Is working on billions of allars of aid to help salve plundering economy. Even elections are being affected. Of of this is in the hope keeping coronavirus from getting worse. Our question for you this morning, what do you think about President Trumps declaration of a National Emergency on covid19 . Late, or soon, too justintime . We are going to open up regional lines this morning. If you are in the eastern or central time zones your telephone number is going to be 202 7488000. If you are in the mountain or pacific time zones we want to hear from you at 202 7488001. Thisve a special line open morning. This will be a line for medical professionals. If you are in the medical field we want to know what you are seeing out there. If you are in the medical field we want to hear from you at 202 7488002. Keep in mind you can always text. S at 202 7488003 and we are always reading on social media. This now, late last night the house of representatives passed a billiondollar aid package for fighting the coronavirus. Here is what House Speaker nancy pelosi had to say before that bill was passed. Pelosi i am very proud of our Committee Chairs and staff to together this legislation. Last sunday Chuck Schumer and i pushed forth the priorities we wanted to see and recall that the familys First Response to the coronavirus crisis. Weekfollows our bill last ,hat the appropriations bill 8. 3 billion, earning Families First. We have an effective stimulus to the economy, injecting those resources, as well as, with this bill, putting funds in the pockets of people who may be affected. We said we, did what were going to do. But Families First with paid sick leave, sick days, family and medical leave, Unemployment Insurance. Over 20 million children get their meals at school. They have food insecurity. This bill addresses that, as well as food for our seniors and others. Filling food banks as well. Then issues that relate to three things testing, testing, and testing. This is so important. Between the appropriations bill and this legislation, we should have legislated, we should see the executive branch execute this legislation. We are very proud of that work. We could have passed our bill yesterday, just our own bill, which is a great bill, but we thought it would be important to show the American People, to assure the American People that we are willing and able to Work Together to get a job done for them. , thosek our republican who will be supporting the bell. We appreciate the president joining us with his tweet. Host lets see with the house actually did. Passed their 36340. Rus aid package, all of the democrats voted for the bill. 40 of the republicans voted against it. Representative, justin amash of washington, who voted against it. What we canmmary of see is in the bell. It would provide free testing for everyone who needs a test, including the uninsured. It would allow for two weeks of paid sick leave and up to three months of paid family and medical leave. It extends Unemployment Benefits. It strengthens programs that provide School Lunches for students. And it provides more state and medicaid funding. To get more information lets talk to the hills Senior Reporter, alex, has been covering all of the action. Good morning. Guest thanks for having me. Lets do a quick summary of what is in the package. What else should we look at . Guest i think what is interesting is, as you know, the president called for a payroll tax holiday or a significant reduction of payroll taxes. One of the compromises here is to pay for the paid sick leave is employers would be able to take a tax credit against their Social Security taxes. Against the money they have to pay into Social Security. They can take a tax credit for the money they provide as paid sick leave. There is a slight reduction in payroll taxes. That is a win for the president. I think that is one of the reasons that trump got behind it. Addition, other concessions like easing work requirements course, assistance, of we are seeing substantial money for low income pregnant women so that they can provide, they can buy meals if they are, if they cant work, for instance. We are also seeing 100 million for Tuition Assistance for the territories. Program thatnded takes into account the territories. Reservations, native american reservations, there is assistance there. There is assistance for the military. This is a comprehensive package. What is interesting is how comprehensive it is and how quickly he was able to be put together after the initial democratic proposal was rejected by mitch mcconnell. This proposal still largely mirrors what House Democrats came out with earlier this week. Politicshows that the are changing so quickly the president felt he needed to do something here. After 13 calls between Steven Mnuchin and Speaker Pelosi they finally got it done. Host we know that this is being put together quickly. Do we know how much all of this is going to cost . Guest we dont have a solid estimate. There are some pretty expensive requirements. For instance, the federal government is going to be paying going to be paying substantially higher on medicaid costs to cover people without insurance. Of medicaidportion cost sharing, that is going up. But we dont know exactly how much the entire thing is going to cost. The Unemployment Insurance, we do know that its going to cost toadditional 1 billion speed unemployment claims and to provide extra assistance to states that ca 10 increase in unemployment. We are also going to see full federal sharing of the cost of federal benefits. Get aidnt