The Daily Signal - State, Local Leaders Should Restart Economies ‘as Soon as Possible,’ J.C. Watts Says

Episode Date: April 22, 2020

Rep. J.C. Watts, a former Republican congressman from Oklahoma and a member of The Heritage Foundation’s National Coronavirus Recovery Commission, joins The Daily Signal Podcast to discuss how the nation can begin to reopen safely amid the coronavirus, why COVID-19 may be affecting the African-American community more than other demographic groups, and the news channel he founded, BNC. Also on today show: Attorney General Bill Barr said that governors of some states are violating Americans' rights by policies they have put in place due to the coronavirus pandemic.  Governors across the South are beginning to reopen their state economies and lift coronavirus restrictions. President Donald Trump says he will work to save oil companies as oil prices continue to collapse. Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Wednesday, April 22nd. I'm Rachel Del Judas. And I'm Virginia Allen. Today we are talking with Representative J.C. Watts, former congressman of Oklahoma, and a member of the Heritage Foundation's National Coronavirus Recovery Commission. We discussed the state of America's economy and how our leaders can safely begin to reopen businesses. Don't forget, if you're enjoying this podcast, please be sure to leave a review or a five-star rating on Apple Podcast. and encourage others to subscribe. Now on to our top news. Attorney General Bill Barr said during an interview on the Hugh Hewitt show that governors of some states are violating citizens' rights by policies they have put in place due to the

coronavirus pandemic. When a governor acts, especially when a governor does something that intrudes upon or infringes on a fundamental right or constitutional right, they're bounded by that, Barr said. And those situations are emerging around the country. to some extent. And I think we have to do a better job of making sure that the measures that are being adopted are properly targeted. Governors across the South are beginning to reopen their state economies and lift coronavirus restrictions. Georgia Governor Brian Kemp announced Monday that businesses across the state will begin reopening this week. Here's what the governor had to say

via 11 alive. Given the favorable data, enhanced testing, and approval of our health care professionals. We will allow gyms, fitness centers, bowling alleys, body art studios, barbers, cosmetologists, hair designers, nail care artist, estacicians, their respective schools, and massage therapists to reopen their doors this Friday, April the 24th. Unlike other businesses, these entities have been unable to manage. inventory, deal with payroll, and take care of administrative items while we shelter in place. This measure allows them to undertake baseline operations that most other businesses in the state have maintained since I issued the Shelter and Place order.

This measure will apply statewide and will be the operational standard in all jurisdictions. This means local action cannot be taken that is more. or less restrictive. Governor Henry McMaster of South Carolina also announced on Monday that retail stores and beaches in the state are allowed to reopen as of Tuesday, and other businesses, such as florist shops or sporting goods stores, can also reopen if they abide by social distancing measures and limit the number of people that are allowed in the stores. And Tennessee Governor, Bill Lee, also announced on Monday that he's not going to extend the safe-at-home

order, which is set to expire on April 30th. President Trump says he will work to save oil companies as prices continue to drop. On Tuesday, Trump tweeted, We will never let the great U.S. oil and gas industry down. I have instructed the Secretary of Energy and the Secretary of the Treasury to formulate a plan which will make funds available so these very important companies and jobs will be secured long into the future. On Monday night, President Trump announced via Twitter that he is temporarily system

He tweeted, in light of the attack from the invisible enemy, as well as the need to protect the jobs of our great American citizens, I will be signing an executive order to temporarily suspend immigration into the United States. Texas Democratic Congressman and chair of the Hispanic caucus, Representative Castro, tweeted in reply, this action is not only attempt to divert attention away from Trump's failures to stop the spread of the coronavirus and save lives, but an authoritarian-like move to take advantage of a crisis and advance his anti-immigration agenda. We must come together to reject his division. National Security Advisor Robert O'Brien says the United States is keeping a close eye on the

situation on North Korea, as reports continue to come out saying that North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un is in critical condition after a recent. surgery. During an interview with Fox and Friends on Tuesday, O'Brien said, We're monitoring these reports very closely. He added that North Korea is a very close society. There's not a free press there. They're a parsiminous with the information they provide about many things, including the health of Kim Jong-un. Americans' negative views of China are growing, according to a recent Pew Research survey. Pugh says of Americans that roughly two-thirds now say that they have unfavorable views of China.

