Primarily focus on the coronavirus and what another round of stimulation such could look like. This is about one hour. All right. Good afternoon. Thank you for joining us. My name is cliff johnson, the general manager here at bloomberg government. I am actually delighted to welcome you to a 2020 springhill watch event. Hopefully by now youve all the chance to take a look at the newest addition of rock biannual hell watch report that explores what to watch on capitol hill across more than 20 different policy areas and, of course, this report also examines the effect of covid19, the need for related relief legislation as was both parties agendas and plans for 2020. Today were incredibly excited to build upon of a reporting ts expert analysis through conversation with a key lawmaker that is senator john thune of south dakota who was shared with us today discuss the current state of affairs. You can participate in todays discussion on social media by using the hashtag bgov want to be sure to follow bgov on twitter. I do have a couple of housekeeping announcements just to get us to todays presentation. We are virtue and this is a thw world for many of us. This is broadcast live and although we dont anticipate any technical issues, should you experience any streaming delays audie, may video quality, will hit and refresh your browser. That should resolve the issue. This is an interaction within. We want you to be a part of this conversation. Well have live calls going on and we look forward to you submitted questions. Now to ask a question oci q a box to the lower righthand side of your screen. Go ahead and type in your request and it will pop up in front of us. At the top right of your screen youll see another box that says slides and polish. This is a panel where you can respond to a couple of other questions that will be pushing out a cost the conversation. To upkeep is interacting and engaging as possible. Should you experience any delays or issues, just refresh your browser. We also have a tech support online as well but refresh is probably the best bet for right now. With that is my distinct pleasure to introduce senator john thune senator thune served three terms as south dakota lone member of the u. S. House of representatives before being elected to the senate in 2004. He currently serves as the Senate Republican whip, thats the number two position that Senate Republican leadership. He has served as chairman of the Senate Republican policy as well as chairman of the Senate Republican conference. Currently senator thune serves as chairman of the Commerce Committee subcommittee on communications, technology, innovation and the internet. As will as chairman of the finance Committee Subcommittee on taxation and irs oversight. With that money turn things over to emily wilkins, reporter for a conversation with senator thune. Emily, the floor is yours. Thanks so much, cliff. Senator thune, thank you give us a much for joining us today. We are excited to have your ethics and one who is joining online. I wish would be there in person because these adventures on really good food, but we are glad we could make this work regardless. Senator thune, i want to start out by talking about how you have been doing with the current shutdown. I know you been up to a couple of things including growing a beard and then shaving said beard. I know youre also been doing some history lessons for kids on youtube. Right, thanks, emily a thanks cliff. Appreciate the opportunity of thanks to all your audience members out there. Like you i wish we could do this in person but this is what were left with these days. As you pointed out we are doing a lot of things from home. We learned a lot about technology, different platforms. I mentioned before i have learned how to use skype and zoom and google hangout and shindig and Facebook Live an old bunch of other platforms and apps weve used to stay connected. Thank god we got there. And makes these investments we make in technology and highspeed Internet Services i think all that much more important, ticket when you see how they been used during the virus. But yes, so ipad, i did for a while, i grew at it for a while, kind of a quarantine beard and figured when we started flattening the curve i would let the beer to go. Which was great just to my motherinlaw who was always complaining about it anyway. Anyhow, weve done some things to try and just stay connected with different constituencies and we stood. Warmer in south dakota under normal circumstances i would be traveling around the state talking to government classes, school oscilloscope taking questions and so we decided, theyre looking for curriculum and probably a little bored out there to put together a few lessons on how the congress and how laws are made, how the congress works. We did some things with that but its all a part of this experience that were going through, and everybody is adapting and doing the best that they can. Absolutely. Part of the adaption means we get to introduce new title into this. I went to see if you could go to our first poll question. Were going to let our viewers take the time to answer this while i asked senator thune a bit about it. I want to start by the topic on it but his mind now which is the next coronavirus stimulus package. I wonder if you could talk a little bit, this one is a bit trickier than past went in that there are several issues that theres more state and local funding, Liability Protections for businesses. What are you hearing from members at this point about what needs to be in this next bill and what should we expect . Right, emily. We have passed four piece of legislation already but it would be a think another iteration of this that comes in the next few weeks. It will depend what it looks like what event a lot on how things are working out the right now. There will be a need probably to reload and perhaps even expand pdp program but we expect funding to carry through most of the month of june and upon entrance runs out in july slub be another deadline well have to deal with that issue. You make your state and local government funding. Theres