Administrator of the food and drug administration. Also new yk Health Commissioner serving under both mayor deacon and mayor giuliani. Its such an honor to welcome congressman clyburn. Hes the majority whip, the third ranking democrat from the United States house of representatives of currently serving also as the chairman of the House Select Committee on the coronavirus, and also the democratic working group. He came to congress in 1993 and representing South Carolina sixths Congressional District, straiting his skills. He feels elected president of his freshman class, rose through the ranks and elected chairman to have congressional black caucus. Vice chairman and later chairman of the Democratic House caulk is. He previously chaired as minority whip and assistant democratic leader. But i understand he gran his service as age 1 when he was elected president of his naacp youth chapter so he has longstanding skills in elected ffice. He also comes from Humble Beginnings and clearly his family taught him many important values that he draws on now. The importance of family and community. Of faith and integrity and respect in Public Service so we really do both smire admire and you your service, congressman so lso, we need you now thank you for joining us to reflect some on important issues before us and i thought that it would be probably only appropriate to really begin by asking you to reflect in a broad way on the state of race and race relations, social justice issues, inequality in our country. This has been a sad and challenging time with the loss of so many key figures in the civil rights movement. Reverend joseph lowry, elijah exum cummings and of course, last week laying to rest your friend and colleague john lewis. Ou mentioned that john lewis you mention that would john lewis was a hero to the country, an icon to the movement and more importantly a friend. With his loss you now really take up the mantle in some ways as a leading voice on civil rights issues in this country with your history and experience but also with the work youre doing now so perhaps i could turn to you just for some broad reflections, asics. Well, clyburn thank you very much for having me and thank you for your service, especially to the health field that im very, very concerned about. As for my 60year long friendship with john lewis. John and i first melt back in octoberof 1960,the weekend ofoctober15 on thecampus of morehouse college. Its also the same day i met Martin Lutherking jr. That night, as many may beaware,therewas alittle bit f adisagreementbetween thestudents,Martin Luther king jr. Andothers, as to what the approach ought to be. Some wereadvocating nonviolence for breakingunjustlaws, paying the penalty of going to jail. T as of that weekend, king himself had never been to jail. So a lot of us felt, and i was inthatgroup, that you lead notjustby precept but by example. Wewere challenging someof those notions. In orderto resolve thosedifferences, we met that nightin aroom on the compass. We went into thatmeeting around 10 00 inthe evening and itdid notcomeout until 4 00 the next morning. It was supposedto be anhourlong meeting,but it lastedmuch longer than that. Ofthemeeting t i callit my saul to paul transformation. Was a different person. I was enamoredby king. Igrewdramaticallyin those four orfive hours. John lewis was also committed to that movement. I willtelleverybody, there has alwaysbeen a civil rights movementin this country. You can go back to the 1700. Thesumterrebellion, the episodes incharlestonin the 1800s. Theniagaramovement in theearly 1900swhich led to the reationof the naacp. All of those were civil rights movements. But in every movement somebodyrises to the top. Its usually somebody who is head and shoulders above everybody else. That was john lewis in the Civilrights Movement of the 1960s. I always kind of cringewhen peoplesay you took part in the Civilrights Movement. No, i took part in a civil rights movement. So long as you have people whoaresubjectedtosuppression and other sorts ofunjustlaws,there is going to be a Civilrights Movement. But john internalized nonviolence. A lot of us accepted nonviolenceas a tactic. I am in that group. Johninternalized it and t becamehis way of life. John wasnear sainthood as far as i am concerned. And i often talked to him when he got ousted asthechair of thestudentnonviolentcorps,th at was 1966. Sflolved boardot of education stuff. He chaired orwasthedirectorof an educationproject in atlanta andi chaired thegood education activitiesgoing on in charleston counsel. So we interactedagain. We wentall over thesouth registering people to vote. Can you imagine in 1965 when john crossedthatbridge, only 2 of africanamericans in thestate of alabama were registered to vote. So we had our work cutout for us and it worked well. But, as a result of that bloody sunday march in 1965,we gotthe 1965 Voting Rights act inaugust of that year. And john became the symbol of Voting Rights in this country. And i think that president obama wasaccurate, that he is a foundingfather of the newamerica that all of us haveworked so hard for. John lewis was,to me, deservingof very accoladethat has been given him and even much more. Thats why im moved to change the newvotingrights act, to changethe name to the john rlewis Voting Rights act. It iskold home the passedthrough the house, i hopethe senate willpassit, becausewhat we aretrying to do isrestore theefficacy ofthe 1965 votingrightsact which wasrestoredby a court decisionthat came in years go. In the caseofshelbycountyv. Holder. We worked,johnworked,and bipartisanwaywith jim sensenbrenner, arepublican from wisconsin. They worked together toputouta new formatand updated the way the court askedus to. Thats what we did when wepassed the law. The senateis refusing to pass that law. So this is going to be the first election since 1965 that there wontbethe protections of theVoting Rights act. And thats