Children in rural and urban communities. He took part in the summit on the future of American Economy hosted by the hill. As the pandemic disrupts every aspect of life, its also raising concerns about our food supply chains. What is the key to resilience and how can we ensure Food Security while safeguarding our workers. My next guest is congressman rodney davis of illinois who has particular interest in this area. Congressman davis, great to see you again. Your names being dropped in a lot of places. You know, youve been on the food thing and i was talking the other day to jose andres, the chef, about the feed act and he says youre one of the partners in this. And youre pushing the legislation called the meals on wheels for kids act. Why are these part of the covid response, if you will, that youre trying to push forward . Well, hunger in American Families is exacerbated during this pandemic, steve. Number one, it great to see you again. I appreciate you the opportunity to be on. You didnt tell me i had to follow the Surgeon General, i would have dressed up a little better. [laughter] at least youre not in a tie. A lot of people have been wearing ties this morning. Youre lucky i didnt get the busch lite tshirt underneath this jacket. In all seriousness we need some ideas that are bipartisan and thats exactly why i worked with the chef jose andreas and my good buddies to introduce the feed act. This is based off of a program that chef andreas used in recovery during the or after the hurricanes in puerto rico and haiti and its worked already. Lets not lets not reinvent the wheel. Lets figure out ways to partner with private restaurants who have the supply and get meals to 200 families and thats exactly what this would do, allowing fema to let that happen on a regular basis. So, in your community, are you seeing that problem . Because one of the things that chef andreas told me was that the state and local revenue was collapsing right now. Its part of the equation we havent heard about a lot right now. Even if they want today feed the elderly and the needy in the communities, connect with the restaurants that their resources are strapped. I had one of your colleagues, former congressman lee zellden and he said we have to help shore up the finances of the local counties. How is it in peoria or your area . Is there a challenge . Theres always challenges. The food pantries have longer lines than weeks before when we had historic Economic Growth and low unemployment. The problems are going to exacerbate the longer the pandemic moves forward. In the end what we need to do is set up opportunities, and thats exactly why i partnered with chef andreas and my colleagues to do that. Lets make sure we put programs in place that allow the local restaurants who many are working to be saved, economically themselves and thats why theyve applied for programs like the ppp. But lets make sure we address the back bones of a program before we have a crisis on our hands. And if chef andreas can put together a program in the midst of a hurricane recovery effort that worked for the restaurant owners, for the local communities and it fed people who were hungry, then we ought to darn well be able to do it in this pandemic, too. Tell us about the meals on wheels for kids act. You know, this is another area and ive tried to specialize in since i got to congress. I come from a rural part of america and i represent many small Rural Communities, along with some mini urban areas. And many of those mini urban areas, we have something called a Summer Feeding Program where kids who were on the School Lunch Program can come and get meals in a congregate settings. With covid, maybe they change. Maybe we feed the same summer meals to kids who live in urban areas, too. They cant go to the congregate settings, but weve got set up in the urban and Rural Communities meals on wheels program. How about we add the hungry kids to the hungry seniors and get the same meals . Sounds makes a lot of sense to me. This morning we had secretary mnuchin on at the very start of our program today and he said, look, i mean, the first two relief bills were bipartisan, worked with bipartisan leadership in both congresses and went well. Now the house bill that Speaker Pelosi has passed, the 3 trillion package he called a partisan package has no chance to go anywhere. Do you think the climate is over for the kinds the bipartisan initiatives weve seen thus for that youre trying to do or is there good bill to get bipartisan packages for the next phases were going to need . Were going to have a bipartisan package or we wont get anything. Its very frustrating to see that Speaker Pelosi took the goodwill that had been created since even before the pandemic reached its heights. I mean, i think when you look at history, i think history will judge congress and judge us well in the beginning of the crisis when we came together to pass four bills that really allowed for our economy to be able to sustain itself once the pandemic is over. And Speaker Pelosi singlehandedly took that goodwill and decided to throw it away. She wrote her 3 trillion bill in the speakers suite. So many issues put into that bill that had nothing to do with an emergency and i certainly hope it doesnt screw up the bipartisan efforts weve had. I hope thats an anomaly, but im a little less optimistic than a few weeks ago. And i hear your criticism of her and your constituents that support you and dont. How do they look at washington right now . Were discussing in this band, health guardrails and i had the Surgeon General on, i thought he was very impressive, but some of the things weve heard even from the president of taking hydroxychloroquine when he hasnt said it, how do they look at what he is going on here . Do they think were keystone kops or the kind of leadership they want or what do you think about washington . Congress and the media have had about the same Approval Rating before this pandemic and i think, i think americans who are looking at congress when we were able to pass the cares act and three other packages, and i think they were ho looking at u saying, finally, theyre doing something together. Now after what we saw last week in washington and the reports that Speaker Pelosi didnt work with was frustrating and they want to look at all of us to say we elected you to work with republicans, democrats and