Involved in the cellar telephone business and formed Columbia Capital and made money doing that and openly got involved in government and politics and became the chairman of the Democratic Party in virginia and also later governor of virginia, and then elected senator from virginia initially in 2018. Reelected in 2014, and hes up for election again in 2020. Mark, thanks very much for joining us. Thank you, saved david. Now, recently you got a lot of attention for the tuna melt. And the kitchen behind you where you cooked that. Why so much attention to a tuna melt . David, thank you for having me and i hope you and your family and all of the folks who are watching this are doing okay and that their families are safe. The tuna melt came about because i got, i was getting a little quarantine crazy. Ins our guest house and my wife sends me here this morning each morning to while away on zoom calls and i saw other politicians doing Singing Heart felt songs and playing the piano or making their mothers faith brownie recipe and my youngest daughter who had done some video work on campaigns, said lets do something more fun and i tried to create the single grossest sandwich ever which truth be told id had before. Two slices of white bred, tuna, mayonnaise and microwaved. And lit up the microwave and id gotten more attention on tuna melt than anything ive done on covid19. You didnt get the recipe from chef jose andres. Jose will make the mention, he did a followon video, hes a great friend and does amazing work. He created his much nicer version of a tuna melt a back at me effort a week later. Mark, as a member of the senate, are you pleased with the legislation that the Congress Passed to date to deal with the crisis . Do you think its tough or do we need additional legislation . Most of that was put together in three or four days, so in terms of response its born with the biggest response ever. In terms of the fact it was bipartisan both bills which was passed unanimously, again a recognition that congress knew we had to do something significant. All that capital being pushed out though and as a saw with the unemployment numbers today close to to 15 unemployment, 33 million americans filing for unemployment, that this clearly has not been a stimulus, what would try to do basically keep the economy on life support. Theres three basic directions weve done. Theres direct payments that have worked out pretty well. Theres greatly expanded upload benefits. One of the things i supported in a major way was our traditional unemployment system only covers 30 of the workforce, gig workers, independent contractors and freelancers were not covered. Covered. They are now covered. We there was a 600 per week bump up which means shortterm for unemployment they made then work and theres some moral hazard issues. This Small Business program which is got the most attention over 600 billion that goes out to a payroll and overhead, wellintentioned program if the challenge with that is both in design flaw it was not a requirement of revenue loss, it was embarrassed but Public Companies taking the money and the fact it had an eight week length of time. We got the absurdity and certain restaurants where people may be furloughed, you bring the back, put them on your ppp program, you may have to furlough them if your business cant be open. Were looking at extensions there. Theres things around healthcare, state support, a host of other initiatives. It was generally the right direction. I would before we simply reup these programs wet to take a step back and say is there a better way . You have proposed additional legislation with other Senate Cosponsors that would in effect you people more or less the salary, is that right . Yes. What happened was as a as a lot our response and, unfortunately, massive amounts of unemployment, unemployment while very generous does totally disconnected from your job but also disconnects you in many cases in our country from health insurance. If a look at what our european friends have done, they decide rather than this massive series of new programs, they provided direct wage support, government strengthening worker salaries. The dane said that he, the germans have probably done the best, the austrians. They see unemployment numbers only go up four or 5 . I propose, i called paycheck security act saying lets go ahead, make sure businesses have shown 20 revenue loss, make sure that you have a lot of capital on their Balance Sheet. If they are hurting lets pay up to 100 of 90,000 of anybodys salary. Im not sure we get the full 100 if they got through that he would be a direct Payment Program to workers. Would only be for workers who were furloughed. Mark sandy, the folks who make estimates, assume while its costa, its about 400 billion over a quarter, that really is not much more, could be actual us that when you spin of unemployment, Medicaid Expansion and ppp. Do you think it will pass . David, its an interesting, its a good question. The leader of the progressive caucus has a proposal in the house. I part of the somebody i dont normally agree, bernie sanders, and doug jones, a very conservative center on the democratic side. Josh hawley a very conservative republican senator from missouri, has a a slightly different version of the program. Wall street journal at the New York Times and as you will know they dont agree on anything all that said this would be a better way. So the question is can we move all of these recently stood up programs to kind of a new glide path . It will patch the ppp and deal with the middlemarket firms and have got no support so far. I think it would be thoroughly discussed and i do think most folks would agree if we have the benefit of hindsight, this wouldve been a better approach to start with. So the president has said he would support a fourth bill only, i think im quoting him correctly, if there is a payroll