Ross Kaminsky Show, Cory Gardner, March 20, 2020
Station: KHOW, 630 AM
Show: Ross Kaminsky Show
Guests: Gardner, Cory
Date: March 20, 2020
Topics: Coronavirus
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HOST ROSS KAMINSKY [00:00:00] I am very pleased to go to our VIP line where joining us on his special hyper sanitized telephone from a hermetically sealed bunker in an unknown location is Senator Cory Gardner. Good morning, Senator. Thanks for being here.
U.S. SENATOR FROM COLORADO, CORY GARDNER [00:00:17] Morning, Ross. You make it sound much, much nicer than it is. Thank you.
KAMINSKY [00:00:22] That’s the nice version, huh? Okay, so, in case people don’t know why I made that joke, please explain.
GARDNER [00:00:31] Well, you know, on I guess it was Tuesday of this past week, just that now seems like more. But just three days ago, around 4:00 or 5:00 in the afternoon, I got a phone call from the Tri County Health Department, which represents the Douglas County, Arapahoe and Adams Counties in Colorado, notifying me that I had met in my office and spent a significant amount of time with a Colorado constituent who was apparently showing time — showing symptoms at the time of the meeting, came back to Colorado and then tested positive for the COVID-19. And as a result of that significant interaction, they said I needed to quarantine. I called the attending physician at the capital and they said, “Yep, you need to do that.” And so here I am. I have a self-quarantined out of respect to the people around me and to do my part to make sure that we are stopping the spread of COVID-19.
KAMINSKY [00:01:20] Any symptoms for you yet?
GARDNER [00:01:22] No, I am not. Luckily, no. And no fever, no symptoms, no cough, nothing. So it is hopefully, by the time my my 14 days is up, which will be, I think 14 days from the time of contact on March 11 — so the 25th — all will be good, and we’ll be out of quarantine. I will be out of quarantine.
KAMINSKY [00:01:42] Yeah. Excellent. And it’s kind of a bummer that you ended up finding out while you were in D.C.. I think it would have been nicer to be at home even if you wouldn’t have gotten right next to your family. But what are you going to do?
GARDNER [00:01:56] That’s exactly right. There are thousands of Americans, millions of people who were, you know, at home right now. And so I can’t and won’t complain. And we are all in this together. This is an incredible time. And we have to unite together to get out of this stronger than ever.
KAMINSKY [00:02:11] All right, let me ask you just an odd, Washington, D.C. question. So, as you well know, real estate and and rentals in Washington, D.C. are incredibly expensive. And so except for those few members of Congress who are fabulously wealthy with an eye. No offense, but I will not put you in the fabulously wealthy category.
GARDNER [00:02:36] None taken! I wish I could be offended, but I’m not.
KAMINSKY [00:02:38] Yeah, most of you guys have roommates. Like, for example, you know, I know who Ken Buck’s roommate is in Washington, D.C.. What about you in D.C.?
GARDNER [00:02:49] No, I don’t have any roommates except for an occasional invasion of ants that like the place.
KAMINSKY [00:02:57] [laughs]
GARDNER [00:02:59] And so, I have a 300 square foot studio apartment. When my kids are here and my family, I walk from the bed, I step on the couch, step on the cot, down the stairs and out the door.
KAMINSKY [00:03:11] [laughing] Trying to avoid the swamp ants. And how much do you pay in rent for 300 square feet in Washington, D.C.?
GARDNER [00:03:17] I pay more than my mortgage. I think this is a — this is a — I — it’s it’s well over my mortgage in Colorado. And so, that’s just for 300 square feet to rent this place. And again, it’s –I can’t –again, I can’t complain. Look, I have shelter. It’s close to work. And there are so many people right now who don’t know how they’re going to pay their mortgage, who don’t know how to get their income. And that’s what we have to focus on.
