By mail, theyoted sold handle 450 million, there is no question if everybody voted by mail, they would be fine with that. The real question isnt the Postal Service, it will go to the Elections Office or the people voting, are the ballots accurate. Of them getne third thrown out so i think the post office is getting caught up in the political debate and that is the last place the post office should be because there are no problems there. Dan i think one of the reasons that so many of our members are concerned is because just as this debate was beginning to get more visibility, the president said last week he thought additional money for the post office in the covid relief package should be withheld, because it would prevent mailin voting from taking place on the scale that many have called for. Now, you and a senator Mitch Mcconnell have made it clear that you both believe it should be in the budget, so help us some or establish clarity on what the president was trying to say. Rep. Mccarthy let me be clear. We have already passed the cares bill, which provides money for the post office. I have watched all the commissioners. There is plenty of money. The difference between mail ballots and absentees. This is a legitimate argument. Because what happens if you are changing because of covid in california, we have half the people voting absentee. I vote absentee in a lot of times. Because you can sign up to be a permanent absentee. In los angeles they have had , problems because when you apply by absentee it means you are already registered. You are filling out an application. They know it is going to you. You have a record. L. A. County got sued when they had a million more people on the rolls then they actually had. They had to clean up the records. If you change that to an all mail ballot, you sent everybody a ballot on the record. And they have not been updated. That is when you get a problem for some fraud because you dont have signature checks. It is not updated. That is where the president lies. He voted this week by absentee. He is concerned by mailin ballots and not absentee ballots. He was confused when he was making his message about the post office. He wants to make sure that all of the money is going to the post office. And they have more than enough money going into next year. Dan if i understand right, where you draw they distinguish is not between absentee and mail voting. Because i have seen those terms used interchangeably. You are drawing a distinction between people who request the opportunity to vote by mail. Versus sending out a ballot to everyone proactively, is that the distinction . Rep. Mccarthy that is the clear distinction. In a world of covid, more people should be able to vote absentee. I have no problem with that. I want to have a check and balance inside our election process. You know you have an honest election because we had a few people plead guilty down in l. A. That they were filling out for Homeless People and others. We watched it in new york when they went to an allmail ballot. They are still counting the ballots. A third of them did not work through. If you are going to do an absentee ballot, we should make sure our vote counts. We can trace it and follow it. In california, they changed the rules. Made it a little bit more relaxed about who can turn the ballot in. That became a discussion in the last election. The one thing i love about our elections, in history, we go inside our curtains and no one can dictate how we vote. We can vote in privacy. The more you are forcing someone else can pick up your ballot and knowing how you vote. I want to make sure we have a check. That they check with my Voter Registration. If i sign my absentee, they check that absentee along with my Voter Registration to make sure im the same person and someone knows i am voting on my ballot. Dan our audience will have more questions on this later. We will move on in just a second. One last question on mail before we go on to other stuff. You said in the time of covid additional mail voting was a good idea for those concerned about exposing themselves to the virus. California, and this is the distinction were talking about, is sending a ballot proactively to every registered voter. There are several states that are sending ballot applications rather than the ballot themselves to every registered voter, therefore the individual has to send back the application in order to get the ballot. Is that an alternative . Rep. Mccarthy it makes it better because just in the last two years, l. A. Got sued because they had one million more people on the roll than they actually had. What happened in the Elections Office, think how often people move. They dont remove you from the election rolls. They can have four or five People Living in the same location. If you mail everybody in an application, you will clean the rolls up. They have to send them back in so you know this is a legitimate individual. It is like holding a bunch of ballots and putting them on the sidewalk and anybody can pick them up and mail a ballot. You do not know who was picking them up. If you have some kind of check, you have my signature on record for my Voter Registration. They check to make sure on the same person. Dan Speaker Pelosi is calling the house back into session to vote on to call a vote on whether or not an additional 25 million 25 billion should be spent on the Postal Service. Will you vote for that or will you instruct your caucus to vote for it or against it . Rep. Mccarthy how can we instruct anyone to vote for it . No one has seen it and no one has read it. It has not been through committee. Not tois where play partisanship, but this is purely partisan to be called back. I think we should be called back but not for this. We should be called back to