[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 135 (Thursday, July 30, 2020)]
[House]
[Pages H4179-H4185]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           ISSUES OF THE DAY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2019, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Roy) is recognized for 
60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. ROY. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. 
Garcia).
  Mr. GARCIA of California. Madam Speaker, I thank my distinguished 
colleague from Texas for yielding.
  Madam Speaker, I stand here this evening inspired. More specifically, 
I am proud, and I am in awe of our American space program and the 
monumental step that they took this morning with the launch of the 
Perseverance Mars rover on the back of an Atlas V rocket. But the rover 
is just one element of this amazing story.
  While humans have lived on this planet for millions of years, it was 
a mere 117 years ago when Americans were the first to solve the mystery 
of sustained, powered flight in our own atmosphere. That is a mere 
blink of an eye in the long arc of our planet and our own species' 
history. Now, just a few hours ago, besides the rover vehicle, we also 
launched a small helicopter named Ingenuity that will ultimately fly in 
the atmosphere of another planet.
  Madam Speaker, we will operate a helicopter on Mars. We will also 
collect samples of the Martian terrain and eventually return those 
samples back to Earth in about 6 years for further study.
  However, even while I and so many others applaud and celebrate these 
American successes, others question our pursuit of such endeavors amid 
the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting economic challenges thereof. 
They see this endeavor as unnecessary to our survival.
  My response to those individuals is simple: You haven't been paying 
attention. You haven't been paying attention to what makes this country 
the greatest country this world has ever seen.
  As Americans, we carry an inherent desire to push ourselves forward 
through adversity. In mankind's evolutionary journey from the caves all 
the way up now to Mars, there is no greater enemy to the American 
spirit than complacency and self-doubt.
  Madam Speaker, when you look back upon our Nation's history, the 
truth is that there has always been a conflict or a reason not to reach 
further towards the next milestone of monumental exploration. But we 
have never let that stop us before, and we cannot allow it to stop us 
now.
  With this mission to Mars, we are inspired not only by the journey, 
not only by the machinery, not only by technology and this marvelous 
team that got us here, but by the very name of the rover vehicle: 
Perseverance. You see, this morning's launch of this precious payload, 
the combined efforts of the thousands of Americans over the last 10 
years working for NASA, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, United Launch 
Alliance, and others is about to payoff, despite the many technical 
challenges, as well as the challenges that COVID-19 produced.

[[Page H4180]]

  Just days after the 51st anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing, 
we once again sent American hardware beyond the surly bonds of Earth 
toward another landmark mission.
  And while we celebrate this achievement of American innovation and 
our ability to work through challenging and seemingly impossible 
problems, we must also remain vigilant. While our aim and our mission 
are admirable, not every country carries that same passion and desire 
for peaceful exploration. We need look no further than the Chinese 
Communist Government and their willingness to antagonize us while 
continuing to increase their footprint in the vacuum of space. Madam 
Speaker, they are not a near-peer threat; they are, in fact, a peer 
threat, especially in this domain.
  It is too great a threat to our national security and the rest of the 
world to let their efforts go unmatched or uncontested.
  For the sake of science and the defense of our precious planet, we 
must persevere.
  What sets the United States of America apart from the rest of the 
world is our resolve, our ingenuity, and our commitment to progress for 
noble missions.
  I spoke earlier of the American spirit. It is a story of exploration, 
and it is a story we haven't finished writing. We continue the next 
chapter so that our children and our children's children may know what 
it means to succeed where others thought we would stumble to accomplish 
what others thought was impossible.
  And as we meet here today, two astronauts continue to orbit overhead 
thanks to a successful SpaceX rocket launch a couple of weeks ago that 
launched American astronauts from our soil to the International Space 
Station. Those astronauts will return in just a few short days, and 
today we continue writing the story for future generations with yet 
another mission to Mars in parallel.
  To not only land on Mars, but also fly a helicopter in the Martian 
atmosphere, we should take pride in this.
  We can hold Communist China accountable and limit its dangerous power 
grab. We can survive COVID-19 and develop and deliver a vaccine to our 
entire country as well as the world, and we can continue to persevere 
in our quest to become a multiplanetary species. We can do all of the 
above, and we will.
  History will not forgive us if we fail to do so.
  Madam Speaker, this evening I say, Godspeed to the Perseverance team 
and the thousands who have supported today's successful launch. With 
over a decade of preparation, today they demonstrated the true meaning 
of American perseverance.
  Mr. ROY. Madam Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman from California 
bringing up this important topic. The news these days tend to be 
filled--it is not often filled with positive things that we ought to be 
celebrating together as Americans and the great accomplishments that we 
are achieving together, the great accomplishments we are achieving on a 
completely nonpartisan basis and advancing our continued exploration.
  Jim Bridenstine is a friend of mine. I am just thrilled with what he 
is doing with NASA. I am certainly thrilled to be seeing that we are 
returning to space vigorously and that we are doing so actively, and I 
just appreciate their service. I love the rich tradition, the 
connection between NASA and our military.