KAMINSKY [00:03:39] That’s right. Did you did you vote? Were you able to vote on that Corona virus response bill, the one that was like 90 to something — whatever that vote was?
GARDNER [00:03:50] No, I have participated in the negotiations. I have persuaded colleagues, I have helped influence and write the language. But I can’t vote. We have no remote voting rule or procedure in the Senate, although that legislation has now been introduced as a result of this. And I — it’s interesting. It’s really kind of ironic, because on the day that I got the phone call from the Tri County Health Department that morning, I had actually asked my staff to give me a a report on what Senate procedures are that allow votes to to occur that require simply a majority of those members present — so if there’s 60 members present, it takes 31 — or those votes that take 51, or those things that require 60 votes. You know, and we know that if there is a filibuster requires 60 votes to overcome. So what can be done in terms of procedure? And that same day — because I was worried that what if we have 20, 30 people who have to get so isolated? Well, it started to happen. So I hope we don’t end up with even more. And that’s another reason why I took the step that I did, because we can’t risk having the body of senators and members of Congress out, when we have incredibly important work for the American people to provide relief that needs to be done.
KAMINSKY [00:05:08] Yeah. Let me just quote from Axios here. [reading] “House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, Democrat of Maryland, told members on Thursday that the House will not return to session until the Senate passes its bill.” I guess this is the next Coronavirus bill. “And that voting procedures will be adjusted to follow CDC guidance on large gatherings. So on the House side, and obviously it’s a lot more people, it sounds like they’re talking about trying to do remote voting, but maybe, maybe in the short term they’re going to say it’s still got to be in person, but we’re only going to allow, you know, 10 or 20 people into the chamber at a time and then they leave in the next people come vote. I mean, what do you think that’s going to look like on the Senate side?
GARDNER [00:05:51] Yeah, that’s that’s exactly right. I mean, in the Senate side, they did make an adjustment to expand the time it takes to vote. Now, this is kind of a silly Washington thing because a vote in the Senate is supposed to take 15 minutes. It always takes thirty or forty five minutes, even though it’s supposed to only take 15 minutes. And so that’s like two people a minute coming in to vote, right? And so there’s plenty of time to vote. They could stagger themselves. They can walk in different doors in the Senate. They can just walk into the chamber, wave, say yes or no, get the job done that way. In the House, they have to actually walk into the chamber, insert a physical card into a card-reading machine that everybody else inserts their card into that they have carried. And so they’ve got a little bit more literal hands-on voting and their votes can be sometimes as short as two minutes, which means, you know, 400 plus members of Congress voting within two minutes.
KAMINSKY [00:06:49] Wow. So they have a bunch of those machines spread around different places of the floor —
GARDNER [00:06:54] They do.
KAMINSKY [00:06:54] –so that you get a line of 10 or 15 people at each one. And they just go through it real quick.
GARDNER [00:07:02] That’s exactly right. And — do you know? — when I served in the House, it was very common that you would sit there with, you know, 10 or 20 people and you would all just stand next to each other voting. So, you know, when guidances say, ” Stay six feet apart, in groups of 10,” –or four, now — as the guidance, I think, is getting smaller. That is certainly something that that vote change would have to address.
KAMINSKY [00:07:25] All right. So, there’s a lot more to talk about here. Before we talk more sort of politics and economics, I want to talk about the human side of this a little bit. As you mentioned, lots of people are stuck at home, lots and and in different parts of the country, different governors or ordering different things. Right. The governor of California ordered everyone to stay at home. The governor of Pennsylvania ordered every business that he didn’t declare to be life essential to be closed. I mean, even things like forestry and mining, he’s ordered all of that stuff closed. Here in Colorado, Jared Polis has been a little bit more restrained, so far, with [closures of] restaurants and casinos and gyms. And then yesterday he ordered things like hair salons and nail salons and massage parlors — where people have to touch each other — to be closed. How do you think — and I realize most of this stuff is properly done at the state level rather than the federal level –but you were involved in state politics, and just as a citizen of Colorado and as a guy who thinks about this stuff, how should we think about — we’re — how far it’s okay for government to go to tell us what we can and can’t do. Like, literally, you can’t leave your house. Is it — are these circumstances that bad that it could justify that? Or is that a step too far?
