Primarily focus on the coronavirus and what another round of stimulation such could look like. This is about one hour. All right. Good afternoon. Thank you for joining us. My name is cliff johnson, the general manager here at bloomberg government. I am actually delighted to welcome you to a 2020 springhill watch event. Hopefully by now youve all the chance to take a look at the newest addition of rock biannual hell watch report that explores what to watch on capitol hill across more than 20 different policy areas and, of course, this report also examines the effect of covid19, the need for related relief legislation as was both parties agendas and plans for 2020. Today were incredibly excited to build upon of a reporting ts expert analysis through conversation with a key lawmaker that is senator john thune of south dakota who was shared with us today discuss the current state of affairs. You can participate in todays discussion on social media by using the hashtag bgov want to be sure to follow bgov on twitter. I do have a couple of housekeeping announcements just to get us to todays presentation. We are virtue and this is a thw world for many of us. This is broadcast live and although we dont anticipate any technical issues, should you experience any streaming delays audie, may video quality, will hit and refresh your browser. That should resolve the issue. This is an interaction within. We want you to be a part of this conversation. Well have live calls going on and we look forward to you submitted questions. Now to ask a question oci q a box to the lower righthand side of your screen. Go ahead and type in your request and it will pop up in front of us. At the top right of your screen youll see another box that says slides and polish. This is a panel where you can respond to a couple of other questions that will be pushing out a cost the conversation. To upkeep is interacting and engaging as possible. Should you experience any delays or issues, just refresh your browser. We also have a tech support online as well but refresh is probably the best bet for right now. With that is my distinct pleasure to introduce senator john thune senator thune served three terms as south dakota lone member of the u. S. House of representatives before being elected to the senate in 2004. He currently serves as the Senate Republican whip, thats the number two position that Senate Republican leadership. He has served as chairman of the Senate Republican policy as well as chairman of the Senate Republican conference. Currently senator thune serves as chairman of the Commerce Committee subcommittee on communications, technology, innovation and the internet. As will as chairman of the finance Committee Subcommittee on taxation and irs oversight. With that money turn things over to emily wilkins, reporter for a conversation with senator thune. Emily, the floor is yours. Thanks so much, cliff. Senator thune, thank you give us a much for joining us today. We are excited to have your ethics and one who is joining online. I wish would be there in person because these adventures on really good food, but we are glad we could make this work regardless. Senator thune, i want to start out by talking about how you have been doing with the current shutdown. I know you been up to a couple of things including growing a beard and then shaving said beard. I know youre also been doing some history lessons for kids on youtube. Right, thanks, emily a thanks cliff. Appreciate the opportunity of thanks to all your audience members out there. Like you i wish we could do this in person but this is what were left with these days. As you pointed out we are doing a lot of things from home. We learned a lot about technology, different platforms. I mentioned before i have learned how to use skype and zoom and google hangout and shindig and Facebook Live an old bunch of other platforms and apps weve used to stay connected. Thank god we got there. And makes these investments we make in technology and highspeed Internet Services i think all that much more important, ticket when you see how they been used during the virus. But yes, so ipad, i did for a while, i grew at it for a while, kind of a quarantine beard and figured when we started flattening the curve i would let the beer to go. Which was great just to my motherinlaw who was always complaining about it anyway. Anyhow, weve done some things to try and just stay connected with different constituencies and we stood. Warmer in south dakota under normal circumstances i would be traveling around the state talking to government classes, school oscilloscope taking questions and so we decided, theyre looking for curriculum and probably a little bored out there to put together a few lessons on how the congress and how laws are made, how the congress works. We did some things with that but its all a part of this experience that were going through, and everybody is adapting and doing the best that they can. Absolutely. Part of the adaption means we get to introduce new title into this. I went to see if you could go to our first poll question. Were going to let our viewers take the time to answer this while i asked senator thune a bit about it. I want to start by the topic on it but his mind now which is the next coronavirus stimulus package. I wonder if you could talk a little bit, this one is a bit trickier than past went in that there are several issues that theres more state and local funding, Liability Protections for businesses. What are you hearing from members at this point about what needs to be in this next bill and what should we expect . Right, emily. We have passed four piece of legislation already but it would be a think another iteration of this that comes in the next few weeks. It will depend what it looks like what event a lot on how things are working out the right now. There will be a need probably to reload and perhaps even expand pdp program but we expect funding to carry through most of the month of june and upon entrance runs out in july slub be another deadline well have to deal with that issue. You make your state and local government