Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) delivers a campaign update at the Hotel Vermont on March 11, 2020 in Burlington, Vermont. (Photo by Scott Eisen/Getty Images)
Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders delivered an address on the coronavirus outbreak, rounding out three perspectives from the current president and the two Democratic challengers to his presidency.
Sanders, who trails former Vice President Joe Biden in the delegate race to the nomination, used his speech to contrast with his rivals. He called for the Trump administration to declare a national emergency and appoint an "emergency bipartisan authority of experts" to determine the next steps in the crisis.
Like Biden earlier, Sanders criticized the White House response, calling the administration incompetent and point out that its "incompetence and recklessness have threatened the lives of many, many people in this country."
Sanders and Biden both mentioned the lack of intensive care units and ventilators, an issue raised by health officials but one that the administration has not touched upon. The senator called for mobilizing retired medical professionals and medical students to increase medical care. He implored the nation to protect doctors, medical professionals, and nurses with proper instructions and personal protective equipment both because their safety is important and because "if they go down, then our capacity to respond to this crisis is diminished."
"Our country is at a severe disadvantage," Sanders said, "because we do not guarantee healthcare to people as a right."
During the speech, news came in that France's Emmanuel Macron called coronavirus the worst health crisis in a century, ordered changes to businesses and education and, echoing the very words Sanders was delivering across the Atlantic Ocean, said France will massively increase hospital capacity to deal with the novel coronavirus.
Both Democratic hopefuls today pleaded for an expansion of current practices. Biden called for mobile testing centers and Sanders for an expansion of community health centers.
Sanders also listed proposals to support people from low-income neighborhoods and working-class families, including calling for providing healthcare to immigrants regardless of immigration status, emergency funding for paid medical and family leave and a moratorium on evictions, foreclosures, and utility shutoffs.
Repeatedly, health officials and, now, the Democratic hopefuls, have said a choice between a paycheck and staying home when sick will expedite the spread of a virus in need of slowing down so as not to overwhelm America's health system likely to be overwhelmed in the coming weeks.
"Here is the bottom line and that bottom line is that in the midst of this unprecedented moment, we need to listen to the scientists, to the researchers, to the medical folks — not the politicians," he said of the spread of the virus as "on the scale of major war."
Markets were pointing to a higher open to kick off the third trading week in November. It comes as stocks come off a losing week in reaction to October's consumer price index--which showed inflation at its highest point in over 30 years.
Ryan Detrick, Chief Market Strategist for LPL Financial joined Wake Up with Cheddar to discuss.
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Jill is joined by Baker Machado to talk all things infrastructure: where will the money go and who’s in charge? Plus, Sesame Street has its first Asian-American muppet. And a trailer for the trailer for Spiderman. Huh?
In this week's Cheddar Changemakers, Megan Pratz spoke with a 16-year-old climate activist Sarah Goody. She is the founder of a youth-led climate action group 'Climate NOW.'
We toss around the term "democracy is under attack" quite often without thinking too much, but one organization is actually stepping up to do something about it. The Fairness Project is a group that funds and organizes state ballot measures across the country. It has used ballot initiatives on campaigns aimed at expanding Medicaid, adding more paid time off, and raising minimum wage. It recently launched a new direct democracy campaign to fight back against attempts to make ballot measures inaccessible.
Kelly Hall, executive director of The Fairness Project, joined Cheddar Politics to discuss more about the group's efforts to push for economic and social justice, avoiding partisan gridlock.
Doug Flynn, Certified Financial Planner and Co-Founder of Flynn Zito Capital Management, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell, where he says he believes the news of the infrastructure bill was already priced into the market and that inflation continues to loom large on Wall Street.
President Joe Biden signed into law today his landmark $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill, and it includes approximately $550 billion in new funding for increased broadband access, improving the power grid, and more. But what does this mean for the American economy, and American workers? Eliza Collins, Politics Reporter at The Wall Street Journal joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss what's included in the bill, which former mayor has been tapped to oversee how the bill is implemented, and how these new infrastructure investments will impact the economy.
The two-week COP26 climate conference has now ended with leaders reaching a deal, but so far the deal is getting mixed reviews from climate experts across the globe. Chloe Demrovsky, president and CEO of Disaster Recovery Institute International, explains that while the agreement is a step forward in some ways, the world still has much more to work on in order to keep warming to below 2 degrees Celsius.
Jill and Carlo cover the latest with the infrastructure bill, the growing state rebellion over boosters, Trump's dereliction of duty on the pandemic, Taylor Swift's reign of cultural domination and more.