been a fairly robust debate about that. And her own republican conference, not to mention with democrats and across the country. There are a number of potential issues that will be front and center again as we look at the next benefit pays. One of the things were focus on comparable in Conference Committee try to get some Liability Protections for businesses, schools and hospitals as they open up again think if we dont have those in place and there is a mountain of litigation that is enormously costly, that it could have a pretty profound an adverse impact on the recovery. Thats something ill be important for us. I would say the interaction between Unemployment Insurance and getting people transition back into the workplace is something. Theres a concern that because of the of the plymouth insurance benefit being fairly robust, taken in some states, that is acting as a disincentive for people to go back to work as economy begins to open up again. I would say a really heavy emphasis on testing. Theres been a lot of emphasis on that already but i think even more as a get into the fall and schools and making sure that were doing everything we can short of the vaccine edit antiviral therapeutic to determine who has it and who doesnt so we can open up safely. Those are probably three components that will be pretty vigorously debated in the next package and things we care about about and, of course, the democrats have come with a list and that will get the negotiation going. I want to dive in particularly on the legal liability debate. I know theres been some tension between democrats and republicans on that. Thats an issue you think you might be able to find some sort of middle ground on, like perhaps only include Certain Industries and the protection . I hope we can. That should be something that will be bipartisan agreement about. Opening up safely and making sure that we are doing every everything we can to protect people who are doing all the right things, as their practice and guidelines, following the laws, adhering to what the cdc is saying and then are subject to these frivolous lawsuits, and can cause them lots of money to defend themselves against, that that could be very harmful as we try to gradually ramp back up and get the economy going again. It ought to be some Common Ground. Hopefully we can find it. Obviously the democrats are just sort of generally speaking resistant to any kind of Liability Protections and theyve got a part of their constituency, and trial lawyers are weighing in heavily in this debate as well, that in my dear elyse this is something we ought to be able to find some Common Ground under if you are just protecting people from the bad actors, the types of lawsuits that really are clearly frivolous, then you ought to be some Common Ground. If theres willful misconduct, negligence, and those are not the types of things were interested in protecting people against her we want to predict the good actors are people who are playing by the rules and doing everything they can to get the economy going again. And johnson mentioned state and local funding, that this also been some debate within the republican conference as built on this one. At this point i understand one of the biggest concerns is states would use this money not to help with side effects from the coronavirus but perhaps of the budgetary issues that existed before. Do you think this could be some compromise on that as well . How confident are you we might see something on [inaudible] i think there could be something particularly with respect to state and local governments with regard to the funding that already out there. There are restrictions on it. There are a lot of stipulations when that was passed. There were members and are competent felt very strongly that they didnt want states using this for anything that wasnt related to coronavirus servers 150 billion put in the pipeline specifically for dealing with that, and that was on top of already about another 350 billion that went out to state in the form of medicaid, medicare reimbursements, of the, other forms of assistance coming through the federal pipeline. We sort of flooded his own already but it does have restrictions. We have members, republican members as well as a lot of democrats who would like to some of those restrictions lifted and some of those dollars being able to be used for other things like revenue replacement. That would be a spirited debate and i will take within republican conference because my very strong views. To your point about it being used for bailouts, that also is something that was totally hotly debated when we look at the about put out in the first place, and that is states that we review to inconsistent, that had been operated well or state governments that it bloated budgets, that there wasnt much appetite among republican senators at the time for bailing out those types of bad practices. That will continue to hover over any discussion with about this. But again the democrats, a big priority for them, they dont want just the flexibly with the current money, they want another trillion dollars on top of it. Thats something well be very hard to get republican votes for in the senate. I want to go and do his attention to the poll numbers. Thank you for a good who participated. It seems like a lot of our viewers agree with you about the affords for liability shield for businesses. I know theres also some discussion about having more than 50 people on the scope call are in agreement with that. Looks like extending the 600 per week for those on unemployment is less popular, only 32 . And then slightly less than half said they should be another round of stimulus checks given directly to americans. I know something youre taking into consideration here as well as other Top Republicans is that before the next statements built this past you wanted to see, see an effect how funding from previous stimulus bills was being used. And wanted to see, its been a month since the last bill got passed or are you satisfied with how you are saying federal funding been used . Do think there can be various improvements