CNN "The Situation Room" - Transcript: Interview With Sen. Chris Coons

Interview

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BLITZER: Right now the U.S. Senate is coming to order up on Capitol Hill hashing out what appears to be a $2 trillion stimulus package.

Joining us now Senator Chris Coons -- a Democrat from Delaware who's involved in all of these the negotiations. Senator -- thanks very much for joining us.

I want to get your latest information on all of that, but first your colleague Republican Senator Rand Paul, he's now the first U.S. senator to test positive for coronavirus. What's your reaction to this and what are you doing to stay safe? Because I know you take that train between -- that Amtrak between Delaware and D.C. all the time.

SEN. CHRIS COONS (D-DE): Well, Wolf -- as I took the Amtrak train down here this morning, there was literally one passenger per car. There were only six passengers on an entire train.

So I did take the precaution of wiping down with a Clorox wipe every surface before I touched it, but I frankly felt fairly safe about that travel.

And I do think an important part of this large stimulus bill we're going to take up is support for Amtrak and for other commuter rail systems that have seen their ridership drop swiftly.

Wolf -- we've been working hard all weekend. Mostly on a bipartisan basis. And I'll remind you the last two bills that came through, the first one was $8 billion, the second $100 billion were done quickly and in a positive spirit between the House and Senate.

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COONS: This one's run into some real speed bumps. We're supposed to take a procedural vote at 3:00, and most of us still haven't seen any language of the final bill.

The piece of it I've worked hardest on is small business lending. And that's actually done very well. There's been broad agreement between the Republicans and Democrats who have led negotiations on that part of the bill, which could put as much as $350 billion in quick, short- term help for both for-profit and nonprofit businesses that employ fewer than 500 people. I'm optimistic about that part.

But what I understand about the bill as a whole, there are still big problems. Not enough support for the front line public health workers in states and counties. The nurses and orderlies, the paramedics and the physicians who are providing so much assistance through our public health systems, in particular hospitals that are often run by county governments.

There's not enough in this for child care, for example, or for other support for workers who are going to be displaced, or have already been displaced. We're going to see record unemployment filings in the next couple of weeks and folks need to know that we here in the federal government are putting down the tools of partisan bickering and picking up the tools of national purpose and delivering the resources to allow great governors like Governor Cuomo who just spoke to partner with federal agencies like the Army Corps of Engineers and get solutions built quickly.

We have seen things this difficult before in the Great Depression, in the Second World War. And the United States mobilized like no other country and tackled and solved those great problems.

This is the challenge of our generation and we need to show here in the Senate that we can do it, but that means moving past some of the really unfortunate partisan bickering that's dominated the last day.

Frankly, we in the Democratic caucus, haven't even seen the final bill text and we're supposed to vote in 40 minutes. I hope we can move past this. And I hope we can together make a real difference for our country in the next 36 hours.

BLITZER: Yes. Well, I suspect that vote is not going to happen in the next 40 minutes. There's a lot of work obviously that still needs to be done to reassure the Democrats and the Republicans -- make sure all you guys are on the same page.

You've got to find --

COONS: That's right.

BLITZER: -- a compromise. Might not be perfect but you've got to do something because there are millions of Americans very, very soon are going to be suffering big time and they're going to rely on the federal government, the Congress, the executive branch to get some things done.

Let me get back to this notion of what's happening on Capitol Hill as you're all meeting. What's being done to ensure that other senators, Rand Paul now testing positive for coronavirus, and staffers are not infected as you continue this critically important work?

COONS: Well, our caucus is conducting its conversation about this bill remotely. We're all calling in to a conference call that's going on right now.

As you can imagine, a conference call is a fairly frustrating way to try and get 40 or 50 people to talk at the same time. It requires some real facilitation and we don't have the videoconferencing capabilities fully up to speed yet that I expect we'll be relying on.

We all have access to the Senate physician's office. I assume that's how Senator Paul got tested, although I don't know that. And it is concerning that we have two House members and one senator already testing positive.

Over the last few days, most of us have had most of our staff, working remotely. So there's virtually no one here in the capitol, except for key and sort of critical senior staff. But the folks who've been working all weekend on the appropriations negotiations and on some of the details of this bill and leadership staff -- they are all still here.

So this is a secure place now. There isn't the general public coming in and out. It is being cleaned regularly by the tremendous, capable staff here who work in the capitol. But we have to remember how much our country is asking of those folks who are cleaning buildings, those Amtrak cars we just talked about.

All over this country we've got hourly wage workers who often don't have protections, don't have health care that we're trying to make sure in this bill that the values that we show in terms of the relief we're going to provide to Americans all over the country take into account those folks who are often working multiple jobs and doing the risky work of cleaning and sanitizing our public spaces, our hospitals, and our key facilities going forward.

BLITZER: Yes. We are grateful to them indeed. And in many cases they're risking their lives in doing that.

Senator -- thanks so much for what you're doing. Thanks to all your colleagues up on Capitol Hill. As I keep saying, the stakes are enormous. Everyone is relying on this economic stimulus package to save people out there because there are millions of Americans are pretty soon going to be broke. They're out of work. They're going to need some cash and the federal government's going to have to come through and help.

Thanks so much for joining us.

COONS: Thank you -- Wolf.

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