Quorum call . The presiding officer no. Mrs. Blackburn we are not. Thank you, mr. President. You know, i have to say last night was an unusually late night here in washington and we were all impatient, our staff was impatient, and the press was impatient. And as we talked to people across the state, what we realized was theyve long been running out of patience. I talked about it for some time on the floor but for the hourly worker, factory worker, songwriter, gig worker, theyve been telling me they are running out of time and they have just been really anxious for what was going to come about out of this chamber. And i know that in the days and weeks ahead, as we work through getting relief to communities and individuals and Small Business owners and large companies, that theres going to be a lot of blame that is going to be thrown around. There are going to be some that are going to blame politicians. There are others that are going to blame the way the economy is structured. There are others still who are going to blame the health care system. But i will tell you i think that there is a necessity to have a discussion about why we do have this current crisis, and it is because of the leadership of the chinese government, the peoples republic of china. That leadership in beijing. And we have gone round and round with activists and media on the point and i shouldnt have to point out that when we say that china is to blame for the spread of the Novel Coronavirus that we call covid19, we do not mean the Chinese People as a whole, but yet we have some that do not want to say this is where it came from. I think we should stop that and we should move forward with decisions based on fact, with decisions that are based on data, and we need to begin to collect those facts and to collect that data as it pertains to this disease. This is how we get to the antivirals, this is how we get to having a vaccine, and its how we look at Lessons Learned so that we dont go back through this again, so that we plan to tackle some of the unexpected occurrences that will come our way. And as we talk about facts, we do know that covid19 originated in wuhan, china. From there it spread rapidly and it has had devastating consequences. The economy is crumbling. Were working desperately to shore it up. Innocent people have been in the hospital or sick. I talked to one tennessean this morning who said, im happy to report my husband is coming back around. He has been suffering for the last many days with covid19. Weve got world the Worlds Health care professionals, and what are they doing . They are working to the point of exhaustion. And what you have is beijings reckless communist dogma and they are trying to blame everybody else. And today we are going to move forward with the rescue package. This is the phase three package. It is the fourth tranche of money. Im including in that the president s emergency declaration, which put about 50 billion towards fighting this. And as we do this and as we say what is our way forward on on addressing this, what we have do is realize that our relationship with china is going to need to change and change for the better. There is no denying that the way they have conducted themselves has put that relationship on dangerous ground. And today i invite my colleagues to support the bicameral Senate Resolution 553 and acknowledge that beijing intentionally spread misinformation to downplay the severity of covid19 and baselessly denied the risk of persontoperson transmission of the disease. They refused to cooperate with International Health authorities, including the c. D. C. During the early days of the outbreak, they censored doctors and journalists. We all remember what happened with the late dr. Li when he tried to give us the warnings, and on top of everything else, they maliciously ignored the health and safety of ethnic minorities. Mr. President , this is the easy part. The facts are there. All we have to do is acknowledge the facts that are there and use this as a beginning because this resolution is, as i said, its bicameral, it is bipartisan in the house, and we have no reason not to push it forward and send the message that we realize what happened to cause a global pandemic. And after we acknowledge beijings gross malfeasance, were going to adjust the way we think about china in the context of the economy, of our national defense, technology, human rights, and pharmaceutical manufacturing. When you think about it, the fact that beijing intentionally downplayed the deadly nature of covid19 should come as no surprise. For decades decades china has made a business it has been their business to search out our vulnerabilities, exploit those vulnerabilities and what did they try to do . They tried to use that as leverage against us. So it is time for us to say no more. Now, here is another component. Ive talked about in this week on the floor. Our pharmaceutical supply chain. On february 22, 2020, this year the f. D. A. Announced the shortage of a drug used to treat victims of covid19. Imagine that, there was a drug shortage. They attributed the shortage of getting the active ingredient in this pharmaceutical, they are called ap a. P. I. s. They couldnt get it from the site in china which is the site that manufactured it because that site had been affected by covid19. So here we are. We need this component to go into a pharmaceutical. We didnt get it because the factory that produces this has been affected by covid19. And its not the first time that this has happened. In 2016, we saw a shortage of an important antibiotic when the sole source of its production, the only place on the globe that produced this antibiotic was in china and that factory was shut down, couldnt get it. Our vulnerability is not limited to one drug or even just a handful of drugs. In 2007 and 2008, 246 people died after taking a contaminated blood thinner that came directly from a factory in china. They died, 246 people, just like that. Routine inspections didnt catch the contaminant and the drugs flowed right into our medicine cabinets. 