that can you make in the next round . We do. We think are some things, for example, the Paycheck Protection Program which has been largely very successful, heavily subscribed to early on, the first 350 billion went really fast and we did another 310 going on top of that. That program is about 660 billion. It slowed down a little bit now but its designed to keep people employed, keep workers working and so those jobs stay there. I think there have been a lot of suggestions about how, if we go back and every extend the program which is a possibility, were trying to extend at least in terms of for Company Stability is it beyond the eight week window. If we have to add additional dollars to it, my guess is the will be a number of suggestions, many of which are good ones i do think theres probably general consensus on them that we could make some adjustments to that program. But i also think that when you look at some of these other elements of things that are out there right now, we mentioned come talk to or state and local government funding, whether not restrictions ought to be lifted. Thats something were monitoring. Trying to get an assessment from states that what the revenue losses are. Its hard to just throw money out there, not knowing what the need is and what a lot of our members want to know is okay, what are the losses . What are we trying to fix . Were just not writing a blank check. A blank check by the way that with the borrowed dollars. Theres a lot of concern about what happens next. I mentioned this earlier but i do think this issue of the interaction between the ui program and additional 600 per person per week that was added that a benefit on top of the state benefit, in some states is acting as a disincentive for people get back as the economy opens up. Figuring out how we a little insurance runs out at the end of july, does that ramp down at the end of the year . Is their bonus been for people to go back to work . I just think it would be a really spirited discussion about whats working, whats that word, what do we need a fixed i think were seeing things within the ppp program, probably a hard look at state and local fun and how that is been used and whether or not they should be more flexibility. They tried to fix this sort of glitch that we have that is been created because of that conflict between the Unemployment Program and the need to get people back in the workforce. Those are several things that will be a good amount of discussion in the weeks ahead. A lot of very spirited debate. When do you think we might see the text of the bill . When might the senate get around to passing something . I think the liability language, the text is actually come should be out fairly soon. We have folks working on that, and again trying to write that in a way that could actually get 60 votes in this sense, hopefully past the house which will be very, very challenging by the way as a mentioned earlier. But theres going to be, that also come into this. The democrats with a list of demands and that will get the negotiation going. But i think from a timing standpoint we should start to see some of these ideas percolate and come forward. We are not there yet and i dont think that our members are ready to vote on anything just yet. Whether that happens in june where that gets pushed to july, sometime in the timeframe where we will have some items teed up to ridicule, police be debated. And hopefully something openly can pass and then get signed into law by the president. Its a challenging dynamic. You have the democrat won has come republican run senate where it takes 60 votes of certain number of democrats to pass anything and then you got the administration who in many cases is in a different position entirely. What we are hoping happens this time around is that the white house will work with Senate Republican so we can come at House Republicans to put together the things that we are for so that when we start the negotiation with the democrats, where at least united on what we want to do. I hope thats way this works because some cases we have had secretary mnuchin of the midst of administration negotiating directly with the democrats in the house, and attends tends to end up with a much bigger, more costly and more government Centric Program that i think many Senate Republicans will be willing to go for. Have you guys started talking with secretary mnuchin a bit of the . Some of those discussions are underway. Weve had a number of discussion among our own members. Were meeting, we meet when were in session, we been a session the last two weeks and will meet again next week. At least three times a week, socially distanced, but when e have a lot of these discussions. So the ideas are coming forward. Weve asked and the leader has, too, for individual community of jurisdiction to put together their list of ideas, present them and get them into the next. My office, the with office has been collecting a lot of those ideas from the various, not only the committees but also individual members who have ideas, things they want to see an of phase, phase four or a cares package that might come in the next couple of months. Were not there yet and it takes a a little time for the things to ripen, and openly that will happen. In the meantime were doing our best to make sure were listening carefully to members. Were getting good ideas to the outside as to make suggestions about what would be something that would really work, talk to steve leaving the economy, tax policy, what regulatory policy, think and we change stimulating the economy that would help really see the economy started to ramp up again and get back on its feet. Absolute. We have another poll question for everyone who is watching about the post office. I know that been a big topic of discussion. I wanted to ask you about it in particular because i know its important to sully south dakotas who live in rural areas and might not have a whole ton of options on how to want to get and send the mail. They say the post office could be heading to bankruptcy. President trump said the agency should raise prices, cut cost. Do