would be the -- sec. mnuchin: three weeks from today. within three weeks. great, thank you, everybody. >> thank you. >> appreciate your time. announcer 1: if you missed any response,erage to the watch it anytime at c-span.org/coronavirus, from daily briefings by the president and white house task force to update from governors of the hardest hit states, it is all there. use the charts and maps to track the global spread and confirm cases in the u.s. county by county. this is your fast and easy way to watch c-span's unfiltered coverage of this pandemic. >> joining us on capitol hill on c-span's "newsmakers" is republican congressman greg walden.

he is the ranking member of the energy committee. here in the studio is bob cusack, editor in chief of the hill newspaper. i want to begin with friday's vote and the procedural moves forced in part by congressman massey. a number of your colleagues became very upset they had to make a trip back to washington to force the vote. what were you hearing? rep. walden: well, it was unfortunate, unfair and unnecessary. we all get a voting card. we have a right to privileges on the house floor. he exercised his. it was just not necessary at all. we have the votes. we had the quorum in the house, as was easily identified and we moved on. in the end it did not have a delay in effect, but it did discomfort some members. you know, frankly, we are 435 -- actually we are down a couple of members. there are a lot of members that have certain illnesses and are dealing with things that make

them even more vulnerable to the virus. i don't know. it was a waste. it is really unfortunate. host: so did that move put members at a health risk? rep. walden: i think it did. otherwise members would have stayed more isolated. they would not have gotten in their we were not able to maintain those protocols because of this. but you know mr. massey believes , strongly what he believes and his voters will have a say in how they interpret that. i know how the president interpreted it. he was pretty forthcoming. the big news is not that. the big news is we passed the bill unanimously in the senate, overwhelmingly by voice vote in the house. i'm not sure there were many if any objectors. it moves forward to the

president. he will put it into law. and now we will get relief to the american citizens. we have got people falling through the cracks. you see with the economy is doing. the deep dive over the cliff. this is designed to build a bridge across the ravine, get to the other side and have a safety net for people who are falling. host: let me turn to bob cusack of the hill newspaper. bob: congressman you have been a , health care leader, the top republican member on the energy and commerce committee. who are you talking to and when are 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. so that is a piece of it. as we continue to get it processed, you will see an

uptick, but 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 still be hotspots. i believe fully in the people i talked to, the former fda commissioner dr. gottlieb or i , listened to dr. fauci a lot. i have known him for a decade. when they speak, i listened. dr. hahn, admiral giroir, others on his team have made it very clear, we have to take these measures to begin to stop or slow the spread of this virus. hopefully nature is a friend too. typically on these coronaviruses, when you get to your hotter periods like summer in the northern hemisphere, if it behaves like others, a should -- it 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. and we need to be ready for it. i have delegated part of my staff on the energy and commerce

committee a couple of weeks ago to focus on what lessons we are learning along the way, how to do we 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 -- wants to reopen the economy in some fashion by easter sunday, a couple of weeks away. is that wise? some people say that is actually dangerous. rep. walden: he is also -- he is an optimist and i appreciate that, but he's listening to his medical staff and his scientists that are around him that are at the lectern with him almost every day. there may places where we might be ready to do that. but the disease and the medicine and the protocols are actually going to dictate that. i think the president will follow his advisors on that. and so look we would all like to , be able to get out of the house. i a northwesterner. am we do not want to be boxed in our houses. we want to be outside regardless of the weather, but this virus

is a pretty mean enemy. we are at war. i think everybody recognizes that. we will follow the science, we will follow the virus. hopefully what we are doing now might allow some areas to come out of this sooner than others, but that is yet to be determined. i do fear a lot for the more urban areas and the role mass transit may be creating, in that we are all gathered together on the same subway or train or whatever, commuting back and forth. i think you are going to see out of manhattan it spreading into surrounding neighborhoods where people commute into the city. you will probably see that in other cities as well. this virus lives quite a long time on certain surfaces. and people are crowded together in mass transit and then going home. my fear is as we ramp up the testing, you will see a lot more cases. and unlike china where they don't count the asymptomatic cases, we do here. and that is important, so we know who may have the disease,