  Madam Speaker, I know that Mr. Garcia is a veteran of our United 
States Navy, and I thank him for his service. I appreciate him joining 
me here tonight.
  Madam Speaker, I come down here tonight for a few reasons.
  First of all, a few weeks ago, a young lady, a 20-year-old named 
Rebekah Wendt was campaigning in west Texas with another young fellow 
from Trinity University. I represent Trinity University in San Antonio. 
I got a call from my staff assistant, Jonah Wendt, that his sister had 
been killed an hour or two before in a car accident in west Texas.
  I will have more to say about Rebekah in the future, but she was a 
bright star and a great defender of this country, out working hard, 
volunteering, as many of our young folks do, on campaigns. She was a 
member of the Young Conservatives of Texas. She was majoring in 
history. She and another young fellow, again, I will talk more about, 
Tyler, was with her. They were out trying to make this country better. 
They were out trying to get someone they believed in elected. They were 
trying to change this country for the better by standing up for Texas, 
standing up for this country.
  I want to celebrate her life, and again, I want to do it more in the 
future, but her brother, Jonah, and his twin brother, Manfred, are very 
dear to me and worked hard on my campaign 2 years ago and continue to 
serve this country as well as serving in support of me.
  And I mention that because I do want to talk more about her another 
time, but I mention that because it got me to thinking about what this 
is all about, what we are doing.
  Now, for those few people at home watching on C-SPAN, I am here 
alone, mostly, in the Chamber with the exception of the Speaker and my 
friend from California. And I think about Rebekah, and I think about 
all of those young Americans out there working hard every day, trying 
to get someone elected or go fight for what they believe in. And that 
is what this is about. This is the people's House. This is the House of 
Representatives. It is really an unbelievable institution when you 
think about what it meant in the history of the world.
  I was in Independence Hall on July 2nd. I went up there because I 
wanted to be up there when I was watching so many of our monuments and 
so many of our statues under attack, and it is not the marble, it is 
not the mortar, it is not the bricks that matter, it was the ideals 
represented there.
  I went up to Independence Hall, and it was on July 2nd, which many 
will know is the day we separated from the crown, the day of the actual 
vote. And the folks there were very kind to me. They were closed down 
because of what we are dealing with with the virus. They were very kind 
and allowed me to go into Independence Hall. I had the great blessing 
of being in Independence Hall on July 2nd, 244 years to the day of the 
vote. Then I got to go over to the other room, which is a different 
room, where the first five Congresses of the United States met. Then, 
of course, we have a history of then moving on to different capitols, 
and we ended up here. And we have been in this Chamber for, I don't 
know the history as well as I should, but 100 years or something in 
this Chamber.
  This people's House, in my opinion, is failing the people of the 
United States. I am going to say that again. The people's House, the 
435 Representatives that make up this half of Congress, one-half of 
one-third of the Federal Government is failing the American people. It 
is failing the American people because we literally never debate. We 
literally never offer amendments and have any debate here on this 
floor. We are ruled by a handful of folks who meet in rooms in back 
chambers, drop bills on the floor of the House and then demand we come 
down and vote on them. By the way, that is both Democrats and 
Republicans.
  The people's House is supposed to be the people's House. We are 
supposed to actually debate, engage.
  Do you want to know why things are so broken?
  It is because if you even dare think about offering an amendment to a 
bill, you have got to go to some Rules Committee to get blessed to be 
able to even have the ability to offer it. You will get shut down in 
Rules Committee, and then there is never any debate.

                              {time}  2100

  What kind of a people's House is that? I would posit that it is not 
one.
  We have so many issues right now that are tearing our country apart. 
Why? Because there is no leadership coming from the Representatives 
sent to Washington to represent the people. None.
  If there were leadership, we would have actual debate. We would 
actually sit down here and come up with ideas, offer solutions, and 
then hammer them out. We would actually sit down at a table like a 
small business or sit down at a table like a family and balance a 
budget. We would have a debate about the proper policies to deal with a 
pandemic instead of pointing fingers and politicizing a virus.

[[Page H4181]]

