Id tv in detroit. A typical april sees michigan as ready to burst, but april 2020 brings us a really empty abandoned buteel remain at odds with the pace that is going on in many hospitals. And for the healthcare care workers, putting their own lives on the line every day to save the lives of others. As expected, missionary michigans governor expanded her stayathome order. Public Health Experts agree, but others wonder if the Small Business owners devastated by this crisis will recover, and those seeking help by the government too many times here this. Your call cannot be completed. Questions remain. Governmentral targeting the help in the right places, and if the curve is flattening, how do we begin to emerge from a long, dark night of covid19 . Tonight, we renew the team effort to fox 2 news, 7 action news, and local 4 come up with our two senators, Debbie Stabenow and gary peters come across the state of michigan, it is a live senators town hall. Good evening and welcome to tonights town hall. This is the second in a unique partnership of which i know we are all proud to be taking part could i am Carolyn Clifford from 7 action news, along with my andeagues from fox 2 news local 4. It is a pleasure to be with you tonight. I know we have received questions from viewers all over michigan. We sure did, carolyn. We are delighted to have with us to michigan members of the United States senate, senator darius seven out senator Debbie Stabenow and senator gary peters. There is no doubt that we are joined by two democrat senators, and our goal is to steer clear of politics. We are going to try come up with the goal to give michiganders the answers they want on this unprecedented crisis, a crisis that has taken so many lives as of today, we have lost more than 2000 michiganders to covid19, and sadly, they wont be the last. In addition, so many other people have lost their jobs, their income, their faith in the future, all of us wondering what is ahead. With us now live from their homes, senator stabenow in lansing and senator peters. We are about to get started. This is a question for both of you, beginning with senator stabenow. President s plan to open parts of the country in phases. What is your reaction . Sen. Stabenow i have seen a little bit. I would like to see more. What i heard as he talked about testing, which is so important, and about the governors making their own decisions within those states. What i would say is to reemphasize what you just said, inlost over 2000 people michigan, moms and dads and grandmas and grandpas, friends and neighbors, and we have to make whatever decisions are made as a country and as a state, based on the medical experts to keep ourselves safe. We all want to keep the economy going again. We did not wanted to stop. We do not wanted to stop. But we have got to focus on the medical experts and the testing, and i will finally say that, you know, eventually a vaccine is going to give us all the confidence to be able to go back and live our lives and have a vaccination and continue with what we have been doing in our lives. But between now and then, it is about testing. We need to have the kind of the mayor of detroit has been able to do with a 50minute habit test for police officers. You take a test in the morning, you get the results immediately. You know you are ok, and then you can go to work. I have been very involved in that. There is a report of my website. I released a report yesterday about where we are in the United States compared to the world, where we need to go, what we need to do. So i am hopeful that the president and others, that we will all work together. We have republican colleagues now that are talking about testing as well. This is about working together to get people back to work, and i would just close by saying t my favorite tshirt is its everybody against covid19, and i think that is the way we have to live it. Goal isor peters, the to ease restrictions in areas where there are fewer infections, but the whole is hardhit. What do you think . Will it work . Sen. Peters well, i think we have to be very careful about moving forward. Certainly we want to get back to a normal. I think it will be a no normal. It is going to take some time for us to gradually reopen. I think it is absolutely essential that we do this from expert advice from epidemiologists and our public Health Experts that can tell us the way to move forward but to do it in a fashion that protects people. We know that this disease is very, very contagious, and it can spread very, very rapidly. And one thing that we have known is that it is really critical to make sure that you stay ahead of it, which is why having some very strict restrictions right now is just so important, that people stayathome and try to take only those necessary trips out, so we can slow down the progress of covid19. It is critical for us to make sure that we have hospital capacity, so this disease is not get ahead of us, and folks forced into the hospital, and then the hospitals run out of bed then run out of ventilators andventilators, you are going to see death rate increase medically. You monitor it. You look at whether or not you are flattening the curve. When you are doing that, you believe you have sufficient hospital capacity, should there be a resurgence, you can start slowly but surely opening up businesses. I agree with senator stabenow that testing is absolutely critical. You have to know who is sick and who is not sick. That is one of the problems we have right now. We simply did not have that kind of robust testing early on, early this year. Other countries were able to do much more robust testing. Those countries that did that are in a better situation now than we are. Some are starting to move toward opening up