GARDNER [00:08:47] Look, this is incredibly, incredibly difficult question to ask and answer. The Wall Street Journal editorial this morning kind of touches on this very same thing, about, all right, how far do we go with this sort of economic shut down? What we know is this: we know that the health experts that we are relying on are telling us to his social distance to stay away from others, the six feet apart, to stay in small groups, because if we do that, then early on the front end of this, we can flatten the curve, as they say, and reduce the strain on our health care system, meaning that we will have ICU beds available for those in need. We will have room in our health care systems for the most vulnerable amongst us. We’re relying on them. This is incredibly, incredibly — I don’t even know there’s a word that I could find — disruptive to our economy. And so what we have to do, though, is act — and I said this before — with all urgency. And if I could find a word that is more urgent than the word urgent, I would be using it to to make sure we get this economy firing once again and people back into add up on their feet once this is over. And I hope if we’ve all done our part, that this lasts for days and weeks, not months, because we have to get back on our feet, get this economy running, get people back to work, provide the certainty. In the meantime, Congress has an absolute obligation to make sure that we are giving the American people the certainty they need to be able to pay rent, to make their mortgage, to get back on their feet, back into their jobs, because they’re doing what our health care experts have asked them to do, through no fault of their own.
KAMINSKY [00:10:32] All right, so I’m going to follow up on that really difficult question with another really difficult question that’s kind of similar. And I’ve been talking about this a lot on the show. And again, I realize that there is not an obvious right answer to this. These are probably some of the most difficult questions that anybody who is facing these — you know, people who have to make decisions, like like Governor Polis, like President Trump. I mean, these could be the most difficult decisions they ever have to make, right? But so, here’s what I’ve been thinking about, Cory, and I want to get your opinion. That is, so, we are trying to protect the health and possibly the life of some unknown number of people. It could be a large number, in terms of actually protecting lives. It could be a not so large number, assuming that in any circumstance we try to isolate the high risk groups. But for the non-high risk groups, how should we think about the fact that by just one order, governors around this country are putting hundreds of thousands of people in their state out of business, out of work, overnight? And how should we think about whether this massive economic destruction that’s happening is worth the unknown gain in public health?
GARDNER [00:12:01] And that is the debate that is going to continue not only right now, but it’s going to continue for years and decades to come. You know, if we didn’t do this — if we didn’t have this — and worst case scenarios of projections happened and fatalities and hospitalizations, there would be no one at restaurants. There’d be no one going out to retail stores. We would have the same effect because people would realize the absolute health devastation that [would have] occurred if we didn’t do this. So one way or the other, we would be in a position of dealing with what we are if they hit their projections. And so we have to follow the best science and doctors and our caregivers that we can. And we know that it’s not just seniors that could be affected by this. We do know that if you have a preexisting condition and you’re young, you could still be affected by this — a risk factor, as they say, that it could be affected by this. And so we also know that it’s not just 70- or 80- or 90-year old that’s in the hospital. This — there are a number of people in the age range, 20 to 54, who are hospitalized as a result of this, on ventilators. Look, in our — in some of our rural areas in Colorado, our hospitals are being overrun. So, I understand this question of how far can we go? And we are having that discussion right now about what other countries are doing, whether it’s Belgium or Australia, in terms of a policy that will fit and make it work. But, you know, we’re doing what we can right now to stop this, to keep people from being overwhelmed, to save lives. Congress has to — has to — get its job done and to get people out of this once this happens. This isn’t a case of bad corporations doing bad things and then asking for forgiveness at the taxpayers largesse. This is through no fault of their own, people acting on the advice of medical experts to save lives. And that’s why we have to do an unprecedented mobilization to get this back open again. But it’s rough. It’s a debate that we will continue to have. We’re acting with the best knowledge we can right now.