2010, regulators also found Serious Problems with batches of thyroid medication, muscle relaxers, antibiotics, and this week i got an email from a tennessean. He said i saw what you said on the floor, and i want to let you know i take a heart medication, and it was just recalled because it contained a carcinogen and it was made in china. Think about this. These are the pharmaceuticals we take to return ourselves to health and wellness, to manage chronic conditions. And here we have example after example of things that are contaminated, are not what they are intended to be. These are basic, common medications n. 2018 the f. D. A. Recalled several Blood Pressure medications made in china that were contaminated with cancercausing toxins. Now, i would imagine there are a few people that come to work every day in this building that take a Blood Pressure medication. What if you had been taking one for a period of time, and it contained the cancercausing toxins . Americans deserve better than this from their pharmaceutical supply chain. If we allow this to continue, we are going to do so at our own peril. I encourage my colleagues to support the bipartisan securing americas medicine cabinet act. Senator menendez has worked on this legislation with me, and im grateful to him for his support. Mr. President , you are working on legislation that would address some of these issues. Bring this pharmaceutical manufacturing back into the United States of america. We need to end chinese control over our health and wellness in this pharmaceutical supply chain. This may seem like something that is too large or too risky an undertaking but we have already paid dearly for our reliance on chinese drug manufacturers, and its not going to stop because that vulnerability is leverage in the hands of madmen in beijing who seek nothing but power and will go to any lengths to acquire that power. They dont care who they hurt. Its clear with this global pandemic. They dont care if it is innocent people that are sick or maybe even that lose their life and they defy us, they defy us when we try to stop them. Its time that we rise to the challenge and that we return this supply chain. Ive yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum. The presiding officer the clerk will call the roll. Quorum call a senator mr. President . The presiding officer the senator from indiana. A senator are we in a quorum call . The presiding officer yes. Mr. Braun could we lift the quorum call . The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Braun mr. President , ive been here a little over a year. I keep mentioning that often because what a year its been. In that stretch, theres not been a period of time where i think theres been so much urgency for us as a senate, for the other chamber to do their job to deliver for the American People. Were in the midst of a crisis that in building a business over 37, 38 years, youve constantly got hurdles to jump. You never really know the clear outcome. You try to have a great strategy with good implementation, good tactics that would be your salvation through thick or thin. When it comes to the coronavirus, its not like we havent had other recent issues but nothing quite like this to where it started in another country. Its gone across the world. And it now looks like that vector into our country, we may be dealing with it on a broader scale. Im a guy that believes in free enterprise. I dont like it when government has to step in. But i dont know what we would have done otherwise in this case. Until we tamp the disease down, until we get that curve flattened, no one is going to be at ease. Weve invested three, four weeks of actual guidelines. We knew it was coming way before that. I am hopeful that weve been doing a lot of the right things, even before we were required to do that. So we cant relent on that course. On the other hand, never in my wildest dreams would have imagined an economy could be affected like it has. Stores from my home get stories from my home state of indiana all the time, not only from the places like hotels, restaurants, bars, airlines, i think our senior senator actually either went home or came out here, might have been the only person on the plane. Thats a graphic example of how this is impacting commerce. The hotel owner i talked to, 2 occupancy in the week before. Into weve come together this past weekend. We worked through it. I think thats been the first time ive been here that on a legislative matter weve done that. Democrats and republicans at the Grassroots Level working to deliver what i think is a good package. It focuses on, number one, who needs it the most. Work thears have been displaced workers that have been displaced and Small Business owners. It also has stuff in for the broader part of the economy. Urgency is the key. Were working through right now some shortterm corrections, and i hope that doesnt thwart the process. We should have had this across the finish line sunday evening to where it could have been delivered on monday morning and we would still have the nation on high alert about what were going to do here. And it can only come from here in this case. Im going to segue into we need to get that done today and im going to be for it. Each state, each senator, each representative is going to have to deliver to the Small Business owners, the individuals that have been displaced by this. And ive got a team back in indiana that has taken on just a big spectrum of case work, and i invite you when this legislation gets across the finish line to make sure you reach out to our office. Many of our cases regrettably have been along the lines of helping folks interface with the v. A. Sadly, i wish there were fewer of them but weve had really good luck. We interfaced when a cruise