[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 37 (Tuesday, February 25, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Page S1125]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                              Coronavirus

  Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, the coronavirus has already spread to 
30 countries, including South Korea, Italy, Iran, and 53 confirmed 
cases here in the United States. Officials at the World Health 
Organization are now warning world governments to begin preparing for a 
pandemic--a pandemic.
  Here in the United States, the Trump administration has been caught 
flatfooted. The administration has no plan to deal with the 
coronavirus--no plan--and seemingly no urgency to develop one. Even 
now, after the virus has already become a worldwide health crisis, with 
rapidly growing economic risks, the Trump administration is scrambling 
to respond. We have a crisis, and the Trump administration is trying to 
build an airplane while already in midflight. The harsh fact of the 
matter is, the Trump administration has shown towering and dangerous 
incompetence when it comes to the coronavirus.
  Coronavirus testing kits have not been widely distributed to our 
hospitals and public health labs. Those without these kits must send 
samples all the way to Atlanta rather than testing them on site, 
wasting precious time as the virus spreads.
  The administration has eliminated--eliminated--the global health 
security teams. That is global health security, just what we need now. 
They have eliminated the teams from both the National Security Council 
and the Department of Homeland Security. And thanks to years of cuts to 
the global health division at the Centers for Disease Control by the 
Trump administration, the CDC has been forced to reduce the number of 
countries it operates in from 49 to 10.
  These are our frontlines. If we can deal with these diseases before 
they get to the United States, we are a lot safer, and the 
administration has mercilessly and thoughtlessly cut, cut, cut these 
teams. And then, only a month ago, even as we began to hear about the 
coronavirus in China, the administration sent us a budget that proposed 
cutting the CDC budget by 16 percent. The CDC is the agency on the 
frontlines that keeps us safe, keeps us healthy, and prevents American 
lives from being lost.
  Four words describe the administration's response to the coronavirus: 
towering and dangerous incompetence. When officials at the CDC 
recommended that infected passengers from a cruise ship not be flown to 
the United States alongside the noninfected passengers, the State 
Department overruled them. Shockingly, they put infected and 
noninfected on the same plane. Was this because of politics? Did 
somebody call President Trump or someone else? There are rumors to that 
effect. We don't know if they are true. They should be checked out.
  Typical of the administration, though, or certainly typical in so 
many different instances, decisions were made based on politics and 
optics rather than on the informed opinion of our scientists and 
doctors. It is like the Soviet apparatchiks overruling the nuclear 
scientists at Chernobyl to avoid embarrassment to the regime.
  Federal agencies have been so hollowed out that one of the key 
figures in responding to the coronavirus in our government is Ken 
Cuccinelli, an immigration hard-liner ideologue with no public health 
expertise. Yesterday, Mr. Cuccinelli posted a tweet actually asking for 
information about the spread of the coronavirus. The one person the 
administration can come up with to help deal with the issue then emails 
and asks for information. This is, of course, because he has no 
knowledge. He is not a scientist. He is not a disease preventer. This 
is towering and dangerous incompetence.
  President Trump, meanwhile, has said that the coronavirus might 
``miraculously'' fade once the weather gets warmer--towering and 
dangerous incompetence. With no plan to deal with this potential health 
crisis, the administration last night issued an emergency budget 
request. It was too little and too late. It asked Congress to reprogram 
funding dedicated to fighting Ebola--still considered an epidemic in 
the Democratic Republic of the Congo--to deal with coronavirus. That is 
robbing Peter to pay Paul. It is further evidence that the 
administration is not taking the coronavirus as seriously as it should. 
I said as much last night here on the floor.
  The President seemed upset about my criticism of the budget proposal 
this morning. I am glad he has noticed. Maybe he will start taking this 
issue more seriously. Now that I have gotten the President's attention, 
I want to lay out five things the Trump administration must do to get a 
handle on the coronavirus.
  The administration must, at a minimum, restore the cuts to the CDC 
budget. Trump's cuts to the CDC budget have had dramatic effects, 
shrinking the agency's footprint abroad to help combat pandemics. The 
administration must commit now to reverse it.
  The Trump administration must appoint a point person--a czar--to 
implement a real plan to manage the coronavirus: an independent, 
nonpartisan, global health expert with real expertise, not a political 
appointee like Cuccinelli--somebody who is a scientist who knows these 
issues and can coordinate the myriad Federal agencies to fight the 
fight and prevent American lives from being lost.
  The administration must increase its emergency budget request to at 
least $3.1 billion with no cuts--no cuts--for Ebola funding, which is 
still raging in Africa. The $3.1 billion is the amount our public 
health organizations say is necessary. The funding must also include a 
commitment to reimburse States and localities for all expenses related 
to addressing the outbreak.
  The Trump administration must expedite delivery of diagnostic testing 
kits to all 50 States and public health laboratories so the tests don't 
have to be sent--these samples don't have to be sent to Atlanta and 
people wait, wait, and wait for a result as the disease spreads.
  And finally, the administration must stop the proliferation of junk 
insurance plans that do not even cover coronavirus tests and other 
related healthcare services. This is typical of why we have opposed 
these junk plans. They cover hardly anything. Now that we have this 
crisis--the coronavirus--so many people who have these junk plans will 
not get tested because they can't afford it and because their plans 
don't cover it, a glaring example of why junk health plans--the 
administration's solution, it seems, to the health crisis--are totally 
inadequate and dangerous.
  These are five basic steps that any competent administration would 
have already taken in preparation for the pandemic. There may be others 
as well, but this is what happens when you have an administration and a 
President so skeptical of science, so contemptuous of expertise, so 
practiced in obscuring inconvenient facts, and so disdainful of 
organization and preparation.
  Madam President, you need to get your act together now. This is a 
crisis. We need you to act. We need this administration to finally do 
the right thing after weeks of dithering and exhibiting towering and 
dangerous incompetence.