your facebook comments, text messages and tweets. >> follow the federal response to the coronavirus outbreak at .org/coronavirus. watch congress, white house fromings, and updates governors. track the spread throughout the u.s. and the world with interactive maps. watch on-demand any time, unfiltered at c-span.org/coronavirus. >> before a thursday vote on a gop coronavirus relief bill, senate majority leader mitch and minority leader chuck schumer talked about what was at stake with this legislation. here's the majority leader. senator mcconnell: 19 years ago tomorrow, thousands of our fellow americans were murdered by terrorists. national landmarks were burning.

responders in new york city, arlington, and into mortal rushed , putting their lives on the line to save strangers. and as the dust settled and 3000 american families grieved their loved ones far before their time, we quickly saw there was no going back. the old world that we had woken up to that tuesday morning was gone. we had not gone overseas in search of these monsters. these monsters came to us. these enemies would not leave our nation alone if we declined to confront them, so as we

reflect on this anniversary tomorrow, we will remember the thousands of innocent americans who died that day and the brave servicemen and women who went on to pay the ultimate sacrifice to do justice and to prevent more attacks. my fellow kentuckians and i could not be prouder of the heroes stationed on our soil who have deployed throughout the war on terror. thespecial operators of campbell,d at fort kentucky, handled the very first airborne insertion of troops in mid-october. a dangerous flight over the hindu kush mountains. the soldiers it carried were from the famed fifth special forces group, also based at fort campbell, who formed the tip of the spear to unleash the might of america on the terrorists and their taliban hosts. the famous 101st airborne also at fort campbell became the first conventional unit on the ground just days later. fast forward a decade, and the officers were helicopter ring over afghanistan again.

they inserted and extracted seal team six the night we took osama bin laden off the battlefield. thousands more service members were at kentucky's fort campbell during the war on terror. fighting by our side for nearly 20 years now have in our friends and nato allies. america's friends invoked article five right away and have fought alongside us to defeat this global threat. that dark day occasion brave contributions from so many, from who trudgedters through smoke to the citizens who donated blood and flew our flag to the young men and women stationed thousands of miles from home right now to help our nation protect our homeland. we did what americans do -- we stayed strong. we stuck together, and we rolled up our sleeves, and we rebuild. some rebuild their lives. others rebuilt buildings. some put on the uniform and

rebuild peace and security with their own hands. may we never fail to honor them, and may we never tire of the toughness, vigilance, and persistence it has taken and will continue to take to make our pledge "never again" a reality. president, on an entirely different matter, congress has spent months talking -- talking -- about giving the american people more relief as they counted. should we move forward with the floor process to deliver hundreds of millions of dollars more for kids, for jobs, and for health care? should we at least vote to move forward and have this debate out in the open? or do our democratic colleagues prefer to hide behind closed doors and refuse to help

families before the election? well, we'll find out in a couple of hours. republicans have tried repeatedly to build on the cares act and get more help out the door to american families. democrats have blocked us at every turn. they've invented different excuses each time. a few months ago speaker pelosi wrote a massive multitrillion-dollar liberal wish list that even her own house democratic members said would never become law. the heroes act went too far, a political wish list. those were quotes from house democrats. but in july when senate republicans put forward a serious offer, speaker pelosi and the democratic leader said they would not even talk -- not even talk unless we started with that unserious bill. no help for families unless they got to pass the absurd bill their own democratic members had

ridiculed. so in august, republicans tried something else. we proposed breaking off some of the most urgent, most bipartisan policies and agreeing wherever we could. unemployment insurance, the paycheck protection program. but speaker pelosi and the democratic leader blocked that too. they said they didn't want to do anything piecemeal. piecemeal, they said. and yet just a few weeks later, speaker pelosi completely contradicted herself, rushed back to washington to pass a total piecemeal bill that only helped the postal service and did nothing for working families. contradiction after contradiction. excuse after excuse. while working families have suffered and waited and wondered whether washington democrats really care more about hurting

president trump than helping them through this crisis. my democratic colleagues should stand up and tell the american people which elements of our multi multi -- proposal they propose. they should stand up and tell the american people which parts of the proposal we'll vote on today they're actually against. today we're going to vote to extend the additional federal unemployment insurance. democrats vote against that? thanks to senator collins and senator rubio, we're going to vote on a whole second round of p.p.p. for hard-hit businesses. are democrats against that? thanks to colleagues like senator ernst, daines, gardner and sullivan we'll be voting on new support for small businesses like farms and fisheries. thanks to senator cornyn, we'll be voting on commonsense legal protections at universities and nonprofits have been asking for.

who are the democrats excited to vote against? the farmers or the university presidents? thanks to chairman alexander and senator blunt we're going to vote on an incredibly robust package for education and health care to get kids back to school safely and then defeat this virus through science. we'll be voting on $105 billion for education, more than house democrats put in their bill. billions for testing and tracing. and even more support for vaccines. and thanks to a number of our colleagues, including senator ernst and loeffler, there's new support for child care, plus other arrangements like homeschooling, thanks to senator cruz. are democrats really going to refuse to fund k-12 schools and child care in a pandemic because they're afraid republicans might get some credit? really?

they're going to vote against finding and distributing vaccines because they're afraid the breakthrough that our nation has prayed for might possibly help president trump? these, these are the policies that every one of us will be voting on in a couple of hours. these and many more. speaker pelosi and the democratic leader can keep up the frantic political spin. they can keep trying to make this an abstract argument over leverage or an infinite set of things that aren't in the bill or whether the white house chief of staff has been polite to them, or whatever new excuse they'll settle on today. but none of that, madam president, is what we're going to vote on. we're going to vote on policy. today every senator will either say they want to send families the relief we can agree to or

they can send families nothing. nothing. reporters asked the democratic leader yesterday if this stonewalling was making the perfect the enemy of the good. he replied -- listen to this -- republicans are the enemy of the good. republicans are the enemy? that's what he said, madam president. we've all heard that saying that a gap is when a politician -- a gaffe is when a politician accidentally says what he really thinks. that's a washington gaffe, when a politician actually says what he really thinks. well, the democratic leader just told us how poisonous his thinking has become. the americans we represent, however they vote, know that

republicans aren't our enemies, and democrats aren't our enemies. the coronavirus, madam president, is the enemy. the coronavirus is the enemy. my home state just passed a milestone yesterday. more than a thousand kentuckians have lost their lives to covid-19. these families i represent are not burying their loved ones because republicans or democrats are the enemy. they are burying their loved ones because of this virus. that's what we're fighting. that's what families are dealing with. we're not each other's enemies. we're all in this together. just like we were back in march and april. so today, every senator is going to vote. every senator is going to vote.

senators who share the democratic leader's toxic attitude, who think the real enemy are their political opponents, i assume will follow his lead and vote no. they can tell american families they care more about politics than helping them. but senators who want to move forward will vote yes. they will vote to advance this process so they can shape it into a bipartisan product and make a law for the american people. that, madam president, is what working families need. they need us to act. they need us to legislate. today, they will see exactly who has theirr: we are. mr. schumer: i ask unanimous consent the quorum be dispensed with.