Political Quotes

“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.…”