House minority leader Kevin Mccarthy also met with the two membersected republican , and held a News Conference with them to discuss the Coronavirus Response and other legislative topics. This is half an hour. Members hi, guys, how are you today . Good to see you. Rep. Mccarthy we ready . [inaudible] is thank you for joining us today. As we managed to go through the last couple of months, it has been some of the Biggest Challenges this country has had. The number of deaths and others. If you look in the last week, the improvement when it comes to testing, or than 2. 2 million tests in the last seven days. I am hearing governors talk capabilities capabilities and t taking 100 of the opportunities. During this crisis we had two special elections. Today i have two special guests. One in wisconsin, tom tiffany, and one in california, mike rcf mike garcia. Most have a good indication of what november will feel like. Took a democrat sea and more than 22 years, since 1998. This district of democrats won by more than nine percentage points. Katie hill unfortunately had to resign. Mike garcia, having never one before, but having grown up in the district, being a firstgeneration american, always dreamed, from the age of six, to maybe become a fighter pilot. Excelled in high school, and was nominated to the Naval Academy from this congress. Academy hel graduated in the top 3 , becoming a fighter pilot, defending his nation when the time came. Then, after his Service Inside the navy, he went into business. He ran as an individual who could unite his district. Winning the district by more than nine points and not being able to and being able to flip a district that had not been flipped and 22 years. Been a smallhaving business owner, ran in the state assembly, but also watched a district that recently had a Supreme Court race where the conservative only got 6 of the vote. Tom tiffany got more than 14 of the vote this election. Democrats believe that they could flip this seat back. Reports lot of early that the special elections were going to be the indicator for november. Because, history has proven that to be true. A special2010 we had election in hawaii, one that republicans are not one in a long time. Lo and behold, republicans won it and congress flipped. Then we had the race in 2018 in pennsylvania. Conor lamb won the special election and the democrats won the majority. Racesindications in these show what will happen in november. Whats interesting to me as that the democrats are not talking they plan it because on winning these two seats. A whole different change is arising. And what i found with coming forward is, this is an early indication of what november will see. Me invite up the new to congressman. Its different than we than when we took over and were sworn in. It took 19 seats to win a majority. Today that number is 17. 17 seats to win the majority. Congressman mike garcia stands up to talk, there are 42 democrats that sit in seats at have better numbers for republicans to win and mike rcf. If you want to know with mike garcia. If you want to know what an american story looks like, i give you the newly sworn in congressman. Rep. Garcia thank you for that kind introduction. I would like to introduce my beautiful bride, rebecca. Who is 13boy, preston and our youngest boy, whos on his own program today. Here. You for having us this is a tremendous honor to be a part of history. I can think of no better place right now to serve my country than in the house of representatives. I want to thank the folks, especially in the 25th district of california for the tremendous support, 715,000 people have recognized the need for leadership right now more than ever in our nations history. Someone who is a patriot and running for the right reasons. Someone was looking to do the right thing for our nation. I look forward to working and unifying this nation as we work through the crisis. Not only the covid crisis, but the National Security crisis that china represents against our nation, and several domains. I appreciate you all being here. We look forward to serving with honor, encourage, and bringing together not only does party, but also americans across the nation. I think you all for having us. Thank you very much. Wisconsin we in had a small business, legislator, and individuals who learned greatly on how to serve his nation, is community, and overwhelmingly elected to serve in congress by a 14 point margin. I give you newly elected congressman tom tiffany. Still have to get out of the habit. Tom tiffany here. Its great to be here and be sworn in out here in washington, d. C. My family, my wife chris, my daughters, we made the road trip here. 18 hours from northern wisconsin on sunday. Its a great overnight trip. Its a good thing we have five drivers. We were able to make it here unscathed. It is a real privilege to be sworn in with representative. Arcia here today i had the honor to represent northern wisconsin and the wisconsin state legislator. As i tell people all the time, we are in a difficult time coming out of the recession. We made a hard decision to turn our state around. Thats why i ran for congress. Thats why i ran for congress. We need that same attitude in washington, d. C. You are seeing the leading edge of it right now. People want reform. They want our country to get back up on its feet again. That means government needs to be responsive to the citizens of this country. Thats what i will fight for every day. On maya decisive victory 12. Just like representative garcia, i cannot thank my constituents enough for entrusting me to be able to defeat sean duffy and do good things for america. Because we are going to get america back up on our feet again. Thank you. [applause] rep. Mccarthy lets open it up for questions. Ask about the coronavirus protection act. That is