why i think you hear somuch thereare so many shenanigansgoing on in washingtontoday, because peopleknow that votingprecincts canbe changed theday before the election. Thats what they did inlouisville,i thinkit was twodays before the election inlouisville, kentucky. They have donethe same thing in South Carolina. Voter i. D. Laws,forcing youto provideyour full Social Security numberif you want an absentee ballot. These aresuppression tactics that oughtnot to be in this country. I avebeenwarningpeople, one thingi learned by studying andteaching history is thatanything that has happenedbefore can happen again. It doesnt have to just be confined toother countries. This democracy is very tenuous. This democracy couldbelost if we are not careful. Those are powerfulwords and i think we all deeplyappreciate what they mean. Also appreciatethe role you are playingand tryingto help protectourdemocracy, and protect the right to vote as ego into a very important elections this fall, i think, voting and access to the poles and appropriate blorts is very much on all of our minds. You were talkingabout aset of criticalinflectionpointsand momentsin our countryand the history of the Civilrights Movement. This certainly feels like anothercritical moment, not onlythe recognition of what wehavelostin terms ofkey leaders like john lewis,butalsothissummer seeing the remarkable risingup ofprotest andcalls toaction to address issues ofcontinuingsocialinjusticea nd discrimination following the terrible and senseless murder of georgefloyd and callsin this country have echoed really, around the world. And then, of course, we find ourselvesin the midst of this unprecedentedcoronavirus crisis which ishaving devastating anddisproportionateburdenson people of colorin terms ofhealth, but alsoin terms of economicsecurity and economic futures. You nowareleadingthe house selectcommittee on thecoronaviruscrisis, of courseyou are respondingto thisbroaderlandscape around theseconcerns ofracial disparitiesand discrimination,and injustice. You see reason for hope . Do you see a path forward there . Do you think we can really build on thiscurrenttragedyand crisis towards a betterfuture . Oh, absolutely. You mentioned two things in yourintroduction tome, number one i am south carolinian. The motto of mystateis while i breathe, i hope. I believe in that motto very much. But i also was born and raised partnersage and my parsonage and my fathertaughtme the efficacyof brew the 11th chapter, first verse the evidence of thingsunforeseen. I keep faith. Johnlewis was, more thananybodyeverknew kept his faitheven whenhewas within an inch of his life. He he never lost faith. This morning i read aletter froma police chief downin florida whosent me a letter andasked me toconvey to thefamily of johnlewis howmuchhe foughtfor john lewis. And he talked about a chance meeting he had with him in an arum. I guess chief down in florida who sent me a letter and asked me to convey to the family of john lewis how much he fought for john lewis. He talked about a chance he had to meet him in an airport, i guess it was Logan Airport in boston, massachusetts. That is what you learn. You dont give up. This country is in pursuit of perfection. It is there in the preamble. The pursuit of a more perfect union. We will never get there, but we should always be in search of that. I am not giving up on the country. I believe that we are going to get through this pandemic, i believe we are going to get hrough this racial strife. My wife and i met in jail. It works for us, we stayed married 58 years. [laughter] she passed away last september, having lost a 30 year battle to iabetes. We never gave up on this country. We talked about it often. Right after labor day she was still talking about the election like john lewis. The last thing john lewis said to the former mayor of Atlanta Campbell who spoke at his funeral, tell people to vote. We are not giving up on this country. I think we will get beyond all of this and i will do everything i can. I have always said that and i eally mean this when i say that if political differences etween me and an opponent only require five steps i dont mind taking three of them, thats the way i approach governance. Thats the way i approach trying to run the position i hold as majority whip. Trying to meet people more than halfway. I am not giving up on the country. We are going to get through all of this. I know covid19 has revealed some fault lines in our system, especially our health care ystem. In one of my readings, i reread a twovolume book called democracy in america. Something in that book was very interesting. It said america is not great because it is more enlightened than any other nation, but because it has always been able to repair its faults. Thats what i believe. Some fault lines have been exposed. In health care, education, housing, covid19 has xacerbated some of that. What we have to do now as a country is repair those faults. That is where our Greatness Congress has to repair its faults and when we do wrapping e do that by our arms around it and do what is necessary to overcome it. We will get through this and wont be pleasant. Ng to have an election and i thinkthe election will do whatit hasalwaysdone and set this countryback on track. I want to get to theelection in a minute. First iwant totalk a little bit more about covid19 because it is such a pressing issue. Youfeel that in your ownstate whichisseeing, unfortunately,a significant risein cases and deathsacross our whole nation. Sadly,we are leadingthe world in this terrible courage. And scourge. And when we compareourselves to other nations thathavealreadygrappled withthisvirus, wesee thatour responsehasnot eenaseffectiveand has not llowedusto reallybegintoresume someof the activities we allcare so much aboutin theways that othercountries have,because of having had a strongernational response. I watched your hearing on fridayoncovid19 with