GOP sen blasts WHO leadership: It's politicized by Chinese money

The US Army Corps of Engineers is preparing to convert the Miami Beach Convention Center into a medical center to assist in the sea v19 response. Ainsley Florida currently has more than 14,000,700 confirmed cases and health officials expect the peak to hit that state first. May, yes, so we join right now from Miami, Florida, Senator Marco Rubio, Senator. I want to talk to you about this rescue plan because you focused on small businesses while you were subcommittee chair there, but first I want to get to your sense of Florida I saw those huge lines when it comes to food banks, how are you responding well the people of Florida at closing?

I mean the people of Florida have responded well in terms of following the mandate, so obviously there are people who are trying to avoid it. and people who need to know that it's cool, that if you work a blue-collar job, you probably have to work right now, whether you work at the grocery store, CVS Walgreens, or somewhere else that's deemed essential. and of course all the first aid people and so on, but in general they have seen that Florida has surpassed all the models, it is not because the models were wrong, it is because we are, but we are doing our part and we are going to be attentive to that and I also think that our local hospitals across the state have done a great job of building capacity and preparing to address anything that comes our way, that's right, and I know that in the Senate there's already talk about another Some of The items in the relief bill rejected by Democrats would be a quarter of a trillion dollars in assistance to small businesses, $100 billion for hospitals, community health centers and health systems, $150 billion for state and local governments and a 15 percent increase for the minimum instant benefit, among other things, and one interesting thing that Senator Chuck Schumer suggested as a senator is a hero payment of up to $25,000 essentially for people on the front lines, Whether they're nurses, truck drivers, or grocery store clerks, somehow the government compensates them for essentially putting their lives at risk every day when they go to work, what do you think of that idea?

Well, the way I think we should approach it is we can break this down into two parts, the first is what do we need to do to build on what we've already passed, so for example, the Small Business Fund, even though some initial failures, it is already at sixty-six billion dollars. I've already committed, so it's moving very quickly. There is a tremendous demand, so tomorrow there will be an effort to try to get there. and add some funds to that, so building on what we've done, adding to what we've already done at the last second, there's a recovery bill, there's relief and then there's recovery and I think for recovery some of they are deeper, more systemic. reforms we want to see things like our support for paint cleaning capacity in the country in industries that are essential and then maybe some of the things that you have mentioned were looked at in these people who are there every day and who deliver products that We've had a run on paper towels, not only did it break the paper towels, so those truckers that make those long drives through the night to bring not only paper towels, but also food and things like that to our grocery stores, Not to mention our doctor, the nurses are doing a phenomenal job on the front lines.

I'm all for doing positive things to help them after this difficult circumstance. I think that, of course, will require a little bit more thought and maybe being able to bring Congress together to figure it out, so I'm not saying no to any of these things, I'm just saying that they're new and they're going to require more thought and it's hard to do that now. Because we are not in session, we do not know when we will be. Yes, senator, the president is criticizing the World Health Organization. I'm sure he knows it. He then says that they have usually been wrong.

He said they were firmly against the travel ban in January. They say that everything is positive towards China. They are not giving us the correct information and that the US is the main funder of that organization, we give the most

money

but we still do not receive the most help, he says, so he is talking about cutting funds. Lindsey Graham says she's definitely going to do that, what do you say? A couple of things about the Global Health Fund. Organization, let's remember that on the front line they have people all over the world, they are doing phenomenal work in terms of epidemiologists, they are doing research, etc., our problems with

leadership

, because the World Health Organization serves an important purpose in this regard. .