have time to score from the Congressional Budget Office because they were in such a rush. Well have to find out at a later date. While the number is going to be large, it is probably not as large as what ivanka trump was talking about. President trump was talking about. Its nowhere on the order of aboutbut we are talking in the tens of billions of dollars. Host is it unusual that the negotiations were between secretary mnuchin and House Speaker nancy pelosi and the senate wasnt involved . Guest that was unusual. Usually you have, what they collect four corners discussion. Had the leaders of the senate and house involved in these talks in addition to the administration. The senate was cut out of it. That is interesting to me. I was surprised by that. Part of the reason why they streamlined the discussions is because they wanted to get it done quickly. I think the sense of urgency was heightened by the precipitous drop in the Financial Markets on thursday. We were getting flashbacks to the 2008 financial crisis. I think that focused people. You even had Kevin Mccarthy praising nancy pelosi after this deal. In the sense of urgency wrapped up, i think folks realize, to get this done as quickly as possible it has to be a focused negotiation between the speaker and the white house, has represented by treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin. Board,s going to be on republicans will be as well. That was a matter of getting it done as quickly as possible. For two quick questions you. Do you expect the Senate Passed this quickly or do you expect there to be negotiations between the house and senate that would slow the bill down . Then, what is next . That herump said expects republicans to vote for it. He is urging republicans to vote for it and says he wants to sign the bill asap. That is going to put a lot of pressure on senate republicans. However, there is no procedural agreement in the senate. Now when the senate comes back of course, they are canceling their march recess the first order of business is going to be reauthorization of expiring pfizer surveillance provisions. So, they will need to come up with some sort of agreement to move quickly on the house bill. I expect that will happen. Also, i know there are some things republicans want to add in the senate. They want to add relief for Small Businesses. They also want to add a liability exemption for makers of, for industrial makers of whoirators so that people make respirators in short order for this crisis, they dont get sued. That was something democrats objected to. I dont know how strongly they are going to insist on those provisions. My guess is that this moves very quickly and can possibly pass monday night. Mitch mcconnell cautioned saying, look, there is no guarantee to have festival move. As far as what else, already senators are talking about a second round of stimulus, or maybe third round of stimulus if you want to count that initial 8. 3 billion corunna relief bill Coronavirus Relief bill. There is going to be an additional stimulus and i think that is when the president is going to make a renewed push for payroll tax cut, if not holiday. We could see other things as well, such as a tax rebate. Expansion of Unemployment Benefits, thats a possibility. As this billon passes there is going to be discussion on another round of stimulus. Host what should we be watching for this week . Where should we have our eyes this week when he comes to congress . I think one of the Big Questions is, how this virus spread is going to affect the work of congress itself. We have already had a couple of senators and house members selfquarantine themselves. One question is, are they going to how much longer are they going to stay up there . Republican i spoke to said there is growing sentiment that after we passed the stimulus bill that we leave washington and not come back for a while. Describing congress as a quote unquote, petri dish. There is concern about lawmakers. This negotiation can happen over the phone. One of the things im looking for is other people are looking to get out of town for their own safety. Mentioned, the next round of stimulus. Quickly, me ask you a how does this affect you as a reporter . Your job is talking to these people, being in these credit press conferences. I is this affecting how you operate . How is this affecting how you operate . Guest im trying not to push Elevator Buttons and im trying to be careful about doorknobs. You really cant avoid getting close to people. Rick scott, for instance, a senator from florida selfquarantine last week. I had a conversation with him and he was closer than six feet, the prescribed distance. You have to do your job, obviously, and everyone is. Are folks feel the need to do their jobs. They are being careful is washing their hands more frequently and also, it comes to pushing an elevator button, maybe using the corner of the notebook. Host stay safe out there, alex. Weve been talking to alex bolton, Senior Reporter from the hill. Let lets go to your phone calls. Lets start with david. Good morning. Caller good morning. After watching that opening clip of the president , i have to make a comment. In the statement he says he is declaring a National Emergency, and then he said two very big words. Why does he got to speak like that . Then he started before he said how much money he was going to spend. Why cant we have somebody who can convey confidence and put a sentence together that does not look like a child speaking . Thank you. Host i want to remind everybody pagecspan has a