CK, Texas (KCBD) - KCBD NewsChannel 11′s Kase Wilbanks interviewed Senator Ted Cruz about Texas and the COVID-19 pandemic on Tuesday, April 14, 2020. He discusses his statewide teletour, what the Senate is doing, the economic devastation of the disease and his new Combat COVID-19 Challenge.
Below is the transcript of the interview.
KASE: So I see we’re both working from home. I know you’re doing a lot of this with your teletour. So tell me what you’re learning there. What are you hearing from people? And how is that helping the work that you’re doing?
SEN. CRUZ: Well, in any crisis, it’s my responsibility to be there for the people of Texas and whenever crisis strikes, I try to be there in person. So for example, when Hurricane Harvey hit Texas, massive devastation, for the next six months, I was in every affected community up and down the Gulf Coast 2-3-4-5-6 times being there listening to those who are impacted, working to make sure federal resources were there for those who are hurting. The same is true now. We’ve got not one but two crises playing out simultaneously. We have a public health crisis the Coronavirus pandemic. That is that is exactly an enormous cost. And we have simultaneously an economic crisis caused by the government steps to deal with to stop the pandemic but the nonetheless, hurting millions of Americans, over 17 million Americans have lost their jobs just in the last three weeks. In an ordinary circumstance, what I would do is I would be there meeting with talking with listening to the people who are directly impacted by this. Obviously, during a public health crisis, it’s not advisable or particularly safe to be in person traveling the state meeting with everyone in the hospital wards where people are suffering. So what I’m doing instead is we’ve launched a teletour of the state. And I’m doing video conferences I’m doing phone calls with with leaders throughout the state with communities throughout the state. I’ve done them with the Texas truckers Association, the Texas hospital association with with the Houston Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, and then I’ve done them with with groups throughout East Texas today. We’re doing groups throughout West Texas, and we’re going through each region. We’re gonna be doing the valley we’re trying to go around Texas. Meet with business leaders, meet with community leaders, meet with healthcare leaders meet with government leaders meet with all of those impacted, hear their concerns and and then work to help help everyone in the local communities in Texas to work through the federal response to this these enormous crisis.
KASE: And do you plan to make any virtual stops around here in Lubbock? To the people here on the South Plains?
SEN. CRUZ: We are we have them have them scheduled throughout West Texas. We’re traveling around through every region of the state and and setting up ideally video conferences. Sometimes we do that sometimes it has to be by phone, but we’re trying to do as much as possible by video. So you have actual real interaction and conversations.
KASE: Right. So besides listening and hearing that you mentioned, you know, that affecting what you do there in Congress, so what action is being taken now, what are you working on now in the Senate to, you know, solve these issues and hopefully remedy some of these?
