It's Brian Lehrer, and this is my daily politics podcast from WNYC Studios.

It's Thursday, April 23rd.

Connecticut is very much in the coronavirus news right now.

Connecticut has joined together with New York and New Jersey to plan a

contact tracing army designed to help the three states begin to reopen at the right time, not yet,

with those workers ready to help find and support people who have the virus or have been

exposed to the virus and then help them quarantine temporarily to stop the spread in the

context of reopening. That's one reason Connecticut is in the news. Another one is that Connecticut

came up on a radio show yesterday where Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he would rather

see states go bankrupt and use the bankruptcy code

than for the Senate to help states and cities with their monumental expenses stemming from

the pandemic. This clip begins with the question from conservative talk show host, Hugh Hewitt.

Do you think that we need to invent one for states

so that they can discharge some of these liabilities

that were put in place by previous governors?

I mean, Jerry Brown ran a giveaway program

for public employee unions that was just astonishing.

And as did Gray Davis, as did, you know,

it's just a lot of

Democratic governors Illinois is probably the worst in Connecticut they've just

given money away for years to people who aren't working yeah I'm I would

certainly be in favor of allowing state to use the bankruptcy route it's

...