working, 10 to 12 years . when you look at what we odo get accomplished here, i think we need to figure out how we become more effective. we get things done more quickly. and how we pay for it in the long run. so i'm going to savor the moment we have here where we are at least talking about and hopefully be able to work ywith my neighbor from illinois. to still push the idea that this is a critical time and we need to get something done . i yield the floor. >> the senate is in recess for their weekly party caucus meetings . president trump had plans to go to capitol hill to attend the caucus with republicans. earlier lawmakers voted to confirm contrast to the district court judge for arizona read when lawmakers return, a plan to work on the

nomination of james trainer to the commissioner on the federal election commission . when the senate returns live coverage you're on c-span2. >> the editor of the military times joins us to talk about veterans health and the coronavirus pandemic. we saw the numbers this past weekend 02 1000 veterans that have died from this disease. there is this happening? what is this trend about? >> this is right up all over the country and this morning it's around 1060. about a quarter of those deaths are in new york city. new york has been the hardest hit region of the country by this virus. so there's more va centers that have 260 deaths there but the other depths and spread out across 110 different va facilities and this is all over the country. every place has been touched by this in some way or in

some places it's just a handful of cases, one or two dots other places. new orleans has been hit hard . chicago has i believe between 60 deaths so this is not a regional problem. this is not just one area and it's really a nationwide issue. >> look at the overall numbers and these probably have change since to piece together but over 12,000 w active cases around 2000. deaths as you mentioned are up to 1016 now an employee deaths around 30. so how has the va hospitals responded? do they have the resources, the equipment and the personnel to respond veterans coming in with covid-19? >> that's been the source of a lot of frustration and fighting. officially the va leadership has said they have adequate

resources and the plan here and there's down, the number of active cases as of this morning dropped under 2000 so it was as high as 3000 the rcbeginning of this month. that's a positive trend read aa third fewer active cases. but what we saw the last two months were a lot of fights over just how much personal protective equipment was available, whether or not facilities were reporting accurate numbers or how much relies on what so the folks i talk to say they've been generally leads with athe care they received. as we hear from the all the time but employees have been frustrated that there were the protections they had hoped would be in place. we've heard from doctor stone, head of the veterans demonstration and secretary welby, the secretary of veterans affairs. both said they believe their supplies were adequate, that they had enough but acknowledge they didn't necessarily have ieverything that they wanted. they didn't have all of the

equipment, all the protective masks. one thing that arthey said they had quite a bit of is beds. a change in the beginning of this tand in march they changed some of the rules for elective procedures for nonemergency procedures and opened up tsome beds by moving some things around, shifting some arrangements within hospitals. they said they've maintained an adequate reserve of critical care beds through this whole thing. so many in fact that they've been able to accept numbers from the committee for veterans. mathe fourth mission of the va is to serve as the backup system for the general medical population in the country so they taken in several hundreds of folks again country from local hospitals that felt like they had too many cases that couldn't take care of them and provided some care that way to so it's interesting e. there's going to be a lot written when this is over about what the response was.

talking about a population that was more vulnerable than the rest of the country to this virus because if it weren't for folks who use the hava health system are older and our veterans population is older and some of them do have other health issues have to deal with so they're more likely to suffer worse and even die from this virus. >> we want to invite our veterans to join this conversation. our line for you is 202 he48 8000 aread all others 202-748-8000 one and were talking about the impact of the pandemic on our nation veterans with leo shane of the military times. how much money or resources were devoted to our nation's veterans and the first cares that, the first trillion dollar package passed by congress? >> alone more than $19 billion in one of the questions around capitol hill if how is that money spent andwhere did it go ?

or hasn't been any accusations of impropriety or waste but we've heard from republicans and democrats saying that a hefty sum and we need to know that youspent this wisely and that is being used . a lot of that money was just the immediate need for more protective equipment or more equipment coming in. just a rush of new patients and for that fourth mission, for help central so we haven't gotten a full accounting of some of the contractors use. there's been reports of problems with getting masks with getting those gallons. we will see how that shakes out over the next few months but i know the folks on capitol hill are talking about the next round t. the continued need for the va to be able to stand up and be ready to take on additional patients, be able to take on that threat and if there is a second wave. >> he probably would have

been asked questions about thatmoney, why isn't he testifying ? >> i don't think it's anything too insidious area that just got postponed for a week or two i think with the holidays and scheduling issues around the secretary was supposed to appear in a cabinet meeting the president this afternoon and i think there may have been a conflict there and any hearings on capitol hill right now are complicated issues and i've reached out to the committee about what preparations they were going to take you this was to be the highest ranking government official up on capitol hill in a hearing situation and vice president pants has been up there speaking at some of the republican lunches but holding hearings on capitol hill right now is a whole different adventure. it involves o a number of staff and involves usually when we see these, the secretary has three or four people by his side and five or six more behind him will have all the information that these folks