ship had hoosiers stranded and were able to follow up on the process to make sure they came back. Currently dealing with cases where youre stranded overseas. Whatever it is, come to our senate office. Weve got a great team and they have helped a lot of hoosiers out already. I want to end on a positive note. I think this has got the country down because everything you see is in the context of negativity. I like the fact that aspiratio aspirationally many are already talking about what were going to do when we come out of it. And through prayers and through all the stuff americans, hoosiers have done, i think were going to see that curve start to flatten. I like the approach weve taken to put the emphasis on the disease because until those numbers go down, no one is going to be at ease. So as we look to the future, monday was the first threshold, 15 days. We need to reassess, take all the information weve gained and gathered, and make the right decisions going forward. I trust our governors and our local governments across the country to do the same thing. And we will come out ahead. We are going to flatten the curve and make sure that were taking care of the most important thing first. And i think thats going to be here hopefully sooner rather than later. And then we also need to be aspirational about what is really going to get this country back to business as usual and thats when we can have main street going back to the way it was a month or two ago when we can recapture the best economy that we probably ever had in history. And i know hoosiers will do their job. They will be aspirational and americans across the country will do the same. I yield the floor. I notice the absence of a quorum. The presiding officer the clerk will call the roll. Quorum call a senator mr. President . The presiding officer the senator from georgia. A senator i would ask that the quorum call be vitiated, please. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Perdue mr. President , were on the cusp of a historic bill today, bipartisan bill that we took a different approach thanks to our Republican Leadership where we put the leaders of each of the committees, both democrat and republicans, to focus on their portion of the needs behind this covid19 crisis. Before i get into my remarks today, though, i want to remind the colleagues here today that we have sponsored a resolution recognizing and thanking all the people in america who are stepping up and as others have said, put their own health and their Families Health at risk to make sure that their neighbors and friends and patients and Business Partners are taken care of. Im talking about supply chain people, health care workers, transportation workers. All the people in the country, ag industry, all the people in the country who are keeping the essential needs of our population going. While restaurants are closed, they have takeout service, even here in washington, d. C. That is not an easy thing to do for those folks. Its a theyre losing money on it. I wanted to make sure we recognize in the midst of this crisis how americans are responding. Americans always respond to crisis in a better way than anybody else in the history of the world, in my opinion. Sometimes were not always the quickest to recognize that were in a crisis, but right now we are responding to this one right here before us. As a matter of fact, mr. President , i believe we have two crises today. One is obviously the medical crisis, the Health Care Crisis that we now are characterizing at covid19 virus. We now how it only natured. We now know what other countries are learning that who are ahead of us in the cycle. But because of that we have a connecting economic crisis that were trying to deal with in this piece of legislation today. I hope we can get this done tonight. I dont see any reason why we cant. We have a deal. There are some questions here in the last hour, but i think well get those done and hopefully get this voted on tonight. As we deal with these two crises, mr. President , its my suggestion that we look at this how readdress dealing with this crisis in three faces. Right now were in the middle of the first phase and i would characterize it as mobilization where weve identifying the severity of the disease. Were identifying who is the most vulnerable. Were identifying what we need to deal with it and mobilizing behind that. We see a dramatic increase in the number of tests thanks to Vice President pence. We still have shortages of testing kits and swabs and reagents and even testing machines but we have things like in my state where one of our major hospitals, Emory University hospital has their own testing. They can do it in a matter of hours versus days and theyre making that available to other hospitals in the state. This is all hands on deck. And theyll probably lose money doing that, mr. President. But theyre willing to do that. We have an Apparel Company in georgia who has shut down their business in apparel. They have good orders, profitable orders. They are putting those aside to make masks to try to help fill the need with the shortages. But the mobilization phase is where we are today. Were identifying it based on the experiences of other countries what we might expect here. We have hot spots in our country, just like other countries have had. We saw what happened in wuhan and Hubei Province in china. I have been there. Its a very old population. They were late getting to the identification and treatment and isolation. We see the repercussions from that. They are ahead of us in the cycle. However they dealt with that in the early days. We see now how they have dealt with that crisis and whats happening to the numbers and we can learn from that. I will talk about that in a second. The second phase, though, is transition. Im not sure were in it yet, but were about to go into it partly because of this package, and that is to make sure that we