their economies. There is also a cautionary note from singapore and hong kong, that had success doing that. They are now starting to open up some of their businesses, and they are seeing some resurgence. This is a very delicate line, a delicate balance that we would have to move forward. In addition to testing, you have to make sure you have protection all Protection Equipment. Still do not have enough personal Protection Equipment for people. We are still struggling in michigan to get that equipment for our medical personnel. Im the Ranking Member on the Senate Homeland security committee. I oversee fema. Im on the telephone every day to someone from fema, including the director, to make sure we are getting those critical supplies. We have to ramp through as we go. I think you will see strict social distancing, illnesses that are limited as to who can be in that business. Going to take constant monitoring. It is going to be a delicate balance. And it has to be driven by Public Safety and the expert advice we get from those folks from the Public Health area. Thank you both. Carolyn . Carolyn all right, senators. Thank you so much for being here tonight. This question is for both of you. Stimulusa 2 trillion package, people have starting started getting their checks. But many viewers wanted to ask both of you, why did you initially vote against the stemless package when so many people needed it, and are we going to see a second round of stimulus money . Senator stabenow, lets start with you. Sen. Stabenow first, i would say the entire process from start to finish in the senate took only five days, to do this huge, over 2 trillion package. The first vote senator mcconnell started to do was to do a vote before we had the bipartisan support to get this done. The original bill that he put forward did not in any way have the Health Care Money we needed. It did not even come close to addressing what doctors and nurses and hospitals need, and what we need to get the testing and the vaccines. I knew we could do better. We did do better. We had to address number one, the health care pandemic. If we are closing businesses, we need people to have income, which is another piece unemployment, Small Business checks, these things come together to try to help with what is a very difficult time, when people are being asked to stay home and do their part. That is the reason i did not support the original plan. It was not good for us in michigan. The second thing is we will have another package. We are in the process of negotiating this right now. This is a health care pandemic. If we are going to go back to work, if we are going to be safe and our families are going to be safe and confident, and workers will feel confident going back we have to i believe make it very clear that for the doctors and nurses and everybody on the front lines that we are not only grateful, but that we are giving them what they need. Art of what we are making as priority for the next round is something senator pierce and i have both been involved in, senator peters and i have both been involved in. The idea of hazard pay, a heroes fund for the doctors, nurses, mail carriers, Grocery Store clerks, people working lawenforcement, and the delivery people, and so on, it is wonderful to say thank you. It is wonderful to say prayers. Them wholemake financially, themselves and their families. That is a priority for us in this next round. Thank you so much, senator stabenow. Senator peters, do you want to theh in or talk about heroes fund . Is. Peters i think it critically important that we move to additional need. When we passed the cares act, it provided over 2 trillion in aid to our hospitals, to working families, to Small Businesses. Get ated to step back and sense of where we are and find those gaps and fill those gaps with additional support. One area i feel passionate about his men and women who are truly our heroes, the folks on the front lines that have to go to work every day. So many of us can be at home, shelterinplace. Kitchen work from our tables online and be able to continue online. They have to show up to work and continue to get a paycheck. That job is essential for our economy as well. Think of those necessary jobs. We need doctors and nurses. The janitors. Difficult forry the hospital to operate. I think the folks working in our Grocery Stores for us to have the ability to stay home, we need to be able to go to the Grocery Store to get food in order to live. They are stocking the shelves, doing the work, interfacing with the public, and putting them risk. And the families at , the busit driver ifs these folks do you are interfacing with the public and putting yourself and your family at risk, you should be entitled to additional pay. We are looking at paying 13 an hour over above what the individual might be making above the regular job, getting 13 extra, cap at 25,000, turning from when this pandemic started to the end of the year. To not only think those individuals who are putting themselves in harms way for necessary and critical jobs, we need to make sure they get compensated for it. Heroes indeed. They deserve every penny. Sam, im going to send it over to you. Sam one of the most frequently asked questions has come in over the last couple of hours today. They say it is unconscionable that the senate did not refill the stimulus fun. They ran out of money today. I move into this trepidation sleep. People have not mention politics in their emails. Only that they are about to lose employees because the senate failed to come through. Stabenow it is an important question. On glad you asked it. This is an important program. It is a strong Bipartisan Program that we have put 350 billion in two. As with anything that moves quickly, we knew there