one of the things you are going to sign. , andou elaborate on that why it was so important for you to sign it . Rep. Tiffany its one of my first asked to sign that petition because i have been proudly prolife. When i served in the legislator, we voted to end lateterm abortions. I have always been proudly prolife, and i will continue to be. I echo congressman tiffanys statements. I am proud to be prolife, especially lateterm and after birth. This was a very easy thing for me to support. In your meeting with the did they ask for [inaudible] to provide more flexibility . We have talked about a number of fixes. I think a couple of things that when itpropriate comes to the small business, the ppp and the eight week time oeru period had to use the money, and never have states have been shut down. We have a number of states and communities out there where people are actually paying more to be off work than coming back to work. We have Small Businesses that are being challenged to bring employees back. We are looking at ways to fix that as well. Have concerns about the firings of the igs . Is there anything being done looking into that . The president has the authority to do that. About harming the ability for the state department to do their work. The president has the right to do it. You are comfortable . Yes. Take it in the aspect of just seeing that. Lets look at what has happened for the last three years. By theat we uncovered unmasking of past administrations. We know the actions individuals are doing. I dont think they should ever take place again. They should not be used to harm the state department from working. We know the behavior of individuals as well. We are long past those. The president has the authority to do it and i support his rights to do it. Are we still looking after the memorial day reset . Im not in the majority. If i was, we would be back working. You can go blocks over here and get a starbucks. Congress is still closed. Not the senate, congress. I believe congress is essential. I believe our founders would be ashamed of us for not assembling. The idea that congress can back to vote on cash for cannabis, that bill had more to do with cannabis and jobs. It mentioned that more than jobs. Those ideas had long been the progressive socialist ideas before covid ever came around. Electionging about law, prisoners, prioritizing illegal immigrants. Pension for states as well. Those are not the things that deal with covid. Unfortunately, thats the focus of the democratic party. They changed the way we vote in congress. You just watched to members of congress, their district has just loaned those individuals their voice and power until november. In congress, we have 435 people like that. They do not have an equal voice. Now, 20 people can run all of congress. One person can carry 10 votes. How do your constituents hold you accountable when you give that power to Something Else . This is not about opening up a campus. Its about bringing back the voice of america. They have a right to have a voice in the legislation. With the democrats, they believe different. They dont believe congress is essential. I believe we are. We can do that in a safe manner. Morelicans put out a plan than a month ago. How can we open up congress safely . A few committees at a time. Areas. Rve and bigger we proved we can vote in a different manner that allows us to carry out the legislation. Right now, all the power is being sucked in by the speaker. Billan write a 3 trillion , the biggest bill ever passed in congress, never going through one committee or having one overview or accountability to it. An idea of a wish list of liberals ideas. Thate of the things mcconnell wants his liability protection. [inaudible] we agree on this 100 . Ive watched more than 700 lawsuits already. You know who they are focused on . Small businesses. Those that are trying to stay alive today. Those that employ more people than any other business. Ive watched trial lawyers advertising right now. That would only harm our ability to come back as a nation. We need liability protection. Thats exactly what will happen in any bill that is passed in the future. Yes . Congratulations. There is concern among republicans about the mailin ballot system. Theres opportunity there for corruption, harvesting, all of that. The gop would be disadvantaged. You won a race that was a primarily mailin ballot system. Do you share those same concerns . Republicans want everybody to have the ability to vote. We want to make sure we have an honest election as well. The concern we have is nationalizing a campaign. States have the responsibility to run elections. States have the ability to decide not all states are exactly the same. Covid hit overwhelmingly in new york. The was a lot of mismanagement that happened. There are different ways to have elections. In california, we vote by mail quite often. Overwhelmingly. They decided this entire election by mail. Something happened right before the election. Democrats opened up another in person voting booth. We want people to have the ability. We want to make sure they are honest elections, but you were able to have trust in results coming through. We dont have a problem of somebody votes by mail. You try to federalize election is the problem. States have the right to do that. We want to make sure that everybody has the ability to vote and each vote is counted and is not lost. Not thecia is accessibility. Highly encouraged. I was proud to see, we ended up having 420,000 ballots sent out to all registered voters with selfaddressed envelopes. It was an unprecedented level of access to vote. It was unique to the covid19 experience. It is concerning. There is a significant chain of custody challenges with voting by mail. In california, we track it online. We get the warm fuzzy after a week