CNN "The Situation Room" - Transcript Interview with Ruben Gallego

Interview

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Democratic Congressman Ruben Gallego represents much of Phoenix. He's joining us now Congressman, thanks so much for joining us. You may have seen --

REP. RUBEN GALLEGO (D-AZ): Thank you for having me, Wolf.

BLITZER: -- images of an ICU nurse in Phoenix standing up to protesters who simply refuse to wear a mask. This was back in April. She gave CNN an update this week on how bad things are. I want you to listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LAUREN LEANDER, ARIZONA ICU NURSE: After Memorial Day weekend, we really felt things start to ramp up. And now we're kind of at the point where we are stretched so thin. We're at the point of compromising patient safety. You know, we're working with ventilators left with single digits of ventilators left. We have triple patient assignments now. We have three COVID ICUs that are completely full. And on top of that, we have COVID patients holding critical care patients, holding in the ER and other units waiting for a bed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Congressman, why is this happening? GALLEGO: This is happening because of bad leadership, bad leadership at the White House and bad leadership at the governor's office. The reason why this brave nurse was protesting back a few months ago is because there was no leadership by this governor. I was now encouraging people to socially distance, had not shut down the easing economy to stop the spread of coronavirus was basically taking the cues from the -- from the president.

And then when we finally did, the heroic people of Arizona actually did shut down. We shut down our businesses, we turned around the spread of this infection, but we opened up too early. The reason we opened up too early here is because we had a governor that wanted to appease Donald Trump, and now we're paying for it. We're severely paying for it.

Around Memorial Day, as she mentioned, we had thousands of young men and women that were crowding into clubs and bars as if there was no pandemic happening. And this governor did nothing until it was too late. And even then, he still has not done anything. Much like this president, this governor has taken very little action, only try to make excuses. And at the end of the day, it's going to cost a lot of lives because of his inaction and lack of leadership.

BLITZER: We heard that nurses firsthand perspective. But, Congressman, what are you seeing in Phoenix? What are you seeing around Phoenix for that matter, as well? And how is this affecting you and your family?

GALLEGO: Well, you know, less than half a mile from my house is Southland Community College. Right now, there's averages of eight hour waits to get to COVID testing. And that's really, you know, obviously heartbreaking. These are largely working-class Latino families that have no insurance. So they're trying to get free tests.

They're the essential workers of the state, though, they were forced to go back to work to basically feed the state, and now they're suffering the consequences. My own personal life, you know, I've taken my son out of daycare. He's not going back to daycare. You know, I don't want him to get sick. I don't want him also to bring the sickness back to my family or to his mother's family who has something that's immunocompromised, so we're not taking those chances.

And I'm lucky, you know, I'm an American that has a really good paying flexible job. There's a lot of people don't have that choice. And more importantly, they don't see any real choices or any real leadership coming from their government, and that's a very sad statement.

BLITZER: So what's the most important thing that you and your fellow members of Congress should be doing right now? Is there time for more stimulus money, other kind of help?

GALLEGO: Well, we should do it. Yes, on the federal side is more stimulus money to encourage social distancing. We need to go back and renew the unemployment benefits. Arizona has the worst unemployment benefits in the country. We don't want people to go out there and work to survive and accidentally spread the infection. We need to go back and expand on -- the PP program to keep our businesses open. We also need to bring in more resources into Arizona right now. We're asking for medical volunteers to come from all over the country. I'd like to see the military come in and offer some of their professional medical services. I'd asked the governor to actually make that ask to Secretary Esper, I think that would go a long way.

And, you know, we as a delegation are asking this governor to take some leadership, impose more issues -- actually proposed more mandates when it comes to social distancing and post some statewide mandate when it comes to masks. And start a true contact tracing program so we can actually contain the spread of this virus.

[20:45:08]

BLITZER: Congressman Gallego, good luck to you. Good luck to your family. Good luck to everyone in Arizona. Right now, we'll stay in close touch with you. Thank you so much for joining us.

GALLEGO: Thank you.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source