What i meant by its not working is were dealing with Community Spread as a substantial number of people getting infected do not know theyre infected. Theyre not symptomatic. Theyre asymptomatic individuals. The classic paradigm of identification and Contact Tracing is very difficult to make that work under those circumstances. You superimpose upon that the fact that even with identification, isolation and contact trace, often the dots are not connected. If you get on the phone and talk to people who are in some of these communityus find that a lot of it is done by phone. When its done by phone maybe half the people dont want to talk to one who they think is a government representative. If you live in a community thats mostly brown or black youre in a different situation that maybe 70 of them dont really want to talk to you. You can identify a contact but you dont isolate them because you dont have the facility to isolate them. That is whats not working. So what were going to do, and we are doing, and youre going to be hearing about this, flooding the area of a community to get a feel for whats out there, particularly among the asymptomatics. So in other words, its a paradigm shift because were dealing with young people, people who are going to be asymptomatic, and people who are getting infected in a community setting, not an outbreak setting, where you know who to identify, isolate and contact trace. Thats what i meant. Vice president pence along with dr. Anthony fauci and other members of the White House Coronavirus task force held a briefing on the rise in cases across several states. Watch tonight at 8 00 eastern on span. Cspans washington journal every day. Were taking your calls life on the air on the news of the day. And discussing policy issues that impact you. Coming up saturday morning, Public Opinion pollster and political analyst Scott Rasmussen discusses how the coronavirus pandemic is shaping Public Opinion. Theals policing projects Barry Freedman talks about his role in changing policing in camden, new jersey, and the effectiveness of community policing. Watch cspans washington journal live at 7 00 eastern saturday morning. And be sure to join the discussion with your phone calls, facebook comments, Text Messages and tweets. Earlier today, House Speaker nancy pelosi held her Weekly Briefing at the capital. She capitol, she spoke about the upcoming legislative agenda, Police Reform and the coronavirus. This is 35 minutes. Speaker pelosi good morning. What a historic evening we had with the passage of the George Floyd Justice in policing act, we couldnt be prouder of our Congressional Black Caucus, karen bass the chair of the Judiciary Committee, mr. Nadler, and the fact that it was bipartisan both in rejecting the senate bill, which was their most recent and by passing our legislation which made a tremendous which was their motion to recommit and by passing our bail. Justice also in terms of whats happening on the floor right now, in term os statehood for the district of columbia, long overdue. First Time Congress will pass legislation. For admission of to district of columbia as a state. Washington douglass, frederick douglass, would be the name of the 51st state. And yesterday being the anniversary of the horrible decision gutting the Voting Rights act, title iv. So this morning some of us are gathered in this very place to talk about the fact that we had passed h. R. 4, Voting Rights act that we hope that the senate will pass. Its about democracy, its about fairness. We know that they wish to suppress the vote and Voting Rights for the district and the rest but we will make our mark. We will stand our ground. And what is really important about all of this right now is the health of the American People. Martin luther king said, of all forms of inequality, injustice in health is the most shocking and the most inhuman. Because it also often results in physical death. F all the forms of injustice and inequality, health care is he most inhuman. So we gather here late at night last night in the midst of a pandemic, the white house, the administration in the dark of night filed their brief in the Supreme Court to overturn the Affordable Care act. Thankfully, the American People, if you have a preexisting condition you will no long that means for millions of American People if you have a preexisting condition you would no longer have access to care, and it goes on what theyd overturn. Time limits, if you have a preexisting condition, theres no lifetime limit on the amount of coverage you would receive. In the midst of a pandemic. 130 million americans with preexisting conditions will lose a. C. A. s lifesaving protections. 23 million americans will lose their access to quality, afordable health care. The a. C. A. s ban on lifetime limits, young people staying on parents plans, being a woman no longer a preexisting condition, the administration wants to do away with all of that. As bad as that is, they think they can get away with saying, oh we support a benefit for preexisting conditions. When they dont. So when they say that, understand, they are in court to overturn that now. They continue to be and now theyve filed the brief. And all this as the a. C. A. Enrollment has increased by 46 last year, showing an increase in the coronavirus. So many people have lost their jobs and in some cases their insurance benefits. Therefore theyre turning to the Affordable Care act. Again, in the middle of a pandemic the president is saying, we want to slow down the testing. The testing. I just was thinking during the night about all of this, being at school, learning about the Scientific Method, thinking about legislation we passed over time here to say we should have evidencebased