Colorado’s Morning News, Cory Gardner, February 27, 2020
Station: KOA, 850 am
Show: Colorado’s Morning News
Guests: Gardner, Cory
Date: February 27, 2020
Topics: Center for Disease Control, Mike Pence, HHS, CDC, Health and Human Services, Budget for Coronavirus protection, Appropriations, Science-based, Azar, Point Person, Italy, South Korea, Screening
HOST APRIL ZESBAUGH [00:00:07] [There are] some new efforts from the White House to battle the coronavirus as it spreads. President Trump is asking for more than $2 billion to combat the virus. But Congress is pushing for even more. Let’s get into the D.C. efforts with our own GOP Senator. Cory Gardner, [who is] on our live line. Good morning.
U.S. SENATOR FROM COLORADO, CORY GARDNER [00:00:22] Good morning. Thanks for having me.
ZESBAUGH [00:00:23] Is two billion enough? I’ve heard some people say as much as 8 billion. What do you think?
GARDNER [00:00:27] Well, Chuck Schumer has said 8 billion, others in the White House and said 2.5 billion. I’m interested in what the scientist says, what the health care community says. And what they say is what we appropriate to, making sure that they have the resources that they need. So let’s let the experts guide us and make sure that we fund it appropriately.
HOST MARTY LENZ [00:00:43] Should we be reading too much into this, Senator, with Mike Pence leading this –as opposed to HHS’s Azar — on this process, or does that say something about his lack of leadership?
GARDNER [00:00:52] You know, I think they wanted to make sure they had a high level leadership from the White House. I think Azar is very much involved in this and will be leading this. And they just wanted to point person to be able to turn to from a coordination standpoint. In fact, yesterday I just sent a letter to the agencies, to secretary of state, to HHS and others, saying we need to make sure that we have a coordinated response — coordinated within the federal agencies as well as the states — as we approach this.
ZESBAUGH [00:01:18] Democrats saying the White House was caught flat footed on the virus, blaming the president for cutting funding for health care agencies, including the CDC and the NIH. Is that money going to be restored? And are you confident now that we’re moving forward in the right direction?
GARDNER [00:01:33] Well, Congress has funded CDC and NIH robustly over the past several years. I don’t want to play partisanship on this. And I hope that you don’t see people go to their political corners because there’s an election eight months from now, either trying to create some kind of a panic or because they want to put on their Democrat or Republican shirts. This is a serious public health threat that we have to address and we have to take it that way. And we shouldn’t take it through the lens of a Republican or Democrat.
LENZ [00:01:59] Well, respectfully, the president does seem to kind of have done that when he alludes to the stock markets being [caused by] the Democratic debate. I mean, what I mean by that, Senator, is, are we going at this with the science look at this, or just simply, well, the markets are up or down. We shouldn’t care about the virus. I think some people are more concerned that you’re not taking — or you know, the administration’s not taking the science and the concerns seriously.
GARDNER [00:02:19] Well, I take the science very seriously. And that’s — you know, I chair the Science Committee on Commerce Committee. Obviously, it does not have jurisdiction over CDC, but it does work with the National Science Foundation and many others. And so my approach is very much driven by the science and the best health practices. That’s why, you know, I’ve talked about additional screening. You know, whether we’re screening people from Italy or South Korea as they come into the country, additional travel restrictions that are needed in place. And so this is all led by the best way to protect the public. And that’s how I’m approaching this.
ZESBAUGH [00:02:48] Yeah. What’s your opinion about screening those folks? Because it sounds like the CDC says right now at least it’s only people coming in from China. Should we be heavily screening people from Italy and South Korea?
GARDNER [00:02:58] Well, we had a classified briefing two days ago with the CDC, HHS and others. And that was the question I asked directly, and that’s when that information became public, thanks to my question. And I do think we should be screening those. I have been pushing for a screening others from countries that have a number of cases. I think in Italy right now, it’s around 400 to 500 cases. We should be screening people and making sure that we are doing everything we can to protect the public health.
LENZ [00:03:20] Senator Gardner, thank you for your time.
GARDNER [00:03:22] Hey, thanks for having me.