would be some glitches. We have heard from Restaurant Owners that have not been able to access the fund, people in rural areas, farmers who have had trouble because they use farm credit, and it was not initially recognized as part of the Banking System for the loans. Have those in neighborhoods, minority business owners, who are what they call under banked, or not connected to a big bank. I want to make sure that every kind of business, whether you are rural, small neighborhood, a momandpop operation, downtown in one of our small towns, in a microbrewery or bakery or restaurant or coffee shop we have a few things to fix. Im confident we will be able to get that done. We need to make sure that everybody in michigan is being supported with this. Im going to stay on stimulus as we go to senator peters. A different version of the question, talking about different approaches. The United States has decided to approach this from filling up the unemployment side of this, from creating a more robust unemployment program. Other countries, notably in europe, decided they were giving the money instead to businesses, under the promise they would keep their employees on the job. They are trying to freeze their economies in place, so they can simply restart the economy. This is going to mean rehiring, getting people reacquainted and reinstalled with their benefits. I wonder if we are doing this the right way. Are differenthere approaches. You are right about that. I think part of the approach we are taking is we used existing structures so we could move this as quickly as possible, to make sure people could get money. It is a system that is a system that is in place and can move quickly. Right now, though systems are overloaded, but generally speaking it was something we could get moving as quickly as possible. I know that folks who suddenly find themselves unemployed were in serious financial trouble. If you are in serious financial trouble, we wanted to get folks money as quickly as possible. The pandemic assistance act, from is actually modeled my legislation which expands eligibility to unemployment beyond the traditional folks that normally get unemployment, so you have Small Business owners who can file for unemployment. You have folks in the gig economy, independent contractors, people who would not normally get on unemployment, but needed a paycheck as quickly as possible. Nationalodel used for disasters. My working homeland security, overseeing fema, on a hurricane comes in, the unemployment system can step up fairly quickly to get money into peoples pockets, because they are suddenly unemployed. That happens when we have hurricanes. Now, we have a hurricane sweeping the whole country. That is why the unclaimed system is so important. That is what we make sure that in addition to whatever the state pays, there is an additional payment of 600 per week provided to folks. It is important as we restarted. Have the paycheck Protection Plan with the Small Business administration you were just talking about. We have to keep our Small Businesses and business. You cannot restart an economy very quickly if we find our Small Businesses out of business. They are the engine of growth. They are the folks that employ most of the people in the country. We needed to protect them. That is why we used the loans from the Small Business administration. An existingy framework. We just put more money into it. Haveso thought that if you local banks, community banks, credit unions, folks actually processing applications, you would be able to get it into the hands of Small Businesses quicker than try to set up a new system. These are existing systems. They may not be perfect to be wee to ramp up to the volume are dealing with. Without we could get money into the hands of people a lot quicker. They have been overlooked overwhelmed. We will see if they can catch up. This pandemic is not only killing people. It is putting the financial help health of many hospitals in jeopardy. A clear and is cutting the hours of its doctors and nurses. Itsmont is shutting down hospital. Ou if you are willing to bail out boeing, what are you doing for the Health Care System that is in trouble right now . Sen. Peters in the cares act, we provided roughly 150 billion of support for our Health Care Providers. Im on the phone regularly with providers and have been talking to administrators over these past few weeks. What we are facing is a crisis with our Health Care System, a financial crisis that they are very concerned about, and they should be, given the fact that they are now moving away from the normal kinds of procedures that they do in these hospitals that pay a lot of the bills, and really transitioning into dealing with covid19. That puts them in a precarious and ital situation really makes it dangerous for them when they come out of it, whether or not they are going to survive. We need to put money in. As we are dealing with additional legislation, we need to make sure Small Businesses have more money. You have to do everything we can to make sure Small Businesses are healthy. He also have to make sure our Health Care Providers and hospitals have the resources they need to not just get through this crisis, but to be able to emerge from this crisis stronger and healthy. Money is, the way the being provided, it is not enough. And our rural hospitals are going to be in a particularly difficult situation. They dont have the resources that some of our urban hospitals have. They are right on the edge. They could fall out without existing resources from the federal government. We are talking about how important it is to get money into the hands of Small Businesses as quickly as possible. We have to add to that list are hospitals and Health Facilities to make