might bring up comedies congressman might bring up on a whole host of funding issues, program issues , local district issues so maybe there were some logistics stop and maybe other things but i know the secretary is expected to be at the white house to talk about coronavirus today so that might be the official reason behind why we are getting our flight delayed. >> we go to connie first, hangover maryland. the question about veterans uf during the pandemic. >> i work in crisis response and we answer calls from the whole population but with veterans in particular i'm concerned that the isolation for some of the veterans that have a bts diagnosis, it's really hurting them so my first part of the question is do you have a number for how many veterans have died and

in the va hospitals from conditions not related to coronavirus? >> .. what services might be you put in place for veterans that suffer from mental t health that have not had access to va services that they use to get because of the virus? thank you. >> we don'tmi unfortunately have those numbers and that's been an issue in "the washington post" and few other places and they have done a nice job of looking at the overall question of whether or not how many are directly attributed to

coronavirus va has been pretty good over the last few weeks about putting out a lot of hasnavirus members but notoriously and problematically with releasing other information over other i years, especially when it comes to suicide there's a two-year on suicide numbers and it's difficult to track in real time some of the effects of what is [inaudible] so we know that the number of calls to some of the crisis centers and mental health services have increased significantly over this and that's been a concern for lawmakers and officials and some of this isolation will -- >> we leave this here and go live to capitol hill to hear from president trump. >> both in terms of the country and in terms of the election that is coming up. we are doing very well in every way. any questions? >> last night speaker of the

house nancy pelosi and [inaudible] >> i don't respond to her. i think she's a waste of time. [inaudible question] >> we have a lot of priorities. a priority we have is for the country and bringing it back. i use the expression transition to greatness. we will have a really good third quarter and it is already happening. you see what is going on and we have to open up the states and numbers are going down and as they open but look at georgia and florida and others. we have states that are opening up in the numbers are going down but it's a transition to greatness in the third quarter is going into the fourth quarter and the fourth quarter will be really good but above all next year you will have a tremendous year. with all of that being said to lose lives over this that could've been stopped by china it should have been stopped by china it is terrible that a thing like this could happened to the world, long beyond us.

we are talking about the world, the whole world is being affected by this. it's a terrible thing. terrible, terrible thing. >> what is your timeline -- [inaudible question] >> yeah, yeah. [inaudible question] >> i worked with doctors. if you look at the one survey, the only bad survey they were giving it to people that were in very bad shape and they were very old and almost dead and it was a trump and many but if you look at the reports that came out from italy and came up from france and a lot of our front-line workers take it because it possibly and i think it does people will have to make up their own minds and plus it doesn't hurt people. it's been out in the market for six years, 65 years for malaria,

lupus and other things. i think it gives you an additional level of safety but you can ask many doctors are in favor of it and many front line workers won't go there unless they have the hydroxychloroquine. again, this is an individual decision to make but it's had a great reputation and if it were someone other than me people would say it's great but we are working on a lot of other things and i will tell you what, the great medical companies that we have if you look at what they are doing therapeutically and the vaccine itself and the vaccine i think is less important than some of the things they're working on and they are working on a cure and we more than one doing it in very advanced and working on therapeutics and working on vaccines. there have been tremendous progress. >> heavy talk to senators much about [inaudible] >> yeah, a lot of views on fisa and i did not get involved and i

purposely said to mitch, you go do what you want we will take a look at pfizer but nobody has been abused by pfizer like the president of the united states because of what the democrats did in the dirty cops, fbi people are great and i bet you go in there and they like donald trump but the top of the fbi they were dirty cops, crooked, bad people and nobody has been abused more than a trump but you look at general flynn in so many others, not just us but take a look at so many others, look at what they've done and how they have abused fisa so i will study it very much but the pfizer process has gone awry and it was used by very dishonest people and used illegally and frankly, the judges on the pfizer court should do something about it. maybe they will. [inaudible question] >> i think on the swing states you said?

on the flynn case? general flynn is a man of great respect. i was with general milley, head of the joint chiefs of staff, the other day and he said he's a fine man and he's known him for 20 years and a great soldier and general flynn was treated horribly. general flynn was treated illegally. these people broke the law. they broke the law. what they have done to general flynn should never happen. what they've done to the president and what they've done to this country can never be allowed to happen again to our country. despite all of that that has been done everything that has been done we had one of the greatest presidencies ever prayed we have never, i don't think anybody, mitch, i think we can say it with the surety and no one has a calmest what we have become blessed in a relatively short period of time, three year period of time but no one has been able to do that. when you look at rebuilding our military, regulations at a level that nobody has come close to and we cut regulations, biggest tax decrease in history, look at

all the things that we have done and all the things we've done on healthcare with the individual mandate, with pre-existing conditions, no one has done anywhere close to what we have done but despite that if you look, despite an illegal witchhunt and that's what it was, it was a hoax and a witchhunt, the resin thing was a made up fabricated story, just like they went to congress tulsi gabbard and i don't know heard all but they said your russian agents. i don't know her but i know she's not a russian agent and then they went to doctor jill stein of the green party and they said she's a russian agents. i don't know her at all and in no she's not a russian agents. these people are sick and pelosi is a sick woman. she's got a lot of mental problems. we are dealing with people that have to get their act together for the good of the country. thank you very much.

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