The most negative rating for the country since the center began asking the question in 2005 and up nearly 20 points since the start of the Trump administration. In 2005, 35% of Americans had a negative view of China. Today, that number has grown to 66%. The survey also found that young people who have historically been more positive than older Americans towards China

now increasingly hold negative views of the country and are more prone to see it as a threat to the U.S. than in previous years. Now stay tuned for my conversation with Representative Watts, member of the Coronavirus Recovery Commission. We talk about what's next for America and our economy. It's our priority at the Daily Signal to keep you informed during the coronavirus pandemic. Here's an important message from the White House Coronavirus Task Force. Hey, America. I'm United States Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams, and I just want to say, thank you for following the president's coronavirus guidelines. Social distancing, mitigation, it's working. We know we're flattening the curve and saving lives, and it is all thanks to you.

So keep at it and stay tuned for more updates from the coronavirus task force. I am joined by Representative J.C. Watts, former Congressman of Oklahoma, founder and chairman of J.C. Watts companies and a member of the Heritage Foundation's National Coronavirus Recovery Commission. Representative Watts, thank you so much for being here today. Virginia, thank you for having me all. I'm looking forward to sharing their and visiting with you. Yeah, absolutely. Well, you are one of 17 members on the Heritage National Coronavirus Recovery Commission, and you all have just laid out a five-phase plan for how America can recover economically from COVID-19 and ultimately save both lives and livelihoods.

Can you just tell us a little bit about the commission and your role? Well, Virginia, and I think you'd summed it up by saying the commission was established to save lives and livelihoods. I think that statement in and of itself kind of wraps up and And kind of tells why Kay James, the president's CEO of the Heritage Foundation, thought it was important to do. You know, people who have lost a loved one, a mother, a father, a son, or a daughter, a relative, a close friend due to COVID-19. you know, I understand that they would think that opening up the economy in the next month or two months or three months,

I would totally understand if they feel like it's too soon. However, the flip side of the coin, a small business owner who is on the brink of bankruptcy, and even some large business owners who are on the brink of bankruptcy, but someone who's put their blood, sweat, and tears, and, you know, the children's education fund into starting a business or sustaining a business. Boy, 30 days of downtime, you know, many of them, it leaves them one foot in bankruptcy and one foot out.

they probably think you can't open the economy up soon enough. And so, again, when the commission said we want to save lives and livelihood, we try to take both of those perspectives into consideration as we made recommendations or we'll be making recommendations to the administration, to members of Congress, to local and state governments, that we didn't take one of the other into consideration. We took both lives and livelihoods in consideration. Yeah. Well, and on Monday, you all put out really a much more, even more detailed plan that was 47 detailed steps

for how we can achieve the first two phases of that five-phase plan. What are some of really the critical aspects or steps in that list of 45 recommendations? Well, I think one of the things is that you start by saying governors and local leaders should take the lead in restarting the economy. and should do so as soon as possible. The federal government should, the federal government, Congress, the administration should aid in the recovery by considering flexibility and regulatory leave,

funding, which they've done, providing equipment, and providing information. But we think it's critically important that governors and local leaders that they take charge. I think we made recommendations in saying that, you know, the social distancing, you know, that that should be relaxed. In some cases, reopening schools, as this is, returning hospitals to normal. should be linked to data about where the disease is prevalent. Counties that have low incident rates should open in a way that would be consistent with CDC plans.

And a lot of communities, I'm from rural Oklahoma, grew up in rural Oklahoma, rural America, a lot of rural communities. They don't have access to CDC plans, but you can work with your county and your state health officials who tune in to those CDC recommendations and pay attention to what the surgeon general are saying and work with them to make sure that you have a plan in place that would be protective of the most vulnerable, of the least of these.

