Engaged in about how we go forward. The simple fact is, and has always been, unless we crush the virus, we are not going to be able to open our economy or our schools and society safely. Since march 4th, we had our first coronavirus bill. Testing, testing, testing has been the focal point of addressing crushing the virus. Its been in the legislation, but it has not been a priority for this administration. They are on the frontline and the worst that life to to save other lives and now they may lose their jobs in order to protect them and their children and their country we have to do what we do in the heroes act is crushed the virus. Its not just having the languages we have over and over, acting and good will that the administration would listen to the scientist scientists when they came to theth testing, tracing, treatment mask wearing, separation, ventilation, sanitation, did i say that . Instead this bill lays out the plan and its a plan that the energy and Commerce Committee under the leadership of frank alone put together based on science, science, science and what we have to do to crush the virus. And why did the administration decides to ignore science has contempt for science the death toll rises. Since we pastor will nearly five monthsr ago over 100,000 more people have died and millions more have been infected because they want to ignore science and because they disdain governance. Science would say now you are required to do this or that. Owe are on a path that we shoud never, never have been on at this point. So when the president does this strange tweet that says hes walking away from negotiations i was like what . We have been working very hard to find our Common Ground to agree on language to have an understanding of what the legislation will do. He still we still havent heard back on the amendment and the language for testing and tracing. Hes showing up at one of his golf clubs or something that is going to go buy their stuff but this is a Strategic Plan that mr. Pallone will describe and scientists have helped put together in support. When the president did his tweet the oneee that said that he was walking away i think he surprised a lot of people. I dont want to go into who they are right now but it was a disservice to the discussion that we were having in good faith. When he walked away from the discussions he walked away from our children. Hewa walked away for how we can open up our schools virtually or in hybrid form and how we can educate our children. He walked away from poor children in our country in terms of the Child Tax Credit in the dependent child credit and the other initiatives that help the poorest children in our country where he walked away from what we were trying to do to put money in the pockets of the American People, food on the table, rent so they are not addicted. All of it evict did. All of its coronavirus centered, coronavirus centered. He walked away from her heroes and he said to those Health Care Workers police in fire teachers, teachers, teachers, transportation, sanitation food workers on the rest we just dont care. You just dont matter. This is really appalling and the list goes on and on and of course he walked away from safety in the workplace and the lives of our democracy and in so many ways. So i here we are, now planting, staking out the territory so thatt the people will know thee is a plan and the plan isnt for the president he to say that hea perfect specimen, specimen maybe i can agree with that and he is young. Its a disassociation from reality and it would be funny if it werent so deadly. His enablers around who are enabling death, the death tolls rise. We have to shed a bright light on what has been possible for months that they chose to ignore because of their contempt for congress in their disdain for governance and so thats why theres one thing that has to be in this bill that he o has never made a priority. It is crushing the virus. Instead of the denial, delay, distortion, lack of reality that the president has brought to us. Lets not let it be a total and lets let it be scientific. Im proud to be with Frank Pallone this morning and he knows these Health Issues backwards and forwards over the years so he can place this in the context ofhe public health,f science, about reaching as many people as possible. And let me just close by saying this. When the president did his tweet, he said i want the senate to spend full complete focus on the nomination so im not going to have them doing anything on stopping the spread of the virus is essentially what that is. We are focusing on the nomination. Why . So someone can be in there on time for the oral arguments on november 10 to overturn the Affordable Care act. To overturn the Affordable Care act. This is in the time of the pandemic the president going to court and overturning Affordable Care act, overturning preexisting condition benefits that 150 million families in america depend upon. Overturning this means tens of millions of more people who have access to health care overturning the essential benefits and overturning so many aspects of the Affordable Care act including if you have a senior a in your family who is n longterm care, much of it casework by medicaid. And then to misrepresent the truth. His plan was the benefit that we havent seen it in four years. We havent seen it in four years. No family in america can afford unlimited expenses that would come with not having a preexisting condition benefit and the other provision in the bill that removes it, the Insurance Company what they would spend on a person. Lives are at stake. Help is in the balance. This is deadly serious so lets take a serious not as skinny or not anime seeded at that a serious appropriate approach to crushing the virus and then talk about some of the other good things that would flow from that. With that im proud to president the chairman of the ways in the energy and Commerce Committee a person who has decades on these