WASHINGTON—U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), a member of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on Thursday joined NBC News Chief Foreign Affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell for a discussion at the Council on Foreign Relations. Murphy and Mitchell discussed the geopolitical ramifications of COVID-19, the Trump administration’s Hong Kong announcement earlier this week and overall disastrous China policy, the importance of Inspectors General and congressional oversight of the Trump administration, and the future of U.S. spending on diplomacy and development.

On President Trump’s failure to respond to COVID-19, Murphy said: “…[A]fter the travel ban failed, the president gave up. He did not implement a national testing plan. He did not take control of the medical equipment supply chain. He did not ask the CDC to provide a national plan for the closing and then reopening of schools and businesses. He did not join together with other nations to try to most effectively produce a vaccine. And today we have 50 different state responses. Many of them are being undermined now by a president who is trying to cheerlead states to reopen in violation of his own administration's plan to reopen America.”

On the Global Health Security and Diplomacy Act announced this week, Murphy said: “[Senator Risch] and I spent last week drafting this bill which is a $3 billion authorization for new international public health programming and a rewrite of much of the structure that undergirds that programming. We establish a new [Coordinator] in the State Department. We set a path to reestablish the capacity in the National Security Council to oversee pandemic preparedness that President Trump stood down. We get the United States into the international vaccine program, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, and then we establish a new program whereby we'd kind of follow the model of the Millennium Challenge grants program, whereby the United States signed contracts with developing nations for economic development funding. We would do the same thing to help vulnerable nations stand up public health infrastructure, put American money—significant American money—into these countries in exchange for their long term plan to reform their own systems with the American money that we put in. So I think this has a very good chance of passing given that the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee is behind it.”

On the future of U.S. defense spending, Murphy said: “…[B]efore anybody had heard of coronavirus, I was giving speeches at CFR saying that the real threat to the United States security are pandemics, or are stateless actors, propaganda machines, climate change—not necessarily a conventional military invasion. And yet, we've been spending about 50 to 100 times the amount of money on conventional military hardware as we have been on public health programs. And so that allocation has to flip.”

On China’s decision to impose a new national security law on Hong Kong, Murphy said: “This is a serious moment and the United States needs to stand by the protesters in Hong Kong and needs to stand up for the ability for Hong Kong to continue to be able to have its own security presence inside the city….Remember, there's really been no international leader other than President Xi who has done more to harm the Hong Kong protesters’ cause than Donald Trump. It was President Trump who got on the phone last summer with President Xi and green-lighted his crackdown on Hong Kong. Because the president was so myopically focused on his trade negotiations with Xi, he told him privately that he would raise no issue with his efforts to bring Hong Kong more closely under the control of Beijing.”

On the Trump Administration’s relationship with Saudi Arabia and the firing of Inspector General Linick, Murphy said:  “I don't think it's any mystery as to what happened with the attempt by Secretary Pompeo to go around congressional approval processes [with last year’s arms sale to Saudi Arabia.]…He knew that Congress would oppose it, and so he created a fake emergency in order to try to make a sale without congressional oversight. So to the extent that the [Inspector General] was going to make a report that confirmed that, it really wouldn't have been earth-shattering. But maybe the IG had additional information about the reasons for this bizarre coziness between the Trump administration and the Saudis. We have always wanted to know more information about the financial connections between Trump and members of his cabinet and the Saudi regime. And it could be that the IG had information that would have helped us unwind and better understand those connections.”

In April, Murphy announced the Inspectors General Independence Act to enhance the independence of Inspectors General and allow them to do their jobs without fear of political retributions. When COVID-19 turned into a pandemic, Murphy penned an op-ed in Foreign Policy about what must be improved before the next pandemic strikes. In another op-ed last October, Murphy laid out a new toolkit for the next Democratic administration to advance U.S. values and interests. In 2017, Murphy authored “Rethinking the Battlefield,” a comprehensive road map for rebuilding our foreign policy in order to keep pace with the global challenges we face.

To watch the conversation with Andrea Mitchell in full click here.

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