you agree with President Trump on that . Well, i think its fair to say that the president is interest in seeing some reforms and a lot of us would like to see some reforms. There some dollars that been available already to the Postal Service, but yes, on the current trajectory it doesnt look good, and what i can tell you is notwithstanding the views that the president or others might articulate, there are many of us who believe that the Postal Service place an Important Role. I come from a small town in south dakota. I grew up and down about 500 people. There are lots of ways you can get expectation to areas of the country today, but getting that last mile of delivery is one that really matters. So in rural parts of the country the Postal Service is in for an agency, and yes, were interested in saint if there are things we can do that will make it work more efficiently and make some of those reforms. But in the end its an agency that we need to maintain and ensure is concerning to operate. And i suspect thats going to be anybody who represents a rural state in the country will hold that view anything probably have a good amount of influence in what ultimate emerges in terms of the solution. Do you think there any particular reforms that has support among your colleagues and you can see being implemented . Theres been a lot of discussion around how the Pension Program is funded and advanced funded and why is it different than other government Pension Programs at the federal level, function and operates. Thats one thing i i can thinkf off the top of my head that is often discussed. A bit of a timeline issue we have to deal with here. Generally speaking, broad support for the Important Role that they play. Some of our poll results, our viewers agree that congress should step in and fund the Postal Service if that has become necessary. Definitely interested in what form they will increase otherwise. I know sort of a way from the cameras in the bright lights, working on the must pass bills. The appropriations may just give a little bit of an overview. I know they will begin their markups on june 8. They will be headed to the floor and potentially june or july. What is your outlook for these . Are they being impacted by the coronavirus . Everything is viewed through that lens now. You know, a lot of other business that we have to do. That show has to go on, too. What congress has to demonstrate as we can multitask. We can do more than one thing at one time. We have to keep an eye and a clear focus on the things that we need to do to deal with the Health Emergency and the economic emergency that is connected to the coronavirus. We do have a defense bill. The world is not becoming a less dangerous place. So, funding the department, making sure that we are resourcing our military personnel with the weaponry and the equipment that they need to do the job will be a really important priority. As you point out, an annual exercise. The committee is doing that work. Hopefully we can get that to the floor. We have to get agreements on some of the three are to be allocations which are, when the budget is broken out, the top line, the deal we did a couple years ago, now you have to figure out how you will distribute the funds to different pots of money out there. Hopefully we can come to some sort of a agreement on that. Hopefully we can get them to the senate and get them in a conference with the house. Keep the budget process moving forward. The highway bill runs out september 30. That, too, will be a priority. It would be nice if we could get a fully funded reauthorization of the highway bill across the finish line before the end of the year as well. Water resources. Infrastructure bill that has been reported out by the environment of public works committee. That will btw and ready to go. You pointed out earlier, having a real interest. As a former chairman, senate Commerce Committee, we are were really focused on trying to get the infrastructure in place and trying to streamline the permitting and all of the necessary essential aspects of winning that race. It is also something that i hope we can get done as part of some of the bills that we move in the summer. It is not an exhaustive list, but it gives you an idea or flavor for some of the things we have to get done in addition to funding the coronavirus and coming up with solutions there. I was just about to ask about all the bills, the bills that were teed up in february and in march. Senate markowski. I know there was an important Land Conservation bill. Both facing tough elections in november. You yourself alluded a little bit to it, but had a privacy bill. I mean, i know i am very blunt right now, but what is your outlook. How much work you will be able to be done compared to other years. Is this the year we should expect to see not this much from the senate because of the coronavirus or do you think that there is enough of a process in place that we will still see movement on some of those bills. I think, the coronavirus legislation and Everything Associated with it, is, takes a tremendous amount of time and energy. The oversight we are doing on that is extensive. The labors and Pension Committee is a very busy conducting oversight hearings on the health side. You have the doctors coming in there and testifying. You have the Senate Banking committee and chairman powell come in and testify about the facilities they created to provide liquidity through this. Every committee, our committee, Commerce Committee, we have done a hearing on how this is impacting aviation and some of the things done already. We did one on broadband connectivity. What we need to do to make sure we have the necessary networks out there to accommodate the volume we are seeing and will see in the future. There is a lot of that going on. It is very timeconsuming. Next week you mentioned the land Water Conservation issue, going to get called up next week in the senate and we will probably get on it, move to get on it, probably will not completed until the following week. That is a major overhaul. It will include the parks piece as well as the land of