It is time for President Donald Trump to declare a national state of emergency to combat coronavirus, Sen. Dick Durbin said Thursday.
“We’ve got to keep America safe," the Illinois Democrat said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe." "Speculating on how this started, where it started and where there were politics involved in it, leave that to the historians. At this moment, we want American families to feel safe and feel that we’re doing everything within our power."
The first thing he wants is to make sure test kits are out and available for the public.
"When the governor of Illinois calls me, calls my office and tells me there's a shortage of these kits and the CDC is not providing them to my home state of Illinois, one of the first with an identified coronavirus victim, that, to me is a need for a national emergency response," said Durbin.
He added that he spoke with officials with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Wednesday and that he was told the chemicals necessary to allow test kits to be taken to a laboratory and processed were not available.
"That, to me, is a breakdown, a basic breakdown," said Durbin. "If it takes a national health emergency to get beyond that and have the test kits we need, let's do it."
He added that he and most other lawmakers are reaching out to the Trump administration to express their concern, "if not anger," over the situation.
"Now the president's announcement last night is worth looking at," Durbin said. "I'm not going to judge it on its merits about travel between Europe and the United States. Europe does have a problem, in Italy, and it's anticipated in other countries. But let's get this right at home."
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