sure they get through this. To provide thee kind of health care we have in our state. It is frightening to think we are letting of Health Care Workers at a time when this pandemic is ravaging the state. Sen. Stabenow it does not make sense. We have a situation where we have hospitals that rely on thenare and medicaid, and private insurance and elective procedures that people have all kinds of surgeries and procedures. There is now a National Recommendation and a state requirement not to do elective procedures, not to bring people into the hospital, to expose them in some way to the virus, and be able to keep people safe. The problem is the hospitals are in a situation where they do not have ongoing revenue that they need. When we talk about more funds federally, it becomes critical, we have to do the hospital and Health Care Providers to make sure that we can make sure for thelost effort and resources coming in. It is a challenge for certainly metrotro did freud detroit hospitals as well as all around the state. In some ways, it is an even more challenging issue in rural areas, where they dont yet have and we hope they wont yet have the incidence of the virus, that are not doing the elective surgeries. They are in a very tight situation as well. So more resources. We have to make up for this. Understand, we have got to keep her hospitals going so they cannot only respond to the pandemic, but come out of this at the other end has strong medical centers. Thank you both. Carolyn . Carolyn thank you. You know the Healthcare Industry is very important, but so is the Auto Industry. We have gm and ford working feverishly to transform their plans to build ventilators and that sort of thing. They are also trying to reopen their plants overseas. But what i want to ask you, senator peters, is this. Do you anticipate the need for another Auto Industry will out . If so, would you support it . Right now, we are not anticipating that. In fact, we are hearing from our Auto Companies they just need to have access to the capital markets. They need to have access to loans to get through this. You are absolutely right. They are right now doing an incredible job about diversifying some of the production lines and producing critical medical equipment. That is an incredible testament to the manufacturing power we have here in michigan. When we think back to the days of world war ii and the arsenal of democracy, when our Auto Industry transformed into providing more materials to help the allies win the second world war, we are in a situation similar to that. We have the ability to make things. We know how to do that very well in michigan. We have great Skilled Labor and engineers. We have general motors, ford, and chrysler making masks, making ventilators. They have gotten into these processes, and they worked with some of the ventilator companies. They are trying they are starting to transform their plants to make this critical medical equipment. That is going to be very important, particularly in making masks. We are seeing them make more and more personal Protection Equipment. We continue to have shortages of personal protective equipment and masks. We need those masks not only for medical personnel, but to reopen the economy. We are going to need to have people that feel safe and have that kind of protective equipment. And they are going to need that protective equipment in those plants. Right now, the Auto Companies as well as manufacturers across michigan are thinking very hard and long and deeply about how they start production, and make sure they are protecting their employees. We can look at a number of models around the world. The germans are moving pretty aggressively in this area. Theyre focusing on the Auto Industry because they understand how important it is to their national economy. You can restructure the production lines to keep people separated, make sure they have personal Protection Equipment, have folks enter and exit the plane in different ways. There is a whole set of procedures that can be put in place to keep workers safe and start production. The Oil Companies need to work very closely with the uaw and the way workers in the uaw feel comfortable going into those plants and starting production. Doingon the work they are , we hope we will see that at some point in the near future. We are slowly but surely ramping up production. Absolutely, thank you, senator peters. Senator stabenow, 43 of Small Business owners say they will have to close shop within six months without muchneeded help. Is it fair to keep all businesses shut down . The Auto Industry, they are trying to ramp up. What about the greenhouses and the golf courses . In any of these businesses operate safely with social distancing guidelines, or even Pool Companies now that summer is approaching . What are your thoughts on this . Are a lotnow there of important questions i think that we all have. Even the fact that this virus is something that is new and is very contagious, we dont yet understand all of it. I think we have to rely on the medical professionals. We can all look at individual situations where i think it would be ok, and yet at the same time it is all connected. I think we have to look at with the medical professionals are saying. And then, to go back to testing, i want to just keep saying that the way we open things up, whether it is our automakers and the auto plants give a shout out to all of our auto workers who are involved and retooling all of the plans for ventilators. Yet what we really need is to be able to have a quick test. Or a blood test. When you are going into work, you can take a test and feel confident you can go to work, and your employer can feel confident. If we have a notional National Focus on testing, that is the