Water Conservation peace. Those are major overhauls of programs that have been around for a long time. I hope that we can get that one done. Privacy. That is something that has eluded us for quite some time. Especially now, there is more discussion about Peoples Health information. You know, people want to use telehealth if they want to, for example, some sort of gps tracking advice. Wheres that information going . Those are questions, i think, that we need to help answer and it will take a legislative framework, i think, to put, let me say that right, to put the right privacy protections and place. I think this would be a great opportunity to do that. That is probably a little bit longer shop. Some of these things i think are very doable. That is actually the next question i wanted to ask. About Contact Tracing. I know that you and several other senators have come up with a bill about keeping people privacy safe. I wanted to talk about that and whether or not you could get that into an upcoming stimulus bill. It might be a little bit tricky to do. Did i hear you correctly on that . I think it will be tricky to address the broader issue. The more narrow is Contact Tracing and personal identifying information collected. Get through these gps apps being used to keep track of people coming in contact with those that have the coronavirus. That, to me, seems very relevant to the coronavirus. I am hoping we can get that included in this package. It will serve on a foundation on which to build the broader privacy legislation that weve been working on for several years. Weve been working on privacy bills in the senate going back to before i was chairman of the Commerce Committee. A Ranking Member at the time. Going back six years. We have not been able to thread the needle. It is important. We need to get it done. One of the big issues is preemption. A prior right of action how do you define, you know, duty of care standard would look like. Those are all things that are kind of part of that debate. It certainly will be engaged as part of the discussion about the coronavirus because the information that people are collecting relative to that. Absolutely. Most people came up. They do agree there is this need a privacy and privacy standards. Actions and motions. I know there are couple efforts underway right now including a big one from apple and google. Have you been able to look that over . Do you have any thoughts on whether their product should be trusted by the American People to maintain peoples privacy and security . Apple and google offer a lot of assurances if that is true. You know, we found out the hard way when i was chairman of Commerce Committee. We had to zuckerberg at facebook because of a lot of the information that they were collecting, that they were selling to vendors that supposedly were not going to use it, but then were using it and selling it. It was a huge breach of privacy. I think that that is what we want to avoid. We have looked at some of the google and the apple applications and it just seems to me, at least, notwithstanding assurances that are made or can vent agreements that you may enter into or sign as you sign a contract on these things, there is a question about what constitutes willful consent. The ways in which this information will be used totally disclosed. I think that those are questions that need to be answered. I think that those can be tightened up in a way that does not step on these applications and their potential uses and benefits that can come from that just ensure that that information will be locked down and guarded so that their personal information is not being used in ways they do not agree with. Absolutely. I also wanted to ask you a couple more political oriented questions. I know you spent a lot of time on policy. I know there has been sort of a big debate lately that has come from for Inspector General generals at various agencies. I know this has raised concern among various democrats. Raising concern among republicans. Our Inspector General coming off with very low well researched unbiased reports. I wanted to see what your thoughts were on trump hiring these attorney generals. Is this something that Congress Needs to look into . I think that congress has an oversight role here. It is his article to power. He can hire and fire who he wants in the executive branch of the government. Inspector general are therefore a purpose. They are to be the watchdogs and to root out bad behavior and abuses and corruption and all these sorts of things. I think they have an Important Role to play. When someone is fired normally a letter has to be submitted for the reason of the hiring. Chairman grassley who chairs one of the relevant committees on the judiciary committee, subcommittee, is not satisfied with the explanation that has been given. I think that it is important that just that, checks and balances and the separation of powers that our founders intended, it is important that the explanations offered by the executive branch for these firings really lay out in clear language what they were doing. What necessitated it. You dont wanted to be a political consideration. These are people that are supposed to be above politics. I tend to sort of air on the side of, you know, when it comes to the article one powers that the congress has, we have an oversight goal there. We need to exercise it. The Administration Needs to be accountable to the congress in the ways that it deals with those important rolls in the agencies. I also wanted to take a minute and ask about the upcoming november elections, which are still on. Republicans are defending the senate majority. I have seen some reporting lately. Showing the democrats. Making certain raises competitive working at this competitive time last year. I wanted to see this message that you had to your fellow republicans. Charging democratic incumbents. What do you think it needs to be from the gop to americans this november . I think most americans are fearful about the future, for obvious reasons. These are candidates that need to be able to offer reassurance across the country that we