not show it but be shutting it and spreading it. we have got to do much more on testing. we are ramping up, surging up in that capacity. and then as we work towards some sort of medicine to address the virus and eventually a vaccine. host: congressman, as you know, the president said we are trying to minimize the threat from the virus at times calling it a , democratic hoax, saying it will simply wash away. has there been mixed messages from president trump? rep. walden: i would say i have , been in briefings since this was first announced, and i heard from pretty distinguished medical providers that are on tv a lot that they thought this could be contained in china and not get here and we did not have much to worry about. i was in the briefings not with the president but with high-level folks who made that point as well. then it 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. it did get out. and so 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. well, that was true until they had the case in california that was community transfer, that immediately changed the cdc protocol. and then we continued to go from there. 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 the scientists originally thought. we need to adjust. what we need to do is focus on the future. how do we make sure in the fall kids have a place to learn? how do we make sure our health centers are fully funded? you know one of my criticisms of , this bill is the community health centers are only funded through november. why haven't we given them sustainable funding for the next four or five years like senator murray and alexander and i have advocated for?

guaido we pass medical billing that happens and stop the gouging that happens? there is more work to be done in the congress moving forward. lines, threeose bills have passed, but there is talk and there will be more. do you think that could be -- surprise medical billing could , that be done in bill four or five? rep. walden: we passed that bill in the house energy and commerce committee unanimously. think about, that was occurring in a phase where democrats were trying to impeach the president, here we are working together to protect consumers from getting ripped off when they go to the emergency rooms one out of five visits. , chairmantive cologne and i worked close together. the education and labor committee, mr. scott and the ranking member mrs. fox they , were side-by-side on this. ways and means committee passed a bill.

it had a little bit different provisions, but the dials are somewhat similar. why can't we get this done? protect consumers, make sure our doctors get paid what they deserve, and your insurance works as advertised. i mean, there is an answer here. we need to get it done and done now. bob: as far as the economic impact, the chairman of the federal reserve basically said we are in a recession now. how fast do you think the economy can rebound? can it rebound this year? rep. walden: well 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 out in front of the capital when the plane hit the pentagon. i have lived through the worst in afghanistan and iraq, hurricanes, the financial meltdown, but never anything like this. instead of being told go spend, go rally, go to the theaters and -- in new york ballparks, go toldp, we are being

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 videos of 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 have to be able to get out and spend. that is this cross pressure at work 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? and how soon can we be let go?h? 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. before 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 are looking at $25 trillion by the end of this year. how do we turn that around? rep. walden: it is the challenge the next congress will face. 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.

that is what this rescue package is designed to do, is make sure we don't go off the ravine and the cliff. to make sure we get in and out of the ditch. there will be more stimulus going forward, i'm sure. but 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: so how do you do that? cut spending and raise taxes? rep. walden: you know, it may be a combination of both. problem, and certainly

republicans agree with this, the problem has been every time we have entered into one of those agreements, the spending never gets cut and taxes got raised. the question is how do you address that for the long-term? that will take systemic reforms, some of the programs no one has been willing to touch. i'm not talking about people in their elder years. people who are on social security or medicare. 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. my gosh, 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. -- paying for it through 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. i think 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? i mean, our reporters, most of them can work from home, but a lot of them are up there and it is on capitol hill, at the white house, and it is dangerous. do you think congressman needs to implement -- rep. walden: there is a big debate about what we should or

should not do. i think out of this you will see a very serious look. i was here at 9/11. we had a very serious discussion afterwards. what if something happens to the capital and wipes out most of the house? how would we replace people and keep continuity of government? you run into really strong constitutional issues about service and replacement in the house. it has to be by election. but i think 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 chair or out on the golf course and push a button and vote and go about their daily fun. that will not work either. but 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. that meant you would 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. but because of their own health situations wherever they lived around here when in session or stayed in their offices. bob: you know president trump very well. you have worked with him on a number of issues. 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 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. look, they have worked their tails off. they have a great team around them. he's an executive. he has run big businesses. he 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 in his cabinet working with him every day. i look at he was out there at the podium with him. it is dr. fauci. colonel/ambassador birx. it is the head of the fda. it is vice president pence. it is a powerful team. i am darn glad they are in the lead. have there been problems? of course. i heard former hhs secretary

