Transcripts For CSPAN2 U.S. Senate Sen. Grassley On Iowa Dr. Coronavirus 20240713

Legislation before us to turn this economy around and help out in our battle against the virus. While were waiting to vote on that, i come to the floor for a couple points that i would like to make. The first one is to honor a famous iowan. This month is called iowa history month, so i come to the floor to speak about one of iowas favorite sons, dr. Norman borlog, whose birthday is today. Hes considered the farmer of the green revolution. Raised on a farm near cresco, iowa, he is credited with saving more lives than anyone in history with his breakthroughs in agronomy. It took him several years to accomplish what a lot of scientists do now in a laboratory in regard to fighting diseases in plants, and he did this in mexico and india. His work helped to overcome malnutrition and famine across the world, saving over one billion lives in the process. His achievements won him the nobel peace prize. But not only that famous prize but also the president ial medal of freedom and the congressional gold medal. I think that theres only five or six people that fall into the category of winning all three of those prizes. His achievements also prompted the state of iowa to honor him with one of iowas two statues in the in the statuary hall year in the u. S. Capitol. On another subject, some pundits and even members of this body have suggested that its inappropriate to criticize the Chinese Community party for its mishandling of the coronavirus that originated in wuhan, china, because it distracts from bashing the president. We went from Mainstream Media outlets routinely referring to the virus by its origin to this being totally politically incorrect. Theres an excellent timetable published by axios that lays out the chinese coverup that prevented early action to contain the virus. The chinese prodemocracy activist, mr. Wei you warned that general secretary xi is ordering people back to work prematurely, risking another massive outbreak of what he calls wuhan pneumonia. Telling the truth about the Chinese Communist partys misdeeds does not preclude talking about how we can improve our own response. We can learn from free countries like south korea, which has been able to contain a widespread outbreak, and taiwan and japan, who appear to have been able to prevent widespread outbreaks. So this is not the time for Political Correctness or political pointscoring to get in the way of telling the truth or working together in a cleareyed way to address the challenges at hand. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum. i asks under the quorum call be vitiated. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Coons mr. President , i came to this building, this capitol about 12 hours ago today and recorded first thing this morning a video to share on social media with folks back at home who are been eagerly asking whats up, whats happening, whats next. And my message was simple. After days of disagreement and of tuesdayling, of fighting of tussling, of fighting, of crafting, we have a deal and i am ready to vote. Lets move forward. 12 hours later i stand in a largely empty chamber with an odd sense of