protect the parts of the economy where we can so that when we do start to come out of this, just like every other country ahead of us in the cycle has done and is doing right now that will have our businesses in a position to reconnect with the employers or employees that they have worked so hard to develop. And of course the third phase is fullon recovery. That is to do the things then to get the economy back on its strong the fooing, to make sure that we address the shortages of what we found in our current preparation. For example, we didnt have a strategic stockpile of some of these essential medical essentials that we needed in the identification, testing, and treatment of this particular virus. That recovery will take some time, but at the same time, the way america always responds to this is that i believe we can respond very quickly if we get the transition phase correct. And thats what i want to talk about today. As we look at the medical crisis, though, we understand now, through a lot of data outside of the u. S. And i will caveat this that each countrys experience is just a little bit different. I would also comment that there is a lot of noise in the data that i see around the world right now. The medical community is doing a great job of trying to aggregate this data to see how it applies to our needs here at home. I give our doctors and nurses and caregivers the highest thank you i can for what theyre doing here and all over the world, for that matter, but what the experience is in italy might not be the same as it is here. The experience in south korea might not be the same as it is here. So we have to look at those and be very careful that we dont try to extrapolate either the severity or the lack of severity as being applicable here. This particular what we do know, though, before i get to the bill is that in the World Health Organization just this week has published an update to their numbers. They are characterizing this disease this way. Look, every country has a little bit different infection rate, a little different mortality rate. I believe the United States because we havent tested as broadly as some of the other countries like south korea have done, we dont know what the denominator is. We dont know the mortality rate or the infection rate for that matter. This is what the World Health Organization is doing, just to put this in perspective, that about 80 of the people infected with this covid19 virus will probably have a mild thats the way they characterize it a mild experience with this disease. 15 will be serious enough to go to a hospital particularly. And then of that, 5 will be critical patients. Typically generally toward the most vulnerable patients elderly, people with respiratory existing diseases and potentially immune deficiencies. As we deal with that medical crisis and we have poured a lot of resources toward that in the first two phases of help in addition to what the president did with his 50 billion allocation earlier. This bill, almost 2 trillion of aid as we see it toward businesses and communities in states to make sure that we can weather this storm. This bill lets be very clear about this. This is not about companies. This is about employees. This is about the people who work for employers, either in their own business or in somebody elses business. This is all about employees. It is merely a financial bridge to get through this period of time to get into that recovery phase that im trying to describe here a little earlier. Its about the employeremployee relationship and to make sure that we keep that relationship intact. Look, in the last three years, we have created 7. 5 million new jobs. Prior to this new crisis, this coronavirus crisis, we had an economy that was just booming. Created 7. 5 million new jobs. We had 7. 5 million job openings, as a matter of fact, and only five Million People looking for work. So we had a situation where we had the economy moving in the right direction, and then this hits. And we want to make sure we dont lose any of those jobs. And for that reason, we focused on the employeremployee relationship. Yes, we plussed up Unemployment Benefits for the states so that they are not overwhelmed, but we made sure that the employer had the liquidity to keep these people employed. And in that vain, we vein, we did not want to have a liquidity crisis which we could very well have right now because of shutting these businesses down. We didnt want that liquidity crisis to turn into an insolvency crisis. We can deal with a liquidity issue. Its easy to come back and deal with companies that have gone insolvent and are now in bankruptcy proceedings. That is a very long and difficult process. Its difficult to come back from. We do not want to do that. That was the primary purpose of most of the facets of this bill. Some 2 trillion. I will say this about that there are two major components to do that. One is a Small Business now, a little over 50 of the people who work in america work for companies that have 500 employees or fewer. Thats a new learning for me. Thats changed dramatically. But it is the engine this is not new news. This is the engine of new job growth. We know that, in the last three years. We have 350 billion directly targeted toward those Small Business Small Businesses. Who can then by the way go to their existing local banker and get this facility done, a governmentbacked loan guarantee. In addition to that, there is 454 billion directed at other businesses, plus another 58 billion toward strategically Important Industries like our Airline Industry and so forth. And again, most of this money is in the form of loan guarantees to provide liquidity to keep the employee employed with their employer. Its no more difficult than that. But one other thing that is not being talked about, and i want to highlight this, and that is 454 billion is historic. Thats a lot of money. But it has the ability through