dr. And fir i have to congratulate your pachens and diplomatic skills because there was some wild moments. But i thought overall it was a constructive hearing, but you did Say Something at one point that builds on what you were saying and quoted on Martin Luther king to do the right thing and ask the critical question, are we using our time well. And i guess from what you have been learning about the response to covid and your own strict, state and nation, what do you think of the critical next steps that we need to take . Clearly as you noticed, we dont have a National Plan and has put us in a bad place. But drawing on your optimism and your hope, what are your critical next steps . Mr. Clyburn the next critical step is to develop a National Plan. Dr. Fauch iy fauci. I spoke earlier about leadership being done by precept and example. It cant just be precepts. When i got my first administrative job as a 25yearold in charleston, South Carolina i was stopped in a restaurant and he said i have been watching you, im going to tell you something. You have these leadership positions. Just remember, leadership is as leadership does. I have never forgotten that. Leadership is as leadership does. Not as you express it, but as ou do. That is our problem. Dr. Hamburg well, picking up on that. Let me turn to leadership at the national level. We all know how important your voice and your support for Vice President biden has been in terms of moving him into the clear front runner position, and as we go into the National Elections in november, there was an article in the New York Times the sunday before about the circle of advisers around Vice President biden, and you made the observation that you get letters and telephone calls from people saying this is what biden needs to do, this is what you need to tell biden to do, but that you dont tell him any of that. I am hoping that in this intimate group you will tell us what you do actually tell biden, and maybe you will tell us who the vp is going to be. Rep. Clyburn good try. I dont tell him what to do. I said publicly that one of the reasons my wife and i stayed married for 58 years is because she always offered suggestions. She never told me what i must do. She told me what i should do. I might have interpreted the should as a must, but the fact of the matter is i should let the Vice President i share with the Vice President my thoughts when he asks for them. I have never called him and volunteered anything area anything. If he wants to hear more about what i said, he has my number and i will talk to him. I think we have to allow our leaders to do that which their hearts and their heads guide them to do. I have said to him and the public, that when it comes to a Vice President , he should allow the vetting and the polling to instruct him. Nce he gets that kind of instruction, he should apply his head and his heart to the process. He should find someone that will complement him as a candidate. He calls its impact a he calls it simpatico. Whatever it is i think you should be allowed freedom without any pressure from me or anybody else to make that decision. He is the one that is going to have to live with that. I dont know exactly what led john mccain to making the decision he made, but i have read enough about it since the no that it was not since to know that it was not long before he regretted it. He made the decision and it cost him dearly, though i dont think he would have won the election anyway. The fact of the matter is the vetting that should have been done before the announcement did not take place until the campaign was going on and by that time it was too late. These are the kinds of past experiences i think folks by the nominee and informed by that vetting in the polling. Dr. Hamburg we all recognize this is a very important election. That brings me back to what you were touching on earlier, how worried are you about voting . Do you feel that we are going to be able to have fair and open elections . That we are going to be able, in the covid crisis, to get people safely to the polls or do the kind of mail in, absentee voting that might be indicated . Ow worried should we be . Rep. Clyburn i am very worried. I think that the country has allowed itself to become susceptible to manufactured crises. For the last 10 or 12 years i have noticed that, because of maybe forms of communicating like the internet and other soundbites, i cant tell you i have three daughters, they are all grown but they are internet people. They are what we call social media people. I am not. Every now and then, more now than then, they are informing me about what is being said about me on social media. 90 of the time its just wrong. Its outright wrong. People allow someones opinions to become fact, and they act on it. I cant tell you how many times i have seen this and wondered, why do we allow this to happen . The president of the United States expressing his opinion about mailin voting, its not the facts. The state of washington has been doing this forever, and they have found that there is almost o fraud. You will have fraud in almost anything. One of my first meetings not a meeting of mind, one of my first memories was a meeting my dad had they were about to defrock the minister. They did not burn down the church, they got rid of the minister. You dont get rid of elections because of fraud, had to put the elections forever. In the midwest another big fraud case. The president s party. Both parties may be subjected to fraud, but we should not develop our entire approach to this election based upon the possibilities of fraud. Lets put in place the kind of processes to protect that, we can do that. Congress can appropriate the necessary funds to have voting take place up to election day. Election day will be november 3. There is no reason why we cannot start voting in earnest at the same time states start absentee nd early voting. They do it for 30