issues and we are blessed that he we have his leadership at this time to addresss this issue, mr. Pallon. Let me thank you for your persistence in continuing to focus on crushing the virus as repeatedly to me and the caucus and the American People and what you just said and constantly say which is this has to be the focus because this is the key to everything. You are going to be also open the economy wont be able to recover the economy less to crushy, the virus in your emphas that this is our responsibility and the governmentsov responsibility and this is washingtons responsibility to do something about this. Theng speaker never hesitates ad i havent filed negotiations but when she talks to assign no where the president raises one issue she says what about the virus and what about the testing and what he going to do about that . I want to thank you for prioritizing it and constantly bringing it up or it is hard for me to believe that its now a sober and its 10 months into this pandemic and the Trump Administration still doesnt have a National Testing tracing surveillance and containment plan in place. We have been after this for from the veryg beginning. We cant even effectively test or c trace within the confines f the white house but i heard this morning that he is back to the oval office potentially spreading it to the people who work for him in the white house and maybe spreading it to washington and others. In fact one of the terms of i have in my home state of new jersey you probably know that new jersey has done a very good job in the last few months of containingac the virus but the president came in had eight fundraiser in bedminster at the golf course in the governor is trying to Contact Trace the people that were there to see if they are spreading it and raisingg their numbers in new jersey. Its just insane what he does. He refuses to acknowledge that we are not going to be able to crush this virus unless we have some kind of the National Plan to deal with this. Thats the other thing the state, we did have money in the cares act again thanks to the speaker and all of us in the congress that voted for it but that money is running out. We have only had about half of what we need and most of that has been. The speaker is right, now im going to talk about whats in the heroes act that we passed last week but i just have to emphasize t again the president cutting up the negotiations and refusing to talklk about this is making the possibility of this National Plan less and less likely every day. He just doesnt want to do it. In terms of the testing in the Contact Tracing i think you know we have 75 days in funding to support the testing and the Contact Tracing and the surveillance but just as important as the money is the fact that we state that only that we should have a National Plan that we talk about clear benchmarks and timelines in the strategy to woo achieved the level of testing that is necessary. Right now there are only 900,000 tests being done her day around the country and Health Experts who have testified before our Committee Say you need 4 million minimum per day so thats less than 25 of the will look whats absolutely necessary. When anybody tells you we are doing the testing and anybody can be testing is simply not true. We are not doing enough testing and the bottom line is its also a question of the national guidelines. Es why do you think different states use different types of tests and a lot of times the tests dont work. They scramble for the thing they use for the testing. They dont know what to do about the schools and when they should open in what they need to open. This should all be done on a National Level and this is done in a lot of other countries on the National Level and is not being done here because the president doesnt want to have a National Plan. Democrats have stressed vaccines and the president so recently hasnt wanted to talk about that vaccines but in the heroes that we address vaccines effectively and we have created a National Vaccine plan to leave provided 20 billion in additional funds to promote access to vaccines and therapeutics. 7 billion goes to conducting activities to expand and improve Vaccine Distribution. A lot of that will go to the state which needed for them to continue and also a billion dollars goes to heaven and space Public Awareness campaigns. The states of the mask by october 16 which i believe his is next week to put together individual plans for Vaccine Distribution and well want it to be as equitable as possible. Just like they need the money for testing they also need the money for the vaccine if they are going to be able to have an effective plan. The b heroes act if its not passed and the president doesnt address it and doesnt go back to the negotiating table it can be hard for the states to develop those vaccine plans that they have to put forward by next week. What we have heard from the president until recently was obvious he wanted to approve the vaccine by election day whether or not it would be effective. Thank god that i mean not, thank god they have d. A. One ahead and issued new guidelines that make it clear that we have to have an additional two months from when the vaccine has been finally developed to test it and make dont have adverse effects. Ii would say its like when you go to the hospital and they say the operation was successful but the patient died. We dont need a vaccine that wont be effective and we dont need a vaccine that will have some any adverse effects that people die from the effect of the vaccine. The bottom line is now at least we have the fdl there with the guidelines but we are still concerned that he may override the fda and just go ahead and say do the vaccine anyway we dont need the fdas approval and we should stress that should not have been. Thet final thing within the lat 24 hours madam speaker regeneron its almost as if i tried the Silver Bullet with a vaccine but now i dont have them anymore. Now i will