way we safely open things up. Michigan State University announced today that some of the researchers have a new test they have been able to put together that may be able to work across different platforms and create a quicker way to be able to do some of this testing. But we have got to do that so we are not flying blind. We are all frustrated. We all know we want to get folks back to work. We want to be able to get out of the house. And if we are in a situation as an essential worker, we dont want to keep having to walk into a situation and not know. So to have that, we have to have information. That means testing that can be done in a way that we feel confident that we can go to work. We can be out together and no know that we dont have the virus. If somebody does have it, we know they are the ones who should be staying home, not everybody. Right about that. Thanks so much, senator stabenow. This is a peters, question that keeps coming in, whether we are doing a town hall or not. This is a state issue, you are the former director of the michigan lottery. Russians continue to come in as whether the lottery is anything close to essential. Open,vernor has kept that with the zerotolerance policy on seemingly Everything Else. Would not call the lottery essential business. I would say it is an important business for the state of michigan. There is no question that the revenues that the lottery generates does go into Public Education and it does provide a very important function in providing resources for our public schools. As a former devin we could say that about a lot of revenue streams, couldnt we . Sen. Peters i agree. I would not call it essential. I would say this is a very important part of state government, and the revenues are important, but if you are thinking about essential business for the health and safety and welfare of folks, clearly that is not what it is. Devin let me move to senator stabenow now. We are starting to look at medical equipment and pharmaceuticals from a National Security standpoint. As the Ranking Member of the agriculture committee, i want to talk about food as it relates to National Security. There is agony in the stimulus package, but there were already is ag money in the stingless package, but there were already stimulus funds. We are watching the price of eggs going up, alarming for a staple. How do we protect our access to food, given the massive entanglements of International Trade when it comes to food . Stabenow that is a really important question. It is actually something i have been focused on for a long time, clamoring that a process that we have right now that reviews whether or not other countries can buy our companies it is usually based on Defense Technology and so on, and i have been saying it should be based in part on Food Security as well, because we have more and more of our Processing Companies being bought. Smithfield foods is about 30 , 40 of the pork processing operations, and they are now a chinese company. I think this is a very serious issue for us. There is a couple of things. And by the way, that happens in manufacturing as well. When we are looking at what we need to do, whether it is on testing or medical equipment, or looking forward on how we are prepared in the future, we need made in america. We need things made in america, grown in america. And on the food supply and nd, one, our farmers have been hit every which way, by the weather, by trade issues, and now by this. Into able to get funding this package that more specifically helps michigan. In the past, fruit and Vegetable Growers were not the ones being help. Our Dairy Farmers were not being helped. We know what has happened with turkey, the country of turkey, and cherries. We have had all kinds of things as a problem, but the new package has no relief for them. We need to make sure it gets to them. The second piece is because what has happened in the economy now we are seeing the stories now about Food Supplies and so on. We have a Grocery Store food system, and then we have a system for bulk purchase, where we have egg producers that sell to mcdonalds. Have people that sell to restaurants. They do all kinds of bulk kinds of purchasing. That is in many ways just shutting down. It is very scary. The Grocery Stores are doing fine. But the bulk sales are not. We are trying to figure out how wean either transition do not want milk producers dumping milk. Devin it is heartbreaking. Stabenow it sen. Is heart breaking to watch. We have to see if we cannot get the food to restaurants that we get it to the food bank. Im in the middle of trying to figure out how we do that. Our Food Producers in michigan care very much about wanting to help people in need right now. Senator, lets get back to you will. Lets get back to you. Many viewers want to know what the federal government can do to reduce the this proportionate impact of this virus on minority communities. It is stunning what we are seeing. There is no question there is a major impact on minority communities, africanamerican communities, in particular what we are seeing in southeast michigan, flint, and other places across the state. Africanamerican community is hit much harder than any other community. I think it tells us a number of things. One, it shows that we have got to be able to make sure we are providing health care in those communities. Over the years, many folks have not been able to receive the type of health care that is necessary to deal with what we call now preexisting conditions, or the chronic diseases that weaken the immune system and make you particularly susceptible, based on the evidence, to this covid19 virus, if you have some of these conditions. Heart disease, diabetes, other kinds of things, you are more likely to succumb