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steve: joining us on "newsmakers " is republican congressman greg walden. here in the studio is bob q sack, editor in chief of the hill newspaper. i want to begin with friday's boat and the procedure move from congressman massey. a number of colleagues are upset they had to make a trip back to washington to force the vote. what were you hearing? rep. walden: it was unfortunate, unfair and unnecessary. we all get a voting card. we have a right to privileges on the house floor. it was just not necessary at all. we have the votes. we have a quorum in the house, as was easily identified and removed on. in the end it did not have a delay in effect but it did discomfort some members. we are 435 -- we are down a couple of members.

there are a lot of members that illnesses and are dealing with things that make them more vulnerable to the virus. i don't know. it was a waste. it was unfortunate. steve: did the move put members at a health risk? rep. walden: i think it did. otherwise members would have stayed more isolated. they would not have driven here from michigan or ohio. gotten on a plane like i did from the west coast or fly down from new york or somewhere. i'm sure they would have rather stayed where they were. frankly that was the medical guidance we were given. don't move around a lot. stay isolated. stay home. we were not able to maintain those protocols because of this. mr. massey believes strongly what he believes and is voters will have a say in how they interpret that. i know the president interpreted it. the big news is we passed the bill unanimously in the senate,

overwhelmingly in the house. i'm not sure there were many objectors. it moves forward to the president. he will put it into law. we have people falling through the cracks. you see with the economy is doing. the deep dive over the cliff. this will build a bridge across the ravine, get together side and have a safety net for people who are falling. steve: let me turn to bob. bob: you have been a health care leader, the top republican member on the energy and commerce committee. who are you talking to and win we going to get on top of this? when will we see improvement? rep. walden: that's a good question. i think we will see improvements in a couple of weeks. we are probably seeing it now except we don't have enough testing going on. we all know that has been a shortfall in this. a lesson learned. something i hope we don't repeat in the fall. that is a piece of it. as we continued to get it

processed, hopefully with the isolation, this extraordinary measure the american people are undertaking we will see a slowing of the spreading of this virus. that will help. there will be hotspots. i believe fully in the people i talked to, the former fda commissioner or i listened to dr. fauci a lot. when they speak, i listened. others onf the fda, the president's team have made it clear we have to take these measures to begin to stop or slow the spread of this virus. hopefully nature is a friend. typically on these coronavirus's, when you get to your harder periods like summer in the northern hemisphere, if it behaves like others, a should begin to die off. having said that, and we look at some data out of the southern hemisphere as they go into their

winter, this thing, we should anticipate will reemerge in the fall like a traditional flu does. we need to be ready for it. i have delegated part of my staff on the energy and commerce committee to focus on what lessons we are learning along the way, how to make sure we are not repeating those when fall comes, what do we need to do to be ready if we have a resurgence in the fall. bob: the president was to reopen the economy in some fashion by easter sunday, a couple of weeks away. is that wise? some say that is dangerous. rep. walden: he is an optimist and i appreciate that, but he's listening to his medical staff and his scientists around him that are at the lectern with him almost every day. there may places where we might be ready to do that. there is the medicine and the protocols that will dictate that. i think the president will follow his advisors on that. we would all like to be able to

get out of the house. i'm a northwestern or. we do not want to be boxed in our houses. we want to be outside regardless of the weather, but this virus is a mean enemy. everybody recognizes that. we will follow the science, follow the virus. hopefully what we are doing now will allow some areas to come out sooner than others, but that is yet to be determined. areas andthe urban the role mass transit maybe creating, gathered together on the same subway or train or whatever, commuting back and forth, you will see out of manhattan it spreading into surrounding neighborhoods where people commute to the city. you will probably see that in other cities as well. the virus lives quite a long time on certain surfaces. people are crowded together in mass transit and going home. my fear is as we ramp up the testing you will see a lot more cases. unlike china where they don't count the a symptom medicaid is,

we do here -- asymptomatic cases, we do here. we have got to do much more on testing. we are ramping up, surging up in that capacity. as we work towards some sort of medicine to address the virus and eventually a vaccine. aree: the president said we trying to minimize the threat from the virus. at times calling it a democratic hoax, saying it will wash away. has there been mixed messages from president trump? rep. walden: i have been in briefings since this was first announced and i heard from pretty distinguished medical providers on tv a lot that they thought this could be contained in china and we did not have much to worry about. i was in briefings with high-level folks who made that point as well. then he got away and everything

