I'm not sure there's a logical explanation for it, quite frankly. And I don't think it's helpful.

It's not accurate to say there's plenty of testing out there and the governors should just get it done. That's just not being straightforward.

I don't know why we're not addressing this at the federal level instead of saying, well the governors should be able to make up their own minds.

It's not just the federal government has failed, or the states have failed. There's not enough of these things.

But right now it's about saving lives and trying to protect the health and safety of our people. That has to come first, and later we're also going to have to address the problem of the economy.

No state in America has enough ventilators and we're -- we're short of a lot of these things.

Party loyalty must fall before the law itself. No man, not even the President of the United States, is above the law.

It is not easy for me to align myself against the President, to whom I gave my enthusiastic support. But I cannot, in good conscience, turn away from the evidence.

We want to protect the folks that actually have drug addictions and not treat them just as law enforcement cases.

I think at the Federal level, we have to focus on mental health and substance abuse issues together because, in many cases, they are overlapping.

I was the first governor in America to declare a real state of emergency on this issue because we decided that we needed to treat this crisis just like we would treat any other natural or manmade disaster.

I passed the biggest criminal justice reform bill in Maryland in a generation.

This is not just a health issue. Or just an education issue or just a crime prevention issue; it is across almost everything you are funding.

I think we do need more Federal funding with some flexibility for each state.

It has to take a comprehensive approach. It is the early education and the prevention, and then it is the treatment for the folks who need it, but also cracking down on the people that are profiting from death.

$6 billion stretched across the country is not going to go very far.

I am a states' rights guy, and I believe that much of the innovation is happening out in the states.

But the folks that are bringing in these large quantities of deadly drugs, knowing that they are going to kill our citizens, we are cracking down and getting tougher on those folks.

The frustrating part is just imagine if we had not taken all the steps we have taken, how many deaths we would have had.

I urge you, and your colleagues, to make increased funding for the opioid crisis a top priority.

It is very effective.

We are doing exactly that, actually. I was just talking with our czar who is heading up this entire emergency operation.

We need more Federal funding. And not to say that $6 billion is not a lot of money; it is to the taxpayers. But it is a drop in the bucket compared to what we actually need.

We are hitting that from a number of different directions.

We ask ourselves that same question nearly every day.