to the disease. Thatting in communities have been underserved for far too long, i am a believer that everybody in this country, no matter who you are, where you live, should have access to quality Affordable Health care. We are not there yet. The Affordable Care act was an important piece of legislation that expanded that access dramatically. If you look in the city of detroit, for example, the uninsured rate was cut in half as a result of the Affordable Care act. We need to continue to support it and strengthen that. One thing i think we need to be looking at right now is to open up the enrollment for the Affordable Care act. We are in a healthcare crisis of unimaginable proportions right now, and to me it makes no sense that we are not opening up the enrollment for the Affordable Care act to allow people to get in, to get affordable coverage, and to make sure they have access to the health care they need, not just to get them through this crisis, but to make sure for a future crisis and future help for them and their families, that they have access to that kind of health care. This pandemic has exposed the inequities that we have in our society in a dramatic way. Not only folks that dont have the proper kinds of access to health care, but also folks who are essential workers, who dont have the luxury of being able to stayathome and shelter at home, but actually have to go to work in order to get a paycheck. They are absolutely essential. And they live a different life than folks who can shelterinplace. We have to recognize that and we have to understand that we have to prioritize it in ways we never have done before. Huel one viewer is concerned about the Postal Service, postal workers getting protections they need. He wonders if actually the Postal Service is getting enough support in congress to survive. What are your thoughts . Stabenow i will speak to that and then handed over to senator peters. Part of his responsibility is overseeing the Postal Service, and he has been a terrific champion on this. Let me just say there is not enough protective gear, that there is more coming in. We are pushing very hard. Senator peters and i have been on with the postmaster general, pushing for workers in our centers, and so on. Secondly, we need a Postal Service. Funding they need not only funding, but unfortunately in the past they have been structured in a way where they have to prefund their Retiree Health care in a way no other business or government has to do, which creates financial pressure that is not fair to them. That needs to be restructured. This has been an area where senator peters has been really a leader. Senator peters, would you also like to respond . Sen. Peters i appreciate that. We have to make sure our postal workers have the protection they need. We have a number of postal facilities right now were folks have tested positive. We have to make sure that those folks have the opportunity to be isolated, and everybody else gets tested to make sure they are healthy and to make sure folks have personal Protection Equipment. The Postal Service is in a precarious financial situation right now. Have negotiated a loan for the Postal Service in the cares act to keep them solvent. What we heard from folks at the Postal Service is that they could have been insolvent as soonest september of this year. They are saying postal volumes dropped or medically. In fact, in our conversation with the postmaster general, revenues have dropped more than 15 , which puts a significant strain on the service. They needed to have some bridge loans to get through this pandemic. But it is also clear that we are going to have to make sure we are providing resources, as well as working with restructuring of the Postal Service so that it continues to be vibrant. I agree we have to have a Postal Service. It is critical for this country. It delivers valuable medicines and information to folks. With people who particularly rely on the Postal Service, it is our rural communities. Many Services Like to take packages into urban areas, but it is not as profitable for them to go into rural areas. The rural residents, their connection is through the Postal Service. We have to make sure our rural residence in michigan continue to have a strong and vibrant Postal Service, just like every other person in the state of michigan. Huel carolyn . Carolyn thank you. Senator stabenow, this question is for you. Tricia, from madison heights, wants to know this. What about our prisons . Someone very close to me is in prison, and the coronavirus is there. I werent they preventative why werent there preventative steps taken right away . We know jail doctors and a commander have died at the wayne county jail. Please respond. Stabenow tricia, i appreciate that question, and i have to tell you this is personal for me as well. Before the town hall tonight, i was on the phone with my niece, who is a clinical social worker in the jackson prison where the outbreak is. Im not sure if that is the place you are talking about, and it is pretty scary, both for the people who work there as well as the people in prison. I also have a nephew who is a Deputy Sheriff and works at the jail. And i have other members of my family as well. I very much understand this. Perspective, i have been a strong advocate to get the protective gear. As i understand it, the masks are now coming in. It was not as fast as it should have been. Honestly, it is because as a state we did not have access to the ppe equipment, the protective equipment that was needed. All of our congressional delegation together, on a bipartisan basis, has been working with the governor and her rate team to push in every way we can. You have heard about all these things, the masks and the gowns and the gloves, and