changed. i think that is what you have to do in a situation like this. what we thought at one point ended up not being the case because it spread faster than people realized. we changed our protocols. originally the cdc said unless you have been traveling in and out of wuhan or somewhere connected there, you were not even at a high risk. they had the until case in california that was community transferred, that immediately changed the cdc protocol. now we know it is here, in virtually every country on the planet, and it spreads more rapidly than we originally thought. i think it lives longer on surfaces than scientists originally thought. we need to adjust and focus on the future. how do we make sure in the fall the kids have a place to learn? how do we make sure our health centers are fully funded? one of my criticisms of this bill is the community health centers only funded through november.

why have we not given them sustainable funding for the next four or five years like senator murray and alexander and i advocated for? white don't we pass surprise happensbilling that -- and stop the gelding that happens? -- gouging that happens? bob: there is talk and there will be more. do you think that could be -- surprise medical building -- could debbie and bill four -- could that be done in bill four or five? rep. walden: we passed that bill in the committee unanimously. democrats were trying to impeach the president, we were working together to protect consumers from getting ripped off from the emergency rooms one out of five visits. worked close and i together. the education and labor committee, mr. scott and the

ranking member, they were side-by-side on this. ways and means committee passed a bill. the dials are somewhat similar. why can't we get this done? protect consumers, make sure doctors get paid what they deserve, and your insurance works as advertised. we need to get it done and done now. bob: as far as the economic impact, the chairman of the federal reserve said we are in a recession now. how fast do you think the economy can rebound? can it rebound this year? rep. walden: one would hope so. this is a hit like we have not endured in my lifetime. i have lived through 9/11. i was here on the house triangle in front of the capital when the plane hit the pentagon. i have lived for the worst in afghanistan and iraq, hurricanes, the financial meltdown but nothing like this. instead of being told go spend

and rally, go to the theaters and ballparks, go shop, we are told to shelter-in-place, don't go out, only for necessities. otherwise stop what you do. we have never from the government told our economy to just halt. look at the streets of new york city or any town in my district. there is nobody on the sidewalks. we are a 70% consumer driven economy. consumers cannot get out and spend. there is cross pressure against science and medicine. how long do we need to stay cooped up to get the upper hand on the virus and stop the spread? how soon can we be let go? we probably do have to look regionally at this. i commend the administration for putting that concept out there. my district stretches from the atlantic to ohio. you can have a vast difference of cases and demands on

hospitals. i have some counties that only have one case, but their hospital is about to go broke because the state said you can't do any elective procedures in your hospital. they are calling me saying we only have one case in the hospital and we are going broke because we can't do elective procedures. we are making extreme measures now, but i think we need to be very thoughtful going forward about where can you let up a little bit and when. when is the question mark here because science has to dictate that. steve: i want to follow-up with regard to the economy, the debt and deficit. for for the coronavirus crisis we were facing a $1 trillion spending deficit this year. an overall debt in excess of $23 trillion. add onto that. we're looking at $25 trillion by the end of this year. how do we turn that around? rep. walden: it is the challenge of the next congress.

there are some out there advocating health bonds like we did war bonds to finance some of this. we have to find a way through but we can't do it with a broken economy that does not come out of a ditch. is makecue package sure we don't go off the ravine and the cliff. we get in and out of the ditch. there will be more stimulus going forward, i'm sure. at some point will we get our economic legs back under us then we have got to address this deficit crisis. it is upon us. it is unfair to the next generation. the only thing more unfair is to completely destroy america's economy and health care system and leave the place in real shambles. we have to do what we are doing now. we may have to do more in the short term. in the long-term, all of us will have to roll up our sleeves and sit down and figure out how to get this deficit under control. steve: how do you do that? cut spending and raise taxes?

rep. walden: it may be a combination of both. has been every time we have entered into one of those agreements, the spending never gets cut and taxes got raised. how do you address that for the long-term? that will take systemic reforms, programs no one has been willing to touch. i'm not talking about people in their elder years. i'm talking about what can you do not to the person just entering the workforce and give them a system that will be sustainable financially going forward as we keep the promise to those who are on these other programs. i think there is room to get savings. i think there is room for efficiencies in government. i look at reforms that brilliant young people in silicon valley have developed to upend entire industries and bring incredible synergy.

