Senator toomey good morning, everyone. Im the c. E. O. Of lehigh public media. Gives me great honor to introduce the United States senator from pennsylvania, tim good morning, everyone. Im tim fallon, the ceo of Lehigh Valley public media and it gives me a great honor to introduce the United States senator from pennsylvania, the honorable patrick toomey. Sen. Toomey thank you, tim. Take your time, its all right. Good morning. And thanks for being here. A special thanks to my family for joining me today. For joining me today. My wife chris, my son patrick on the far left, my daughter brigett and our son duncan. My family and i have reached a decision and i wanted to share that with the people of pennsylvania. And that is that i will not be running for reelection in 2022, and i will not be running for governor. I will serve out the remainder of my term for a little over two years that are left of the current term and after that, my plan is to go back to the private sector. I want to say very clearly that representing the people of pennsylvania, this big, beautiful, con my indicated, diverse state, has been an extraordinary, amazing honor. It still is, and its been by far the highlight of my professional life. The reasons that ive reached this decision are not political. Theyre personal. The decision is consistent with a longheld view ive had in support of term limits. I committed myself to limiting my terms in the house. I didnt do that in the senate but id always thought that id probably serve just two terms and often mention that would along the way. But the real reasons are, by the time i finish this term, i will have been in Public Office for 18 years. Ver a 24year period there was a sixyear hiatus but even then i was very involved in politics, running the club for growth and spending two of those years run forget senate. 18 years is a long time and all of that time our family has lived in pennsylvania. That was the rights decision for our family and ive spent as little time as i can in washington. Coming back home as quickly as i can after the end of official business but it still ends up being a lot of time, a lot of time away from home and im looking forward to more time back at home. I have no specific plans and im not going to spend time or energy thinking about what ill do later until a good two years from now because ive got a lot of work still ahead of me. Im really pleased with the work ive been able to do. These past 10 years have been extraordinary. Ive focused on policies that i believe will help maximize opportunity and prosperity in pennsylvania and across the country. Grateful to be able to play a significant role on the tax reform and regulatory relief trailed policy. Across pennsylvania, senator casey and i have developped a great working relationship in filling vacancies on our federal bench and he and i together have outpaced every other divided delegation and almost every other delegation in the senate in the category of filling vacancies on the federal bench and weve done so with just some wonderful talented people across pennsylvania. Fighting the opioid crisis, fighting for victims of crime, standing with the police and law enforcement, these are some of the things ive focused on and i will continue to focus on over the counter of these next two years. Until also be another time further down the road where im have a chance to give proper recognition and express my appreciation to the people quhosm made my service possible. So literal little millions of supportsers across pennsylvania to whom i will always be grateful for in opportunities. The statue that works for me across the commonwealth as well as in washington. Theres no dow. In my mind ive got the best statue in washington. They are just incredibly talented, capable men and women who get up every day and work as hard as they can to serve the people of pennsylvania and our exun country and they do a phenomenal job and mostly, my family. Especially my wife, chris. She and our family have made a lot of unseen sacrifices over the years so that i would be able to pursue this passion. But as i say, ive got two years left and my intention is to work as hard as i possibly can. I will have the luxury in a way of not having a campaign to manage at the same time. It is my home that ill be the chairman of the Senate Banking committee because i am hope and feel cautiously optimistic that my republican colleagues will prevail in a number of tough races and we will be in the majority and i home to be serving these last two years with President Donald Trump have been been reelected. I supports his campaign and his reelection and im looking forward to the great things that he and a republicancontrolled senate, together with a house of whatever political configuration it ends up being, whack we can accomplish in the years ahead. With thats that, id be happy to take a couple of questions. Reporter the president s diagnosis of having covid19, being in the hospital and what appears to be difficult messaging around what his condition. Is what role did that play in you deciding not to run again . Senator toomey that played absolutely no role whatsoever. I reach this would decision before the president was diagnosed so no role what receiver. Reporter why announce this now . Senator toomey yeah, thats a good question. So the reason i decided to announce this is because in recent weeks especially ive been getting phone calls almost on a daily basis from people who have said i want to help you run for governor. I want to help your reelection campaign. I want to host a funds raiser. I want to reach out to this group of folks. Many, many different ways that people from all over pennsylvania have been reaching outs and once i reach the decision, i need to be can did with them and i feel like i should candid with everybody. Thats the main reason. I made a decision, its not going to change so i want to let everyone know. Reporter how long as your mind been made up . Senator too many criy not very long. Days, weeks, Something Like that. Reporter running for governor . Senators toomey i have not thought about that. I suspect well have quite a number of candidates, at least initially and im confident well field a terrific candidate and i look forward to supporting that candidate. Eporter [inaudible] about something the president has done or said. How much did that weigh on you, e possibility of having to continue to do that . Senator toomey that had no bearing on anything whatsoever. I am not responsible for the president s twitter fields, im not responsible for edit editing his comments in any medium. I work with this president on a regular basis. Its a very scruck active working relationship. And when i disagree with him, which i have, i have said so. That has nothing to do with this decision. Do i think i could win statewide . I dont want this to come across the wrong way. I have been in five tough and