China has made an effort over the last 15 years to infiltrate and influence international organizations in the United Nations and of course the World Health Organization, now what was seen at the beginning of this pandemic when they were to China and they came They say China is doing a great job everything they say is true and then they condemn not only the US but any country that has considered travel bans to or from China and there is evidence of politics, but it has become

politicized

, than the world. The Health Organization at its

leadership

level was

politicized

by Chinese influence and

money

and that is unfortunate because that organization should not be political and should not force me to make public health pronouncements under duress brought from any country in the world;

I should make those pronouncements on the basis of medical science and that's why I have deep concerns about it and that's why I hope that at the very least we can get the leader of that organization to resign because he's definitely been a politicized senator every time every sentence is fired at me. in recent unprecedented weeks, one of which was the $2.2 trillion plan to keep people in their jobs and businesses that aren't working funded, so part of the plan that you helped put together to small businesses in some cases is not working, but number one is when these people come in if they can't retain their workforce at 75%, they won't be eligible to convert that loan into a grant and if their people don't come back, they're out of business. there, it's out of your control and number two is when you're done making payroll, you're not going to have enough money to pay your lease and your rent, so would you revisit any of that for these higher priced cities like Los Angeles in New York and maybe even Miami, yes, potentially, but?

Not at this time, what we need to do is more funds just to be able to get them out because there has been a very strong demand. Look at a couple of points to be number one. Yes, I think I completely understand that people are desperate. and I want this to work, I also think we have to have some perspective. This is a plan that was approved two weeks ago, this Friday, in two weeks, yes, it was implemented six days later, until Friday of this week. In a bank in the United States that granted a PPP loan and there was not one in the SBA, they had never had a system run in six days because we are in an emergency, when you have an emergency situation it is chaotic.

I know from having lived through multiple hurricanes you are managing chaos while trying to get rid of the bugs that appear and every day this program has improved, there are still some substantial obstacles in the way that need to be solved, this cannot be the way The program works for the long term when it comes to payroll, the goal of the program, which is why it's called the Paycheck Protection Act, is to put money in the hands of small businesses so they can continue paying their employees even if the business is not open or operating and there is a portion that they can spend on rent, but we wanted most of that money to go towards payroll so we can keep people out of the unemployment lines and prevent them from disconnecting from his employer, the government.

It can't replace all the revenue of these companies and we never said it would, but we do believe that helping keep some employees on the payroll is a big help and you can't spend a percentage of it now if you can't hire the entire company. people. Coming back or whatever, there are elements of this on the back a year from now where you'll be able to show that I couldn't rehire my people because they were gone or because of some other impediment and that can be mitigated and forgiven, but but. Right now the goal is to keep people employed and put money in the hands of workers, that was always the agreed upon goal and a bipartisan basis is not perfect, it certainly doesn't address every issue, but it addresses an important one.

Sure, Senator Rubio, before you go, you know that we've all been cooped up for a couple of weeks. Now we try to save the day of the week as often as possible because all the days blend into each other. We saw the news. this morning that apparently his colleague Rand Paul is fully recovered from kovin and is now volunteering at his local hospital because he is a doctor just curious in his case, what does a sitting member of the US Senate do during the confinement? day, well, first of all, let me theoretically take both Rand Paul and my friend Mario Díaz-Balart, a congressman here who was also theoretically infected anyway, the assumption is that they have some immunity because they have acquired the virus, so that I don't do it.

I don't want to go through what they've gone through, especially Mario, but that's a benefit to them and it's something we should think about in terms of that new test that's being introduced to show that people have enough anti-Ph antibodies to be but our basic day starts early with some media visits and then I spend the entire day, probably 8 to 10 hours a day, either doing a series of conference calls or webinars with different groups in Florida across the country. Yesterday I spoke with the bankers of Florida, the National Bankers. The association and then many phone calls with people from the administration.

Today I will talk to the FDIC about the minutiae of the program secretary. It's been phenomenal, accessible and very responsive, so really the focus of my day has been largely on the program and getting work done identifying impediments and trying to do as much as we can here from home using the phone using this computer and then communicating with the public as well, so that's been the essence of our existence here since we got back from DC and there's a lot of work to do and then trying to keep ourselves safe, you know, trying to model the behavior that we ask of them others to follow, whether it's wearing a mask in public.

I don't look good in a mask, but I have one here. which we did and so I've been using that and oral and also, you know, staying home as much as possible and working from here as much as possible, so I've actually been pretty busy, but I think we all like to see life. get back to normal as soon as possible, but we have to get through this. Thank you very much, senator.