WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) today joined Joe Kernen on CNBC’s Squawk Box where she provided an update on West Virginia’s successful reopening, future COVID-19 relief funding, police reform, and more.

West Virginia is currently in week seven of the gradual reopening. Last week, Senator Capito delivered a speech on the Senate floor discussing this as well as the death of George Floyd. Click here for highlights and to watch the full speech.

HIGHLIGHTS:

ON REOPENING THE ECONOMY: “We are in week seven of our gradual reopening. We’ve been very mindful of the reinfection rate and watching that closely and we’ve kept it way under. It’s almost less than 1 percent in some days. Now we are beginning to open our state parks, our casinos, our movie theaters, you can dine in with distancing. But, everyone is very mindful of staying socially distant or wearing a mask… I’m really proud of what West Virginians have done in terms of meeting this challenge.”

ON STIMULUS SPENDING: “We’ve already put over $3.3 trillion into this. We do believe with the PPP program that we’ve been able with the good news we got on Friday to sort of point to that as a very positive note to retaining some jobs and keeping our business doors open. Now is a good time for us to pause, rather than throw $3 trillion like they have on the House at more and more programs. I think we need to turn a little bit and maybe look—yes, recovery still, but more towards stimulus as we try to sustain the growth we see going on. So, I think you’re going to see us assess programs for the next three to four weeks, work together to see if we need individual assistance, small business assistance, and then getting to the state issues.”

ON RENENUE LOSSES: “Where the cities and counties really are losing is the B&O tax and their sales tax. That’s why a lot of say, ‘let’s go ahead and let the state of West Virginia and others take that $1.25 billion and backfill some of these lost revenues in our cities so they can keep their essential services.’ I think that makes total sense to me. It’s no new money, it’s what the governor’s already have. It’s just giving them a little more flexibility.”

ON POLICE REFORM: “Obviously this is a national awakening… There’s a lot of peaceful protesting going on here in D.C. and that’s great for people’s voices to be heard. I think we can look at national police registries in terms of what’s the past violations a police officer had to make sure that different states are aware where you might be getting a bad apple—I think that’s an issue that certainly. We are going to definitely come forward with a package—you saw the Democrats come forward yesterday with one. This is something we can work on together. It’s tough stuff and it’s difficult, but we’ve got to make sure that justice for all is equal and that we are going into this with eyes wide open. If we in Congress don’t begin to talk about this together in a positive way on a national scale, I think we would be deemed a failure in people’s eyes because we turned our heads the other way.” 

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