And so I think, you know, those things, making sure if you start with allowing the governors and local leaders to take the lead in restarting the economy, hopefully they will do it as soon as possible, but also be mindful of doing it, not just expeditiously, but doing that safely, and that's where the CDC, I think, comes into play. That's where the Nationalist, Who the Health, which, I mean, that's a federal organization as well. You know, John Hopkins, they've been right in the middle of this and providing data. But use the federal government to support state and local leaders, and I do think that it could be done in a way that's, that's healthy and that's safe and that would, you know, consider lives and livelihoods,

which is how you opened our discussion today. Well, I, you bring such a unique perspective, really, to this conversation because you do have this background in government, but you also run your own consulting business called J.C. Watts companies, and you work with, you know, large and small businesses to do development and communications and public affairs strategies and, you know, kind of implement those best practices. So as someone that does have that background, both in government and in the business world, what are your thoughts on to what extent the government really just kind of needs to get out of the way right now and let individuals and private businesses and nonprofits navigate the situation on their own

versus the state and federal government stepping in to offer assistance? Well, I think the government can play a role, and I think the government should play a role. And I think, you know, you have to understand in whatever role the government chooses to play, you have to understand the value of teamwork. And it's not about the federal government. is not about the president, is not about a member of Congress, it's not about a governor, it's not about a mayor, it's about all of us working together for the common good. And I think government can play a role,

but they need to understand what their role should be. You and I've already discussed, or I mentioned in kind of my opening comments that, you know, the federal government should allow governors and local leaders to take the lead and the federal government and Congress should, the administration should aid and the flexibility of regulatory elite, they can be helpful there. They can play a role in funding and funding equipment and providing information. We heard from a couple of, we had some testimony. We had a meeting yesterday, Virginia, and we heard from, you know, some people that that, you know, have pretty good pulse of the economy. We heard from Steve Forbes.

We heard from Art Laffer, and they made suggestions. We heard from the National Association of Manufacturers, and we heard from a lady that was with Merck. And so these people who are in the private sector, who operate in the private sector, You know, they gave recommendations. They gave comments and thoughts that I thought were pretty good. One of them was to suspend the payroll tax, you know, reducing capital gains.

I mean, you think, well, what capital gains? Why bring, you know, why make taxes in argument in times like these? Well, you know, you've got people out there that, you know, they're invested in the stock market and, you know, they liquidate stocks right now. The stocks might be down, but if they liquidate those stocks, you know, you've got to worry about a capital gains tax. Well, you know, eliminating the capital gains tax in a time like this would allow people to keep more of their money to do what they need. to do with it. And so there's a lot of different things that in terms of trying to flatten the curve, we also have to understand that beyond that curve, as the argument was made yesterday, flattening that curve, you know, underneath that curve, there's fear, there's unemployment,

there's small business failures, there's deaths. So you've got to figure out ways how can we not just get money or get money into the hand of people by sending them a stimulus check, but there's resources that people have available to them now that eliminating the capital gains or reducing the capital gains, the case might be, you know, kind of letting up or softening some of the regulatory burdens and trying to get, you know, vaccines into the marketplace. And I just think there's ways we can do that. And we've heard suggestions of ways that could be executed, ways that could be done, that it would be helpful in getting resources into the hands of the people that really need it. So,

Therefore, again, I make the argument that government can play a role, but government needs to be a part of the team, not the team. Yeah. Well, and as you said, you know, some people are, they're getting really antsy and they want to get back to work. They need that money. They rely on the income of their small business or working at a restaurant. And we have seen in areas across the country and even in your home state of Oklahoma that they're have been organized kind of rallies or protests in Oklahoma. There's one organized groups called OK, Back to Work, which they've been organizing rallies in cars, so keeping that safe distance

with everyone kind of going along in their cars. But they are really asking for the state of Oklahoma to reopen on May 1st. What are your views of these kind of rallies and protests, and how should state leaders respond to these calls to reopen businesses? Well, you know, Virginia, the wonderful thing about living in the United States of America, we can have rallies and we can have protest and people can even, as I learned when I was a member of Congress, people can come in front of my office and they can protest a decision or that I've made or a vote that I've made or something that I said or something that I did. and they don't get shot, they don't get limbs cut off, or they don't get thrown in a furnace, a fiery furnace to burn. I mean, that's what America's all about. And, hey, I am a small business owner. I know how that is.