  In what universe do you politicize a virus? Yet that is precisely 
what the leaders of this great and august country have done.
  Everyone in America is sitting around wondering what on Earth has 
happened that we are now deciding how we make policy based on polls and 
reactions to whatever the President says or whatever Speaker Pelosi 
says.
  It is absolutely amazing. The needle moved when President Trump said 
that we ought to open our schools. Simple notion: Let's open up our 
schools.
  Why might that be important? I don't know. How about for all the 
working-class Americans who can't afford daycare and are trying to 
figure out how to have their children get educated.
  Why aren't we having a robust debate about that instead of just 
pointing fingers and saying, ``Uh-oh. Be afraid''? But that is what we 
are doing.
  It is really easy for all the latte-drinking, Peloton-riding, Volvo-
driving White Americans to run around going off and saying: ``Oh, I am 
going to go by and get my little drink, but somebody is serving me. And 
those people serving me, how are they going to have their kids get 
educated?''
  It ain't going to be if we don't open our schools.
  Can I tell you, Madam Speaker, what they are doing in Austin, Texas? 
This is how genius it is in Austin, Texas. They are saying we can't 
open our schools until late September or some undetermined date. Oh, 
but don't worry. We will open the buildings, allow the YMCA to go in, 
hold a group forum there to watch virtual education--which now, by the 
way, I am seeing all sorts of stories of teachers saying: ``Well, we 
don't want to do the virtual education either.''
  What are we doing for our children? Why aren't we debating this right 
now instead of having, ``Oh, President Trump said we should open our 
schools,'' so we are going to have a 20 percent swing in how we view 
opening our schools?
  In what universe does that statement by the President change what we 
should be doing as the people's House about opening our schools? Yet, 
that is precisely what happened.
  We have a current environment in the United States of America where 
the very rule of law, which attracts people from all over the world to 
come here, is being trampled upon by people--frankly, often self-
identifying as Marxists--but people who are ravaging cities, literally 
undermining the health, security, safety, community of our cities, our 
States, our homes. A Federal courthouse is being targeted and burned in 
Portland.
  Now, what happens? Again, it becomes politicized. In what universe is 
that political? I mean, I would suggest to anybody, go look at anything 
I have ever said about federalism or about respecting States and 
respecting local powers to make decisions that are best for the people.
  But there is another point to all of this, which is the Constitution 
talks about securing the blessings of liberty. It talks about what we 
are supposed to do as a Nation in terms of defending the rule of law.
  Of course, the Federal Government should defend the Federal 
courthouse in Portland. To say otherwise is patently absurd.
  Yet, what did my Democratic colleagues do this week? What did they do 
when the Attorney General of the United States was here before the 
House Judiciary Committee but sit there and talk over him and mock him 
and relentlessly stand on the side of lawless Marxists who are trying 
to destroy a city of the United States of America instead of standing 
up alongside our law enforcement.
  What are we doing? What are we doing as a country?
  We are in an empty Chamber with three votes today at 6:30 tonight, 
two votes or three votes tomorrow, and then head home. And then what? 
Be gone for August while our businesses burn, literally and 
figuratively, while millions of Americans don't have jobs?
  Why are we going to adjourn? Why have we only met something like 15 
out of the last 100 days, or whatever it has been?
  It is an absolute embarrassment what has become of the people's 
House. We should be ashamed. We should be ashamed that we are not here 
doing the work of the American people.
  More importantly, we should be ashamed that when we are here, we are 
not sitting down at a table and working through the issues of the day 
based on the rule of law, based on the Constitution, based on the 
Declaration, based on our job as Representatives to represent the 
people of the United States.
  Our police officers stand up to defend the rule of law. People come 
from all over the globe here. Why? Is it for what is enumerated in the 
Bill of Rights? Is it for what was enumerated, or laid out, in the 
Declaration of Independence, those unalienable rights? Yes.
  It is all of those things, and it is equal justice under the law, all 
the things that we should be fighting to strive for in order to reach 
those ideals that, by the way, we will never reach because we are 
flawed men and women. My faith teaches me that. But they are the ideals 
that we will constantly strive to reach.
  It is why, when I went to Independence Hall, I was proud to stand up 
and say this is a great thing that happened here. I will never back 
away from defending the United States of America.
  I stopped off where Francis Scott Key wrote our national anthem, and 
I did a video there. I am not going to back away from defending our 
national anthem and defending our history.
  I went from there to the Jefferson Memorial. I went to the Roosevelt 
monument. I went to the Lincoln Memorial.
  Two days ago, I took my 10-year-old son and my 9-year-old daughter to 
Mt. Vernon so they could see the home of the Father of our Country, 
George Washington, where I unapologetically taught my children about 
the greatness of our first President. It is important, that part. I 
unapologetically taught my children about the greatness of our country 
and of the Father of our Country.
  We are all flawed. We always will be because we are men and women. We 
are made in the image of God, but we are not God. And thank the Lord 
that he sent his son so that I might have eternal life because I am 
flawed. But we should not look at our country with shame or disregard 
because we have made mistakes.
  Yet, the other side of the aisle seems hellbent on tearing down this 
great country brick by brick, statue by statue, thread by thread of our 
flag, word by word of our anthem.
  It is a mockery of this House.
  How on Earth can you explain to a veteran who is missing limbs, who 
bled in the Middle East or bled at Normandy or bled in the Pacific? How 
can you explain to a veteran that our country is bad?
  Our country is not bad. Our country is great. Our country has done 
more for more men and more women than any other nation in the history 
of the world. I will debate that anywhere, anytime, with anyone who 
cares to actually have a debate in this so-called people's House. I 
will not sit here and listen to supposed representatives of this 
country tear her down.
  Right now, we have people who are hurting because of the virus, 
people who are hurting because they have lost jobs, people who are 
hurting because their businesses have gone out of business, people who 
are hurting because streets have been torn down or burned or because we 
have allowed looting to occur in the false name of social justice.
  What are we doing for them? Adjourning? Heading home to campaign so 
that people can score political points?
  I have had people on my own side of the aisle say perhaps they 
shouldn't do bills or work with certain Members on the other side of 
the aisle. Why? Because they don't want us to avoid the ability to 
score political points.
  I know that has happened on the other side of the aisle. How do I 
know that? Because Dean Phillips, a very good man, and I worked 
together to pass the Paycheck Protection Program Flexibility Act. And 
Dean, to his great credit, because he is a gentleman, deferred to me to 
introduce the bill because we had been working on the legislative part, 
and he was working on the political part. We were working together. So, 
I introduced the bill.
  We had worked to get to an agreement. It was going to move through 
this Chamber. Ah, but it couldn't be in the name of the Republican 
freshman