move to regeneron the experimental drug that he was treated within now hes issued a video in the last 24 hours thing well im going to have this thing approved by the fda under emergency use and im going to have it distributed and manufactured in everybodys going to have it again. Again the language says im going to override the fta and sidesing to override the where i know what works. Needless to say we dont know if it works and we have no reason to believe that its going to be available. The company that produces is it they have the ability to treat 50,000 people. More than 50,000 people got the virus yesterday and almost 1000 died yesterday. What are you talking about mr. President . Once again you are ignoring the science and politicizing the issue. Stop, stop this or help us get the heroes act with the tools and the resources necessary to the virus and im not going to wish this away. We have to rise to the challenge. The speaker has risen to the challenge. The president has not. Please mr. President come back to the negotiating table. Lets get this critical testing and vaccine provisions signed into law so he we can crush the virus and do the responsible thing as their speaker said to the American Peopler and thank you again. Sin thank you mr. Chairman. On that score on the language because again we have put resources for testing again and again and again but left to their ownef devices they did not have a plan except to use it almost in a political way and this is a plan to do it in a scientific way. I also want to make the point that its very important to our plan that we are recognizing communities of color have been disproportionately hit byy this virus and thats why we need to the testing, tracing treatment separation etc. Addressed into those communities and thats part of what this plan will do as w well. Before i take questions i just want to say that every part ofbe the bill said let the states go bankrupt. Many of those employees are people of color. Many of them serve people of color. Their rejection of doing this right is harmful to people of color and how they want to spend their money on the schools is harmful to children of color. So people say to me you arent going to be able to correct every ill in society and this bill and thats true. This is coronavirus but im not going to make matters worse and solidify the disparities that we have seen as this virus continues to spread. When i talk to these ministries most recently last evening i said you still havent given us a response to the language after all this time. That. Dmitted spamming corrupt as indicated you have talked to the secretary about a standalone bill to help the airlines. How is that progress and that has the entire community hurting and why did the airlines deserve special treatment . Let me stay with the subject and i welcome back to you garrett. Let me say this, this issue and the president with pray for his health is recovering his family 34 people in the white house infected by this and still not an acceptance of what needs to be done. I think the public needs to know the Health Condition of the president. Thereco is one question that thy refuse to answer. Before he got the virus and admitted to it when was his last negative test . When was his last negative test . Make a judgment about the actions we are taking after that. Members of the press asked the question but it is a very important question for our country. Now the president is saying that he probably got this from a gold star families. Can you believe that he would say such a thing . He probably got this from a gold star family. Let us see a date and a time when you last tested negative before you would admitted to this virus spread on the subject of how we crush t the virus and how we go forward other questions. I wondered about the negotiations. About the subject and i welcome back to it because this is central to the negotiations. Its no use saying we will give the administration more money to do whatever they want with it unless we get to the heart of the matter and crush this. On this topic its clear that the issue is as much about the president pulling away from the negotiations but also the republicans in the senate who have shown concern about spending more money yet at the same time we saw a republican senators said they thought it was mistake to walk away from negotiations. Are you in any way talking to leader mcconnell or to any of these republican senators who perhaps could weigh in on this in a way that would help bring some resolution . You arent talking about this tbject. Anybody want to talk about would build you want to talk about . What we want to talk about is the fact and to your point about the republican senators they are accomplices to what the president is doing in termst of ignoring the science that could save lives. That is the point of this and it essential to the negotiations and there is no way the week and said lets just write some checks and give them to the president so he can get them out in the way he wants when its not getting to the heart of the matter. You had the first question since there seems to be i dont know what about how you understand that we are where we are because of that. If you have any questions about what mr. Pallone is proposing and if not i will answer garretts question. Garrett let me be really clear. I have been very open to having a standalone bill for the airlines for part of a bigger bill but there is no standalone bill without a bigger bill. There is no bill because you asked the second question why should we do one and not the other and so the comment that i made to the Administration Last night was we are happy to review what that standalone bill would look like as part of the bigger bill if there is a bigger bill but there is no standalone bill. If we dont have a guarantee that we are going to be helping our state and local employees and we arent going to be able to crush the virus and we are going to be able