have a clear vision for how we will fix the challenges and the problems we face. What are you going to do about the Health Emergency . What will you do on the issue of testing and therapeutics and vaccines. What they want to do with the economic crisis and fallout from that. The candidates can speak in a reassuring way with a clear sense of direction about what we want to accomplish and how we want to get the country moving forward again. Having a good chance of winning. Most people have Kitchen Table issues to the kinds of things that the family sits down and talks about. Right now there is a lot of on certainty. A lot of questions. I think that they are looking for people that will step in their in an incredible way. Talk about solutions that can help them get back on their feet and provide a greater more security for them and their families. It is generally about the economy. There are others that play into it. I think that that is one in which our side has an advantage. I think this will be about the response virus and steps that we will put in place to help get the country restored to as close to normal as we can. Absolutely. A couple of your questions that have come in. I think that there is one that kind of duck tales with what we are talking about here. I know that a big issue has been healthcare. Particularly, the high cost of Prescription Drugs. I know that there are issues that congress has tried to work on in the past. We have a bunch here asking this year. Either within a corona bill, their own bill. It is not something that you see Congress Working on . Yes, i do. Although i will say this. One of those issues, regrettably i think could get caught up in election of politics. I think that there are things that could be agreed upon. There is a range of issues that republicans and democrats are all willing to take on and fix. Part d under medicare. Driving the cost down for seniors in that program to something that there is pretty broad agreement about doing it and how to do it. There are more issues that are more divisive. I am afraid of what will probably happen, i hope i am wrong, both sides will end up trying to use this issue in the election instead of trying to actually focus on getting a result before the election. Prescription drugs is a very powerful political issue. It is one that affects a lot of americans and Prescription Drug costs are a growing important part of that healthcare, you know, discussion in this country. It seems like to me, at least, the things we can do and just because we cant do everything does not mean we should do everything, but im afraid it may be caught up this year and the politics of an Election Year and end up being something that campaigns campaign about rather than members trying to fix. We will see. There is still some time. It could ride on one of these, whether its a coronavirus bill or a year and spending bill, lots of places where Prescription Drug solutions could get attached. At this point, its just unclear what that is. We also have another question. This one goes into the Liability Protection for employers. If compliance is a safe harbor for Liability Protection, would it be easier or better for the coronavirus standards to be put in place. Whether it should be or osha that has a responsibility there. The responsibility to liability construction. That could be, that could be what ultimately ends up happening. I would say that even though the Liability Protections are a very, very important issue for republicans in any future coronavirus legislation negotiation that there is probably a limit to the price of that to get it into a bill. If the democrat demand 2 trillion in additional spending on this or that in exchange for liability to protection, it will be harder to get republican senators to vote for that. If we are unable and lets hope we are successful, but if we are unable to get federal Liability Protections, liability shield put in place across the country, then what is the fallback . Osha regulations would be one way. States can take legislative action as well. Most state law. Other areas, other venues where this could be addressed. I still think that it makes the most sense. All of our members do to have these federal protections in place. Coming out of previous type, where we have the natural, not some cases natural, but we have these catastrophic events, typically you find a way to come out of it and provide some level of Liability Protection. I hope that happens here. In the negotiations, if the price comes too hi, you know, there may not be vote in the senate to get there. We will get that figured out in time. It will certainly be one of the rent lines. It is something that the leader has made very clear. Has to be in any future bill that we moved to the senate. Sure. That is what negotiations are for. I also want to ask a issue, broadband. Obviously more important than ever. Working from home right now only because i have an internet connection. Kids are going to school only because they have an internet connection. I looked at the statistic last night, 14 of all american households of schoolaged kids do not have internet access. I do not even know how they are doing things right now. I wanted to see what your thoughts were on whether or not there would be broadband included in an upcoming package. There would be a number of ways to do it. Underserved areas, the places they dont have those types of services. The High Cost Fund maintained at the fcc, a lot of times, you know, generated by spectrum auction. For pots that those dollars go into. There are ways that you could allocate, you know, carve out, some additional funding to those underserved areas. That would be one way of getting at that. Another thing that i think is important, we have done quite a bit already. We have two free up more mid band spectrum. Thats a really valuable spectrum when it comes to 5 g. 5 d is the game now. We 14 g. The health ee that you have on your iphone there. One that because we made the investment and the incentives were there for companies to make those investments. We need to make sure we do that or 5 g. Its