deal with covid. We have schools trying to reopen. Some of them are reopening, some of them are planning to reopen. What are we doing to help me safely . Ols open we have businesses trying to open up. We have Small Businesses wondering if they can open again when government has shut them down. The ppp program that provided funding to give to their employees was so successful but it only went for two months. Could we extend that . Small businesses and schools and governments wondering if they will get sued. Should we do Liability Protection . You have people unemployed who actually got a bonus, another 15 an hour from the federal government, along with what california gave them. So, they were getting 24 an hour. That 15 an hour has run out. Is their ability to find Common Ground between that, maybe they can still get a bonus . That is what we should be called back for. To be called back for the Postal Service that already told us they have enough money, a postmaster yesterday who just said he will have no changes between now and the election, i dont know why we would vote on anything that would not change any of the outcomes. It is more a political nature of why we are coming back. Dan just to clarify, Speaker Pelosi said she wants congress to deal with a covid relief package before late september when you come back to deal with the broader budgetary questions. How quickly would you Bring Congress back into session to deal with covid relief . Rep. Mccarthy she has all the power. She said before august we would not leave until we dealt with it. Apparently that is not true. Now she postponed it, let everybody leave. Look i understand congress at , times has a problem making deadlines. But i have always understood be , it at the state legislature or congress, once you get to the deadline people start paying attention more. And if they thought they were going to be able to leave and keep them there, they will make their decisions sooner. So i would have never let us leave. I think that covid is too important. I think the economy is too important. And this is where the speaker and i have had differences of opinion. In every covid19 bill we have done there are times were here Speaker Pelosi has delayed things. I was trying to get in a Liability Protection for 3m. They make different masks. They make different styles. Some a doctor would use for surgery, some that whitley would use any business. Use some that they would use any business. It is frustrating to sell it to the public and get sued. We wanted to do Liability Protection would have given us 30 million more masks. We could not get that in. When we were dealing with the cares act, schumer said he was ready to go and pelosi said no. She held it up. We got more money for the arts. I did not think that was a reason to hold it up, covid19. I did not think that was a reason. When the ppp program does so well we watched the money running out. Secretary of the treasury requested more money. This was about a month early. Bill, not need a new new language it would add more , money to a program we already voted for. She opened up ever frigid and and said no onor it wasnight show, and held up for another week. We will disagree on some things but we can find Common Ground when he came to covid on things we can agree to. Lets do those. The other things that dont deal with covid, we put aside for another day. Lets not delay longer. What do you do when people are out of work . What do we do when people are trying to pay the rent and they are not getting their check again . It creates new problems in the financial markets. Dan lets talk more about the covid package. Im sure you knew before the rest of us did, the Associated Press reported this morning that Senate Republicans are moving forward with a covid relief package. Roy blunt of missouri said the legislation will include 300 for weekly on Employment Unemployment benefits. He believes that those can last through the end of the year. That is extra. To what the state already applied to. Dan 300 on top of the state payments. It also includes some additional money for education and for virus testing. It is not include a renewal of a onetime direct payment of up to 1200 for taxpayers and dependents. I dont know if this is a bill or informal proposals. Are you familiar with what Senate Republicans are proposing . Are you comfortable with it . Rep. Mccarthy i was talking to leader mcconnells office this morning. I am familiar with what they are trying to do. Its an opportunity when we are back to work. I have another difference of opinion with the speaker. I believe congress is essential. Through every crisis we have had in this country, from yellow fever, the civil war, world war ii, 9 11, congress met. We even met when they burned the capitol down. I dont think we should be staying home and voting by proxy. I think we should be working. I think people call this a skinny bill these are all things everyone in congress has agreed to. The senate has different rules. It takes 60 votes. People have differences of opinion. They did not put it in the bill. Lets do the things we agreed upon and get that also people that out so people dont hurt any longer. I think that is an approach to go. If that gets denied, kind of like Police Reform where they wont let it come up for debate, that becomes a problem. You have to have 60 votes to even get a debate. Dan we had senator tim scott talking about the Police Reform bill. I would like to come back to that later if we have time. A couple of particular points about the covid bill and the differences between the two parties, what the speaker is proposing and what we heard from senator blunt. As you know, i teach these days at uc berkeley and the university of Southern California and pepperdine. I am proud that i not only have two former students working on your staff, but on the speaker s staff as well. I brag about them all equally. One of the biggest differences between the two is the funding for education, both k12 and higher ed. How do you see those differences getting resolved . What do you tell students and parents about how you feel the best way is to solve the differences between you and the speaker is calling for . Rep. Mccarthy i like to write bills based upon data. If i take the democrats bill, that was 3 trillion. I did not vote for that bill for a number of reasons. In it, they had about 100 billion. In the senate proposal, republicans had more for schools. 