And right now, you know, I've got one business. I just launched an African American news channel on February 10th. So, you know, a month and a half after launch, we're having to deal with the coronavirus. I wish the virus, if it was going to show up, my preference would have been that, you know, you show up a year and a half after we launch, not a month and a half after we launch. But it is what it is. And in my business, actually, I don't get any help. I've got 60 plus employees, and I don't get any help. through the, you know, the CARES Act, the small business loans or the Payroll Protection Act.

I don't get any help there. So I understand how small businesses understand. Again, I think we can, you know, we can have rallies and we can protest, and I think we can get the economy going again and also look out for the most vulnerable and not be insensitive to those who have lost loved ones who I said at the outset, you know, those who've lost loved ones who've lost a husband or a wife or spouse, you know, a child, a close friend, you know, I totally understand. They think that opening up by May 1st, the first week of May, that that would be too so.

And I totally understand that. But I totally understand that small business owner because I am a small business owner that says, hey, our livelihoods are on the line. And I think, again, I think we can do this in a way that takes both of those perspectives into consideration. And we've kind of lead out some things on the commission just in the two weeks that we've been in existence. by saying, yes, we need to start thinking of ways that we can open up, that we can open up, you know, the economy, because we, at the end of the day, we've already seen the serious impact on our future economic, social, and foreign policy challenges.

And the consequences could get even worse soon due to the liquidity problems, people having rent and mortgage payments, utility bills. Many businesses are seasonal, and they create their revenue stream that will last them, that they rely on, lasting them all year. their revenue stream is created from about the first to the middle of March until about the middle of September. So they create a revenue stream in five or six months that has to last them for 12 months. So we need the government plan its role to do what they can in order to get us, into a rhythm into our economy as soon as possible. And again, I continue to highlight, you know, that we can, I think we can save lives and be considered a people's livelihoods.

And again, the recommendations that we've made kind of speaks to both of those, both sides of that equation. Yeah. Well, I'm really glad that you brought up. your news channel because my goodness you're so right what a wild time to found a news channel black news channel or bnc is the name of it what inspired you to start that channel and how have you all navigated covering COVID-19 Virginia for 10 years for 10 years we you know probably long in that about 14 15 years we've been trying to

to get this network off the ground. And one of the arguments that I made that I was making and narrative that I created is saying that the African-American community is we create content that is culturally specific to the African-American community. And one of the things I talk about, I would talk about health and wellness. And it's just a reality. It's not politics. It's not liberal.

conservative, it's not, you know, Republican and Democrat. It's just a reality that in growing up, I ate different foods than you ate. We might have eaten some of the same things, but culturally, your culture, but, you know, for instance, Thanksgiving dinner, by and large, most people in the white community eat pumpkin pie for dessert. By and large, Thanksgiving dinner, most people in the black community eat sweet potato. pie. Now, that doesn't mean that I can't eat pumpkin pie, that you can't eat sweet potato pie, but culturally, there is a cultural difference in terms of our wellness and diseases. There's things that the white community or the Native American community, the Asian community

that they have to deal with or the Hispanic community, that the black community doesn't. And vice versa, with any one of those cultures. Well, one of the things that, um, I'm pre-active with sickle cell here in the state of Oklahoma, and we do things to, you know, create awareness for sickle cell. Sickle cell is a disease that most people, about 95 to 97 percent of the people that have sickle cell, they're black. They're African-American. And so as I was talking about this network over the last 12, 14 years, I was saying,

And we will be talking about things that other networks don't talk about in wellness, sickle cell, diabetes, culturally, how you deal with diabetes. All communities have diabetes. I mean, I believe a lot of it is you can control, 80% of diabetics can control their diabetes through diet and exercise, what you eat and how active you are. And so giving those statistics and that. data from an African-American perspective is what our network was designed to do with sickle cell.

