[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 37 (Tuesday, February 25, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Page S1126]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                              Coronavirus

  Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, I would like to note that this morning 
at 8 a.m., an unusual meeting took place in this Capitol Building. It 
was in the area of the building that is reserved for top-secret 
classified briefings. All Members of the Senate were invited. The issue 
at that briefing was the coronavirus.
  I sat through the major part of that briefing before I had to leave 
for another meeting. There wasn't anything in there that should have 
been classified or top secret. If there were ever a time when we need 
to be open, honest, and complete in telling the whole story to the 
American people, it is this moment when we face the coronavirus, which 
started, we believe, in China and is now spreading across the world.
  I back up what the Democratic leader said earlier because the request 
was made at this meeting for some $2 billion in the United States to 
respond to this coronavirus threat. When we questioned 
the administration as to why that number and what they were going to do 
with it, the answers were limited. In fact, when it came to the source 
of the money, they had no answer at all.

  Remember, this is an administration which has consistently asked to 
cut the funding for the Centers for Disease Control. It has been a low 
priority of the Trump administration until we faced this threat, and 
now they have suddenly awakened. It turns out that even in the next 
fiscal year, which begins on October 1, the Trump administration has 
asked to cut the money for the Centers for Disease Control again.
  You ask yourself, who is in charge over there? Who is making the 
basic decisions? Well, it could be the person who has decided that 
every available dollar needs to be put into a wall on the Mexican 
border.
  Think of this for a moment: Ten billion dollars currently sits in an 
account for the building of this wall--unspent. They can't spend it. 
Yet the President recently asked for $3.8 billion more for building his 
almighty wall--which I thought Mexico was going to pay for--and now 
comes at the last minute asking for some $2 billion for the 
coronavirus.
  As one Senator said in the meeting this morning, when it comes down 
to it, if our business is to protect the American people, isn't the 
highest priority to stop the spread of this virus in the United States? 
Of course it is, and that is why it should be a higher priority. No 
wall is going to stop that virus from coming into the United States. 
The President ought to wake up to that reality.
  When you look at the efforts that are being made here in the United 
States and around the world, we can and should do more. I support this 
request for a dramatic increase in funding for this purpose now--now, 
before it spreads across the United States, which God forbid it ever 
does. We don't want it to. We want to make sure we have done everything 
in our power to stop it, and that means empowering those in charge with 
the knowledge, with the expertise, and with the authority to protect 
our families. First and foremost, protect American families. That is a 
much higher priority than any campaign promise this President made 
about a wall on our southern border.
  I support the effort by Senator Schumer asking for some top doc or 
some individual with management authority, management experience, and 
the knowledge of the public health threat we face with this 
coronavirus, to be put in charge to coordinate the myriad agencies that 
will be touched by this campaign to protect America. Now is the time to 
do it. The time to do it--at least now, but it should have been much 
earlier, with more money dedicated to this purpose rather than cutting 
back on these key agencies.