the treasury that they can actually leverage that up in terms of the way the money goes out to banks, it can be levered up to 3 trillion or 4 trillion. What we are talking about is the potential of up to 5 trillion of liquidity into our economy. This is historic. It should be enough to shock the system to see, okay, there is going to be liquidity here. There may be some growing pains in the early days, but the liquidity is going to be there to weather this storm, to bridge this crisis. I want to look at whats next. Talk about this transition phase and maybe even the recovery phase for a second. The first thing we have to do, we have to really learn from other countries. They are ahead of us in the cycle. For example, it took about six to eight weeks for china, even with their mistakes, it took about six to eight weeks to go from zero to their maximum number. But we know that the disease has a life cycle. Somebody is infected with it, if they survive, they come on the backside, and so far there is over 70,000 people that have had the disease in china and are healthy now. We know from anecdotal evidence on the ground that about 80 of the employed workers in china are beginning to go back to work, and almost 90 of factories. This is outside of Hubei Province, outside of wuhan province. They are going back to work. In south korea, the learning there is testing, testing, testing. More than that, they also track contacts. There are 350 Million People in south korea. We have 330 million. But in certain cities and states, they can certainly look at doing that. So we have to learn from Companies Like south korea, japan, singapore, hong kong, australia, and even china because they are ahead of us in this cycle. We should be in the first few weeks of this cycle going from our from zero to whatever our maximum number is, but its the number of active cases thats the most important. Not the number of total cases. So the mortality rate is yet to be determined because we dont really know the denominator, but i believe if we test more than that and the acceleration curve according to Vice President pence is under way right now that we will have that ability to do. Contact tracking is another. Then isolation is another one we have to think about, unfortunately. We have hot spots. In the ebola crisis in africa, what we learned from the medical community was if they could put a fullcourt press on the areas of flaring where we had the disease flare up and isolate it where they didnt have people traveling outside of those areas. Isolation by geography and democrat grabby are demography are called for. The third thing i will highlight briefly. I believe right now this shows we were behind in terms of our preparation for a pandemic like this. There is no question about it. In the country and the world. We can point fingers and blame, thats not my purpose today. What i want to talk about is this in america and if we can bring the worlds resources with data, this is the big thing. We have limited data in the United States. Other countries have a lot of data. I believe if we aggregate that data and create a Manhattan Project type effort to go toward vaccines and treatments, that we can absolutely be ready for flu season next year if, in fact, this particular covid19 virus has a isnt. We dont know has a seasonality. We dont know that yet. In conclusion, mr. President , there is no question that this is a moment of challenge in america. I will say this, that president trump, for all his detractors, early on stepped up and was a strong leader. I said this yeferl years ago. He reminded me of win section churchill, irascible but effective in getting results. Thats what we have had early on. Right now, we need a steady hand to make sure we dont kill the economy while we kill this disease. My only point is in this transition period and nobody has all the answers yet we need to start asking the questions of what can we do in this transition period to find a balance between protecting life and protecting the economy long term so that when people get well, they will have a job to go back to and we will have an economy that can help the world prepare for the next pandemic that we are talking about here. The American People have the best spirit, i believe, in the history of the world when it comes to dealing with this crisis. I have talked about a couple of examples in my state. The airlines right now are another one. I know that delta is one of the primary Airline Carriers we have in the country. They are keeping some flights on. I know i have a reservation on a commercial flight later this week. I asked my assistant are you sure i will get a seat on that plane . She said there are only five people who have booked a seat on that plane. So it shows that people are trying to do their part here. Neighbors. People going to Grocery Stores for their neighbors, taking care of picking up mail, doing anything they can to protect the people that are at risk. In small communities, we know how to do that. In major cities, its more difficult, but its even possible there. I will conclude with this, mr. President. There is a day coming, its not that far off, that we will be behind the top end of this curve in america. We will have lost some lives. Thats unfortunate. We all regret that. But what we have to do now is to make sure we prepare ourselves for this transition phase that while we are coming and still dealing with people who are getting the disease, the disease is on the wane, and the economy needs to be brought back so we can make sure that we can prepare this country for the next round that we may or may not see in the future. With that, i yield the floor. Mr. Rubio i received a call a few hours ago from someone i have known for a long time, a gentleman i would say in his early to mid 90s, and he wanted me to stop saying that what we are facing is an unprecedented challenge. I was taken aback. I mean, none of