legislation. And what does the Scientific Method say . The Scientific Method is a systematic method of research involving the recognition and formulation of a problem. You have to do testing. To recognize the fullness and the formulation of the problem. The collection of data through observation. You have to do testing. To observe the data. And the formulation and testing of how you go forward. This administration and republicans in congress have two things going against the will of the American People. Theyre against science. They do not accept science. And they do not accept governance. Now none of us wants any more government than we need. But theyre against government. So look at all the issues we are faced with. Health care. Our pandemic. And they resist they resist he insistence, the imperative, that the scientists are putting forth that we must test, trace, treat and separate. Wear a mask. Wash our hands. Keep our distance. They resist that. And governance. Dont want to have theyre overturning the Affordable Care act. They dont believe in a public role. Some of their supporters say, hey, government keep your hands off my medicare. What do they think medicare is . What do you think medicare is . Its governance. Antiscience, antigovernance, you deny science or ignore it, and you dont believe in governance, you dont have to do anything. You dont have to do anything about climate. Youre in denial. You dont accept the science. And you dont want to punish polluters or have regulation of pollution in our atmosphere, which is a health issue. If you dont believe in science, you wont take the measures to protect the health of the American People. The list goes on and on. And so we have the legislation that we have passed and part of the cares act called for a g. A. O. Report and this is what it said. The g. A. O. Report said in early february the sole s. B. A. F. D. A. Covid tests were deployed by the c. D. C. To state Public Health laboratories. But they experienced accuracy and reliability issues resulting in significant delays in testing nationwide. In the critical early weeks of the outbreak. It went on to say the absence of complete and consistent covid19 testing data reported through may 31, 2020, a few weeks ago, has made it more difficult to track and know the number of infections, mitigate their effort and inform decisions on opening communities. We have a pandemic. The last couple, two days ago, was at 36,000 cases. A record. Yesterday, 40,000 cases. A further record. And the president is saying slow down on the testing. If we didnt have testing we wouldnt have these cases. So my purpose here this morning is about health care. This is about health. The ignoring of science, the resistance to the science, all of the advice getting from science, the early denial, delay, caused deaths. Caused deaths. And now with a spike that we are seeing, the president is saying, slow down the testing. Others said he was joking. He doesnt say that. And by the way, this is not a laughing matter. Its a matter of life and death. And as i said, many more people are signing up for the Affordable Care act so im so pleased that on monday, we will be putting forth our Patient ProtectionAffordable Care enhancement act to Lower Health Care costs, negotiate lower prices, expand coverage and push holdout states to adopt medicaid expansion. Combat inequity in health coverage. Combat junk plans. The list goes on. Let me say this. As i said earlier, many people who have lost their jobs have turned to the Affordable Care act because their job, their health care was tied to their job. So hopefully they get their jobs back. But in the meantime they had that access. Thats what the president is trying to overturn in the courts. God willing, the courts will do the right thing. But we just dont know. So we are getting prepared for what comes next in all of this. In all of this. But let me tell you this about the a. C. A. Enhancement. It has why we have some things in it and some things arent that we saved for another day because the president said he would support these things. He said he would support negotiating for lower prices. Thats what he said during the campaign. Thats been for years our one of our priorities we have never been able to get 60 volts in the senate and get it passed into law but the president said during the campaign he was going to negotiate like crazy. Crazy. Thats a good description of his actions throughout. But negotiate like crazy, aparently means not negotiate at all. That is the only way youre going to get the prices, the lower prices. In the bill, bring down the cost of prescription drugs which were promising to the American People and the savings to the federal government from not having to pay those prices will go to expand, bigger expansion of medicare since its inception. Benefits for hearing, for visual and for dental. Its quite remarkable. It has other advantages for seniors in terms of cost of precipitation drugs as well. But were very, very of prescription drugs as well. But were very, very proud of that so its really important as whats the g. A. O. And lacking in terms what the white house is doing on testing, and we comment on the president s i dont know how ould would even describe them, antiscientific comments, we have a better idea. It started march 4 with the first bill we passed on the coronavirus. Testing, testing, testing. In april work epassed the enhance the further p. P. P. Bill and we had a big investment in testing. Testing. Testing. Not really embraced fully by the administration. As you know. In the heroes act, one of the pillars of the heroes act is open up our economy. Testing, testing, testing. Testing, tracing, treatment, separation, wear masks, wash your hands, keep