KAMINSKY [00:14:07] So the first coronavirus bill passed pretty bipartisan. Now, they’re looking at more and it seems like the differences in policy and partisanship are kind of bubbling up a little more. Cocaine Mitch — my favorite nickname of all time — Senator — the Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, introduced a bill yesterday that would give $1200 to every person, although it would start phasing out over $75,000 a year, and then above $99,000 you don’t get anything. What do you think of this one? And generally, what should we be thinking of in terms of the federal government’s, in particular, responsibility here? And should we be bailing out individuals, small companies, giant companies? How do you think about this?
GARDNER [00:14:58] Well, this is what the bill does. You’re exactly right in terms of individual support. So, the way I look at this is we need two big goals achieved. Number one, to provide immediate help to the people of this country, to workers, to people who are trying to figure out how to put food on their table, make ends meet, pay rent and meet their mortgage payment, and, what about thier job? So we’ve started to do that with the bill that passed Congress a couple of days ago, making sure that they have paid leave in many instances and opportunities to get paid so that they can get through this. And that’s backfilled by refundable tax credits through the federal government. We also then through this package are going to provide that direct assistance. And I think it’s important that we do this because people have walked away from their job. Their job has shut down because the health experts have said that’s what we have to do to save lives and to stop this threat from growing to an overwhelming point. But what’s important about this bill is twofold. Big businesses, big businesses are getting loans and loan opportunities through this. If you look at the airlines, there’s loan opportunities. If you look at the bigger oil and gas companies or others, there’s going to be loan opportunities. If you look at small businesses, small businesses will have access to a small business stabilization fund. We are trying to save small businesses. They will be able to access loans. And when they pay people, when they pay their workers, keeping them on payroll and they pay their rent and they pay their mortgage, that portion of the loan will be forgiven. This is about –this is about workers getting paid. It’s about people getting their salary and their wages. And it’s about saving small businesses, while we also provide loans to big businesses. So that’s exactly what the structure of this bill would do, along with some other measures to make sure that when we — when this is over, we get back onto our feet. Thank goodness the economy was as strong as it was when we went into this because we’re gonna need every bit of that once we get out of this.
KAMINSKY [00:16:52] That’s for sure. And last question for you, Cory, just a few seconds here. How are you feeling — right now — about the administration’s — the executive branch response to the virus, as far as — not, “Were they late,” or anything like that. How are they doing today?
GARDNER [00:17:11] You know, I talked to the vice president last night, talked about the manufacturing sector and what they’re doing to get the manufacturing sector mobilized on personal protective equipment, gear, masks. So, you know, this is a story that’s pretty incredible. 3M was manufacturing [unintelligible] masks, basically, that were N95 — the medical-grade masks that we’re looking for — they were making them for industrial purposes. They could not sell them into the medical world because they were afraid they would be sued by trial lawyers. So Congress actually had to pass a law — that was blocked by House Democratsl, first — to actually make sure that they wouldn’t have liability if they used those same masks that are perfectly qualified [for] N95 health care uses, if they took them off the industrial line and labeled them for medical use. So that brought millions and millions and millions of more supplies online. So that was a good thing that they did — that mobilization of the Defense Production Act — to get these targeted industries geared up and working is important. So they’re getting more tests approved. We now have some medications that have been repurposed that are out there, hopefully will do good. And that’s what we have to continue to do.
KAMINSKY [00:18:21] Senator Cory Gardner, thanks for your time. Stay well, look forward to talking to you when you’re not under self-quarantine.
GARDNER [00:18:28] Hey, thank you, Ross. And we’ll get through this and we’ll be stronger than ever.
KAMINSKY [00:18:31] Absolutely. Thanks, Cory.
