The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“Coronavirus (Executive Session)” mentioning Mitch McConnell was published in the Senate section on pages S4810-S4811 on July 12.
Of the 100 senators in 117th Congress, 24 percent were women, and 76 percent were men, according to the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
Senators' salaries are historically higher than the median US income.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
Coronavirus
Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, today is the first day of what could be a productive and maybe even historic few weeks in the Senate. I hope we can live up to the challenges we are facing.
July 6 was a historic day in my home State of Illinois. For the first time in 476 days, Illinois went 24 hours without losing a life to COVID-19. During the deadliest days of this pandemic, Illinois was losing more than 150 people a day to COVID. As our Governor, JB Pritzker, said on the 6th, ``The vaccines have done the work. Thank God for the vaccines.'' I couldn't have said it better.
Seventy percent of eligible Illinois residents have received at least one dose of those lifesaving COVID vaccines, including 90 percent of seniors. But we are at a critical moment in Illinois and across our Nation. With the new, more dangerous Delta variant now spreading rapidly across the Nation, people who are unvaccinated are at greater risk than ever of becoming sick and even facing death from COVID. I hope we can stop the division and disinformation and figure out how to protect the people from this deadly foe.
I want to say a word about an issue I read this morning in an article in the New York Times. The author of the article, Tiffany Hsu, titled the article ``Anti-Vaccination Rhetoric Creeps From Fringe to Fox Prime Time.'' It is a lengthy article, and I commend it to everyone to read it on their own. It raises some important questions.
If our sacred right to free speech can be limited by the time-honored test of crying ``fire'' in a crowded theater, is there any limit to extreme political rhetoric in the midst of a pandemic?
We know the Republican Party is enthralled by Donald Trump. They have bought the Big Lie. A half to two-thirds of Republicans believe that he actually won the last election, and he didn't. Twenty-nine percent of Republicans believe that Donald Trump will be reinstated as President, triumphantly returning from exile to take over the White House again. Many of them believe that he will return to Washington soon.
Well, there was an interesting scene on the grounds of the Capitol when I returned today from Illinois. For the first time since January 6, the fence that was erected to hold back the insurrectionist mob was removed. We hope that we are prepared now to protect this Capitol and can get back to business as usual, but we have to recruit additional Capitol Hill Police to be prepared, we have to work with the National Guard units to be prepared, and we have to realize the obvious. There was a decision made on the floor of the U.S. Senate by the Republican Senate leader just a few weeks ago to stop any bipartisan effort to establish a Commission to ask what happened on January 6 and how it can be avoided in the future. Senator McConnell objected to a bipartisan, evenly-split Commission to investigate that terrible day. The GOP Senate leader killed that idea several weeks ago
I want to commend Speaker Pelosi, who is trying her best through a special committee in the House of Representatives to have a bipartisan investigation. It should have been done through this Commission. Senator McConnell stopped it.
There is one other element I would like to raise when it comes to free speech in the time of pandemic. What caught my eye in this morning's paper, as I mentioned earlier, was this article about FOX Primetime. They recounted the fact that over the last several months, FOX had been losing ground to CNN, and questioning the effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccines became a split decision at the FOX network.
Some of the leaders at FOX obviously believe strongly in the vaccine, and I commend them. I do too. Rupert Murdoch was vaccinated in December.
When a list of those who supported the effort to encourage the use of vaccines across America was taken at FOX, they put together a 30-second spot featuring host and anchor Steve Doocy, Harris Faulkner, Dana Perino, and John Roberts. Ms. Faulkner said in that ad by FOX: ``If you can, get the vaccine.'' Bret Baier, chief political anchor at FOX News, said in an Instagram post that he was grateful for the shot of vaccine. The hosts of ``FOX & Friends'' spoke of the relief they felt in becoming vaccinated. Sean Hannity himself said:
I do believe in science, and I believe in vaccinations. Talk to your doctor. You don't need to talk to people on TV and radio that aren't doctors.
Which goes to the point of this message. There are two hosts of programs on FOX Primetime who can only be characterized as anti-vax quacks. I am referring, of course, to Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham. They have been spreading what I consider to be irresponsible information about vaccines across America and about the effort of this Nation to deal with them.
Here is the reality. We have millions who have died across the world from this virus. We may never have an accurate count. We have hundreds of thousands who have died in the United States. Now it is said repeatedly that those who are headed to the hospital with the most serious strains of COVID-19--99.5 percent of them were not vaccinated. So the facts are obvious here.
I know it is an individual decision on whether to be vaccinated, and I am sure there may be some Senators who have decided not to do it, but I was happy to do it as soon as I could. I think the vaccines are protecting me and my wife and my family. But in the meantime, to have these hosts of TV shows at FOX, in prime time, peddling this nonsense about vaccines being unnecessary and COVID-19 being no threat can only be summarized in a statement which concluded this article:
In a recent opinion essay for The Daily Beast by Preston Padden, a former high-level executive at Fox Broadcasting wrote that Fox News had ``contributed substantially and directly'' to ``the unnecessary deaths of many Americans by fueling hesitation and doubt about the efficacy and safety of lifesaving Covid-19 vaccines.'' He singled out the channel's prime-time opinion programs for blame.
I want to commend those at FOX who have stood up and said the right thing about these vaccines, but I also want to take issue with those who are using this vaccine, for whatever purpose, to mislead and confuse American people about its necessity, its effectiveness, and its safety. They are not doing America any favors, and I hope that FOX will come to its senses.
If there are things that can remove you from the air for being said on a program, I certainly hope that the management of the station will caution Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham for the statements they have made in opposition to vaccines.
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