funding. Theres been a fairly robust debate about that. And her own republican conference, not to mention with democrats and across the country. There are a number of potential issues that will be front and center again as we look at the next benefit pays. One of the things were focus on comparable in Conference Committee try to get some Liability Protections for businesses, schools and hospitals as they open up again think if we dont have those in place and there is a mountain of litigation that is enormously costly, that it could have a pretty profound an adverse impact on the recovery. Thats something ill be important for us. I would say the interaction between Unemployment Insurance and getting people transition back into the workplace is something. Theres a concern that because of the of the plymouth insurance benefit being fairly robust, taken in some states, that is acting as a disincentive for people to go back to work as economy begins to open up again. I would say a really heavy emphasis on testing. Theres been a lot of emphasis on that already but i think even more as a get into the fall and schools and making sure that were doing everything we can short of the vaccine edit antiviral therapeutic to determine who has it and who doesnt so we can open up safely. Those are probably three components that will be pretty vigorously debated in the next package and things we care about about and, of course, the democrats have come with a list and that will get the negotiation going. I want to dive in particularly on the legal liability debate. I know theres been some tension between democrats and republicans on that. Thats an issue you think you might be able to find some sort of middle ground on, like perhaps only include Certain Industries and the protection . I hope we can. That should be something that will be bipartisan agreement about. Opening up safely and making sure that we are doing every everything we can to protect people who are doing all the right things, as their practice and guidelines, following the laws, adhering to what the cdc is saying and then are subject to these frivolous lawsuits, and can cause them lots of money to defend themselves against, that that could be very harmful as we try to gradually ramp back up and get the economy going again. It ought to be some Common Ground. Hopefully we can find it. Obviously the democrats are just sort of generally speaking resistant to any kind of Liability Protections and theyve got a part of their constituency, and trial lawyers are weighing in heavily in this debate as well, that in my dear elyse this is something we ought to be able to find some Common Ground under if you are just protecting people from the bad actors, the types of lawsuits that really are clearly frivolous, then you ought to be some Common Ground. If theres willful misconduct, negligence, and those are not the types of things were interested in protecting people against her we want to predict the good actors are people who are playing by the rules and doing everything they can to get the economy going again. And johnson mentioned state and local funding, that this also been some debate within the republican conference as built on this one. At this point i understand one of the biggest concerns is states would use this money not to help with side effects from the coronavirus but perhaps of the budgetary issues that existed before. Do you think this could be some compromise on that as well . How confident are you we might see something on [inaudible] i think there could be something particularly with respect to state and local governments with regard to the funding that already out there. There are restrictions on it. There are a lot of stipulations when that was passed. There were members and are competent felt very strongly that they didnt want states using this for anything that wasnt related to coronavirus servers 150 billion put in the pipeline specifically for dealing with that, and that was on top of already about another 350 billion that went out to state in the form of medicaid, medicare reimbursements, of the, other forms of assistance coming through the federal pipeline. We sort of flooded his own already but it does have restrictions. We have members, republican members as well as a lot of democrats who would like to some of those restrictions lifted and some of those dollars being able to be used for other things like revenue replacement. That would be a spirited debate and i will take within republican conference because my very strong views. To your point about it being used for bailouts, that also is something that was totally hotly debated when we look at the about put out in the first place, and that is states that we review to inconsistent, that had been operated well or state governments that it bloated budgets, that there wasnt much appetite among republican senators at the time for bailing out those types of bad practices. That will continue to hover over any discussion with about this. But again the democrats, a big priority for them, they dont want just the flexibly with the current money, they want another trillion dollars on top of it. Thats something well be very hard to get republican votes for in the senate. I want to go and do his attention to the poll numbers. Thank you for a good who participated. It seems like a lot of our viewers agree with you about the affords for liability shield for businesses. I know theres also some discussion about having more than 50 people on the scope call are in agreement with that. Looks like extending the 600 per week for those on unemployment is less popular, only 32 . And then slightly less than half said they should be another round of stimulus checks given directly to americans. I know something youre taking into consideration here as well as other Top Republicans is that before the next statements built this past you wanted to see, see an effect how funding from previous stimulus bills was being used. And wanted to see, its been a month since the last bill got passed or are you satisfied with how you are saying federal funding been used . Do think