to have our children go to School Safely and we arent going to have safety in the workplace and address unemployment and we are not going to and some of these issues we have come to some agreement. Some of them we have not but they have walked away from the whole package and that includes 17 million children in the country, food insecure and millions of their families on the verge of eviction on the verge of eviction and the president says its not going to happen and i take pride in the fact that when these workers in the unions and the companies did their president last week they advocated for a full bill. Who is next . Last night mnuchin said to you hes interested in getting back to talking about a larger bill but you would need the presence buyin. I would not put those exact words in his mouth. There were no exact words. We were talking about a single bill a standalone bill and the particulars within a single bill because they have objection. We had a unanimous consent request last week that the republicans rejected. And the senate have their own version which they even rejected themselvesre, the Senate Republicans rejected themselves so the question is is there work on the standalone bill and what does that look like . The only point about negotiations is angling to be no standalone bill unless theres a bigger bill and it can be part of that art could be in addition to that. Youve been on negotiations often nonsince july over this package. Actually since may. Its almost five months. Could you give us a sense, the president wants to delay a mnuchin seems eager to do something. Us your prospects here of where you think things are given your talks with mnuchin and the president and t mcconnell i guess disagreement about the larger package and can you give us what your prospects are . I dont know what the prospectsw are when i hear people say im young and im a perfect specimen instead of addressing the staff. 50,000 people were infected reported to be infected yesterday nearly 1000 people died. What are we talking about here . Tomorrow by w the way, tomorrow, come here tomorrow. We are going to be talking about the 25thth amendment but not to take attention away from the subject we have now. Heres the thing, we have been working very hard on language because ifif you dont have the language you are just giving them a blank check to do what they have done which is to ignore crushing the virus. So what we are saying is all the trust that we have before and let me use the word trust, trust, trust and all the trust in the world that they argue is so compelling to open up our economy and the schools and the rest of that they do something but they didnt and now frank for five months, itll be five months and a few days the 15th of may in the 15th of october it will be five months. The point isso early on we have lots of negotiations. They want to know our justification for childcare and they want to know our a justification for the earned income tax credit because you know theres from their, right . While the president is paying 750 for his taxes in the years that he did pay taxes so getting back to your question we have been working on with the language would look like. We have our differences and numbers but its no use having just a numbersss discussion unls we know what that money is on. Otherwise we are just giving hundreds of billions more than 2 trillion to the president to spend any way he wants but not to address the issues at hand. So thats why it was so disappointing. I wondered if mr. Mnuchin even knew the president was going to do that than i even wonder if Mitch Mcconnell knew the president was going to do that. You might want to ask them but the fact is that in saying what he said just focusing on the supreme courtng nomination to overturn the Affordable Care act so undermining of all the work. Its a lot of work and staff work that goes into clarifying so we understand what the language means in making concessions here and there clarifications and prioritizing in ati different way. Its called legislating. Its called legislating. Its a Foreign Language to the white house in many respects but it is what we have to do to save livessa and thats what we inted to do and i was optimistic. We were engaging about these conversations if youre optimistic that something would come of it and we did move in some areas. Nothing is agreed to until everything is agreed to. Thats the way it always is. Are you still optimistic . Im hopeful because it has to be done. If the president wants to wait until he wins the election that might unit turned a if he wants to wait until after the election that would be unfortunate because more people will die and more will be infected and more kids will be unsure about their learning and more kids will go without food. Evictions, moratorium is a nice thing but someone has to pay the rent at some point and again more people will be fired from state and local government. Every day of delay is a problem but again we are not going to ossified the injustices that have become part of this in terms of communities of color and just people who have a predisposition to catching such a virus. In your talks with secretary mnuchin did you have anything to add to any of this . In your talks with secretary mnuchin do you get the sense that hes on the same page with the president . You said there might have been a situation where he didnt know the president was republicans may say we have heard of some pepper roosevelt in the report. I dont know. Youll have to ask camp that i asked him and he said he knew. They said you knew he was going to tweet . You knew that he was going to tweet and you have engaged for months on negotiations with the speaker of the house the first branch of government with all that we have done respectful of your point of view trying to find reconciliation and Common Ground that the congress of the United States would be treated with disrespect by a tweet by the president to say it