{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.portman.senate.gov/newsroom/portman-difference/cnbc-portman-discusses-bipartisan-efforts-pass-covid-19-relief-package", "On CNBC, Portman Discusses Bipartisan Efforts to Pass COVID-19 Relief Package", "2020-12-17", "2020", "2020-12", "Republican", "Senate", "OH", "Rob Portman", "P000449", "www.portman.senate.gov", null, null, "legacy", "On CNBC, Portman Discusses Bipartisan Efforts to Pass COVID-19 Relief Package\n \n      \n  \n\n          \n                          \n      December 17, 2020\n      \n  \n |     \n                          \n      Portman Difference\n      \n  \n  \n    \n                  This morning on CNBC's Squawk Box, Senator Portman discussed his bipartisan efforts to pass a COVID-19 relief package. Earlier this week, Portman joined a group of bipartisan senators in introducing two bipartisan packages to provide as much as $908 billion in relief to American students, families, businesses, workers, and health care providers during the ongoing COVID-19 crisis. Congressional leadership is using most of legislation for the basis of the final product they will unveil to create a bridge of support between now and when the COVID-19 vaccine is widely available. \nIn addition, Senator Portman highlighted the importance of coming together on a bipartisan basis to focus on what's best for the American people in the new Congress. Senator Portman believes it's vital that Congress set the example by coming together to solve important problems facing all Americans, regardless of political affiliation. \nExcerpts of the interview can be found below and a video can be found here. \nPORTMAN ON PASSING COVID-19 RELIEF PACKAGE BEFORE DEADLINE:\nI'm always skeptical at year end because it tends to get pushed back a little bit. But I think we'll finish up on Saturday. It means we'll probably see something short-term on Friday night to deal with the continuing resolution for government shutdown. I think we'll get it done this weekend, and we should. It's been nine months since we passed the CARES package. People are hurting. Unfortunately the coronavirus health care crisis has gotten worse, not better recently, and the economy is not as strong as it should be, so we need a bridge between now and when we have the vaccines available. That's what this is, an emergency package to get us through the next few months, to the March, April time frame when we'll actually, hopefully, have the vaccines be widely disbursed and begin to turn the corner on this crisis.\nPORTMAN ON PROVIDING UNEMPLOYMENT SUPPORT IN COVID-19 RELIEF PACKAGE:\nI think Joe is right. You're not going to find a lot of daylight between Joe and me, as you can tell. With regard to unemployment, there are three things that we do in our bill, the bipartisan bill, that is also in the package, at least as we understand it. That is we extend the time period. Otherwise as of the day after Christmas, a bunch of people lose their unemployment. These are people who are self-employed, as an example, gig economy workers, but also people who are taking advantage of the 13-week federal government extension of the state program, and look, we need it in a lot of states. Some states are doing better than others, some sectors of the economy doing better than others, but as you know, as you begin to shut down the economy, a bunch of people lose their jobs through no fault of their own. Sometimes those shutdowns are because of a government edict in some of our states. Sometimes it's just because the coronavirus numbers are so high that people aren't going out to restaurants or to a bowling alley or a movie theater. That's what our bill does is to be sure that's there, and second it provides an additional federal supplement as we had until August, which is the $300. But it does it for a short period of time again, just until we get through the period, this is a bridge to the time when we're going to have vaccines readily available, and we can begin to turn the corner on this crisis.\nPORTMAN ON COMING TOGETHER ON A BIPARTISAN BASIS IN NEXT CONGRESS: \nYes because I think we're going to have a tighter majority. It's either going to be a very slight Democrat majority with 50/50 and a tie breaker by the Vice President or the Republicans are going to have 51 or 52, which is also a very slim majority, and look at the House, same thing, Speaker Pelosi seems to be losing a seat every day these days, so she's down to, I don't know, six or eight seat majority. So, it's very narrow, and this means that we have to figure out a way to work together. We can't allow the country to screech to a halt. We have to be able to work, as we did on this package, as Republicans and Democrats focused on what's best for the country. \nI don't know that it's so much that we're moderates. I think we're just practical in trying to get things done and there's a lot that we need to get done. I look at our infrastructure needs, I look at what's going on with regard to health care costs. I think those are opportunities for us. I look about retirement security, we have a bill to do that that's bipartisan that we could get through. We've got to figure out a way to work together to solve the real problems we face as a country. Look, we need to stop the polarization. Our country is split it's not just the Congress you know. We have seen that throughout Ohio and throughout the country that there's more division than ever. It's time to figure out how to focus on coming together to solve important problems, and I think that's what's this little process that Joe is such a big part of, and nine other colleagues of ours, you know, we figured that you needed to have a COVID-19 package nothing was going on, and we needed to frankly move leadership off the dime, and I think that was very helpful to have this process, and at the end of the day, we'll get something done here. That's good for the American people.\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.portman.senate.gov/newsroom/portman-difference/cnbc-portman-discusses-bipartisan-efforts-pass-covid-19-relief-package"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.488779904320836, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}