During a series of radio interviews in mid-July, Congressman Gallagher touched on the key policy issues before Congress and laid out the stakes of the 2020 elections.
On a successful Republican Party of Wisconsin convention …
“There were a lot of people wearing masks. Andrew Hitt and the Republican Party did a great job of trying to thread this needle of wanting people to convene as part of the political process, but doing it in a responsible manner. At the end of the day, this is just how we’re going to have to operate as a state. Everyone’s going to have to adopt some individual responsibility and take individual resilience measures, but the fact is we can’t stay shut down forever.”
On the Coronavirus …
“I think the first thing to recognize is that somewhere along the way, it seems like the goalposts changed from, ‘we’re going to do a temporary shutdown’ and ‘we’re going to do a variety of measures to slow the spread so as not to overwhelm the healthcare system.’ And I’m on board with that. But it changed to ‘we’re going to stay shut down until the disease disappears entirely or we come up with a vaccine.’ Well that ladder shift is obviously not a viable strategy.”
“I think the optimistic side of it is talking to the hospital system, they’re in a much better position than they were. A few months ago, owing in large part to the investments that we’ve made in our system. I think the important thing for all Wisconsinites to do is just exercise personal responsibility and some good old common sense. Continue to do what you can to wash your hands or mask. We can do this because, as you alluded to, without it the permanent shutdown is really going to destroy people’s livelihoods.”
On future COVID-19 response legislation …
“In Congress, I think we need to make sure that any so called Phase IV deal provides liability protections for businesses and nonprofit organizations who are doing their best to open up responsibly, protect their employees, and protect the citizens in our local community, but don’t want to get sued by a bunch of trial lawyers who are going to exploit this crisis for personal grants.”
On transparency in reporting …
“I think the CDC should be fully transparent in terms of their methodology and how they’re coding a COVID-related death or COVID positive. We in Congress should compel that complete transparency and open up the books. Let people understand the reasoning plus the CDC is in large part dependent upon statistics collected at the local level, so if nothing else we can work with our hospitals in Northeast Wisconsin, to provide a more nuanced understanding of what is actually happening on a county by county basis, so that it’s not just a top down — it’s a bottom-up thing.”
On the CCP’s deception …
“The Chinese Communist Party’s incompetence combined with the post-outbreak face-saving and dangerous deception, is what caused the global pandemic. And the only people that don’t believe that are Chinese Communist Party apparatchiks that are on Twitter spreading conspiracy theories blaming the United States.”
To hear more of Mike’s comments, listen to his full interviews on The Regular Joe Show & The Dan O’Donnell Show.