tax as part of that. Is there enough support in the senate for a payroll tax and why is there are why is there not . The payroll tax is not sufficient. The payroll tax bite of been a good idea at the beginning again, but the payroll tax right of resume your people on payroll. That payroll tax is a minimum amount of assistance when were talking about people going from, with the revenue is down 70, 80, 90 . People of oregon furloughed or put on unemployment, cutting payroll tax does not provide much help. The payroll tax can pay for longterm issues around sources could, fica, those issues. I dont think the payroll tax, its barely probably dismiss him by a lot of my republican colleagues as too little, too late. If there is a fourth bill, with your bill as part of it or some other features, do you think that will happen in the next month or two or how long . Lets hope the economy is reopening. The president put me on his reopening task force. I want the economy to reopen although we desperately need for testing. Testing testing testing is critical and ive been disappointed by the administrations failure to organize ppe. That wouldve been enough if we dont organize testing and have the same kind of competition state against State Hospital against hospital, that both acute economic as well as medical issues. I do think the next bill will not happen in the next week. I think it could happen i think if it happens to happen before the end of may. In addition to either my approach or replenishing some of the existing programs producing even if we were to replenish we realize you can have an eight week club on ppe. I think of the other areas like broadband which we underinvested in. Ive got some major ideas there. Id like to experiment with portable benefit programs. One of the things i hope weve learned is the wide swath of our society that was covered by an appointment who have no benefits right now i would love to make sure no matter what kind of work you do in america, you earn some benefits along the way. And who manages those . It doesnt have to be government. It could be dissected or a jump ball but we shouldnt have the circumstances were with 50 of our society losing a job and have nothing to fall back upon. Everybody seems to be in favor of infrastructure. Nobody is against poor infrastructure of why does congress not passed and infrastructure built . Previously there was lots of interest in infrastructure, but the president was never willing to put forward a pay for. Now were in this moment in time where again directly appropriate 2. 7 trillion, 4 trillion more in Federal Reserve lending, there may be a moment this is okay, you need to do that trillion or 2 trillion for such a program and we might not be able to do dollar for dollar pay for. I think the truth is those Political Parties have lost all credibility. On debt and deficit so maybe if are going to do more spending, i would put broadbent as as a critical component of that. You mentioned before a word not often use in the congress these days, bipartisan. Do you think the senate is more bipartisan it was before the covid19 orgy think it is basically the same . The optics to the public is people snapping at each other. Mcconnell puts out a position, schumer puts at something and the kind of backandforth i know makes my head hurt and probably most of your viewers. I find at one step below that were actually talking about and working through these ideas whether its my paycheck security act, whether its broadband, affordable benefits legislation, everyone of these ideas im working with republican colleagues. I do think there was this moment and it was fascinating to see that we could do we passed the major legislation wherefrom the weekend when people knew things were little bit weird to the middle of the week when i think the seriousness of the virus hitting our country, it was driven home, at the senate actually work. We were 96 senators that they are. They all voted for the bill. A week later we all passed the bill by unanimous consent. It was a pretty good sign. I think was a moment of common sense over partisanship. What about the debt . Were adding lots of debt, maybe four or 5 trillion of Additional Debt to an already 22 trillion debt that we have. Are you not worried about the inflationary impact of that or how were pay this off . David, as you recall, back in the mid2000s i was probably, known as the leading senate i put together socalled gang of six. We work on the plan called simpsonbowles. We can close a couple of times on leveling off some entitlement spending and raising additional revenue. Frankly, all of that argument went away when we never saw Interest Rate hikes. When my republican codes would have ended a 2 trillion tax cut, totally unpaid for. So yes, i do believe the debt that that was close to more than 26, 27 trillion in total, just the Interest Rates on that could be crushing. But the fact that weve seen this kind of new normal without rates rising and then i think a smart writer for the post wrote six or eight weeks ago that at least gave me some caution that in this moment of crisis, if e dont spin an extraordinary rates, our debt could be worse. But i do think longerterm we are leaving our kids with a Balance Sheet that is pretty far out of whack. So we need to think the commonwealth of virginia will be able to open up . You obviously are close to the governor. You talk to him. What you think he is thinking and when you think it is safe to open up . He is the only doctor as a governor. I think is going to, unlike many, follow the healthcare recommendations of the professionals. Hes talked about entering in the first stage i believe on the eighth, and thats coming up monday i believe. It may even be today. I think hes going to do a first phase. I have urged him, hes been trying to think about reopening virginia at once. I think he needs to do it on more