[[Page H4182]]

from Texas, who, by the way, is in a district that might be on the hot 
list for the DCCC.
  Coincidence that they then took the same language and dropped it into 
another bill with my friend from Minnesota--no fault of his own--and 
put it under his name and then said, ``Great. Let's move it through''? 
And it passed 417-1.
  Yes, Madam Speaker, I am looking at Congressman Massie, with a little 
bit of love.
  Why? This is what the American people are sick and tired of. They are 
literally just sick of it.
  We can disagree, and we are going to disagree. Dean and I disagree. 
The Speaker pro tempore and I disagree on issues. But we also agree.
  I was proud to join the Speaker pro tempore in January, along with 
Dean and another Democrat, three Republicans and an independent. You 
can guess who the independent was. Why? To write an op-ed in The 
Washington Post saying: Hold on here. Maybe we should rethink a 20-
year-old Authorization for Use of Military Force.
  Now, do I have all the answers to what we should do in Afghanistan, 
Iraq, Syria, Iran? I do not. It is okay to say that, by the way. It is 
okay to say you don't have all the answers.
  But we got together to say maybe, just maybe we should rethink 20-
year-old authorizations of force when there are men and women who are 
now enlisting who weren't alive when we passed them.
  Just a couple of weeks ago, we had a 12-tour veteran, I think a 
marine, who killed himself. Twelve tours, Madam Speaker.
  What are we doing? Why aren't we having a debate about that?
  With all due respect to some of my friends on this side of the aisle, 
endless wars are not an answer. Neither is allowing bad actors to run 
amok around the world against our national security interests or that 
of our allies.
  So why must it always be, when we get to budget time: ``Well, we have 
to have more money. We are going to keep defense. We are going to keep 
things going. We are going to have OCO. We are going to do this. We are 
going to spend more money to keep the wars going, whatever DOD wants''?
  Why is it on the other side of the aisle too often: ``Well, an 
endless amount of dollars for nondefense discretionary spending, but 
whatever. We don't care about $26 trillion of debt. Let's just pass a 
bill. Let's just get it done so we can do something. And you get what 
you want, and you get what you want, and we spend another extra 
trillion dollars''?
  By the way, Madam Speaker, I would say to the gentleman from Arizona 
(Mr. Schweikert), a trillion dollars sounds kind of quaint, doesn't it? 
A trillion dollars sounds kind of quaint now.
  I don't even know where we are. Does anybody in this Chamber have the 
first clue what our national deficit is going to be this year? No.
  We don't have a clue because we are spending money hand over fist. 
Why? Because we are trying to deal with a pandemic that, frankly, our 
own public actions and public governments are causing a hell of a lot 
of the very damage we are trying to bail out. State and local 
governments are taking actions, which basically are tantamount to 
takings, shutting down people's livelihoods. Then, they just walk away 
and shake their hands, and they go, ``Well, I guess the Federal 
Government will bail them out.''
  Governors, mayors: ``Sorry, bars, shut down. Sorry, restaurants, shut 
down. Sorry, barbershops, shut down. Sorry, live music venues, shut 
down. Sorry, artists who have to sing in the live music venue, you are 
shut down. Sorry, churches, you can't worship.''