or so that are ballot was not only received but also counted. It also allows for opportunities for fraud and other issues that we cant necessarily manage. Im proud of my campaign and team. We were able to stay on top of it. We stayed at the Registrars Office for every moment they were open to make sure the counting process was thorough and legitimate with no issues. That was very effective. A lot of mount power to make your that that was done. In the end, if you have the right candidate and message, and if the campaign is running as well as it should be and could be, we can win every election we run in. We will. We will be successful this fall. We have the right message and great candidates nationwide. Im proud of my team for what they accomplished. Thank you. If you look at wisconsin over the last couple months, weve had a couple elections. One of the great concerns we elections,the spring there were thousands of ballots that were not delivered via mail. There were people that were not able to vote as a result of that mailin system not working. We have a very robust absentee ballot process in wisconsin. We allow registration online. You can register up until the same day of an election. Yet, many people did not get their votes counted back on that april 7 election. We need to be very cautious of this. Make sure that there is good access to absentee ballots. Many take many people have taken advantage of it over the past couple elections. We have to make sure that people are getting their votes counted. But did not happen in wisconsin on april 7. L. A. Times found real problems with people filling out false absentees. We want to make sure that your vote gets counted and you have the ability to vote. More people voted in the special election then voted in this district in the primary. We were able to have more votes. This is a states the democrats won by more than nine points. Mike garcia flipped out on the other end. Its the home state of nancy pelosi. Not only did they change the election process through obstacle all obstacles, that says a big thing about my garcias ability to unite the district. Its not about a party but about the country. Yes sir . [inaudible] good question. [inaudible] rep. Mccarthy i will never refer to a president about being morbid in any shape or form. I would not. I would not rip up the state of the union from a democratic president either. I would hope that as a historical document. I will not impeach just for political praises. I will believe in the rule of law. I will not take over Congress Just a have power and only allowed to 20 people to vote. Theres a reason why we will change power in november. The speaker will come back to uphold the constitution and believe in the laws that we should rightfully be passing. [inaudible] will you be supporting this antitrust action . Rep. Mccarthy these are the types of things that should have congress back in session. We have the National Defense authorization to pass. We are not in to work on that. Apparently, starbucks is more essential than congress under this speakership. That is why we need to change course. Let me go to the phone to see if theres anybody here that has a question as well. Our first question is from eric from bloomberg. Thanks for doing this call. Just a question on the next stimulus package. You said that you would be open to it at some point. What is the metric that we you will be using to evaluate . What are the next steps in that process . Will there be another bill coming forward . Rep. Garcia i would make sure that the 3 trillion that we arty past gets and limited correctly. Today, every state doing some form of opening back up. To be able to secure the data of what is needed Going Forward before you take any action. It would not focus on cannabis or prisoners. It would not focus on putting the election under the federal office takeover. It would focus on those things that covid dealt with and the economy and rebuilding. We see promise every single day. Just yesterday, the promise of an antibody coming forward. The advancements weve had in vaccine and others. The viruses here. We did not invited or wanted. We will defeated together. That would be the focus of any bill if it moves forward. Is there another question . Our next question is from christina peterson. Theres been a lot of focus on the provision in the house bill that would give direct payment to undocumented immigrants with a taxpayer identification number. The previous legislation also created a situation where a u. S. Citizen married to someone with an i. T. I. S. Could not receive a direct payment. Are you comfortable with that status quo, that citizens married to people with those numbers cannot receive direct payments . Rep. Mccarthy thank you. I hope you are safe. I do not think hardworking u. S. Taxpayers should be paying for illegals. If you are an american citizen, you have a right to the payment. If you meet the criteria. In this time of crisis, we should focus on americans. Question. Our next question is from melanie sedona. Said that you dont think another Coronavirus Relief package is needed at this time. Are there certain benchmarks . At this point, the number of coronavirus cases that you are looking at to make that determination. As far as the timeline, do you think there could be another package before the july 4 recess . Rep. Mccarthy it would be nice if congress would be in session. There will not be a package of nancy pelosi continues to do it alone. I would look at the 3 trillion we already passed, making sure he gets implemented into the economy. Take an assessment of where we are, from unemployment and others. Make sure we dont have to sentence for people to work. Those are the things i will look to. How do we rebuild the economy . How do we make sure we do not put our position ourselves in