independents. Get the job done. We cant get the job done either, steve if were not in washington. I hope that Speaker Pelosi calls the house back so we can get things done. Theres no way to replace the facetoface relationships during the legislative process. We saw the number of unemployment claims have gone up to 38 million approximately in the united states. Its a Staggering Number given how healthy, seemingly healthy the economy was a short time ago. Secretary mnuchin said today that this is not an economic crisis, this is a Health Crisis and its only going to be you know, the trail of the virus and whether we contain it and all of that thats going to dictate these other things. It raises the question, those 38 Million People are not going to go back to work the moment we have a virus or a vaccine. Do you think your colleagues on the republican side of the aisle would be that understand that and willing to think of things like wpalike activities, large employment projects through National Infrastructure . These kinds i know were not there yet politically. Do you think theres an appetite at all to get americans back to work . Because this is not their fault that this happened and its not an economic failing that happened, its a virus. Well, theres a lot of republican support for people like me and many of my colleagues for infrastructure investment. But the 3 trillion bill Speaker Pelosi put forward was woefully inadequate when it came to i think theres bipartisan using as part of recovery act. In the end when we look at what we did for small businesses, i think we put them on a better Playing Field to be able to survive this pandemic and come out of this pandemic still being the local drivers in our communities. We wouldnt have local and state sales tax bases if we wouldnt have acted in a bipartisan way, but the key point, too, is weve got to begin to get people comfortable seeking health care and in one area where i want to thank my governor, Governor Pritzker and his team, they listened to me when i asked in the last executive order to rethink the closure of the elective and diagnostic procedures in our hospitals and clinics. And he did that, and he opened them up and im glad he did because the last thing we need is to come out this have crisis and pandemic with a new crisis of a higher morbidity rate and infection rate for diseases we know how to treat because people were too scared to see a doctor because they werent there at the clinic to begin. What is the testing situation like in illinois . I just had will herd on, and they have a surplus of tests and you dont need a doctor referral. And if you talk to senator barrasso, there are surpluses of kits and you dont need a doctors referral and maybe there are others out there. Im trying to ask people what its uneven around the country. And is our testing situation from your perch . It depends where you are and if you look at illinois, just a few weeks ago before the governor changed the plan, at my request, we had a surplus of test capabilities in a clinic that was open by walgreens in my district in springfield, illinois, they had the capacity to test upwards of 100 people a day, and five rapid scan machines there and averaging about 23 a day. So, when the center opened up testing. We began sending he also implemented a testing requirement for anyone getting the procedure so we were able to send people there to that testing facility once we also successfully got the c. D. C. To allow for asymptomatic patients to be tested at facilities that were following federal guidelines. Now, theres more of a shortage because theres more demand. But testing is only going to increase as we continue to see where test kits are available and weve seen testing availability increase on a daily basis during this pandemic and i assume thats going to continue to happen and i think our testing cape bits are only going to grow to where states in places like illinois may some day soon i hope mirror wyoming and will herds in texas. Host . Theres a lot of technology out there. Cool folks about to come on. The ceo. Baker and citizen and others. And part of the question is how can we ethically and in a socially responsible way using other tools, but use things like Contact Tracing. C. D. C. Director redfield the other day said theyre looking to hire upwards of 30 to 100,000 human tracers and im interested in whether that challenge has percolated up to the congressional level yet looking at what we need to do on that front. Testing is one side of it. The other side is tracking, tracing and forming, you know, quarantining and isolating and just trying to get a hold of this. So what is the literacy of your colleagues and interest of your colleagues on the Contact Tracing and where Technology Might Help . Well, theres high literacy levels. The need for Contact Tracing varies greatly where youre at. If youre in an urban area. Technology will need to be used as a resource. In rural american just like in my hometown of a taylorville, we had outbreaks at Senior Living facilities and we were able in my community to quarantine both facilities and get what they needed after 14 days they were free and clear to go about living their daily lives because the virus was gone. So, Contact Tracing is already being used in a less technological sense. We have to consider privacy issues and thats the debate i know well have at our levels. Thank you. Congressman rod davis, thank you for joining us today and look forward to seeing you in town once they let you come back here and well hang out, hopefully, six or seven feet apart at a bar somewhere. Good to see you, sir. You too, buddy. Thank you. Thanks. This memorial day weekend on book tv. Saturday at 3 25 p. M. Eastern. Best selling authority James Patterson talks about assisting book stores during the coronavirus and his latest book house of kennedy, and 4 p. M. Eastern, foundation, his book trump and churchill, defenders of person civilization and National Political correspondent molly ball takes about her latest book, pelosi, looks at the career of speak of the house nancy pelosi. At 9 p. M. After words, chris hughes talks about his book fair shot strengthening the middle class and the best selling thriller writer talks about his career and books on in depth. Watch book tv it memorial day weekend on cspan2. 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