your distance. Testing, tracing, treatment. Big investment for that. And the Health Care Institutions that would implement that. It goes a long way to get back to my first point about justice. And Martin Luther king. Coronavirus has demonstrated very clearly the injustice of how a pandemic hits. Is disparity of deaths that so clear in the community of color. Disparity among groups and the big impact on communs of color. Requires that we do this testing. As mr. Clyburn, our distinguished whip has said, we need mobile units to go out into communities so people will be tested and then traced and the rest. Why should there be more deaths in the communities of color . Because there hasnt been testing and tracing. And treatment. To prevent those deaths from happening. So its really important for the senate to pass the heroes act. For what it does for our heroes who are risking their lives to save lives and now may lose their jobs because of the coronavirus. And the revenue lost to communities. Communities, state and localities that are footing that bill. Thats one part of it. But the second pillar is about testing, tracing, treating. Its evidencebased. It will provide us with the analysis of what the magnitude of the problem is, and the data to say how it is affecting communities of color and everyone in our population and help us defeat this virus. God willing and science granting, we will have hopefully a vaccine at some point, a cure, therapeutics and the rest. But we dont now. We dont now. But we do have the tools to kill the virus. Testing, tracing, treatment, separation. Our , sanitation, and in bill we have the resources to do so. And they respect the role that the states play in all of this. So im hoping that the grim reaper will not be responsible for even more dangerous behavior that causes more deaths in our country because we have ignored science. We havent acted in an evidencebased way. In this p but say that election in november, science, science, science, and science are going to be on the ballot. That is what is at stake here. And its a matter of life and death. With that, im pleased to take any questions. Es, sir. Reporter last time we saw compromise last time we rought states in to compromise [inaudible] is this part of the inherent problem with bringing in d. C. , the challenge of the political balance so they proceed, d. C. Is automatically a Democratic State. Speaker pelosi that shouldnt be how we have enfranchisement in our country. Whats the nature of the vote. Actually, mr. Hoyer said here from the podium yesterday, not here, we were in a different room, but that at the time of that late 1950s, people thought that alaska would be a Democratic State and hawaii would be a republican state. And of course theyre not. Repud of course they are not. While that is interesting, it shouldnt be part of the issue. About two black, too democratic, to whatever. Otherer is there any d of compromise [indiscernible] was votingosi that on the floor of the house. Ideater but that is the there was a balance [indiscernible] Speaker Pelosi forgive me for not valuing your question to the extent you are valuing it. Think what a state is can change over time, but people in the district of columbia pay taxes, fight our wars, risk their lives for our democracy, they have this place, no vote in the house or senate about whether we go to war and how those taxes are exacted and how it is all paid. You dont want to hear about it, but this is in my dna. I am very committed to this. When i was born, my father was a member of congress from chairore and he served as of the district of columbia committee. Whoever chaired that was considered the unofficial mayor of washington because they made all the decisions for the district of columbia. He was a big believer in home rule and over time, you see some evolution in all of this home rule emerge and then a mayor there was a time there wasnt even a mayor in washington, much less a governor of a state. Now we are to this place. We are at a state of compromise. We think it is very long overdue that the residents of the all goodof columbia a vote inshould have house and in the senate. Yes, sir . Reporter you regularly criticize the president s rhetoric. That its ok to say republicans are trying to get away with the murder of george floyd with Police Reform . What wepelosi i think are talking about is how we go forward. You we are talking about something that is an incident that everybody saw the martyrdom. Everybody saw eight minutes and 46 seconds of a knee on the neck. And that may come up with a bill that says or the president comes out with whatever it is saying no choke holds, but maybe some . I absolutely not. We are talking right now, the minute the administration in terms of their denial, their delay on coronavirus caused death. That bill in particular. We canhas an impact and prevent future deaths if we banned chokehold. Im fully committed to that. Reporter [indiscernible] Speaker Pelosi i dont know that that is determined yet. I know he loves his strict and loves his constituents and i whoever ld welcome it may be another week before we know the outcome of another couple of races in new york. We have another powerful chairman, maloney weaker pelosi next week, will see what the results are, but im not going to speculate on what we dont even know has happened. But in those districts, a district like mine, anything can happen. It has nothing to do with who control the house of representatives, and that is where my focus is, not within democratic districts, but who control the house of representatives. Im very proud of how we are proceeding, our chair has been wonderful in mobilization on the ground. Worksing in a way that all over as a country on our