I mean, with coronavirus, COVID-19. We've got a doctor, Dr. Corey Abe there, that has a show called Doctor for the People. He was just asked about 10 days or so ago to lead the effort in Louisiana. he was asked by the governor to lead the effort to the task force concerning African Americans in COVID-19. And so just having a source of information somewhere on a dial with 277 channels, it seems like, somewhere that the African-American community can go to get news and education and information. and that is culturally specific to them, that's important. I think it's, you know, women have different health challenges than men.

I think it makes sense to have somewhere that women can go and get information concerning, you know, the same thing with men. So hopefully that gives you a little bit of flavor on why the channel is relevant. over the last six weeks, you know, the White House has asked us to get involved with the Ad Council and the administration created a task force to do PSAs. They reached out to us and said, hey, you guys are talking to a lot of people in the black community. We want them to know and be informed about how to, you know, be safe during times like this.

So we put it, we made it an issue throughout our platforms, ladies first. You know, our 7 to 10 a.m. to 10 a.m. news hours. Our 7 at night to 10 at night. Kelly Wright has a show on our network. Kelly's, he's been an integral part of played an integral role in interviewing. the Surgeon General, different people in the administration talking about coronavirus and the African-American community. So, yeah, we've been pretty active, and we've been on the front line and trying to inform our audience that this is real. And these are the ways that you protect yourself and protect your family.

And we have seen percentage-wise that the black community has been more affected by COVID-19. than other groups in the United States. And we don't really know why. Do you have any thoughts on what factors could be contributing to this? And, you know, if the country or states should really be taking measures to help? Well, I think, you know, I've always said, and Virginia, it really doesn't matter to me. One of the things that I, one of the recommendations and suggestions that I made on the, NCRC commission was that I don't think we will ever make that we will ever get out of the

the doldrums of a sick health care system until we make health a part of that. And one of the things that I think is important, you know, I think anytime we find ourselves, in a crisis or like COVID-19 or we find ourselves in a crisis in our personal lives, in our business, in our churches. It doesn't matter what our association is. We're going to have crisis. And if you've not had a crisis in your personal life, just keep living, as my dad used to say, just keep living.

You don't get there. And I don't, I have a little different perspective. about crisis. I don't think crisis always come to tell us what we are. They come to tell us what we are not, so that we know what we need to do to become what we want to be. And that's a principle in athletics. I learned a whole lot more in my athletic career when I lost the game than when I won a game

because when you lose a game, you're forced to take a step back, take a deep breath, and say, okay, how do I correct this to where we'll do it better? better and we put ourselves in a better chance to win. Well, I think the revelation from this crisis is that we do have a health care system that is broken, that we can do better. I think we do have, we've seen from this crisis that we've gotten away from the little things. Cover your cough, cover your sneeze. Virginia, those are things that we learned to do in kindergarten.

So let's go back to the basics. So I remember when I was in grade school, I had a health class when I was like the third or fourth grade. And so I said all that to say, we will never solve our health care issues until we make health a part of that equation. And, you know, I don't care if it's the black community, white community, red, yellow, or brown community. If it's man or woman, boy, girl, what we eat, what we put on our body, the fact that we don't exercise or we don't exercise enough, we don't move enough, all of those things, I suspect we could look to, to say, or we should be looking to, to say, how much of our lack of our lack of, exercise, how much of our not moving around, you know, being more sedated, watching more TV, being on Facebook, being on the Internet, how much of that is contributing to the weakening of our immune system? I think that's a fair question.