special for our coronavirus coverage. If you would like to see all of those clips of what President Trump and other lawmakers are and allbout coronavirus of our related programs you can cspan. Org coronavirus. Relatedin, all of the programming and briefings around the coronavirus. Lets go back to our lines and talk to joe who was calling from indianola. Caller good morning. Top of the morning to you. I think trump is way too late. I think he is a monday night quarterback her. I guess what congress is turning socialismie sanders to save capitalism, once again. To compare and contrast plans and solutions, trump failed, widen no good because he is owned by the billionaires, and Bernie Sanders got the plan that Everybody Needs to listen to and check out on the internet. Host lets go to cecil who was calling from cary, north carolina. Good morning. Wallr i believe that street and these other people that know what is coming are nervous and they have better knowledge of what is going to happen. I think we are going bankrupt, big time. That is the comment i have to on, iut to put pilot think if they dont get together on things, we are headed for a big crash. Yesterday President Trump announced increased testing for the coronavirus via a partnership with the private sector and recent fda action. Here is what President Trump said about that. Trump 10 days ago i brought together the ceo of commercial labs and directed them to begin working on a solution to increase the availability of tests. Other countries have called us and work with us and they are doing similar things, or will be doing similar things as a result of that action today we are announcing a new partnership with private sector to increase and accelerate our capacity to test for the coronavirus. We want to make sure that those who need a test can get a test. Safely, quickly, and conveniently, but we dont want people to take a test if we feel that they shouldnt doing it. We dont want everybody running out and taking, only if you have certain symptoms. Using federal emergency authorities the fda approved a new test for the virus. We did this within hours of application. The a process that would normally take weeks. We expect up to half a million additional test will be available early next week. We will be announcing locations probably on sunday night. , greatto think roche company. I would also like to thank thermo fisher. It will go very quickly, its going very quickly. Which will bring additionally 1. 4 million tests on board next week and 5 million within a month i doubt we will need anywhere near that. Host lets take a quick look at what trumps National Emergency declaration does. First and invokes the stafford act, which allows fema to tap into a 42. 6 billion Disaster Relief fund and direct aid to states hit by the Health Crisis. It also instructs state governments to set up Emergency Operations centers. It directs hospitals nationwide to activate Emergency Preparedness contingency plans and allows the health and Human Services secretary to waive regulations that could hinder Health Professionals response capabilities. Charlie severson gave a little bit more of an explanation about what this declaration actually does. Im going to read a little bit from this article. What exactly is Emergency Powers . It is special authorities that a president can unlock and use in exigent circumstances. Congress has enacted laws that allow it president to declare emergencies exist, bring the government from abiding by some of its usual legal constraints. This can include permitting the government to spend additional funds, including to aid state and local governments and temporary temporarily lowering legal barriers. Setting up a cascade of effects. In Public Health, emergency power laws include provisions of the Public Health service act, the stafford act, the Social Security act, and other statutes. Actdoes a stafford emergency work . It frees up federal funds to other resources to help when federal assistance is needed to supplement state and local efforts and capabilities to save lives and to protect property and Public Health and safety. Governmentsis the main mechanism for responding to disasters. It permits tacking and tapping into an account that has more than 40 billion it could use to do things like i medical supplies. Once again, we want to know what you think about President Trump. Equiring an National Emergency lets go back to our phone lines. Lets talk to joy who is calling from chicago, illinois, and is a medical professional. Joy, what do you do . Caller im an occupational therapist. I work at Skilled Nursing facilities. Host what are you seeing out there . Caller what im saying is, i wish they would enforce more that ourrce employers give us kids, less protective equipment. Im seeing ian t seeing emt people bring in patients who do not have any protective equipment and they are asking for masks. We dont have anything. Nobody is enforcing that we be attracted, especially when we dont know if there is a lack thereof of testing. We are basically exposed. I would like to see more legislation forcing them, otherwise they will do financial loopholes and they try to avoid thanks. It is at our expense. I would like to see a bit more, some watchdogs making sure that we are protected. That is about it. Host lets talk to larry who was calling from grimes, iowa. Larry, good morning. To comment oned this covid19. In the beginning, 3. 5 billion dollars was not enough. Democrats wanted 8. 5 billion. With that on top of it, nancy pelosi tries to stick in some wo rdage