soft . Is that an appropriate notification so that he could focus fulltime on the nomination. On the nomination. This is not the way, but again we embrace, theres a bad word for that and again its not about him its about the people in america. When he comes to your office or on the phone. Saving he is not coming to my office. [laughter] dont worry aboutry me. Dont worry about me. I get tested all the time because im in conversation with the president. I will see you on the phone. Do you get the sense that they are all in the same page and represent the positions of the administration . I dont know who you mean by day all. I dont even do that but the secretary of the treasury has been designated by the president to engage in these negotiations. I have to trust that but why would he have these conversations if he is not speaking for the president of the United States . This is not an academic discussion. Hes not speaking for the president of the United States theres no reason to have a conversation. I trust that he is and i trust he wants to understand the differences so we can try to find Common Ground and hopefully we will. Let me just say another thing, trust. Trust is a word that is so important in everything we do and trustt is important when it comes to the vaccines. We all want to pray for a vaccine to come soon and we want to have it not one day sooner it that its safe and efficacious but not one day later. God willing it will come soon and that will be an answer for us and maybe that is what makes the administration acts in the responsible way that they do about prevention because they are placing so much on the vaccine. Thank god the scientist that the fda were scientists and working 24 7. Who created warp speed by the way . Who created warp speed . And there were, their science and a genius will be where awarded by having the appropriate Clinical Trials so that what comes out of it is something that we can trust not something politicized or a timetable that is hastened because of something else. Frank do you want to speak to the vaccine . I think what we have in the updated heroes that is trying to address a lot of the things that the speaker mentioned. In other words not only do we have more money for Actual Development for the vaccine but also the distribution because as i mentioned by next week i think october 16 next week where some post to submit a plan but again they dont have the money to do it. And in my opinion a lot of the guidance they are getting isnt necessarily helpful and you could very easily have wide disparities from one state to the next just like with the tes. For sample in new jersey the plan was submitted was this seven day of the population whereas the white house said 2 was enough. Actually 2 is totally insufficient so again what we are saying is this has to be nationalized. Not only do weyi have to find funding his speaker said which is in the heroes act in the updated version for the testing the Contact Tracing and the vaccine but it has to be a National Plan for doing all this. That plan has clearly failed as far as the testing in the kant tech tracing. They never developed a National Plan. They left it up to theop state. Now the same thing may happen with the vaccine. In other words or states going to be competing for the vaccine . They have no real guidelines nationally about how toui distribute it through the speaker constantly talks about equitable distribution. Its not just a question of giving it out to a few select people. Its a question of making sure everyone gets it equitably and im concerned about minority and underserved communities and how they are going to get it. The president just keep saying dont worry, everybody can have a test and everybody kanke get the vaccine or now he moves on to everybody can get the treatment that heyb had with ths experimental drug and there is no National Plan of uniformity. Hes ignoring the science once again. He says with this latest drug that the company i guess within the last 24 hours asks for or emergency use authorization but a lot of the scientist in the media are saying we dont know whether this thing works and as nancy said we dont even know whether its working on him. They dont give us information about his own case. Clearly its not available in any widespread way even if it is approved and is effective. I cant commend you enough because you keep saying the heart of what happens in negotiations has to be a National Plan for testing and Contact Tracing equitable Vaccine Distribution and they are ignoring that. They act like that doesnt matter because thats not the main focus of what we are trying to do to crush the virus. Has to be the main focus and thats aware stressing. And they come back to the word trust because when this vaccine is put forth in a scientific way with the appropriate Clinical Trials and consent from the Scientific Advisory committee that tests on these things that people will have trust in it and take the vaccine because the vaccine is as only as good as the many people who will do it in the numbers are split in our country so far as to whether they would avail themselves of it and thats why this has to be embraced withor the scientific basis that it has not ignored because of the doubt is to the timing of it rather than the Scientific Evidence that it is safe and effective. Yes, sir. Do think its time to invoke the 25th amendment . I will talk about that tomorrow. If you want to talk about that we will see you tomorrow but to take me back to my point mr. President when was the last time you had a negative test before you tested positive . Why is the white house not telling the country that important fact about how the spread and made a hotspot hot spot of the white house . Thank you all very much. Thank you. Let me just say we are at the table. We are at the table and we want to continue the conversation. We have made progress and we Exchange Language so we will see howanan they come back create tk you