Live from Virginia Tuesday morning on The John Fredericks Show – weekdays on WNTW AM 820/ FM 92.7 – Richmond, WJFN FM 100.5 – Central Virginia, WMPH AM 1010 / FM 100.1 / FM 96.9 (7-9 PM) Hampton Roads, WBRG AM 1050 / FM 105.1 – Lynchburg/Roanoke and Weekdays 6-10 am and 24/7 Stream –  host Fredericks welcomed (R) Ben Cline from Virginia’s US Congress sixth district to the program.
During the show, Cline weighed in on Nancy Pelosi’s recent trip to a California hair salon not wearing a mask which he states undercuts all she’s trying to accomplish. Further on he highlighted several items that may be included in the new stimulus package currently in negotiation.
Fredericks: Joining us now, it’s been a while is Congressman from the sixth district of Virginia Republican Ben Cline. Congressman Cline, great to have you.
Cline: John always great to be with you. How’s everything going today?
Fredericks: Never better. So Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin told you guys yesterday that he’s ready to restart negotiations with I’ve got to get my hair done without a mask on, Nancy Pelosi. First of all, before we get to politics. I mean c’mon Congressman. You saw the video of Nancy Pelosi lurking into the hairstylist place. No mask. It’s closed to the public but she goes in. What is up with that?
Cline: When you compare it with the sanctimony of her mask mandate admonitions it just reveals the hypocrisy on masks. Masks for thee but not for me. Home haircuts for thee but not for me. I get to go to the salon. So, that one is going to sting awhile for her because it just undercuts everything she’s trying to do. This big-government steam she’s got going on. It just really does undercut all those efforts. The mockery is the best attitude for that kind of approach on her end.
Fredericks: Well Ben she’s such a phony. She’s going on TV telling everybody you’ve got to put a mask on. And all this and that and in her own home area they are shutting down the salons. Do you know who put the video out? But the video and it was the owner of the salon that was pissed off.
And had the video from the security camera. It was the owner that said I can’t believe she can come in and get her hair done. How she got in there I haven’t gotten to the bottom of that if you are the owner. But she can come in and I can’t open up my business to make a living.
Cline: Well she rents out the salon and the person was renting out that space got a call from Pelosi’s people saying she’s coming in to have her hair done. And this woman gave her special treatment. You know, they had just allowed outdoor the day before. So the day before she couldn’t even come on the property.
But that day she was supposed to be outside and nobody could come inside except for Queen Nancy. And that’s just a shame that she doesn’t think enough of her constituents to want to try and make changes for them and instead allows Gavin Newsom to destroy businesses and destroy lives in California.
Fredericks: The hypocrisy of it all is stunning. No question about it. OK. Let’s get to another coronavirus package. Now they are starting negotiations. You guys were involved in this. What exactly are they negotiating? What do you want? Where are we in this Ben Cline?
Cline: The President really took the legs out from under Speaker Pelosi. She had been sitting back saying I’m not going to negotiate. Take up my three trillion dollar boondoggle gargantuan bill with the bailouts of New York and California and all the other non-coronavirus stuff that was in that bill. And we’re going to negotiate from that.
Well, when the President took action he took the legs out from under her and he said you don’t have any position to negotiate from and I’m going to do it for you and get done what the people need right now which is emergency assistance right now from the coronavirus. So the President got it done. That kind of put us at a stalemate where there was no negotiation for awhile.
But now she’s coming back to the table. The Senate is always willing to negotiate. The White House has always been willing to negotiate. So I’m glad to see that there is some discussion because we need liability reform for these small businesses and for these educational institutions where litigious happy lawyers and every lawyer can be a litigious happy we know that. They are ready to sue or take up the case of anybody who caught coronavirus in one of these establishments. We’ve got to protect these small businesses which are fragile as it is from the frivolous lawsuits. So we need liability reform.
Fredericks: Congressman Cline the White House saying they would support now a one-point three trillion package. That’s up from one point one trillion. And Pelosi coming down from I guess two point two trillion to two-point one. They are still a trillion dollars apart. In the administration’s package that I assume is backed by your caucus and McCarthy. What is in that?
Cline: There is more in terms of some unemployment relief although not as much as the $600. which was a disincentive to work for a while at least down our way where the cost of living is not so high. That level of unemployment bonus was just too high for a lot of small businesses that lost their employees to unemployment.
Whereas the CARES Act itself and the PPP program was designed to prevent people from leaving a small business or being let go during the worst of the pandemic and declaring unemployment.
So you’ve got some more business assistance similar to the PPP. You’ve got more unemployment assistance. Possibly another emergency assistance payment. But you know that the pandemic is progressing and decreasing. And the death rates are hopefully decreasing across the country. Not everywhere.
Our numbers out in the Western part of Virginia are stable. We had a spike in Northern Virginia. Then they had the spike in Tidewater with the start of summer. Now we are seeing hotspots in places with universities. But we have to re-evaluate what kinds of assistance are necessary in light of the development of the coronavirus.
Is this unemployment payment still necessary when unemployment is now down near or below 10 percent? These are questions that need to be answered before we go and vote for another trillion dollars in debt borrowed from China.
Fredericks: Let’s get to the CDC numbers from a couple of days ago. Congressman, this kind of sneaks out. CDC says we’ve reviewed everything and actually there’s been 9,200 people that have died in America. 9,200 from only COVID-19. All the other 177,000 deaths, everybody had underlying circumstances.
They had high blood pressure. They were suffering from other morbid diseases. But there’s only 9,200 that actually died that was it from COVID. 60,000 people died last year from the flu. 9,200 died from COVID-19 only. Does that number that hasn’t been picked up by the lazy fake news media because it doesn’t fit their narrative. Has that got anybody’s attention? Why did we do all this for that?
Cline: It is a stunning number and every person who has died whether you have no co-morbidities or as the CDC says at least two co-morbidities which are underlying situations like respiratory disease or something else. It’s tragic. And we need to remember every single person who has died.
But for those people that have under 10,000 people have died from just the coronavirus alone, that is a stunning figure. And I think the government needs to evaluate how we move forward in light of that number. We want to tackle this virus and we are working hard toward a vaccine with in-person trials underway. Hopefully, we’ll see a vaccine soon. We also have to get this economy going.
We have to get this country started and get kids back in school learning. Universities operating safely. And we are having some trouble with that. JMU just announced yesterday that they are going virtual now. Sending kids back home after only two weeks of classes which is very disappointing. So, we’ve got to reevaluate in light of these new numbers.
Listen to the full show here:
https://youtu.be/_xDduwZpdiw
