Administrations response to the coronavirus and election security. The World Health Organization has now reported there are 79000 cases of coronavirus across at least 30 countries. At least 53 confirmed cases here in the United States. As the virus continues to spread, the Global Economy is already beginning to suffer. All of the warning lights are flashing brightow red. We are staring down a potential pandemic. And the administration has no plan, we have a crisis of coronavirus and President Trump has no plan. Tno urgency, no understanding of the facts or how to coordinate a response. We must to v get a handle on the coronavirus and make sure the United States is fully prepared to deal with its potential lee farreaching consequences. But the Trump Administration has been asleep at the wheel. President trump, good morning, arthere is a pandemic of coronavirus, where are you . Where is your plan . Its just amazing, the crisis grows and grows and we hear nothing. Coronavirus, no coronavirus testing kits had been widely distributed to our hospitals and Public Health labs. President Trump State Department overruled the recommendations of the scientists in the cdc, and allowed infected passengers from a cruise ship to be flown back into the United States. And amazingly, at a time when we know these pandemics can spread, this administration cut the cdc, the agency in charge of fighting these global viruses with a 16 senseless cut to its budget. My fellow americans, thats what they do on all of these things. They just cut, and then the president tries toe claim credit after we restore the money. He did it in the state of the union. Wo he was claiming because of his great work with nih we are curing cancer. He has cut nih and every budget including this one. Its a disgrace of this man to say one thing andno do another. And confounding that does not catch up with him to too many of americans and not many of my colleagues on this side of the aisle. Its probably most dangerous and most egregious when it comes to the coronavirus. If it wasnt just that the present cut cdc last year, hate follows years of drastic cuts to Global Health division at cdc by the Trump Administration. In 2018, cdc was forced to reduce the numbers of countries that operated in 49. Thats how bad it is. We have crises, wev have a world thats different. And this administration, instead of stepping up to the plate runs away listening to the far righteous cut, cut, cut, cut. No matter how it affects people. In 2018, even worse, President Trump ordered the National Security council to scuffle its entire Global Health security unit. And as the department of Homeland Security to do the same. We dont have t epidemic teams, and the National Security council or dhs. I hope, and pray to god corona does not spread to hear. But if it does, we are en because of President Trumps lack of leadership, lack of understanding science, lack of ability to listen to experts and do something about them instead of being concerned, it seems all the time with his own ego. The president has not even taken the simple, sensible step of designating a single official to lead response efforts. In 2014, president obama made the smart decision to appoint ron plane to lead an interagency response to the outbreak. President trump in contrast has hollowed out so many agencies, that one of the key figures responding to coronavirus is ken cuccinelli, an immigrant hardliner with no experience in Public Health. Unbelievable. And totally unprepared for the coronavirus. The right weighing who spent his career kicking around immigrants, is now in charge of our fight with the coronavirus. Because after the president had cdc, eliminated the Global HealthSecurity Units in Homeland Security, and the enc. We are in trouble. President trump is not only failed to martial capable domestic response to the coronavirus, he has been slow to take action to confront the virus abroad. We all know that the best thing to do is to stop it from spreading abroad before it spreads to these United States. ru it puts americans in danger. The videos emerging from behind the Chinese Communist parties internet wall show chinese typeople pleading, pleading with the International Community to expose the scope and scale of this epidemic. The response so far by the Trump Administration is exactly what happens when science skeptics with alternate facts try to run Emergency Response that requires expertise, planning, knowledge, money, cooperation and science based action. Being anti science is not just rhetoric. It hurts us. It hurts every american in many ways. Rthat is what President Trump ad uehis administration do and our republican colleagues lightly go along after months of tiptoeing around the Chinese Communist party and after three years of cutting funding for our epidemic response program, President Trump simply has led the united confrontfair to possible epidemic like coronavirus. Ill have more to say this week about what the Administration Must do to right the ship. On another front, again, the frustration how this administration has conducted itself unprecedented. I know some of my colleagues like to say just like obama it isd not even close. Here is more examples unfortunately on the trampling of the rule of law in this country. Emboldened by the refusal of Senate Republicans to hold him accountable in his