayer over science, i say science is an answer to our prayers. Any questions . Reporter a lot of americans have heard direct payments they are getting as part of this bill. The biggest question they have is when are we going to see these checks, why not approve this bill so the American Families dont have to wait even a moment longer to get this money in their Bank Accounts . Speaker pelosi thank you for the question. The two are unrelated. It doesnt have anything to do with unanimous consent. Tomorrow well bring the bill to the floor. It will pass. It will pass with strong bipartisan support. I spoke to the secretary about this today. Why dont we do the direct payments technologically so they can be received more immediately. I dont know if thats their plan. But i hope that it would be. But the people are eager for them. We had bigger direct payments in our bill. I dont think we have seen the end of direct payments. But with all respect to your question, it has nothing to do with the unanimous consent. I dont think well get unanimous consent. I think theres some people in the other side of the side of the aisle coming here that would object to that. We are not worried about that. Our members want to come back in order to have the debate. And we expect to have a voice vote on it. But if we dont, well be prepared for whatever it is. But one way or another with losing no time with the u. C. Or anything else, we will be passing the bill tomorrow. Thank you. Reporter americans that have concerns about the these loans given to corporations. Why dont these corporations seek private loans . Isnt it a moral hazard to bail them out . Shouldnt they have been more conservative with their cash flow to be able to weather this storm . Speaker pelosi everything we do in this bill is about the workers. And so where there is any transfer of funds to any entity, it is for them to keep their workers employed or pay benefits to their employees. Nothing is going to anybody without conditions. Reporter some of these c. E. O. s are making Speaker Pelosi thats another issue. We cant deal with that now. We did prohibit, thank you for your question, so can i say again the conditions include preventing any so i can say again the conditions include preventing any buybacks all the things they did in previous times when they had the sources. Use that money to enrich themselves in terms of dividends, bonuses, and the rest. There were some consideration about c. E. O. Pay in all of this. But this this is an opportunity for us to have the leverage switched from the top trickle down from Corporate Headquarters to bubble up from the Assembly Room floor. Yes, maam. Reporter talking about the next phase. How quickly do you think that bill needs to come together . How big do you anticipate it will be . Do you intend to work on it from washington or from california . Finally, and finally, who should take the lead on it, the house or the senate . Speaker pelosi right now we are advocating we took the lead. They took one. We should be operating four corners. The house and senate, democrats and republicans. As we go along to find as much Common Ground as we can. But we will be ill be working on most of it from here. But also with my committees. In the course of this whole thing my committees were outstanding. The Committee Chairs were, as i said, dazzling in their knowledge and brilliance about how to get the job done. And made a tremendous difference. We didnt get everything we wanted, but its a compromise. We did very well. Thats why i got a call yesterday from some of the on the senate side, not the democratic side, saying these members think that its too much of a democratic bill. In any case, well go through the committees, bobby scott on the education and labor committee, which overseas family medical leave, well be working on that, as will be the appropriate rosa delauro and that. Well work house and senate. We have the legislation with patty murray that they rejected, but well bring it back. Osha is also from that committee. The osha, occupational, safety, and Health Issues are very important. More important at this time than any time anybody can remember because people are going into an infectious situation. Well be having our by phone, perhaps even beyond that, have our meetings to bring that together. In this case, its going to be public sentiment. Well, why do we need another bill . We need it because the Health Workers working in those settings need t we need it because the family, for example, if your mom bless her heart, dont know if wonderful. Shes healthy. If your mom, for example, if your mom were in a was in a day Senior Health center. You take them in the day to get the health needs and all that. Then come home. Or was at home and had a Health Care Provider in the home. Because of the coronavirus, those two entities, one would close, and the other could not come. You would be able to take family and medical leave. To care for your mom. If your moms well, and she gets the coronavirus, you cant take off work to care for her and get family and medical leave because those two conditions were not met. We strove to have them say those who cannot take care of themselves, but they wouldnt accept that language. It doesnt make sense, does