Everything Else that is needed. I can tell you it has really up. Hard, the way it is set its very chaotic. It was not enough equipment at the beginning. As i understand it, it is now coming into the system, and i wish there had been more available sooner. I know there is some other changes that are being made there to make things safer for folks who are in prison, as well as folks who work there. That this is one of those areas, when you talk about folks going into high density areas with lots of people, not protected as soon they should have been, they are, in my opinion, right up there at the top with our heroes, our new american heroes. Carolyn you are right about that. Thank you, senator stabenow. Senator peters, michigan has been in the news. Detroit has been in the national news. Detroit mayor mike duggan was speaking nationally this morning, talking about the avid rapid 15 minute testing abbott rapid 15 minute testing being a game changer. Officers tested positive and got the medical care they needed. Wouldnt it be great to have this available across the state of michigan . We keep talking about testing, testing, but it is right here in detroit. Sen. Peters the avid abbott test is in many ways a game changer, but it has to scale up. Other Companies Continue to move forward with their efforts. I had a long discussion with folks from abbott labs about their technology, which uses the same system that you get tested if you go to your local physician and get tested for the flu or for strep throat. It is the same system adapted to test for covid19. Thet now, abbott labs has capacity to produce well over 50,000 tests a day. I think they are expected to be able to deliver hopefully close to a million of those test a week, very shortly. You are talking to the representatives from the company. They are adding additional production lines. Toy think they will be able double that capacity fairly soon. Perhaps a month or two after that, double that again. This is incredibly important, because you have to be able to quick test folks. If you have somebody who tests positive, people who work in that workspace with those individuals, we need to know whether they are sick or not. They need a quick test, and they can stay on the job. The governor has been using it to keep First Responders and Law Enforcement on the job. They need to be on the job. They are clearly necessary folks for our society. It is working well. You need to expand that, ramp it up. There are a number of other companies doing that. We need to get that so that people feel comfortable in their workplace. Devoin, and when to send it over to you. Devin i dont know you would call this a question, but there are statements of frustration. Spending bills are never simple affairs. They end up being Christmas Trees that get decked out in ornaments and tinsel. Important to point out the original stimulus package did end up being unanimous. There was money for public broadcasting. Others, there were carveouts, getting rid of some banking regulations. Money for producers of innovative sunscreens. I guess this boils down to why does this have to be the way we get things done in washington, rather than addressing problems in front of us . Sen. Stabenow i always have frustrations when we get done with something that needs to be done and there are things in their that you do not personally support. It is always a big frustration. In our democracy, when you are trained to do something and it is a large package, there is always something you can point to. I will say the big picture is helping businesses large and small, helping tackle the pandemic, helping our mayors, our states, and so on. The big pieces that really got done, they were the right things to do. I just stay focused on that. I know there will always be a few things that i shake my head about. Senator peters, i think it is those small pieces that drive people crazy when they talk about the system. Sen. Peters it should drive them crazy. It drives me crazy when i see those things in the bill, particularly when we are trying to deal with the immense crisis and come together, and you have folks that try to stick in and are sometimes successful in sticking in things that have no basis in being there. Part of it is because of the brush of the legislation. It went through so quickly that a lot of checks and balances were not fully in place. The next legislation we do not allow anything in there that is not directly related to the covid19 crisis. I am a makingity, member of our Top Oversight Committee in the senate. When i worked with my republican chair, we put in the legislation and Oversight Panel empowering inspector generals to make sure they are reviewing this entire plan, to make sure it is being spent wisely and the way it is intended. We did that on a bipartisan basis. We need to make sure we are focused on that kind of accountability and oversight. Huel we have had at least five Grocery Store worker star from covid19. Some of them tell me maybe it is time to start screening customers before they get to stores. Maybe they will be testing their blood later. ,f coworker does test positive should the employee tell other workers . Senator peters . Sorry, i had am hard time hearing that question. I apologize. Huel i will put it blankly. Several Grocery Store workers have died from covid19. There are some of them who want testing to begin on both workers and customers. If the results come back positive, should the employer let the workers know . What about privacy issues . Quickly, what do you think about that . Peters you are talking about grocery workers in a situation where they dont feel safe. Have to make sure our workers on the front lines have the personal Protection Equipment to keep them safe, to keep