important that we streamline the process by which those investments can be made. Citing a lot of these infrastructures that are necessary to support those networks to go with the spectrum that will be needed. The infrastructure will be different. Smaller cells densely impacted. It will be really important that our country moves as aggressively as we can. When we talk about potential infrastructure package or additional coronavirus legislation, yes. We have to have for Distance Learning now, teleworking, telemedicine is becoming huge. More and more healthcare practice through technology. Princes in agriculture and my part of the world is enormously important and that is our number one industry. Building from the use of technology and how those sorts of things tremendous applications. We have to win that battle. Spectrum, infrastructure and, perhaps some direct funding through the fcc, through some of those spectrum sales and auctions that could be allocated directly to the areas that do not currently have it. Absolutely. Talking a little bit more about 5 g. We are being asked, you mentioned 5 G Development as a potential issue for this year. Future opportunities for consideration on your legislation or other small cell deployment legislation. Maybe you could start off by talking about it. That is a very wise dan informed viewer that asked that question, just so you know. We do need to get that past. To me, it makes total sense, if you are talking about an infrastructure bill. Talking about something to include roads and bridges and what we traditionally think of as infrastructure. Infrastructure also is making sure that we have the fiber laid, the Wireless Networks put in place so that we can get those higher speeds, additional productivity that comes with, you know, the 5 g connections. If you look at what that would mean, 100 times faster downloads talking about Autonomous Vehicles which is a technology that is on its way and we are already seeing a lot of that out there being deployed. Someday Autonomous Vehicles, now they are semi autonomous. People still driving the vehicles. There are so many technologies, i should say applications that are riding on this investment technology. I think streamline the process by which companies can make these investments and put the infrastructure in place to support the networks on which we will be layering and building all these wonderful applications. 4 g. Look at those apps. Thatll happen because of the investment that was made in advance. That legislation, in my view, ought to move with any infrastructure bill that might be considered by the congress and supported by the president to help the economy get back on its feet. We will be pushing, i can assure you. How are we doing with 5 g as a nation. I am not particularly tech savvy whatever nation gets 5 g the fastest will be incredibly helpful for the next decade, perhaps even more for technological advances. The benefit, the jobs, the gdp growth that comes from it, you know, multiples of what we have seen before. Asian countries, south korea, china, have been investing heavily with china with their government ran economy. They are just making spectrum everywhere for their companies. Obviously, i have a big concern about their Companies Investing in the u. S. We have a lot of equipment already. Some of our networks in this country. I think the idea that the chinese could get their components and their equipment embedded into some of our networks and then use that to surveillance is a very frightening prospect. One that i hope we will never have to deal with. I would hope that our european allies around the world would join us and that. In respect to relative with other countries, we are picking up speed. There are some really cool stuff going on out there. Disruptive technologies. A lot of investment being made. Not just by the Legacy Companies , but by a lot of these more disruptive type approaches to and solutions that are out there. I think you will see the United States really pick up the case and start to catch up. It is important first to win the race. Benefits are enormous. What that means in terms of the applications we have talked about previously. Those are very real. They will mean a lot to the average worker in this country. The average family in this country. Good paying jobs that come with it and growth in gdp that everyone will benefit from. I am glad to hear yes. Not just your netflix shows, melissa. [laughter] so important. Especially in this time. Another big news story right now, not really related to coronavirus, but a lawsuit for the aca going in front of the supreme court. We have a question here, striking down the law, in its entirety, then what. It seems like a lot of people have agreed that even though they are not perfect, what we had before is not where we want to be as a nation. How do you think congress may respond. Well, i think that a lot of it will depend on, and when i think is probably more likely to happen, a circuit. They will look at this issue of separability whether or not one provision is struck it does not strike everything else. My assumption is, and this is my assumption, not dash my guesses in the end they will include that if you strike down one if they did, i think the first thing you would have to do is congress would have to move very quickly, and we would, to put legislation in place to protect people with preexisting conditions to make sure they continue to have coverage. Then we have to, you know, again, from the ground up start to build a new and different system that is built around incentives rather than mandates. The obamacare approach, they tried to define in law basically, you know, what constitutes Insurance Coverage for all time. That is a different solution in a different part of the country. If you allow people to buy the Insurance Coverage they wanted a price that they can afford, you have an incentive based system where the Insurance Company starts to compete for the business. If you look at part d, that is been a Successful Program because it has free market principles applied there. There was competition and it