                              {time}  2115

  Madam Speaker, I am sitting here in this Chamber, wondering what it 
is going to take for the House of Representatives to actually 
represent. We don't govern. That is not what we do in America. We 
represent.
  We each represent whatever we represent, 700,000, 800,000 people, 
depending on the district. We are here to share their values and 
beliefs and reach some point of actual responsible leadership and do 
our job.
  But I have to say something here. The President of the United States, 
he draws a lot of fire. The President of the United States ran in 2016 
on what? Build the wall. Drain the swamp.
  And what does drain the swamp mean? I would tell you that, whatever 
you think of the President, drain the swamp means everything I am just 
talking about and 1,000 other things that are irritating the American 
people every single day about why this government, and particularly 
this Congress, can't do its job, why bureaucrats stand in the way of 
what the people want, why judges make up the law, and why Congress 
can't balance a budget. That is the swamp.
  The swamp represents the frustration of the American people who, 
while extremely willing to have people come to this country with open 
arms, also want their border to be secure. They don't want cartels 
running the border. They don't want 900,000 people coming to our border 
being apprehended and having to deal with it. They don't want cartels 
to abuse women and children on the journey. They don't want fentanyl 
pouring across our border, and that is the state of our border.
  If the President of the United States should dare to say we should 
have a secure border, what happened? Colleagues on the other side of 
the aisle went to the border and lied about the state of the border 
with respect to kids in cages and kids drinking out of toilets.
  I went there. My chief of staff went down there the week after claims 
were made about kids drinking out of toilets, and they were toilets 
that have water fountains attached to them.
  But this is the hyperbole that drives public opinion, gets out in 
social media, and undermines the one thing that almost all Americans 
understand is critically important, and that is to have border security 
where cartels don't run our border. That is not a controversial 
statement.
  By the way, it is not just my colleagues on the other side of the 
aisle. There are a whole lot of people on my side of the aisle who love 
to sit there at the Rio Grande and have a little sign that says ``no 
trespassing,'' and then they wink, wink, nod, nod, over here, and they 
have a ``help wanted'' sign.
  How about we have an honest conversation about what a secure border 
looks like? Why don't we sit down at a table and actually do that? I am 
sick and tired of Republicans who 10 years ago were saying to those of 
us who thought we should have a secure border because we knew what was 
happening, and we saw what the cartels were doing, and we saw the 
hordes of human trafficking, and we saw the dead bodies in deserts, and 
people in our own party were saying: Well, fences are a 19th century 
solution to a 21st century problem.
  Now, because it is a politically charged thing, the President is for 
it and it has become partisan, they say: Well, yeah, we are all for it.
  When are we going to do our job, Republicans and Democrats, to do 
that, to secure the border of the United States, not because we don't 
want to welcome immigrants, but because it is the responsible thing for 
a government to do?
  Why would we let the Reynosa faction of the Gulf cartel run the 
border in the Rio Grande Valley? That is precisely what we are doing.
  Why would we allow fentanyl to pour across the border? Why would we 
allow addicts in our country to have a constant supply coming through 
from Mexico, across our border, through Texas, through Arizona, through 
to Mexico, through California? Why would we do that? It defies all 
rationality. It makes no sense. Yet, that is what we do, and the 
American people are sick and tired of it.
  Giving credit where it is due, the President of the United States has 
tried to attack that problem, and he has met resistance from the swamp 
at every turn. He has met resistance from our Democratic colleagues, 
met resistance from bureaucrats at DHS, met resistance from bureaucrats 
throughout the administration when he is trying to do what the American 
people elected him to do.
  When we stand up saying that we should defend the rule of law and 
stand beside law enforcement, what happens? The swamp pushes back and 
says: No, we can't do that.
  Heaven forbid we have Federal law enforcement protecting a 
courthouse. Who would have thought?

[[Page H4183]]

  The swamp pushes back. Right now, we are facing the struggles that we 
are dealing with, with respect to the pandemic.
  I suspect that my friend from Arizona is here to talk a little bit 
about the data on that. I could be wrong. I think I am right.
  There is a lot of stuff that we should be looking at about this 
virus. It is a virus. It is not something you bottle up into a 
Tupperware container and put on the shelf. It is a virus. It is out. It 
is among us. It is in all 50 States. It is in every city and town. It 
is a virus.
  What are we going to do as a country to work through it? Cower in 
fear? Be afraid to actually look at the data? Be afraid to actually 
talk to doctors who might have an opposing or different view than the 
powers that be at the CDC or the NIH?
  Let me be clear. I don't know Dr. Fauci other than having interacted 
with him in a hearing or a setting like this. I don't know Dr. Birx 
other than similarly engaging as an official. But they are not the 
President. They are not an elected Member of Congress. They are not an 
elected Member of the Senate.
  Why aren't we having hearings with different alternative views from 
other health professionals, other doctors? There is a large number of 
doctors, not insignificant, with differing opinions: Ioannidis at 
Stanford University; Scott Atlas at Stanford; Oxford put out recent 
reports; Dr. Risch at Yale, talking about the possible efficacy and 
success with HCQ, hydroxychloroquine.