this position with china again . Building the vaccine to keep us all safe. One more question. Fromr next question is bella see. Leader maccarthy, i wanted to ask you about the vote by mail mandates that are in the heroes act. There is concern regarding the mandate that voters should be getting ballots automatically across the nation. States should be sending these ballots automatically to every registered voter. If that mandate were adopted, could that cause issues with fraud or any other logistical problems for states . Would you support that kind of mandate going into effect . Rep. Garcia dr. Fauci i would not support rep. Mccarthy i would not support that. States have the power to run elections. They know best on how to run it. We have supplied resources to make sure that they are secure in their elections as well. States can determine how they would run their elections. Theres a lot of hybrids in the process dealing with covid. We just went through a special election in california where everybody was mail the ballot. They opened up actual in person voting. We had a very fair, honest election that had an outcome that we had not seen in 22 years. Just as you watched special elections before, it was an early indicator of what will happen in november. These two people behind me, the best indication that come november, there will be a change in the house and america will be in a stronger position. Thank you and have a nice day. Thank you. Congratulations. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2020] [inaudible] with the federal government at work in the sea and throughout the country, use the congressional directory for Contact Information for members of congress, governors, and federal agencies. Order your copy online today. Let me go somewhere else. Experts have told us its not safe to reopen the economy until we have worked protections in place to control the spread of covid. Things like testing, contact tracing, addictive equipment efforts that the president is clearly failing to lead to help our country. You said theres considerable risk of not reopening but keeping some businesses closed can cause permanent economic damage. How many workers will die if we send people back to work without the protections they need . We dont intend to send anybody back to work without the protections. I was prepared to come there today. I thought it was safe to testify. I already was at the senate this morning wearing a mask. I assure you, both myself and everybody on the task force are following the best medical advice. I could not be more proud of the medical advice that we are getting and the way the economy is opening up in a safe way. Workers should give their lives to increase our gdp by 0. 5 . You are pushing people back into the workplace. Programbeen no national to provide worker safety. The presences president says, reopen slaughterhouses. Nothing about protective equipment. Workers should give their lives to increase the gdp by 1000 points . No workers. I think your characterization is unfair. We have provided enormous amounts of equipment. We worked with governors. We have done a terrific job. Im not going to make you let a political speech about what a great job with done. We hear that from the president at his News Conferences. Notpresident is still leading an effort to scale up testing. He has played state after state against state. Hes played hospital against hospital to get protective equipment. Everybody knows that. We said last week, the and is go initial fascicle support leading to a stronger economy. Congress needs to think about more than the National Debt right now. It is less costly to act today to help people. Is that right, mr. Chairman . Answer quickly. That is what i said. This is really a question for congress to weigh on. I wanted to call it the risk, the risk of longerterm damage to the economy. That is what i was doing. We may need to do more. Thank you. The Administration Things we should put more workers at risk to juice the stock market. They have not come up with a basic plan to perfect protect workers. They want to give away trillions in tax breaks to millionaires. The price tag didnt matter when that happened. We need to spend money now to keep workers safe in spite of the comments of some in the administration and some leadership. Thank you. I would disagree with that characterization as well. Lets move on to senator tenney. Earlier today, Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell and treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin testified remotely before the Senate Banking committee about the 2 trillion cares act, which passed in march as part of the government Coronavirus Response. Watch tonight at 8 00 eastern on cspan. Journal,s washington live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. ,oming up wednesday morning well discuss the latest on the federal response to the coronavirus pandemic with Michigan Republican congressman fred upton and Michigan DemocraticAugust Mcgahn gilbey. The American PublicHealth Association talks about the potential risk states face as they reopen under the pandemic. Watch cspans washington journal, live at 7 00 eastern wednesday morning. During the discussion. The president s, from public affairs, available now in paperback and ebook. President , of every organized by their ranking by noted historians from best to worst. Features perspectives into the lives of our nations chief executives and leadership styles. To learn moreite about each president and historian featured. Order your copy today wherever books and ebooks are sold. Earlier today, President Trump talk about the u. S. Food supply chain and how to help families in need. He also announced the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program to provide 19 billion to support the nations farmers