us have ever lived through anything like this or confronted a situation as painful or so dramatic. And so he challenged me to do something that i had actually done a few years ago, but as it shows, even a few years erodes memory about things that happened long in the past. He challenged me to say, you know, everybody is comparing this to the last time we had Something Like this, it required the nation to react like we did in world war ii. And so it caused me to go back and look a little bit at the years before that great and bloody conflict. Its interesting, in the years leading up to 1941, president roosevelt had an effort to back the supreme court. It was incredibly controversial. It ended up falling apart in 1937. It ended up falling apart, actually, because members of his own party turned against him, and it actually weakened anymore in him in that tail end of his second deal. President roosevelt was so upset about what members of his own party had done to him that in 1938, he did something unprecedented at the time. He got involved in democratic primaries and tried to defeat, take out members of his own party who had opposed him. Not only did he lose badly in that effort i think he only won one of those seats that he went after as a result of what he did, his party lost six seats in the senate, 71 in the house, and ultimately in this very chamber, a republican, robert taft, was able to put together a coalition with conservative democrats and basically block president roosevelts agenda leading into 1940. Then in 1940, roosevelt did Something Else that was unprecedented and highly controversial. He announced, although it was legal, that he was running for a third term. He was at that point defying a long precedent that had been set by the nations first president. And then to make matters even more interesting, his own Vice President who had turned on him on the court issue, he had to kick him off the ballot. In fact, he told him if you nominate him as Vice President , i will refuse the nomination. Ultimately he was reelected on a promise. He had to make a promise. I will keep this country out of war. This sets the stage going into november, december 1940. A president that spent the last three years battling his own party, seen his own agenda slowed and stifled and had to kick out his own Vice President after losing a large number of seats in the house and senate, has a coalition formed against him to block him and then has to make a promise, were not going to war. All the while understanding that what was happening in europe would eventually reach us and he was preparing for war. And while he made that promise was pretty fundamental. Going to war was not popular in this country. Millions of americans, particularly those at the time you couldnt really travel abroad, had no connections to europe. They looked at world war i as a european war and world war ii as a war that had to do with europeans and not with them. Prominent voices, chief among them, Charles Lindbergh who traveled the country blasting the president as a warmonger in the strongest possible terms. There was actually a student antiwar movement. Now, not as many people went to college at that time as did in the 1960s, but it was really a precursor to that movement. Why . Because these people in college were the ones that would be sent to war if there was one and they wanted no part of it. And then in the blink of an eye at 7 48 a. M. On december 7, 194 1rbgs the japanese attacked 1941, the japanese attacked the u. S. Naval base pearl harbor, sunk four of our battleships, we lost almost 200 airplanes and 23 americans perished. It remained the third Bloodiest Day of that very bloody conflict. America was not ready for war. They had started a draft by a onevote margin. They were able to vote it into place. They had we had lost a significant percentage of our Pacific Fleet and, frankly, to this day there are legitimate questions not about whether the Roosevelt Administration knew in advance that this was happening and allowed the attack to happen. This is a conspiracy theory. This was a massive intelligence failure. Up to 30 minutes before the attack, the ambassador to japan was negotiating with the United States over an oil embargo and america was not a society of peace. This was a nation deeply divided, a segregated nation that discriminated against citizens of color. There were very serious labor disputes going on throughout the country. Many still war the scars of a deep and painful economic depression. And, yet, in the blink of an eye this nation was confronted with an enemy and had no choice but to put aside all that had happened to that point, everything, all the problems they had with the president , all the problems they had with each other, even those americans that had been discriminated against were willing to do that, tremendous testament to the contribution they made to the ef frt to win that effort to win that conflict. And in the blink of an eye literally every aspect of American Life was changed overnight. Think about it. One minute you are a student demanding that we stay out of war and the next you are volunteering for service. One minute youre a housewife, youre a retiree, the next minute youre back at work or at work for the first time in your life at a factory making miew miew munitions needed for the war effort. Children were put to work on farms because so many people left farming to fill the industrial jobs because the men that would have otherwise filled those jobs were now wearing a uniform and dying by the hundreds every day, and then by the thousands, all over the world. We rationed food. There was food rationing. You could only eat so much. A family only got so much. Gasoline was rationed. I think it was three gallons a week, if im not mistaken, clothes were rationed. The government stepped in and said you cant build kitchen appliances, no refrigerators, no ovens, no vacuum