  I am not a doctor. I don't know whether HCQ works, but I would like 
to know. And I would like to have the right to try. Why is it, in the 
United States of America, a supposedly free country, a doctor cannot 
prescribe HCQ in certain circumstances? Or why are States preventing 
that? Or why are doctors at the CDC or NIH preventing that when there 
is evidence, studies, to the contrary, when it is sold off-the-shelf in 
other countries around the world because it is a malaria medicine?
  Why would we not have a debate about that? You have doctors going 
across the street at the Supreme Court of the United States, doing a 
press conference. I don't know them, but they are doctors, M.D.s, and 
they give a press conference saying how they think HCQ works as a 
prophylactic.
  What happens? It is censored by Big Tech, shut down as being 
potentially misleading. Does that not concern my colleagues on the 
other side of the aisle?
  That is a genuine question that I would actually like to know the 
answer to. But I won't know because the 200-and-some-odd colleagues are 
out doing whatever they are doing right now, going to dinner, doing 
their thing, going home, will come in tomorrow.
  We will rush in here, and we will have three votes. We will never 
actually debate it, will we? We will not actually debate it.
  Instead, everybody will go to Twitter. Everybody will go to the press 
conferences. People will point. They will call doctors crazy. They will 
say it is no good, and we will never know, or we won't know unless we 
fight through it to try to figure it out ourselves, not doing the hard 
work of this body to figure out whether HCQ is a good prophylactic or 
not.
  Again, I am not advocating for it. I am advocating for--it is 
unbelievable to have to say this--I am advocating for actually 
investigating it, debating it, finding the truth, and not censoring it.
  But that is what is happening. Why are we always saying how bad we 
are doing as a country right now? For the longest time: ``We are not 
testing. We are not testing. We are not testing.'' We have done over 50 
million tests. Are they the right tests? Are we testing the right way? 
Maybe we should have a good, robust debate about that.
  But we had over 50 million tests. We are testing at a rate only 
surpassed by, I think, three other countries. I think we are fourth. I 
could be wrong. I think that is right.
  No, the rate, the testing, we are fourth. We have 50 million tests, 
more than any other country in the world. We are testing by the 
thousands in Texas. And all the eyes have been recently on Florida, 
Texas, and Arizona. Again, I am sure my friend from Arizona will have 
some data on this, but these States which have had, yes, an increase in 
the last several weeks, tragically, we are concerned. We are watching 
it. Our Governor is all over it. We are paying attention to it, but it 
has become a political football.
  The total numbers in all of those States still pale in comparison to 
New York and New Jersey, in terms of fatalities. I have no real 
interest in sitting here and pointing fingers at the Democratic 
Governor of New York or the mayor of New York, talking about how they 
failed versus how we succeeded or not succeeded, or whatever. Why are 
we doing that?
  Why aren't we just sitting down together and working together to try 
to figure out what the right policies are?
  Dare I talk about masks? Am I allowed to talk about masks? It is a 
genuine question. Am I actually allowed to talk about masks? Yet, the 
Speaker of the House of Representative said--by the way, putting aside 
our constitutional duty to represent our constituents and vote on the 
floor of this House--that somehow that is a breach of decorum.
  And oh, by the way, I am sure all the 12 viewers of this, when they 
take their viewers, my opponents will all say: ``Oh, he is an anti-
masker.''
  I have had this mask since April. My wife sewed a HEPA filter in 
here. It is a really good mask. It is not one of those flimsy old 
cotton masks that, by the way, were made fun of or said were inadequate 
by the NIH 5 years ago in a study.
  Yet, we go around, and as long as you virtue signal that you are 
wearing a cotton mask, everybody says: Aren't you really important? 
Aren't you just loving your country?
  Are we doing what we are supposed to do to actually make our country 
safer? Does anybody here know for certain? Does anybody know when I am 
sitting on an airplane, and the guy two rows over has a cotton mask 
kind of dangling down--it is just sitting there. And, oh, the flight 
attendant says, ``Good job. You got your mask on.'' Is that making me 
safer?
  How about when you wear an N95 mask with one of those little valves? 
Have we finally gotten around to the side of saying: Oh, we all raced 
to get those, but no, you have got the valve. It is kicking too much 
air out, and that is going to hurt people?
  Why am I saying all that? I am not saying don't wear a mask. What I 
am saying is, for goodness sake, this isn't the gospel handed down as 
to what precisely is the right way to do it when our own Dr. Fauci was 
questioning masks mere months ago, when our own NIH was questioning it, 
when there was report after report about it, when Denmark and Sweden 
and Finland and all of these other Nordic countries aren't wearing 
masks.
  ``Oh, no, he is talking about masks. He is an anti-masker.'' That is 
what it is all about now. Get on Twitter, bash somebody. They are a 
nutball.
  When are we going to look at the data and try to do the thing that we 
need to do to lead this country forward? Do we know what we are doing 
to children right now? Do we have any idea?
  We have our own CDC Director talking about the number of suicides 
outpacing the number of deaths from COVID.
  I love my 10-year-old son. I love my 9-year-old daughter. I would 
give my life for them at any given moment, but they are going back to 
school on August 20 because it is good for them.