there can be various improvements that can you make in the next round . We do. We think are some things, for example, the Paycheck Protection Program which has been largely very successful, heavily subscribed to early on, the first 350 billion went really fast and we did another 310 going on top of that. That program is about 660 billion. It slowed down a little bit now but its designed to keep people employed, keep workers working and so those jobs stay there. I think there have been a lot of suggestions about how, if we go back and every extend the program which is a possibility, were trying to extend at least in terms of for Company Stability is it beyond the eight week window. If we have to add additional dollars to it, my guess is the will be a number of suggestions, many of which are good ones i do think theres probably general consensus on them that we could make some adjustments to that program. But i also think that when you look at some of these other elements of things that are out there right now, we mentioned come talk to or state and local government funding, whether not restrictions ought to be lifted. Thats something were monitoring. Trying to get an assessment from states that what the revenue losses are. Its hard to just throw money out there, not knowing what the need is and what a lot of our members want to know is okay, what are the losses . What are we trying to fix . Were just not writing a blank check. A blank check by the way that with the borrowed dollars. Theres a lot of concern about what happens next. I mentioned this earlier but i do think this issue of the interaction between the ui program and additional 600 per person per week that was added that a benefit on top of the state benefit, in some states is acting as a disincentive for people get back as the economy opens up. Figuring out how we a little insurance runs out at the end of july, does that ramp down at the end of the year . Is their bonus been for people to go back to work . I just think it would be a really spirited discussion about whats working, whats that word, what do we need a fixed i think were seeing things within the ppp program, probably a hard look at state and local fun and how that is been used and whether or not they should be more flexibility. They tried to fix this sort of glitch that we have that is been created because of that conflict between the Unemployment Program and the need to get people back in the workforce. Those are several things that will be a good amount of discussion in the weeks ahead. A lot of very spirited debate. When do you think we might see the text of the bill . When might the senate get around to passing something . I think the liability language, the text is actually come should be out fairly soon. We have folks working on that, and again trying to write that in a way that could actually get 60 votes in this sense, hopefully past the house which will be very, very challenging by the way as a mentioned earlier. But theres going to be, that also come into this. The democrats with a list of demands and that will get the negotiation going. But i think from a timing standpoint we should start to see some of these ideas percolate and come forward. We are not there yet and i dont think that our members are ready to vote on anything just yet. Whether that happens in june where that gets pushed to july, sometime in the timeframe where we will have some items teed up to ridicule, police be debated. And hopefully something openly can pass and then get signed into law by the president. Its a challenging dynamic. You have the democrat won has come republican run senate where it takes 60 votes of certain number of democrats to pass anything and then you got the administration who in many cases is in a different position entirely. What we are hoping happens this time around is that the white house will work with Senate Republican so we can come at House Republicans to put together the things that we are for so that when we start the negotiation with the democrats, where at least united on what we want to do. I hope thats way this works because some cases we have had secretary mnuchin of the midst of administration negotiating directly with the democrats in the house, and attends tends to end up with a much bigger, more costly and more government Centric Program that i think many Senate Republicans will be willing to go for. Have you guys started talking with secretary mnuchin a bit of the . Some of those discussions are underway. Weve had a number of discussion among our own members. Were meeting, we meet when were in session, we been a session the last two weeks and will meet again next week. At least three times a week, socially distanced, but when e have a lot of these discussions. So the ideas are coming forward. Weve asked and the leader has, too, for individual community of jurisdiction to put together their list of ideas, present them and get them into the next. My office, the with office has been collecting a lot of those ideas from the various, not only the committees but also individual members who have ideas, things they want to see an of phase, phase four or a cares package that might come in the next couple of months. Were not there yet and it takes a a little time for the things to ripen, and openly that will happen. In the meantime were doing our best to make sure were listening carefully to members. Were getting good ideas to the outside as to make suggestions about what would be something that would really work, talk to steve leaving the economy, tax policy, what regulatory policy, think and we change stimulating the economy that would help really see the economy started to ramp up again and get back on its feet. Absolute. We have another poll question for everyone who is watching about the post office. I know that been a big topic of discussion. I wanted to ask you about it in particular because i know its important to sully south dakotas who live in rural areas and might not have a whole ton of options on how to want to get and send the mail. They say the post office could be heading to bankruptcy. President trump said