you think about the online economy, the gig economy and the reforms. i would love to tap in to their brilliant minds. how can we simplify government and cut the overhead and make it more user-friendly? i believe what we did in this bill to allow telehealth for seniors on medicare means they will not see their doctors, getting a quicker return and we are paying for three medicare. i think we will save money because you are more apt to get the answer you need over a video screen quicker than if you wait to get an appointment with your doctor and expose yourself to everybody else in the waiting room. there are some things we can do here to move america forward. bob: i was texting with another member this week who said it was outrageous that members had to come back and vote this week. outside of the thomas massie thing, isn't it time for congress to move to some type of remote voting process? most reporters can work from home, but a lot of them are up

there and it's dangerous. do you think congressman needs to implement -- rep. walden: there is a big debate about what we should or should not do. out of this you will see a very serious look. i was here at 911. we had a serious discussion. what if something happens to the capital and wipes out most of the house? how would we replace people and keep continuity of government? there are some strong constitutional issues about service and replacement in the house. it has to be by election. on the voting side we are nearing the point where we can probably find some common ground in rare circumstances where you have a threat where you could vote remotely. i'm sure we could develop the technology to do it. i don't want to get to the point where lazy members decide they never have to come to washington to participate. they can sit on their lounge chairs and push a button and

vote and go about their daily fun. that will not work either. in a rare circumstance i think for the health and safety is on the line and people in their communities could be affected negatively by us going back and forth and getting something and spreading it in a pandemic situation, there ought to be a better way here. we could not do at this time. you have to change the rules to allow change. you have to be here to vote to change the rules. we have a quorum back. others were here in d.c. who were willing to come in if they had to to meet a quorum requirement. because of their own health situations wherever they lived around here when in session or state in their offices. steve: you know -- bob: you know president trump very well. the president has rated himself a 10 out of 10 for handling this virus. there are reports that were highlighting this coming issue. while few saw or thought it

would get this bad, it has gotten very bad. how do you think the president is doing? what would you advise him to do in the weeks and months ahead? rep. walden: i think the president has done everything he can to move every obstacle out of the way to get the medical equipment, to get the approvals necessary for new treatments. i am glad he has done what he has done. the vice president as well. they have a great team around them. he's an executive. he has run big businesses. b understands what you have to do to keep cash flow going, keep your people employed and take care of them. he is the engine driving this, but he has an extraordinary team and his cabinet working with him every day. i look at he was out there at the podium with him. dr. fauci. onel/ambassador birx. the head of the fda.

it is a powerful team. i am darn glad they are in the lead. have there been problems? of course. former hhs secretary donna shalala said i will not criticize. i ran hhs rate years -- for eight years. they are moving parts and think you don't quite get right. we will learn and move forward. i think that is true here. talking about a person, i have never seen a president more accessible to the press. i daily press weaving led by the president, the vice president and his team. that's an unprecedented in and of itself in terms of access. he has put himself out there. he has been a strong leader on this. as long as he keeps listening to his team and working with the congress he has, we will get bipartisan results. when i called different members of the administration and said i have got a constituent at a brewery or a distillery that was

to make hand sanitizer, they are like, got it. things got changed. when we had a problem getting protective equipment to oregon, we said what is going on? can you give us a daily report? pretty soon we got a daily report. everyone is trying to get the same goal here and that is what we need to focus on. how do we win the battle for the people by putting the virus back in the box. steve: when he dismisses governor cuomo sankey does not need the ventilators, and refers to the governor of michigan as that woman governor -- rep. walden: i don't know why we are having that discussion. things have been hurled at the president that are not very becoming. my governor said the worst thing about the pandemic is it keeps you up at night, the president of the united states. that doesn't help anything. that is where most of us in

congress are focused. we are not getting wrapped around what people say to each other through the media or whatever. i put my time in on problem solving. there are lots of republicans and democrats that proved that is what we do best with the vote on this big bill and that is where we are focused going forward. bob: now that you have passed this to trillion dollar bill, the budget -- the annual budget of the federal government. rep. walden: bigger than that. bob: what are going to be the implementation challenges? there are many business owners watching this program and they want to get access to the massive amounts of loans. where do you see the implementation challenges going forward? what can the administration do to get the money out as quickly as possible? rep. walden: i'm thankful secretary mnuchin was in the lead on this. what they looked at is what is the fastest way to get working capital into the hands of