cost last than what was estimated. My 25 years in congress, the only time ive ever seen that happen where Program Actually came in at less cost and what it was predicted to. The way it was structured. This was a long, much more far ranging conversation then we can have right here. I think just to say that if we are struck down, i think that you start by making sure you provide protections for people with preexisting conditions. That is a political issue that everybody tries to raise. And then you, you know, you look at how do we build a system to write incentives for people to divide insurance if they wanted and if they can afford. And to create a competitive marketplace where you have lots of different players who are offering products that are, you know, twice as competitive. I think that that is what happens when you create those types of incentives in a marketplace. Today we do not have that. We have a system where the government touches 6070 of our healthcare dollars. You can go right down the list. And then those programs, obviously, will stay there be intact. We have a vibrant marketplace that works for everybody that provides coverage that is affordable to everyone in this country. I think we can come up with that kind of system. If i can just ask one quick question. What is your respect from the Senate Schedule coming up. You have mostly gotten back into the business of the calendar. Do you expect the senate to take the october break . Will this all depends on what happens with coronavirus . I think that the coronavirus will obviously bear on schedules, everyones schedules, as it has already. Planning to stay on their schedule. We will be in session. We think its important to be there to do the peoples work. As i mentioned, we will take up the gardner bill. We have the Defense Authorization bill as we talked about earlier coming down the pipe. Those are in the pipeline. We hope to be able to transact to some of those in the summer months, june and july. Of course in august you have the convention speared september we will be back for a while. October typically an Election Year. Most are going on a campaign. Not only president ial election, but a lot of senate races that candidates will want to be back campaigning. I think the schedule at the beginning of the year, to the extent that we do not have something that is a major disruption as a result of the virus should be pretty much what, you know, what it is. I hope to stay on that schedule we can get the things on that we need to get done and get through this november election and hopefully if not before the election, certainly shortly after have a vaccine for this that will enable us to cut the economy loose. Im hoping that is the way it works out. Your best plans are things that you do not control. We will see what happens. Getting a vaccine as soon as possible is a highly bipartisan thing at this point. Fingers crossed. Senator, i think we will head back. I just wanted to thank you so much for taking the time to chat with us today. A very informative discussion. Very much appreciate you taking the time to join us. Thank you for having me, emily, for all your folks out there, tell them to stay safe, stay strong. Hopefully a few months ahead of us here we will get to a place where things start to return to normal. Great. Thank you guys so much. That concludes todays session. One thing i do want to mention before we end todays session, as emily mentioned at the beginning of this call, we typically do this over breakfast. The for those who have joined us, this is one of the popular events we have. We made the decision to event the donate budget. So we can all serve those in need and those who are food insecure. Thank you, emily. Thank you, senator, for sharing your valuable insight today. Thank you for allowing us to come into your homes and be part of your day. If you are interested in learning more, please visit us online at about stay safe and stay healthy. Take care. The white house will store hundred holder briefing today. Taking question starting at 2 0y briefing room. We will have live coverage when it starts over on cspan. The u. S. Senate meets this afternoon at 3 00 p. M. Eastern. Senators will resume work on initial nominations. Turning the nomination senior counsel brian mill year to be the first for pandemic recovery. They may also work on legislation providing greater flexibility to Small Businesses that receive paycheck protection loans and possibly more debate on the reauthorization bill. Watch a senate live on cspan2. Tonight on the communicators. Former fcc commissioner reducing hate speech and extremities him online. When they find this so that others cannot copy it and there is now much greater cooperation then we even had three years ago the pressure is to be there. Watch the communicators tonight at eight eastern on cspan2. On wednesday, former Deputy Attorney general Ron Rosenstein testifies before the Senate Judiciary committee used during the fbi investigation into possible ties between the Trump Campaign and russian officials. The investigation was eventually taken over by special Counsel Robert Mueller who rosenstein appointed. The hearing beginning at 10 00 a. M. Eastern on cspan. Ondemand on cspan. Org. Listen live wherever you are on the free cspan radio app. Living through a loss of confidence, it is left you unable to trust what we are told by anyone who calls himself an expert. It becomes very difficult for us to rise to a challenge like this a lot of our National Institutions have got to take on the challenge of persuading people again that they exist for us, that they are here for the country. Sunday at noon eastern on indepth. Authored American Enterprise scholar. His most recent book is a time to build. The great debate and the fractured republic. Join the conversation with your phone calls, tweets, text and facebook messages. Watch indepth on book tv on cspan2. Ceo from the Cleveland Clinic and metrohealth system talk about how the coronavirus will change healthcare delivery, Public Confidence in telemedicine. Hosted this event the city club of cleveland. Hello and welcome