competitive general elections. Three in what was the 15th congressional district, which is now the seventh, and two in pennsylvania. I have won all five of them. If i decided to run, i would have won again. That is a great question. There is a lot i hope we will be able to do. When we reformed the tax code in response to the reformed code, and some regulatory changes, the American Economy reached new highs, outperformed virtually all expectations. We had the strongest economy of my entire life. Unfortunately, some of the provisions on the tax reform are set to expire. One of the things we can do to help people get back to work and have higher wages is to make those provisions permanent. We have an opportunity to expand more trade. I would like to see our country is freetrade agreements with the u. K. , the eu, with many countries in asia. It is good for us economically to do that. It will also be good geopolitically as a way to bring allied countries together to strengthen our ability to stand up to bad behavior on the part of the chinese government. That is going to be important. If i get a chance to chair the banking committee, there is really important work i would like to do in that space. We still have fannie mae and freddie mac in conservatorship. This is the great unfinished work of the financial crisis, and i would like to bring an end to the status of those two giants. I would like to see if there are ways i know there are ways i would like to see us be able to expand opportunities for middleincome americans to be investors at lower cost with an opportunity for them to benefit from a generally growing economy. There is very exciting things happening in technology. Payment systems, the possibility of digital currency, all of these things are really important and exciting changes. They are going to require new regulation and legislation and all of those things i look forward to working on in the next few years. Do you still believe that considering there are three members of the u. S. Senate who contracted covid19, that judge barrett should have hearings and be voted on prior to the election or even close to after election, considering [indiscernible] sen. Toomey it has very, very long been custom of the United States that the president who nominates and the senate that confirms, when those two institutions are led by the same party, nominees are confirmed whether it is a president ial year or not. I think we should go forward on this. I think we can absolutely do it safely. I have every confidence lindsey graham, who will be responsible for conducting Judiciary Committee hearings, will do so in a way that keeps people safe. I think we should go ahead and proceed with that. Vote prior to the election . Sen. Toomey i think it is likely we vote prior to the election and when we have finished the process, we should vote. [indiscernible] sen. Toomey i am not sure the answer to that. The white house policy has been a combination of very frequent and vigorous testing and social distancing, mask wearing, and yes, i am sure there have been lapses along the way in compliance of all those things. I continue to encourage people to wear masks. I think it is back in march when i was sequestering myself in our basement and was convinced mask wearing would reduce the risk of transmission, so we put up a little video making the case. I am glad to see that mask wearing generally has caught on. [indiscernible] sen. Toomey i dont know, you would have to ask the president. [indiscernible] sen. Toomey as i said earlier, you know, as we approach the election, there was increasing interest in the cycle. That happens. As the only elected statewide republican other than judges, it was understandable that people would ask what my plans were, and as people offered support and there was increasing discussion about it, i wanted to be candid with people. Once i made my decision, i thought it best to let people know. If im going to let some people know, i should let everybody know. I also think it would be helpful for republicans across the state who are thinking about running for the senate or governor to have a little more time to get organized. [indiscernible] with the divisiveness in washington, President Trump aside how much did that , influence your decision . Sen. Toomey that really was not what it was about. 18 years is a long period of time in a persons life. I have no regrets about the decision i made to pursue this. But i will be finished two years from now, working as hard as i cant have 2 very productive use. No question we are extremely polarized and that manifests health and one guest manifests itself in congress all the time. But we came together and we passed unprecedented legislation on a massive scale. It,id it quickly and we did i think, unanimously. Fortunately we were able to come together when the country really needed it. [indiscernible] sen. Toomey i will cooperate in whatever ways the Campaign Asks me to. Have you made any public appearances on his behalf . Sen. Toomey i have made public appearances with the president. I have not been a surrogate speaker, per se, but i am open to however the campaign would like to use me. [indiscernible] sen. Toomey i have not. I put a call to the president as it happened very shortly before he was diagnosed. I think he has other things to think about right now. I wish him well and a speedy recovery. I am encouraged by the good news you have been hearing recently about his condition. I am sure i will speak with him soon. Thank you all very much, i appreciate it. Who will control congress in january . Stay informed on all the congressional races leading up to election day with cspans campaign 2020 coverage. Watch the candidates debates and Election Results on cspan. Watch online at cspan. Org. Or listen on the free cspan radio app. Cspan, your unfiltered view of politics. Cspans washington journal. Every day we are taking your calls you on the air on the news on the day and discussing politics of issues that impact you. Coming up to do morning, a Senior Editor of the Cook Political Report discusses key senate races. And a vicepresident ial scholar previews wednesday nights Vice President ial debate. Watch cspans washington journal live at 7 00 eastern tuesday morning. Be sure to join the discussion with your phone calls, facebook comments, Text Messages and tweets. Watch live coverage of the Senate Confirmation hearings for judge Amy Coney Barrett starting monday, october 12, with Opening Statements by Judiciary Committee members and judge merrick. Life and judge barrett. Be sure to visit cspan. Org to view a playlist of Amy Coney Barrett legal views. Next, a discussion on the 20 president ial election, Foreign Policy, and the future of Transatlantic Relations under a trump or biden presidency. This panel of Foreign Policy analysts was hosted by the brookings institution. 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