Coronavirus Report: The Hill’s Steve Clemons interviews Rep. Donna Shalala

The Hill’s Steve Clemons asks Rep. Donna Shalala (D-Fla.) what exactly she sees wrong in the way America is trying to reopen for her to introduce her legislation, the Reopen America Act.

Read some excerpts from the interview below:

{mosads}Rep. Donna Shalala: [What we’ve seen thus far] is erratic. It’s not systematic, and it’s not necessarily based on science, but rather on a lot of pressure to open up the economy and for people to get back to work. And I’m very worried we haven’t done the level of testing we need to do. We don’t have the supplies that we need to test even the health care workers or even the people that are cleaning the buildings in our health care institutions. We haven’t tested everyone in the grocery stores or in the drugstores. We’re not anywhere near where any scientist or physician would say it’s time to reopen. Some of that is because the federal government has not done what it needs to do. We don’t need a lot of lists of guidance from the CDC. We need the federal government to be the purchaser of all of this PPE, this equipment that we need, the testing devices. As a single buyer, they could drive down the prices. They can purchase in large quantities. They can distribute it around the country. They have the most magnificent military in the world that are used to doing these kinds of things. Second, the states need to have similar strategies in relationship to the science. We can’t have governors — many of them are trying hard — we can’t have governors have different strategies based on different facts opening up their states. Because what about the state next to them? This disease does not know what state it’s in. This virus is going to continue to move around unless all of the states have similar data and similar strategies with the adjustments they need to make for their own states. Rural states may have a slightly different approach than urban places. I represent Miami, for example, and the beaches, and we would have a slightly different strategy. But this is about data, not about a date. And this virus needs to be squeezed. We need a hammer on it to get it down —  all the way down — before we open up.

Clemons: Miami Mayor Francis X. Suarez, when I interviewed him, said that Miami had been the first place to have a stay at home order and a curfew in place but he also said Gov. Ron DeSantis did not operate with the same level of early concern that the City of Miami did. We here the governor is now trying to reopen cautiously. Is Florida still at odds internally, over have how to handle this?

Shalala: I think our governor is new. He’s a rookie. He’s being pulled in different directions. Our unemployment insurance system has been a disaster, and he’s been focused also on that. But again, we are not getting clear direction from him in which every part of the state is staying in place. This opening up of the beaches is dangerous. The opening up of golf courses, in my judgment, makes no sense. We don’t have a statewide strategy as such. And so you have mayors that are tough-minded that are paying attention to the scientists and physicians — like the mayor of Miami, the mayor of Miami Beach, the mayor of Cutler Bay and Palmetto Bay, the mayor of the city I live in, Coral Gables. They are being much more restrictive, much more tough minded. And they’re all admitting we don’t have the testing in place that we need to have in place before we open up.

Clemons: You have run Health and Human Services, a major university as well. I’m scratching my head wondering how good people who are not political in the CDC, the FDA, and others — who are trying do the right thing — got testing kits so badly wrong. What does your gut tell you about what went wrong?

Shalala: I think the White House, basically the White House and the leadership, or the lack of leadership — the erratic leadership with the president. He is literally, Steve, dangerous to our health. He moves from one side to the other. He makes one decision and then says, “well, let the states do it.” This is the United States of America. We’re not back to the Articles of Confederation in which the states were fighting with each other. The states are competing with each other for testing supplies. The hospitals are competing with each other. We don’t have a national strategy. We have a national list of suggestions. You cannot deal with a virus this way. You’ve got to use the scientist physicians, the world class people at the federal level to not only give us advice but to approve state plans. We ought to fund state plans. This ought not to be left to state budgets. We ought to be funding state plans, but they have got to be based on good science — or this virus is going to continue to spread across the country and to spike across the country.

Clemons: One of the things we saw in the last couple of days was what I call a “Do as I say, not as I do” moment. When the vice president went to the Mayo Clinic and didn’t put on a mask. If you were a Cabinet secretary again or you were vice president and visiting the Mayo Clinic, would you wear a mask? 

Shalala: Absolutely. And in fact, most of us wore masks when we we went back to vote. We wore masks in the chamber. I wore a mask all day long. Even when I did the interviews, the stand up interviews over in the Cannon Building, I wore my mask. I mean, we are leaders, and we have to send a clear message, and the vice president should have had his mask on. When I was secretary of HHS, if there was a mask requirement, I had a mask on. 

Clemons: Yesterday, I did this show on the subject of trust, with Richard Edelman, and there’s been a lot of discussions about public interest and private interests and those crossing lines who are in public roles. Your stock sales have come up and you have addressed that saying it was a mistake, and I don’t want to get there. But I want to ask what the public should expect in these moments from public officials like yourself, about what standard you should be setting at this time and get your insights into that. What are your views on what the public should be expecting?

Shalala: Well, I think the public has found out over these months that government is important, and that standards for public officials are also important. But the importance of government — we spent years and this administration has been cutting the size of government and not filling important positions at the CDC, at the FDA, in the public health service, and it’s been to our detriment at this point, and of course we have to have transparency and we have to have accountability, and I believe in both of those. But I think parents at home with their kids are finding out that their teachers are really important. I think they’re beginning to see the role and the importance of the public schools in particular, because most kids in this country are in public schools and the importance of those teachers. And we’re seeing in our world-class scientists the importance of the investments we’ve made in those scientists and the disinvestments that we’ve made and the heartbreak of having a CDC that had to struggle, and a public health service that has had to struggle in this pandemic. So I think faith in government is going to return and faith in the people that teach our children, provide services for the elderly and lead states and local governments as well as who leads our national government both in the Cabinet as well as in the presidency — that this makes a difference whether we live or die, that this is not just about whether we’re healthy economically. This is about life and death and the quality of that leadership, the transparency, the accountability — has to do with life and death.