Richard Blumenthal: “reserving the right to object, Senator Scott has sought unanimous consent for a bill that would restrict the issuance of…”

“reserving the right to object, Senator Scott has sought unanimous consent for a bill that would restrict the issuance of nonimmigrant visas to Chinese journalists and a number of other steps that, frankly, are already within the President's power to do. The bill, in many ways, is an attempt to codify authorities that the State Department already has. In that sense, there is no reason to take legislative action. If the President wants to use this power, he can. But I want to emphasize the point that we share the goals that are behind this measure. No. 1, the goal of increasing transparency around the pandemic has to be done so that the Chinese and other authorities around the world--states that suffer from the pandemic--make the facts known to this country and the world health authority. We share the goal of condemning China's absolutely despicable human rights abuses, its deplorable record of subjugating human liberty, including the Uighurs, at least 1 million of whom are being held in Chinese Government-run detention centers that the President of the United States has completely ignored. But this legislation would really do nothing to address these incredibly oppressing issues. It uses the pandemic and China's human rights abuses as a pretense for deflecting blame for the President's shameful mishandling of the COVID-19 crisis. The President's ineptitude and incompetence are widely known to the American people.…”