Sen. Marco Rubio is predicting that the first case of the Zika virus contracted in the United States will trigger “a total freak out” among the American people in the midst of an election year.
“It is not a question of ‘if,’ it’s a question of ‘when,'” the Florida Republican said during a Friday press conference in Miami. “When that moment comes there is going to be, for lack of a better term, a total freak out in the United States about what we are going to do.”
For months, House and Senate lawmakers have debated how to prevent the Zika virus, which mosquitos have spread throughout central America and Puerto Rico, from turning into a public health crisis in the United States. And yet, broad disagreements persist within the GOP and between Republicans and Democrats, preventing the passage of a bill that President Obama could sign.
“I’m not disappointed that Congress didn’t reach a resolution, I’m borderline extremely angry about it because this is not a political issue,” Rubio said. “And look, both sides have done this. My side has claimed that this is nothing but slush funds, some people have. The other side is trying to use this to kind of beat up on Republicans in an election cycle.”
Rubio broke with most Republicans when he supported the passage of $1.9 billion emergency fund that President Obama and most Democrats favor. Instead, the Senate compromised and passed a $1.1 billion legislative package.
House Republicans have no interest in that bill. Instead, they’ve voted to spend $622 million of existing money on the crisis, by authorizing the Department of Health and Human Services to use additional money left over from the Ebola crisis of 2014.
President Obama has threatened to veto that House package. “I don’t know why this has not been treated with the kind of emergency that is it,” Rubio said. “Part of it is just the lack of awareness. It’s the belief that somehow Zika [is] something that happens in these other countries but will never happen here because we’re so sanitary. It’s not a sanitation issue, it’s a mosquito issue and mosquitoes have killed more people than wars in the history of mankind.”
A conference committee between the House and Senate will attempt to resolve the differences between the funding bills. But if they can’t come to an agreement before someone contracts the virus in the United States, Rubio suggested, Zika will turn into an election year disaster.
“There’s going to be a huge panic, and people who were elected for the purpose of keeping our people safe and doing what’s necessary are going to have to answer for that,” he said. “Members of Congress, in the middle of their campaign, are going to have to stop what they’re doing, get on an airplane and fly back to Washington to vote for additional funding, and the public will be really upset that it took weeks and months to deal with this with the seriousness that it deserves.”