donna shalala said i will not criticize. i ran hhs for eight years. when you get in one of these crises sees, there are -- one of these crises, there 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. a 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. everybody 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 american people by putting the virus back in the box. steve: congressman, when he dismisses governor cuomo sankey does not need the ventilators, and refers to the governor of michigan as that woman governor or says governor inslee is a snake, is that appropriate? rep. walden: i don't know why we are having that discussion. i have seen things have been hurled at the president that are not very becoming. my governor was asked what is 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 the ankle about 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: congressman, now that you have passed this to trillion trillion bill, 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: that is a really good question. again, i'm thankful secretary mnuchin was in the lead on this. in the president's team. because 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. small business administration. because 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's local financial 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 backed% back to loans -- loans that become grants for small businesses up to 2.5 times their payroll costs for up to 500 employees. when they looked at 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. -- fallen into unemployment. 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? the goal here is 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. so we will be working in partnership with the administration to do that. two, there is a strong oversight piece built into this to prevent waste and fraud. there will be some of that. there are always con artists. we need to make sure the justice department and others are 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? you mentioned earlier too, impeachment basically just ended and now they had this bipartisan bill just pass congress. what is the mood? rep. walden: is interesting, it is a really good -- it is

interesting, it is a really good question because 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. i want to tell you, 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. it was one of those moments, we 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. rep. walden: no, it doesn't. i have a degree in journalism. i say this with all due respect. when we get along and nobody is acting out in a strange way, it is not as big a new story. -- as big a news 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. i think there is a lot more we can do going forward. i hope this time of crisis and the goodwill it can bring about on the hill is not lost. we need to fix supply chain vulnerabilities, whether that is the communications networks or our drug supply networks. it is not just us versus some other specific country. remember when the hurricane hit puerto rico, turns out most of our saline solution is made in puerto rico. i led a bipartisan delegation down there and the factories were closed because they didn't have electricity and we were running out of saline. we have to be smarter about supply chain vulnerabilities and get lessons learned out of this pandemic and never take our foot off the gas pedal. bob bob: 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. and kill 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? when people go back to work with may be gloves on and masks? 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. 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. we will get forward. 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. steve: 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? rep. walden: 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 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 what 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. steve: 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.

steve: here in our studios, bob cusack, editor-in-chief of the hill. we appreciate the questions and comments. bob: thank you, steve. calvin coolidge, presidential chair, and many sleighs, on the u.s. government response to economic crises from the great depression through the coronavirus. >> crash in the great gatsby, that was the crash of the early 1929., not the crash of people thought america would never come back from the big up people of -- big up people of world war i. there was inflation, we were getting over a flu, the spanish influenza, all of this was going on. at that time, the government took a policy. the policy was let's pull out of the way.

the government was response -- the government's response was so counterintuitive, it is almost impossible to armor -- impossible to utter it now. announcer: that is tonight on c-span's q&a. should wondering if i put myself to carry out orders that we have at work and stay safe and be home. >> do you believe a left-wing national healthcare system like they have in cuba, for example, could have -- get everybody on the same page? >> could you get that from money, seeing that money goes through so many hands? announcer: share your experiences dealing with the coronavirus pandemic and ask experts your questions. join our live conversation every morning on washington journal, which starts at 7:00 a.m.

eastern. and more live conversation weeknights at 8:00 p.m. eastern from washington journal primetime. next, comments by dr. deborah birx, a member of the coronavirus task force and joe biden on nbc's meet the press. after that, the president's chief economic advisor, larry kudlow, talks to reporters at the white house. dr. birx: what i wanted to be very clear on his every metro area should assume that they could have an outbreak equivalent to new york and do everything right now to prevent it. if they mitigate now before they start seeing cases in the emergency room and in the hospital, once you see those, the virus has been spreading for days to weeks. this is really my call on every mayor to prepare now. >> it sounds like these guidelines are going to