                              {time}  2130

  But there are so many children in this country who are not going to 
be going back to school because we have scared the bejesus out of the 
entire country.
  We are America. We cured polio. We put a man on the Moon. We beat 
Nazi Germany. We beat Japan. And we are cowering in the corner about a 
virus.
  Let's look at the numbers. Let's protect the elderly. Let's protect 
the people in nursing homes. But, for goodness' sake, let's open our 
schools, and don't let teachers' unions hide behind a virus to pretend 
they don't want something else when they do, and we know they do.
  The President of the United States ought to call a hearing and bring 
in Scott Atlas, bring in Dr. Ioannidis, bring in Dr. Rishi, bring in 
some of the Oxford folks, and bring in other doctors to talk about the 
science. Let's have a

[[Page H4184]]

full discussion about this. Let's show the American people they can go 
back to work, they can go back to school, and they can do it safely.
  We are destroying our economy, the greatest economy in the history of 
the world. Forty-five percent of Black businesses have gone out of 
business over the last 5 months.
  Do you want to talk about Black lives mattering? How about those 45 
percent of businesses?
  I guess that doesn't look good on the mound for Major League 
Baseball, does it?
  I guess that doesn't fit on the back of a jersey for the NBA, does 
it?
  It doesn't fit on one of those cute little stickers that the NFL 
likes to put on their helmets so they can feel good about themselves as 
social justice warriors.
  Who cares about those families that are destroyed because their 
businesses are gone?
  But that is what we are doing by our own judgment and by our own 
decisions. We should be ashamed.
  The people's House. Look at it, Madam Speaker, it is empty. I don't 
know who is running your C-SPAN cameras. Take a broad view. Show the 
American people the people's House in all its glory, cycling in your 
Representatives to come in like robots and vote and walk out and then 
vote and then walk out and spend all day voting but never actually 
debating or talking.
  By the way, 20 or 30 or 40 of them are voting from boats and voting 
from their homes using proxy voting.
  What is a proxy vote?
  I am glad you asked. A proxy vote is when someone isn't actually 
doing their constitutional duty of voting here in this Chamber. A proxy 
vote is someone sitting at home and telling another Member to vote for 
them, delegating the nondelegable. Our Constitution doesn't provide for 
that.
  In 1793, our Founding Fathers were fighting yellow fever. Five 
thousand people had died in Philadelphia out of 50,000--10 percent. 
Washington, Madison, Jefferson, and Adams found a way to meet. They 
were debating: How can we do this adhering to the Constitution?
  Heaven forbid we adhere to the Constitution. We have a duty to be in 
this Chamber. We have survived wars and we have survived other 
pandemics.
  This stuff isn't foreign to me. My dad is a survivor of polio. It is 
real. He has got a tracheostomy. He walks with a limp and he can barely 
get around. But he is 77 years old, and he is alive because his mom 
fought through being a single mom in west Texas after she lost my 
grandfather, who died of cancer when my dad was 7, and here is my 
grandmother finding out her son has polio in September of 1949.
  My dad comes home from the hospital to say good-bye to his dad, whom 
he had only known for 2 years because his dad had been in the Pacific 
theater. Then my grandmother runs and becomes the first woman elected 
county clerk in Nolan County, Texas. She helps my dad, gets up at 4 in 
the morning, goes and does therapy. He was the first to go on to 
college. I am the first to go on to graduate school, and here I am in 
Congress.
  It is the American story. It is the American story we ought to be 
proud to share, proud to push, and proud to champion. But instead we 
are sitting here in an empty Chamber running people through and voting 
on things that likely have no chance of becoming law. In fact, we know 
these appropriations bills have no chance of becoming law. We know it. 
Yet we are showing the American people that we are ``doing something.''
  Do you want to know what the swamp is? It is that. It is a disease, 
Madam Speaker. Do somethingitis. We have to show the people we are 
doing something when you are doing literally nothing. That is what this 
Chamber is about. It should be about something better, more, and 
bigger.
  We can disagree violently about certain issues and policies, but why 
can't we come together to balance our budget?
  Why can't we come together to figure out how to fight a pandemic 
without politicizing it?
  Yet that is precisely what we are doing.
  May I ask the Speaker how much time is remaining.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Texas has 14 minutes 
remaining.
  Mr. ROY. Madam Speaker, it was 9 years, last night, I was in an 
emergency room in Austin, Texas. I had fluid on my lungs and I didn't 
know what was going on. I found out 2 days later, 3 days later, it was 
likely, and then turned out to be, stage III Hodgkin's lymphoma. It was 
kind of a curve ball one gets when you have got a 4-month-old daughter, 
2-year-old son, and a wife scared out of her mind.
  I remember the prayers and I remember the calls. I remember all of it 
like it was yesterday. I can't believe it has been 9 years.
  Governor Perry, for whom I worked at the time, couldn't have been a 
better man or gentleman trying to help us get through it. I went down 
to MD Anderson and did a trial drug that is now the standard of care. I 
am alive today because of that and because of the great doctor I had at 
MD Anderson.
  I remember when going through that, of course, you don't know what 
the outcome is going to be. It wasn't until October I remember being 
down there with my wife when we got the news that the cancer was clear. 
I had to finish treatment through January of 2012. It changes your 
perspective.