american entrepreneurs. how do we help people falling into unemployment? how do we get more cash into the hands of americans who may be getting furloughed? how do we keep the employment base together? the workers and small business. they decided the fastest way was through the 7a sba program. that is administered at your local financial institution. you go in and sit across the desk to talk to the person that manages your line of credit and say here is my payroll, my costs. i want to be part of the 7a program. that banker can say done. you can get up to 2.5 times your payroll forgiven if you keep your people on your staff or hire them back. by june 30, if you have done that and kept them employed even though the doors may be closed, that loan up to 2.5 times becomes a grant.

i was a small business owner for 21 years. i have never seen an incentive process like that. that can be quick. it will probably take a week or two to get the paperwork done and bring everybody up to speed on how this will work, but these are winter percent loans -- 100% loans that become grants for small businesses up to 2.5 times their payroll costs for up to 500 employees. how do we help people with additional benefits? you have seen some of the dustup over that. when they looked at trying to do it individually, it became so cumbersome that the state said we are not able to handle it one by one. it is better to set an amount and we can administer it. we gave states more money for the administration and we put $600 more a week into the pockets of those who have fallen and done employment. they are trying to figure out how to buy groceries when the stores are open and the shelves are not bare, pay the rent and

take care of everything? design the slickest system to get the most money into the hands of the american people and small businesses as fast as possible. now we have to do the oversight in two areas. one, make sure it is happening. oversight is a strong piece built into this to prevent waste and fraud. there will be some of that. there are always con artists. we have to make sure the justice department is keeping a close eye to make sure the con artist don't end up getting the runaway here. we have to do that as we work. steve: you are not seeking reelection. you have served in the house many years. you have gone through 9/11, many wars. what is the mood on capitol hill? impeachment basically just ended and now they had this bipartisan

bill just passed congress. what is the mood? rep. walden: i was at the enrolling ceremony the speaker had after the house passed the bill. it was a republican leader, the majority leader, the committee chairs and top republicans on the committee. it was a very unified moment back in the speaker's ceremonial office before we went out before she enrolled the bill and signed it. i have not seen that in a long time. i saw it with 9/11. i saw it in the attack. i have seen it several other times. it is not the usual. i think it is one of those that we gave each other the elbow. it was more than just replacing shaking hands along the way. wewas one of those moments, have done a good thing for the american people. most members of congress come here to solve problems. we bring different suitcases full of tools and experience with us, but at the end of the day if we can keep focus on the

problem, we usually end up coming together. seldom do we come together this fast and this big for so many people at such an important time. interestingly enough after this vote it was -- people were pretty upbeat frankly. we had done something good here. that makes you feel good. we know there is more to do. steve: you said democracy can be messy and loud but it takes a crisis to bring unity. o, it doesn't. i have a degree in journalism. when we get along and nobody is acting out in a strange way, it is not as big a new story. one guy demanding a quorum call vote dominated the press coverage today. he lost sort of everybody but one, but he's a huge part of the story. if we had not had that, the story would have been differently focused.

when we do get along and pass legislation that matters to people and there is no big fight, it is kind of a footnote. i get it. we do a lot of good work here together. and i think there's a lot more we can do going forward. crisis and time of the goodwill that it can bring about on the hill is not lost too soon. we need to fix supply chain vulnerabilities. whether that is our communications networks or our antibiotics and drug networks. it is not just us versus some other country. remember, when the hurricane hit puerto rico it turns out almost all of our saline solution is made in puerto rico. i led a bipartisan delegation down there and the factories were closed because they did not have electricity and we were running out of saline. we have got to be smarter about supply chain vulnerabilities. we need to get lessons learned at of this epidemic. they never take our foot off of