105 billion. Now the request has gone higher. Sometimes, if i get the numbers wrong it is because i will have meetings with foreign leaders and my mind might come to what they are requesting. Now they are requesting 400 billion. Im not sure where that number comes from. I would like to do something for the schools. I know the schools are opening now. Republicans offered more than what the democrats had passed. It almost becomes a similar to a game, somebody else offered more and now i have to offer more. That is not a reason to hold the bill up. I would take what people agreed and see if we can get to places to find Common Ground. It is like unemployment. When we crafted the unemployment , the onesizefitsall does not work. The unemployment you need in bakersfield is different than new york city. But we were in such a rush because covid was coming, we extent it until the with the ppp program we learned 31st. We needed more flexibility for Small Business. We found Common Ground there. In the cares act, we had republicans and democrats working in committees and crafting it based on their expertise. That was a great moment. The difference is it is leadership only negotiating. I think every member should apply and those members and their expertise areas. Let them work together. Kind of what we did on the cares bill on the senate side. Republicans and democrats focusing on that section. You work to that. If we can come together, bring it all to one package, that works really well. We found Common Ground. As you teach government, no one side gets everything they want. Our government is designed to find compromise. Right now, we are just finding reasons not to go forward. I dont know if that is because in less than 80 days we have an election. We are in a different time with covid. That should not be a part of it and that is why Police Reform should not be a part of that either. Dan the California State Legislature where you start as , republican leader before being elected to congress, passed a budget how governor gavin newsom signed that predicates a huge amount of state spending on education, health care, and other issues. That spending is predicated on money from the federal government. Was that a mistake . Rep. Mccarthy i do not know. I remember, when i was growing up i watched popeye and i ate a hamburger that day and would not pay for it on tuesday. I dont think that is how i would run a state. If something came in, i would add onto that. I think that is better planning from that standpoint. I think the federal government can get together. I think of the speaker would call us back the reason you take a break in august is d. C. Used to be a swamp. It is hot and you made. You made. But they do not have rolling blackouts like california. I would make members go back and work. Dan speaking of rolling blackouts, you are not the White House Press secretary but the republican leader in the house of representatives, the president said yesterday in California Democrats have intentionally implemented rolling blackouts. As you know from your time in the state, those decisions are made by the California Independent system operator. As opposed to elected officials. Is that a Fair Assessment in his opinion . Rep. Mccarthy if you take what he said, he is probably saying the policies of the democrats have led to the blackouts. Love thisnia, i state. I know the potential of this estate. I come from a region that supplies a great deal of electricity to california. We are number one when it comes to solar. Number one when it comes to wind. Number one when it comes to oil production. We have geothermal. I have nuclear just outside. It is kind of all of the above. But in california, we pay on average 40 more for our electricity than other states. Now when we are sitting in a state that is having a heat wave and you cant guarantee whether you will have electricity, you know. In my own town the water , filtration for the city, some will have to be shut down. There is an ability to have solar, but at the same time you shouldnt have to turn it off when the sun goes down. There is ability to have wind, but you shouldnt have to turn it off on the wind will blow. When the wind will not blow. You need all of the above. Especially if we are paying more than everyone else and you cannot guarantee it, the president is right about those policies. They are not delivering for those in california in a time when they need it. Dan in just one minute i will turn this over to jessica. She has piles and piles of questions from our audience. I will step aside. But before i step aside, one last question i would like to ask you. Michigan State University announced they were shutting down all classes. Notre dame announced yesterday they would delay the start of fall classes. University of North Carolina made the same announcement. The pacific 12 in the big ten athletic conferences have both decided to delay all fall sports, including College Football, which is a tremendous cultural and economic import and in a lot of states. The big ten and pack 12 decided pac 12 decided to delay their schedule until january at the earliest. Other