  Now, everybody in this Chamber has personally dealt with something 
like that. I can't even imagine what my friend Andy Barr is going 
through in losing his lovely wife. I can't imagine what folks who have 
known Representative Lewis for decades are going through. I can't 
imagine what Chairman Nadler has been going through with his wife's 
battle with cancer. We could go around the room. All of us deal with 
these kinds of things.
  But I will acknowledge that, for me, that was intensely personal, 
getting a cancer diagnosis at age whatever I was at the time, 39. But 
the reason I am bringing it up here is because as I think, through this 
virus right now--it is a virus. I know it is bad. I know it is scary. I 
know there are people who have lost loved ones. But our reaction to it 
does not represent the greatest of this country, in my opinion.
  I don't mean that we are not testing enough or we are not getting 
enough announcements out about masks. I mean, loved ones who are dying 
alone.
  Let me be perfectly clear that if any of my loved ones get this 
virus, they are not dying alone. No local judge, no local mayor, no 
local Governor, no President, and no Member of this body is going to 
stop me from seeing my loved one. But that is because I am stubborn. 
But we are forcing that environment on a lot of people who don't know 
how to fight a system.
  Why would we allow that to happen in America? Why?
  But that is what we are doing.
  Why would we do what we are doing to children out of fear?
  Again, I promised myself I would lay down everything I have to defend 
and save this Republic for my kids and my grandkids, my now 10-year-old 
son and 9-year-old daughter who are with me here this week. But I would 
be doing them a disservice if I held them back from going to school.
  I know all the arguments. Well, they go to school and then the 
teachers will take it home to someone else.
  Madam Speaker, if we look at the data, look at who is likely to get 
hit by this virus, we should be adults about this. We are leaders. We 
set the tone. Fear is not the tone we should be setting as a nation. 
Yet that is precisely what we are doing.
  We should not be letting loved ones die alone. We should not be doing 
what we are doing to children.
  By the way, I talked about cancer. I was blessed that I got a 
diagnosis at stage III.
  What if I had been sick this year? What if it had gotten into my 
bones with stage IV? That is happening to Americans right now.
  Do we ever talk about that on the floor, or is everybody running 
around talking about 150,000 dead Americans because it is the 
President's fault?
  Why aren't we talking about the suicide rates? Why aren't we talking 
about the opioid addiction? Why aren't we talking about the cancer 
screenings that aren't occurring? Why aren't we talking about the 
suicide?
  Veteran suicides are increasing. People are feeling alone, and it is 
scarring our children. That is not what a great country does.

[[Page H4185]]

  Madam Speaker, we are a great country, and we should darn well start 
acting like it again.
  Let's debate on the floor here what we should be doing with our 
military abroad authorizations of force.
  Let's secure the border of the United States and not allow the swamp 
to stand in the way of common sense.
  Let's stand up for law enforcement, secure our communities, and don't 
let people run over streets and burn down buildings.
  Let's stand up in the face of a virus. Let's say we are going to 
defeat it, and let's damn well defeat it. It is who we are as a people. 
It is in our DNA. It has been since our founding. It has been there 
through all the wars. It has been there through previous pandemics. And 
it is with us here now if we will just tap into it.
  This should not be partisan. I look at both directions when I say 
that. It should not be partisan. I cannot believe we are sitting here 
in an environment where we have allowed a virus to become partisan, but 
that is precisely what we have done.
  Madam Speaker, I am not going to take up too much more time. I know 
that the gentleman from Arizona has been patiently waiting. I didn't 
even start to bring up my charts and talk about numbers because I could 
never do battle with the gentleman from Arizona when it comes to 
presenting that kind of information. I know he will do it well.
  But I do know this: We are a great country that is doing great things 
right now to combat this virus. I do know that my physician is a great 
man. Dr. Yunis grew up in Damascus, Syria.
  I asked Dr. Yunis: Doc, I am stage III. I have a 4-month-old, a 2-
year-old, and a wife. I am 39. What am I looking at?
  Dr. Yunis looked at me and said: I am not going to give you a 
percentage.
  Later he gave me one because I made him give me one.
  He said: I am not going to give you a percentage. For you, it is zero 
percent or 100 percent. Choose 100 percent.
  When are we going to choose 100 percent? When are we as a body, when 
are we as the Senate, when are we as the White House, when are we 
together on a nonpartisan basis going to choose 100 percent behind this 
country, 100 percent for the rule of law, 100 percent standing 
alongside of our law enforcement keeping our communities safe, 100 
percent that we are going to have our kids go back to school, we are 
going to get back to work, we are going to lift our economy up, and we 
are going to prove that the 21st century is going to be the greatest 
century that this country has ever known, not because we are cowering 
in fear, but because we are facing these things head-on?
  That is what 100 percent means. That is what being an American means.
  Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________