regional basis, clearly. In Northern Virginia i think would be the most, the smartest in that reopening in concert with d. C. And maryland. Because our region may have different opening routine than southwest virginia. One of the things were all watching though, at least i am i many folks are, and hope it does not bode poorly for the folks in georgia, where the georgia governor was so aggressive about reopening, even to the opposition of trump, so they are kind of the canary in the coal mine of reopening and seeing what happens with, in that state. Because my fear, i say this as a former governor, id like to get the economy reopen but boy, if you get people back out and you see a spike and you lose folks confidence, that second reopening is going to be exponentially harder. Mark, you youre the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence committee. Are you worried this going to be foreign interference in the 2020 elections . David, i can answer that in two ways. First of all i have been extraordinarily concern that this president who is completely disrespected the Intelligence Committee from day one is increasingly politicizing the Intelligence Community leadership. A the person has gotten that isn acting director, ambassador goodale has no experience. He simply a partisan hack. The individual that is up, caucus and ratcliffe again set up much experience and im fearful that our intelligence professionals, their job is to speak truth to power. Literally every person that this president appointed inside the Director Office of director of National Intelligence aspired because it done the job because they told him things he didnt want to hear. Im afraid yes, the russians will try to interfere and two, afraid if are Intelligence Community doesnt feel like they can still be independent they may not sound the early enough warning because of fear of losing the dash of losing their own job. At the time when our eyes are distracted by the National Emergency around covid could then allow a russia, china or others to play a lot of mischief in an election system. Speaking of china, is anything you could tell us about what Intelligence Committee may know about whether it was a wet market or a lab that released intentionally or not the covid19 virus . Let me this is an area i spent a lot of time on it last two and half years. I have extraordinary concerns about the communist party in china and about president xi jinping and his aspirations. Its important to note my beef is with the commas party in china, not with china as a nation, not with the chinese people, certainly not with chineseamericans. I sometimes feel the president s broadbrush racist xenophobic attacks doesnt make that distinction. It was very believable to me when the first some of the stories since the Chinese Government were so opaque about letting outside experts in that this virus could have been sourced some other than the socalled wet market. But all of the intelligence that weve had to review had no basis for that. The intelligence has been very similar to whats been in the Public Domain that this originated, was not manmade, that it appeared to originate in the market. If the president of the secretary of state had any Real Intelligence that shows otherwise, i think he is under an obligation to show that socalled yang of eight, the chair and ranking ranking membd Intelligence Committees as well as the leadership, and richard burr, my chairman and i feel exactly the same way, and we basically said it youve got information you have to share it with the oversight committee. That is his requirement. You cant go around making these old statement that is intel and not at least share it with the oversight committees. The Democratic National convention is supposed to be held this summer. Do you think it will be completely virtual or what people show up . I dont have the foggiest notion. My hope is that end of this month will be making enough progress that we can see reopening. I would urge people not to make rash decisions about cancellation to early. As someone pointed out, im not sure Political Convention still gives the same boost. Im not sure they give the candidate necessarily the boost that they used to get. How our senators staying healthy . Senators are average or probably older than the average american and so theyre probably more subject to getting this disease or virus. Are they shaking hands anymore . Are they Wearing Masks . What are they doing . At 65 i working on a place in america were where im still of the young guys. So it is a little bit weird to see the senate react. I think for the most part with the exception somebody like rand paul who is kind off on his own without wearing a mask, the same 90 didnt tell his colleagues he had the virus or had been testing for the virus, virtually everybody else is pretty good about Wearing Masks. I know no handshaking. Senator brown and i were greeting the nominee for director of National Intelligence with elbow bumps the other day, making front page of the post. For the most part one things is pretty like about this, senators, even though they are a number of them in their 80s, just the nature of this job means when up on the hill you are walking couple of miles a day, even with the subway cars as you move through meetings to meetings and on the senate floor back to your office, so why been pretty impressed that for the most part senators are pretty good shape. What are you doing with your family . You have three daughters. Are your daughters and wife with you . Are you isolating moser together or are they tired of being with their parents . There definitely being tired of being with her parents. 25yearold youngest daughter feels Like High School all over again in terms of eating meals together. I have two of them who sourcesafe. My third is with her boyfriend. They were in new york and it went down to our farm so they cu