Live from Virginia Wednesday morning on The John Fredericks Show – live 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 Live Weekdays 6-10 am and 24/7 Stream – host Fredericks welcomed Rep. Morgan Griffith of Virginia’s Ninth Congressional District to the show.
During the program, Griffith weighed in on the inability of the House to come to an agreement on a second stimulus package for the many of Americans still suffering. He also dissected the vaccine rollout and how higher risk people would get the vaccine first noting that although the virus is dangerous that treatments have become proven effective.
Fredericks: Joining us now congressman of the Ninth District Morgan Griffith. Congressman great to have you.
Griffith: Good to be with you.
Fredericks: Congressman, no COVID package. Pelosi again refusing to bargain with the republicans. We’re only four I say only 400 billion apart. The Republicans offering 1.8 trillion. Pelosi 2.2 trillion. She wants to bail out Philadelphia and Chicago. You guys don’t want to do it. So we get nothing. This is appalling for the American people because it’s not like she wants 2.2 trillion and the Republicans want a hundred thousand. I mean we’re 70 to 80 percent of the way there. What is the deal? What is going on here?
Griffith: It’s all politics John. You and I’ve talked about that before. The problem is she doesn’t want the president having a win on coronavirus or on another package before the election. So the American people will have to suffer because of Nancy Pelosi’s decision that politics is more important than people. I think it’s atrocious. I think it’s awful. You know the problem is they can’t run on the economy. They can’t run on world peace.
They can’t run on the state of the military. All of which have been improved. Peace, economy, the military. All of which have been improved under the Trump administration. So the only thing that they really have to run on is if you don’t like the dangerous orange man or if you have some issues about coronavirus. And you know polling data indicates that the coronavirus issue is number one for Democrats.
You know to heck with peace security and the economy we’re going to worry about this issue. Which is important. I’m not saying it’s not important. But what I’m saying is we shouldn’t be holding the American family hostage for Democrat Nancy Pelosi’s political agenda.
Fredericks: It’s really sick what she’s doing because people are suffering out there and they need the relief. And especially these small businesses because that PPP money ran out a long time ago. You guys have reformed the program where the money is really going to go to the small businesses not you know $500 million to the Los Angeles Lakers and that nonsense you went through the first time.
But even I excuse that because the bill was put together lightning-fast. it just had to get done. And a lot of people did get relief. Although obviously it was abused. So she’s not doing anything on that. Meantime you’ve got a poll the other day. I just want to get your take on this. I’m kind of stunned by the numbers so for COVID-19 this was a Rasmussen poll and Scott was on the other day kind of shocking he said, in a poll done 65 percent that’s two out of three. Sixty five percent of Republicans didn’t care if they got the virus.
Like they didn’t have any fear of it so to speak. Sixty five percent didn’t care. Only 22 percent of Democrats didn’t care if they got it. So it’s the same virus. I mean it’s everything is the same nothing changes. I mean and this kind of cut across racial lines and economic lines. So if you’re a Democrat says 78 percent are scared of it. And if you’re a Republican only 35 percent are scared of it. What do you attribute that to?
Griffith: Well I think part of it has to do with you know some of the rhetoric. I mean look it is a dangerous virus. I was talking with somebody yesterday and the day before yesterday totally by accident. Just somebody I met who had a friend who was 51 who died from it. So it’s serious and I get it. And what was odd about that case and very very sad was he got it when he went to visit his mother who had COVID who obviously you know in her late 70s or 80s. I didn’t ask.
But she survived it and the son did not. So there is a reason to some fearful about it. That being said the fatality rates based on the number of people who are getting it are not you know at the levels that would require 78 percent or 90 percent of the people to be afraid of getting it. We need to be cautious. We need to be you know taking proper steps while we’re waiting on the vaccine. Which by the way, is you know the fastest development of vaccines ever. Ever. And it’s all being led by the Trump administration.
And no credit. No credit. Instead, they want to discredit the vaccine. And you know I’ve said this to any number of people we’ve been out talking. The president said we’d have a vaccine by the end of December. And this is what the media does and what the Democrats do. Then the CDC director came out there and said it won’t be ready for wide distribution until you know March or April. They’re both right. We’re going to have a vaccine probably by the end of the year maybe a little sooner and then we can start distributing it to the highest risk people.
That will happen. It won’t be available for those like me who already had a mild case. It won’t be available for people who have no co-morbidities probably till March or April, that’s true. Take some time to ramp up the production. They’re both right but when that happened the media said oh Trump lied. it’s not true. Blah blah blah. They were both correct. It was the way they said it one said the vaccine will be developed and ready by the end of December. True.
Mass production is a different story so it’s that kind of you know scaring people into thinking there’s not going to be any hope in the future. Treatment has already gotten a lot better. Not perfect but a lot better and the vaccine is on the way. And that’s why I think most Republicans are calming down because they’re actually paying attention and not paying attention to just the headlines by the mainstream but paying attention to what the facts are and what the science says. Democrats always telling us to follow the science. if they would follow the science on this they would be concerned but not panicked. and right now they’re panicked.
Fredericks: I think this is going to have an impact Congressman Griffith on their Election Day turnout because they have scared their voters into such a frenzy that they’re afraid to go vote. They want to do mail-in ballots. Already in Virginia, we got 387 mailing ballots requested and not returned. Obviously, that number is going to go down. But you know there’s probably going to end up with 200,000 ballots that were not mailed back or not mailed back on time. And then there’s going to be some that have mistakes in them.
So this is a real serious problem. They have scared their voters, they scared the wits out of them with the fake news. And now they’re kind of stuck with it. You had the virus. My wife Ann had it. She was in bed a couple of days fine now but I gotta tell you if a vaccine came out I wouldn’t take it because like why am I gonna take a vaccine. I have no need to take it. If I get it I’m 62 healthy male big guy, I’ll be fine in a day and a half. So even if it comes out right polls are saying now 40 percent of people aren’t even going to take it. So what does that mean if you get a vaccine and half the people don’t take it what does it do?
Griffith: Well it means you know those half are more likely to get it. Most will survive so between the vaccine and those who survived we may have some herd immunity. We don’t have enough testing on this yet. We don’t have enough data yet. The NIH, the National Institute of Health is following that they have a number of different studies going on. As you may know, I’m actually participating in one of the NIH studies on people who had mild cases just so that we have better data going forward as to you know where we stand and then you know we’ll have to go from there. but you know the virus isn’t going to go away and they keep talking about you know they want to make it look like a Trump failure. But worldwide there has been an increase in cases. Not just in the United States.
Listen to the full show here:
https://youtu.be/yzSOUu-xWqo
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Photo “Morgan Griffith” by Morgan Griffith.