cleaners, we need all of our industrial capacity to fight and win a war. People on the coast, and you see pictures of this to this day off miami beach, people who to close their shades because there were german uboats off our coast. People were asked to make tremendous sacrifices, not for three months, not for six weeks, but over three years and longer. And sacrifices ultimately, perhaps the greatest of all, they sent their sons and fathers off to die. Die in the defense of this country and in our freedoms. I do not mean to diminish the challenges that are being asked of us now. There isnt five minutes that goes by that i dont get a text, a call, or an email from a Small Business who just two weeks ago was having its with best year its best year ever, talking about hiring new people, and now they are bankruptcy, they are done, they are finished, and they may never reopen again. From a young couple i talked about earlier today in a video i made, two weeks ago, recently married, planning to start a family, both had good careers, the next minute, both out of a job, not sure if the place they worked in will ever exist again, not knowing where to go. One minute youre the father and a family in a family, a mother in a family who has never had a day in your life where you were not employed by someone. And next youre being told, go to a website, call this number, you need to get unemployment. They dont know how to do it. Theyve never done it. So i do not mean to diminish the sacrifice thats our people are already making. I simply mean to put it in perspective and also to give a little bit of clarity as to what will be required of us to when this war to win this war. Because in this end our enemy is not a nation state. It doesnt ware a unit wear a uniform. But it has invaded us in a way where we have not been asked to do or anything close to it since late 1941. So what are the lessons to be taken by that era in our history, by the call i got today that said stop saying it is unprecedented . The lesson to take is, number one, in moments like this action matters. It is important that we have a functioning government in a can address problems in the space in which government must act. That is what is being asked of us here today. What is being asked of us is not to pass a perfect bill or pass legislation that will cure the virus or pass the law that will have everything that we ever wanted. What is being asked of us is can you function as a government . Can you do the most basic things that a Society Needs from its elected leaders at a moment of true crisis . Can you do that . And so far for three days the answer, sadly, has been no. I hope the answer at the end of this day will be different. But the second thing it teaches us is, you cannot confront a challenge such as this with just government. That war was not just won because of political leaders or our armed forces, it was a whole of society effort. Every day americans every day americans were asked to do things they had never done before in places they had never been not just to make sacrifices of what they could do but sacrifices they could do affirmatively. That is being asked of us now. People are doing that as we speak. The examples are too long to mention, but all over this country there are people that are doing extraordinary things, stepping up, doing more than theyve ever done because they have to. They know they must. I have no doubt that if our government leaders do their job and are willing to do their part and provide people transparent, clear, truthful guidelines about what we face and what lies ahead and what is expected of them, they may not be happy and people may not be excited about it, but they will do it. I know they will do it. They are already doing it. The third lesson is the awesome power of our country when a diverse population of go geters, go getters, the most creative people who have ever walked the earth put aside their differences to confront a threat they face in common. And, again, that is not possible. You cant ask of that of a society. You cant ask people to put aside their differences, put aside the trivial, put aside the things they dont agree on and focus on the one thing that threatens us all, you cant ask them to do that if you cant do it yourself. It appears, at least as of this moment, that it may change. What is our job in this . Let me say, we are asking. When i see we, those in government at every level, are asking our people to do some very difficult things. Were asking high school seniors, including one who lives in my home to be the first in i dont know how many generations that wont have a prom, wont have a senior trip, wont have a graduation. Now i know all those things may seem trivial in comparison to world war ii, but to a 17yearold these are a rite of passage and Many High School seniors in this country will not get that this year. Were going to ask Small Businesses and asked them already, you need to close your doors. You cant open, you cant work, you cant make money, you cant allow customers to come in. Weve asked people not to go to work. In fact, we told them not to leave their homes. Over half of this country is on an order, dont leave your house unless you are going to the pharmacy or grocery store. Were asking nurses and doctors that can kill them and their families just like everybody else to do so on double shifts, oftentimes without the gear and equipment to protect them. Were asking Truck Drivers to drive all night, also vulnerable to the virus, also worried about all the things all of us are worried about, drive all night because tomorrow those shelves need to be stocked with all the things that people are buying because they are afraid its going to run out. And how can we ask that of our society . If for three and a half days we cant even vote on a law. We cant even walk to the front of this place and lift your our finger up or up or down and say yes or no. We cant