Political Quotes

“I want to thank the ranking member for yielding. And I want to thank the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Connolly) for his leadership on this. Madam Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 2166, the Global Health Security Act. And this was already stated, it was bipartisan legislation offered by my good friend, Mr. Connolly. We have worked on a whole range of issues in a bipartisan manner over the years. He is a Democrat and I am a Republican, but we actually worked together. He and I introduced it at the beginning of last year. So this was early 2019 to strengthen U.S. and global preparedness for and capacity to respond to pandemics like the coronavirus. {time} 1300 This legislation was not born out of the coronavirus. It was born out of a bipartisan vision for strengthening global health systems around the world in case a disease like the coronavirus emerged. And as we know, it did, catching the whole world really flat-footed. Congressman Connolly and I introduced this legislation in April 2019, well before anyone had ever heard the term ``COVID-19.'' When the Foreign Affairs Committee considered this legislation in March of this year, there were 100,000 coronavirus cases worldwide. That number has now risen, as we know, to over 30 million that we know of. The Global Health Security Act has two main objectives. First, it codifies bipartisan support for the Global Health Security Agenda.…”