the public safe. That is when it will be necessary for us to open up those places of business. Testing needs to be more robust as well, so we can keep people safe. That has to be our first priority. What senator stabenow, about testing customers who come into stores, and what about privacy issues . Sen. Stabenow we have to look at the reality of the situation right now. Where weget a vaccine can feel confident we are protected, we are in a situation where we are better off if we , withur own situation someone walking into a store or a worker who is able to be tested, and they are covid i think it is better to say to a worker, please go home and take care of yourself, and let everyone else work and keep the confidence that they are safe then it is to not know. I think thats where we are right now. Say that if would we are in a group, whether or not five people have covid or not, we would sure want to know. We would prefer that they not be there. Huel carolyn . Carolyn thank you. Senator peters, this question is for you, and this is a tough one to even ask, but we asked viewers for questions. A lot of people cant put food on the table, cannot afford their mortgages. Jerry from detroit wants to know, why are all the politicians collecting their salaries when so many constituents or not . Peters i can certainly appreciate the frustration. Folks who are in a situation where they are now unemployed and worried about the future, i will say that is why we are working day and night to make sure that the resources are provided to men and women all across the state of michigan. That is why i worked so aggressively to make sure we had a robust unemployment system. Past, to get the money they needed to keep food on the table and a roof over their head, we will continue to fight to make sure Small Businesses have the resources they need, and keep their employees on the payroll. For is about fighting everybody to get the income they need to get income for their families. Carolyn you are right about that. Thank you so much, senator peters. Devin we have time for hopefully one more question. Lets go to senator stabenow. I got a number of versions of this and some just came in as we have been talking tonight. What about relief for, student for College Students . Wo children over 17. Both have no jobs, had internships canceled, and they moved online and they moved home, taking classes online. Is that a group that has been left to fall on their own weight . Sen. Stabenow absolutely. I would say senator peters and i have a bill that would make sure they could get the stimulus asck, if someone is at home a College Student with their parents. They should be able to get the 500. Secondly, there is student loan deferment. You can defer up to, in most cases, six months, payments right now. There is a lot more that needs to be done. And hopeful that is done in the next package. Devin i think that just about wraps suppertime for this evening, doesnt it . For thisup our time evening, doesnt it . Huel as usual, we have run out of time before we have run out of questions. Many of you did not get a chance , and you we extend our deep thanks for being on with us, senators. Thank you both very much. We also want to thank many people at fox 2 news, local 4 news, and seven action news for pulling off a complicated five way broadcast, especially given the social distancing our producers and directors are trying to observe. It has been a pleasure to watch this Unusual Partnership come together so we could pass along the information that we all believe is so very critical as we battle this crisis together. Devin i so agree with that. Here is hoping that we are drawing closer to the day when this kind of broadcast is not necessary. Until we get there, we are so grateful to you, whether you have been watching tonight from marquette, alpena, lexington, battle creek, or detroit. We remain mindful that we are together as michiganders, and that goes for tonight and every single night. Yes, hopefully, we will. And these two that are with me tonight are not only competitors on a usual basis, but also friends, and i know we all enjoyed partnering on this. For huel perkins, Carolyn Clifford, and the three proud television stations we represent, i am devon scallion schillian. Stay safe. Good night. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2020] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] cspan has roundtheclock coverage of the federal response to the coronavirus pandemic. It is all available on demand at cspan. Org coronavirus. Updates from governors and state officials. Track the spread through the u. S. And the world with interactive maps. Atch ondemand unfiltered cspan. Org coronavirus. Washington journal primetime a special evening edition on the federal response to the coronavirus pandemic. Our guests are the former Baltimore Health commissioner and a visiting professor at the Milken School of Public Health, on Public Health policy and the battle against the coronavirus. Onthe Heritage Foundation restarting the economy. Join the conversation at 8 00 eastern on cspan. The president s, just released in paperback, presents ever fees of every president , organized by their rankings in our much cited president ial historians survey. Visit our website, cspan. Org thepresident s, and order your copy today, wherever books are sold. Next, Florida Governor ron desantis holds a briefing with warriors on his state with statess on his response from fort lauderdale. This is about 45 minutes. Santos good morning. Testing has been a crucial part of our strategy in the state of florida to fight covid19. We are kind of neck and neck with california for being number two in the country. Usually, when we report, since we are on the east coast, we will go d