impeachment trial President Trump has been interfering with the Justice Department and retaliating against officials in his administration who dared testify truthfully before congress. Short week weve spent in recess the president has managed to plunge our country even deeper into chaos and certainly, certainly has shown the need for having a trial enduring with impeachment getting the truth and not rubberstamping President Trumps behavior. President continued to purge his administration firingsi officias who refuse to pledge allegiance to the president over their allegiance to the constitution. The president classified book and another blatant attempt to cover up the facts. This is what dictatorships do. Dictatorships they Say Something as classified and hide the tru truth. Its a disgrace. The president continues to abuse the pardon power. In one instance commuting the sentence of a notoriously corrupt formerr official without rhyme or reason. Maybe most egregious of all, the president angered that the director of National Intelligence has the gall, the gall, to conduct a bipartisan briefing for the House Intelligence Committee on foreign interference in our elections and replaced him with a political lackey, a yesman, at the head of dni. The truth is needed to be spoken more than in any other place in the government and he has no experience in the Intelligence Community and is simply known as an acolyte to President Trump. With each of these actions, i hate to say it but it is true, any objective person will know President Trump brings our nation closer and closer and closer to a republic, a government not of laws but of one man. A government where officials are asked to swear loyalty not to our country or the constitution but to the president himself. A country where truth is obscured or covered up or deemed fake simply because it is not flattering to the president and not what he wants to hear. President trumps decision to dismiss the dni director, director of National Intelligence is particularly pernicious. Our Intelligence Committee is an institution that is supposed to report on threats to our country with accuracy and without regard to politics to speak truth to power and protect us and for the president to install a yesman at the top of the Intelligence Community the politicized part of a government designed to be apolitical and to so debase the morale of brave men and women in the cia and nsa and many of whom who risk their lives for our safety. Its a disgrace. There are media reports that our Intelligence Community has found that putin continues to engage in activities to influence the outcome of our election and that is o reportedly what former dni mcguire was Briefing Congress about. Though, today along with my democratic colleagues in the beginning Foreign Relations committee, i am sending a letter to secretary pompeo, secretary minh mnuchin, urging them to impose sanctions on putin and his cronies using existing sanctions authority. Itthey have it and they can do. Let me repeat that. The Trump Administration has Broad Authority to impose sanctions for meddling in our elections. It does not need new ledges that have tools of approval. Our message is clear, secretary minh mnuchin impose sanctions now. No one on the Intelligence Community, democrat or will begin is disputed that russia is intending to interfere in our election. Most say russia has already started to do so. E this should be an easy bipartisan effort. We are being attacked today in real time by a foreign adversary and this is not about Party Politics and not about what trump does not want to hear, the russians wanted him to win in 2016 and in all likelihood want him to in 2020. Its about the oath to swear to defend our republic because its americans, i dont care what the party or ideology, if they start believing our elections are not on the level this democracy is in big trouble. Hope my republican colleagues will join us. The administration could impose sanctions tomorrow and it should. A repeat performance of 2016, another campaign of foreign influence in our elections is perhaps the greatest threat to our democracy, Founding Fathers thought so, james madison, he read what he said and he demands that the secretary of state pompeo and the treasury secretary mnuchin identify and target for sanctions all those determined to be responsible for ongoing election interference. Anything less would be an caabdication of their response fully, their sacred, their solemn response ability to protect and defend the United States from this serious threat to our National Security and the integrity of our electoral process. I yield the floor mat coming up tonight on cspan2, the committee catered that encryption and privacy then, a review of the impeachment process. After that, the National Association for business economics hosts a discussion of Economic Policy and later a forum on global vaccination efforts. Cspan your unfiltered view of government. Creed by cable and 1979 and brought to you today by your television provider. Host and the communicators is at the state of the net conference in washington dc. Well show you some of the interviews we conducted with members of congress, government officials and technology leaders. And now on the committee caters we want to introduce you to anyone, associate Deputy Attorney general. What is in your portfolio