even do that. Spending our taxpayer money in a moment of critical crisis. I dont mean to be negative because frankly i hope today is the day we get toll solve, but there are other people who have to make their way in here in the house, outside commentators, people still emailing and texting, can we change this, can we change that . I just dont know how we can ask people to do all these things we need to ask them to do and in return tell them, by the way, were going to take our sweet time to do our part and our parts the easiest one. And you can just imagine, extrapolate what were facing now and take it back to 1941. Imagine if back then people would have been saying, boy, in is a great chance. This is a Good Opportunity to get back at f. D. R. This is a great opportunity now hes in a war, lets roll back the new deal, lets really stick it to him for what he really did six years ago for that court thing. Or the reverse, this is a Good Opportunity to use the war powers to steamroll my political opponents and put them in place. Or imagine him saying, we need to build a lot 0 of ships a lot of ships but im not going to vote to bill them unless they are in my state. I dont want to go any deeper into that because i dont mean to say some of the issues that people raised around here are not legitimate issues, they are. But sometimes the legitimacy of the issue, the importance of the issue has to be weighed on a scale against the gravity of the moment. I would say to you if we were dealing with permanent policy in a normal course of business or even in a moment of a cyclical economic downturn, wed have some weeks to make some of these decisions. Weve already taken too long. People got laid off today. People will be laid off tonight and tomorrow and the day after and for days to come even if we pass this bill. Imagine if we dont. What we are facing is the toughest thing this generation has before faced. Theres no doubt about it. And perhaps with the exception of the gentleman and people like the gentleman that called me this morning, would be the toughest thing we ever face in our lives. World war ii was worse. This virus is terrible. But it will not last as long or kill as many people as that war did, but it will kill far too many people and last far too long. But it will last longer and kill more if we dont take action now. And that requires everyone to finally wake up and realize this is not this virus doesnt care who you voted for in the last election. It doesnt care what you write on twitter or snarky remarks you come up with in your commentator moment on cable news. It doesnt care about any of that stuff. It doesnt care who you plan to vote for in the next election. It will infect you. It will kill you. It will kill people you love. It will kill members of your family. It will disrupt your community and your economy. It doesnt care about any of this other stuff. And it really is important for us to realize not just for this bill but moving forward that theres no such thing as an outcome here thats good for half of us and bad for the other half. There is no possible political victory here, none. There is no outcome here in which half of us are going to be able to go back and say boy, we really looked good and made those guys look bad and people are going to reward us for it. Theyre not. I promise you that when someone has lost their job and doesnt know where theyre going to go and are stuck in their home and their lives have been turned upside down and a mechanic of their family is in intensive care and they wind up in a hospital thats overwhelmed and cant care for them, the last thing on their mind is going to be partisan politics or preexisting differences. If you dont believe it, were about to find that out, unfrm. There is no outcome here in which half of us is happy and the other half are upset. Its a cliche. We use it all the time. I cant think of a better example than this one. We are truly all in this together. The carnage, the damage that this will do to our country is extraordinary. It will know no geographic bounds, no political affiliation, no demographic differences. This is a virus that can infect the heir to the crown in britain just as easily as a 92yearold retiree in a florida nursing home. And so i hope that the gravity of the moment finally sinks in and that we take the necessary actions quickly and that if theres something in this bill that you just really dont like, i dont mean to diminish it. If we can fix it, we should. But at this point im going to tell you that theres nothing wrong in this bill, theres nothing in this bill that will damage our country more than our inability to act. No matter how bad some provision in this bill you think may be, and i say this to both sides, theres nothing in this bill that will damage us more than doing nothing will. By far. The most damaging thing that can happen is not any provision of this legislation. It is our inability to act and to send a message to the American People that their leaders cant function, that their government doesnt work, not just on a daytoday basis but in a moment of crisis. And so i hope that that whatever differences that may still exist at this moment and im trying to be fair because i know a lot of people are finally seeing the full text of it in just the last few hours, and if youve caught something that can be fixed, it should be fixed. But i plead. I dont know what other word to use. That we dont leave here tonight without having passed this bill. Because i honestly dont know how this nation and our people can afford one more day of this. Mr. President , i yield the floo. Quorum call. The presiding officer we are. Mr. Udall i wish to vitiate the quorum call. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Udall today we face a pandemic the likes of which we have not seen in over 100 years and today the Senate Must Act to pass the
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