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Congressional Daily Record
This section captures a floor statement or debate entry. It mentions members such as Charles Ellis Schumer.
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May 11, 2026
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Download official Senate Record PDFReturn to issue contextMr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, on the hantavirus, earlier today, 17 Americans—including 3 New Yorkers—who were on the cruise ship at the center of the hantavirus outbreak arrived in Nebraska, where they remained in quarantine. One has since tested positive for hantavirus.
them and praying for their health. No one should have to go through such an ordeal.
The hantavirus outbreak reminds us of what happened during COVID-19. We need to invest in public health and pandemic preparedness. Sadly, the Trump administration has not learned that lesson. The Trump administration gutted our public health defenses. The public may not know it, but Trump fired the workers whose job it is to protect us from outbreaks like hanta.
Federal workers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Department of Health and Human Services including—here is who Trump fired—cruise ship inspectors, port health station staff, disease detectives, and others. He cut all those, and now we have the hantavirus. They were there for a purpose.
Trump, Vought, and Musk also hamstrung the CDC's Vessel Sanitation Program—a program that didn't cost the taxpayers any money. The cruise ships paid for it, but, of course, they didn't care.
The solution is a simple one. I put out a plan that calls on the Trump administration to rehire these fired outbreak-response experts, to restore funding to protect Americans from infectious diseases, and to rejoin the World Health Organization and other groups that track outbreaks and provide early warning.
Diseases like hantavirus and COVID don't care what your politics are. They threaten everyone. Donald Trump needs to stop politicizing public health and start investing in it.