the gas pedal. >> congressman, on the aspect of reopening the economy, a lot of people have said, including kevin hassett, the nation cannot shut down for six months. maybe we are not there yet, but certainly at some point -- and the president has talked about this -- we have to reopen or otherwise a recession or, god forbid a depression, could also harm a lot of people. at some point are we going to have to have that debate of, yes, it is somewhat dangerous. when do you think that happens? rep. walden: i think we are having it. when the president said -- it was kind of a throwaway line that he would love to see things reopened by easter. he wasn't saying they are going to. and that they are going to everywhere. everybody just jumped on him immediately. it's like, wait a minute, i've got parts of my district where

you may only have one case, if any. they are saying, why are we all shut down? well, we know what can happen. though -- there will come a time again where we have better surveillance, better testing, and where we eventually have a treatment. all of those things will affect how much we can open, how much closer we can get socially. what we can do in the meantime, it is a new world and we are all living in it. i hated hand sanitizer. i will just admit it. i don't like using it. now i can't go two minutes without it. it is sitting over here next to the chair. i have got the wipes for everything. i thought only people who had an issue had the wipes. now, by golly, it is on the airplane and it is everywhere i go. that is our new reality. we will be a lot healthier as a country irrespective of this virus. because this will help knock off common cold spread. we are going to learn some better -- well, we knew the

better health habits, we just didn't follow them. you cannot shut down the economy forever. i think that is the president, who is an eternal optimist. he wants to get america back on its feet and working as soon as it makes sense. i think that is the deal. i worry about multiple cities. dr. gottlieb is tracking about 10 of them, he told us last week. that he is very concerned about. you know about new york, we are hearing about new orleans. frankly, governor inslee in seattle has done a terrific job trying to contain that in washington. i know they are working their tails off in new york. nobody wants to get this wrong, by the way. nobody does. but, it is tough, once it begins to spread. there are probably 10 or 12 other cities that may flareup, especially once we get much more testing done and much more rapid testing done. we will get a better idea how much this has spread, how much of people are asymptomatic, how

much of it really knocks you over. i've forgotten whether it was dr. gottlieb or dr. fauci said, if this virus had been in 1918 when we had the spanish flu, the death rates would've been multiples. because this virus is so bad, we have so much advanced modern medicine we can save more lives today that never would have been saved in 1918. what that means is, you are in the er, you are in the icu and you are there in the hospital for a week or two, when you're in that severe category. it is not a couple of days in the hospital then out. this is a week or two. this is what we are trying to get control over. >> congressman, you are the former head of the nrcc, percentagewise what are the chances that the republicans could regain control of the house this year? >> i think there is a decent

chance. i would put it at at least 50-50, and a little bit higher than that. it will be close. we are a divided country. there were millions of trump voters who did not turn out in 2018 that turned out in 20 16. -- in 2016. if they turned out in 2018 as they had when the president was on the ballot, republicans would have held the house by about 10 seats. you are not going to hold back a trump voter in this election. i have never seen them more fired up. and the key group here are the independent voters. they like with the president has done on the economy, they like with the president is doing in terms of managing this crisis, and they did not like what the democrats did, never accepting the outcome of the election and trying to impeach the president. that really backfired on democrats. i think there is a good chance. we have got great candidates running. tom is doing a great job at the nrcc. kevin mccarthy and steve scalise and others trying to raise the money, doing a great job. we just need to have our message. we've got to run positive and get results. i think we are. >> greg walden, republican of

oregon. he is the ranking member of the house energy and commerce committee. congressman, thank you for joining us on "newsmakers." rep. walden: thank you. stay safe. >> here in our studios, bob cusack, editor-in-chief of the hill. we appreciate the questions and comments. >> thank you, steve. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2020] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> the coronavirus task force holds a briefing today with president trump and vice president pentz -- vice president pence. coverage from the white house against at 5:30 p.m. here on c-span. ♪ >> c-span's washington journal live everyday with news and policy issues that impact you. coming up monday morning, dr. atn andrus, epidemiologist

the george washington university school of public health discusses the latest in the u.s. response to the pandemic. and taxpayers for common sense president talks about what is in the coronavirus aid bill passed by congress. washington journal, live starting at 7 a.m. eastern. join the discussion. >> during a news conference yesterday new jersey governor phil murphy announced that homeowners in his state's finances have been affected by the coronavirus pandemic will get a 90 day grace. on their mortgage payments. this is about an hour. >> good afternoon, everyone. thank you for joining us. to the thousands of new jerseyans who are watching us today, like every day, live. tomorrow we are going to commune