CNN "Newsroom" - Interview with Gregory Murphy

Interview

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Republican Congressman of North Carolina, and doctor, Gregory Murphy is with us now. Congressman, thank you so much. It's good to have you with us, from both sides here, from a political side, also from the doctor side of you. So let's start with you in scrubs, let's say, right now. As a doctor, are you comfortable with any community opening up?

REP. GREGORY MURPHY, (R-NC): I think if you look at the data from, what we've learned over the last several months, we've looked at other countries, we've looked at our country, I can't go to opening up the whole society like it was before. I think that's foolhardy. I think there are small progressive steps that we can take literally today using the tools that we've learned -- handwashing, social spacing, wearing masks. I think there are small steps that we could take today to start opening things back up.

PAUL: Congressman, I know you spoke with your local media about reopening and about your concern for the economy. Let's listen to what you said just a few days ago.

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MURPHY: We're at a tipping point here in the country. Over 16 million people are now unemployed. If we don't start something soon, we're going to be past a very, very critical juncture. And so can we start marching back in that particular population? Especially with our pediatric population, can we start marching back without significant testing? I think the answer is yes if we do it critically and in a measured response.

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PAUL: So what we have heard up to this point is very different than what you said. You said that you think that we can open certain parts if we're critical and if we're measured about it without significant testing, but that flies in the face of most of the people we heard from thus far. Let's listen.

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DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: If you jump the gun and go into a situation where you have a big spike, you're going to set yourself back. So as painful as it is to go by the careful guidelines of gradually phasing into a reopening, it's going to backfire.

DR. DEBORAH BIRX, WHITE HOUSE CORONAVIRUS RESPONSE COORDINATOR: I think there's threes aspects of how to monitor the spread of COVID. And I understand one of those critical legs in the stool is testing.

DR. STEPHEN HAHN, FDA COMMISSIONER: We are confident we have enough tests for phase one of the reopening America plan. But we do acknowledge the fact that we need to keep the pressure on developing more tests and getting more tests out there.

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PAUL: So can you help us understand why you may be more comfortable, you say, with maybe less significant testing?

MURPHY: Let's look at seeing what testing talks about, because I think there's a skewing of what happens happened here with what's going on. Right now, in all of our communities, people are going out to Walmart, people are going out to Lowes, and they're in congregate settings. That's not what I'm advocating for and that's not what I believe should happen.

Again, let's be accurate about this. I'm advocating for small businesses that if people are going out -- people are going to the grocery store, not everybody is wearing a mask. If people are going to a small business wearing a mask, socially spacing, those things that we're doing today, does that mean every single person needs to be tested? No.

We have point of care testing if somebody is coming in the hospital, 100 percent we need that to start up with surgeries, and we're doing that. Do we need surveillance testing looking out in the communities to see where there are antibodies? Yes, we are doing that, too. But to start small segments of our society, let's be truthful and factual about this, we don't need every single person in the United States tested.

PAUL: Let me put on now your suit with you being in Congress, because we've seen the stimulus packages that have been laid out already.

[10:40:00]

How impactful do you think those really can be at the end of the day, especially when you hear something like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell saying states may need, we need to be open to states filing bankruptcy?

MURPHY: Again, I'm just going to put my doctor's hat, still keep it on just a minute. That's how I've looked at this critically. I've studied the literature, I've spoken with Dr. Fauci, his team. I've spoken with lots of individuals to help push forth my congressional policy. There are a lot of states in this country that because of previous policies were teetering on bankruptcy already. This crisis obviously has thrown them over. I don't think it's the job of the federal government to go out and bankroll states that have not had good fiscal policy, and so therefore they may need to declare bankruptcy.

PAUL: So you're willing to have states declare bankruptcy?

MURPHY: Well, businesses declare bankruptcy if they've not been able to do things correctly as far as businesses go. I don't think that the nation, as a whole -- again, let's look at the infrastructure, let's see why those particular states were prone to have an overflow from the crisis. It's because of poor economic policies in their past. And if they need to get out of that, I don't think it's the federal government's job to bail out states that have had bad business policies.

PAUL: I just want to make this clear -- New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said his concern about the possibility of states declaring bankruptcy is that you are going to throw a tailspin on this economy. If you want to talk about panic, talk about something like that because it's so unprecedented.

MURPHY: Well, let's look at the city of Detroit. It had to declare bankruptcy, as best as my knowledge, and there is precedent for municipalities having to declare bankruptcy, get their finances in order. But again, it goes back to good economic policy to start with. If you didn't have that before, and you set yourself up for bad conditions when they occur -- I look at North Carolina. We've had fantastic economic policy, I think really leading in the country. We have close to $2 plus billion rainy day fund. We are very, very good financially because we've cared for it for the last 10 years. Other states have not done that. They've been poor in their economic policy.

PAUL: But North Carolina certainly has not been hit in the same way that New York has been hit either.

I'm so sorry, Congressman, that we've run out of time. We so appreciate your insight from both the doctor standpoint and the congressional standpoint. Take good care.

MURPHY: Thank you.

PAUL: Thank you.

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