Ernst Talks Senate-Passed Phase 3 Package, Her Efforts to Bring Iowans Stranded Abroad Home Safely
WASHINGTON—After helping pass the Phase 3 relief package late last night in the Senate, U.S. Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA) joined America’s Newsroom to discuss the Senate’s work to provide critical additional relief for workers, families, seniors, small businesses, Iowa’s health care system, child care providers, and so many other sectors impacted by COVID-19.
Click here or on the image above to watch the full interview.
On Speaker Pelosi’s attempt to take credit for the Senate’s bipartisan Phase 3 package:
“…We had five tasks forces—bipartisan—that had put together a very strong, very good bill for the American people, twice blocked by Senate Democrats. We were able to push back on the provisions that the Speaker was talking about—she doesn’t talk about the way they wanted to federalize our election system, she didn’t talk about what they wanted to do by inserting the provisions of the Green New Deal into the package. There was a lot of extraneous policies that they wanted to enact that we pushed back on.
“We passed the bill late, late last night. It was a bipartisan effort. I do hope that the House does the same.”
On additional relief:
“…Of course we did pass, last night, the nearly two trillion dollar rescue package, and we are very hopeful this will support our American families, all of the great health care workers, those that are in our health care systems, those that are in responding on the first line effort—making sure that we are protecting them. I think it is a substantial package. It will support small businesses—those employers that desperately want to keep their employees employed. There are so many great things that we were able to do in this package—we hope it will sustain not only our American families, but our businesses.”
On her efforts to bring Iowans abroad home:
“We are working desperately to get those folks home. My office is in contact with the State Department multiple times every day working through the various situations we have. So far we have over half of our Iowa families that have been out of the United States—we have half of them back in the United States. I get reports every day of the movement of those Iowans as they travel back home from those countries abroad. So we’ll continue working with the State Department—they are valiantly trying to get into remote areas to make sure that our Americans are safe—and getting them home to their loved ones.”
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