Maybe what we're dealing with here will make us more conscience and say, you know, Jack Kemp, who was, who, you know, I love talking to Jack, and Jack was way as most Republicans when it came to, you know, opportunity and creating opportunity for everybody and targeting underserved communities of poor neighborhoods for growth and opportunity. and I remember Jack used to say, you know, we pay people in America to not be healthy. You know, we say, you know, grow old and grow older and unhealthy and when you get 65, we'll pay for you to have, excuse me, pay for you to have heart surgeries and, and, you know, cover all your costs for your, for your stroke and your diabetes and everything else. So if we take care of people for being unhealthy, why wouldn't we incentivize people to be healthy? And Jack used to say, I would have conversations with him to say, you know, why not give people a $500 a year or $300 a year,

a $700 a year, whatever the figure was, if you keep your cholesterol under a certain number, you know, if you keep your, you know, watch your PSA numbers. I mean, I'm just throwing some things out. But, you know, we, you know, we put a man on the moon so surely we can design some type of initiative that the federal government or the state governments could play a role to say, let's do some things to encourage people to be healthy as opposed to encouraging them to not be healthy. Makes sense. Well, I want to end on a little bit of a lighter question as someone who played football and played football professionally. What do you think we have on the horizon this fall? Are we going to see an NFL and college football season? What are your thoughts on that? There's a serious discussion underway now that we could possibly have an infrastructure or a process in place to resume football. season and basketball season. The football season starts in, I guess, a report to camp in July, early July, start

preseason games toward the end of July, 1st of August, and then the regular season starts toward the end of August, or that's some monogram of this schedule. But I think the regular season usually starts about the end of August. we would have assembled a plan to get us to get us back into a rhythm. If not, Virginia, let me tell you, if we've not done it by then, it's going to be really, really ugly, and none of us are going to like it. But even, I think we will, and even when we do, normal isn't going to be, and my guess, and this is just my personal opinion,

normal isn't going to be 85,000 people at Memorial Stadium at the University of Oklahoma on a Saturday afternoon for a Saturday afternoon football game. And I don't care if the University of Oklahoma, they're the number two, number one team in the country, and we're playing the number two team in the country. That's not going to be normal. We may get back to that, but I think people are going to ease their way back into stadiums and clouds.

And quite frankly, I would encourage them to do that. But I think the decisions that we make today and why the Commission, why the Heritage Foundation, led by K. James, why they put this commission together was to say, we can't wait until August to start thinking about this. We've got to start doing things today that will save lives and people's livelihoods to get us back into a rhythm in our economy, in our social lives, put ourselves in a rhythm and in a model, a process, if you will, that will get us back to normal as quickly as possible. You know, rubber bands, I understand once a rubber band is stretched, it never goes back to its original form. I'm not so sure we will, we're not going to get back to our original form overnight in the stretching that we're experiencing here. But I do think that, you know, I still think we're in a, we live in a great nation. and, you know, there's a reason that we're the only, that we're the country that created the light bulb and the streetlights and the internet and the GPS system.

We have more Nobel Prize winners than anybody in the world. And so the same country that gave us those things is the same country that will now. navigate through this if we all understand we have a role to play and that the government can't play a role. Maybe I'm different than, you know, most on my side of the out, but I think the government can play a role that they understand they are a part of the team. They are not the team. And it's, you know, state, local, federal government, county government, is playing a role. Civil society has a role to play.

Corporate America has a role to play. The faith community has a role to play. And if we all will chip in for the good of the order and not concern ourselves with who gets the credit, but just going out there and blocking and tackling and doing our part, Virginia, again, every storm runs out of rain. And this one will.

as well and hopefully we can get us back, get back as close to normal as possible, but no one knows what the normal is going to be after we get in that rhythm that I mentioned. Representative Watts, we just so appreciate your time today and all the work that you're doing on the commission. Thank you so much for being here. Well, I'm delighted to be with you and thank you for having me on. And that will do it for today's episode. Thank you for listening to The Daily Signal Podcast. We do appreciate your patience as we record remotely during these weeks.

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