it . We want to improve on that and improve how many other people would avail themselves of it. These are needs people have. This is understand this about this. Its very important to notice. This is all about the coronavirus. Its not about anything else. Its about the coronavirus. So this is temporary for this period of time. Its important to know that because people say, well, why because of the coronavirus. Public health issue. And we have to keep people as healthy as we can. And family medical leave is one way to do that. Then some of the other issues that i meant they are getting tested, have to pay a high copay for the other services that go with that test at this time. When we are talking about the of course the direct payments are directly related to this. But just to that point, we want to engage the public in that discussion. The timing is interesting because i see the senate said they were believing until the they were leaving until the 20th of april. I guess thats after the easter and passover. I think everybody has to be on call for what we need when we need it and we dont know what that might be. But whatever it is, well be ready. Reporter i have a question and a you have unanimous support half. From your democrats tomorrow on the floor . Speaker pelosi yes. Let me say this. Im not asking we will have a victory tomorrow for americas workers. If somebody has a different point of view, they can put it in the record. But we are not worried about that. Which one was the hat . Reporter Governor Cuomo said yesterday hes worried about his big budget. The money doesnt go nearly far enough. Other states will likely have that problem. Do you think the next bill you have to dedicate significantly more to bail out state governments who cannot do this on this their own . Speaker pelosi thank you for your question. I had the occasion of having the benefit of the governors thinking yesterday. And i have enormous respect for him. I think hes doing a spectacular job at what hes doing. Its something we have never seen before. But i also see that with my own governor, gavin newsom in california. They remind me each other, they are so values based and determined to do the right thing and respecting the dignity and worth of every person. It takes money. Thanks to jerry brown, a big budget, surplus in california, which is going to be eaten away by this. Its not a question of bailing out states. Its a question of meeting the needs of the people. And thats our responsibility. He called it a drop in the bucket. Its never billion dollars, and it isnt anywhere near enough, but its still several billion. Like 5. 6 billion. Something for new york. We have to do more. If we dont face that reality, we are encouraging the states, then, to give money to localities as well because they, in our situation, california for example, san francisco, provides a lot of the cities and counties provide a lot of the care throughout the country. And meeting the needs, whatever they are, Public Health issue. There is no question that more money will be needed. Now, can we do it through the fed and some low to nointerest lending to the states . Lets see what they can do. That was my conversation with the secretary this morning about we are required rather than permissive said to do that. They preferred this route, which i respect. Lets get it done. Make no mistake. All the states around the country, we talk about new york and california. Look at louisiana which is now ground zero for the world in terms of the explosion of this challenge. In the world. Reference some of that to mardi gras and the rest. I have grandchildren all over the country. One who goes to school in new orleans. I watch the whole country. In any event, the challenge is there. The Interest Rates are low. The chairman of the fed, mr. Powell, said to me, the Interest Rates are as low as theyll ever before. Think big. Because whatever you borrow to do with this is going to be at the lowest interest. What we did last night and what well do tomorrow 2 trillion, is about the cost of the tax scam the republicans foisted on the nation to give 83 of the benefits to the top 1 . Whatever it was plus interest on the loan. On the debt. Indebting our kids and their future, paying the bill for tax breaks for the high end, it was going to pay for itself, it never does. Going to create jobs, it didnt. However, this is an emergency, a challenge to the conscience, as well as the budget of our country. And every dollar that we spend is an investment in the lives and the livelihood of the american people. We can go bigger. Especially now the Interest Rates are even lower than the time of the tax scam. It isnt even its like i gave you a dime for a cup of coffee. It doesnt cost a dime anymore. It costs much more. Lets recognize that reality. But again lets do it in a way that its focused on the kitchen tables of americas families, their needs, their concerns, and how we can, again, meet those needs as pope francis told us, to take responsibility for. Thank youall very much. Thank you. House minority leader Kevin Mccarthy also talked about getting the 2 trillion economic aid package passed by the house and sent to the president s desk for approval. He spoke to reporters for about 20 minutes