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Minnesota native and nationally renowned congressional scholar Norm Ornstein told a University of Minnesota audience that he hopes a 9/11-type commission will be appointed to analyze how Congress and the Trump administration handled the pandemic and the economic shutdown.

He urged that plans be made to ensure the smooth functioning of all three branches of government in future crises. Ornstein suggested a commission on the continuity of government, so the judiciary, the presidency and the congress can be prepared to run the government remotely, if necessary. Such a system would be triggered only in a national emergency.

“I don’t want any president acting by fiat,” he said. 

Norm Ornstein said he is very concerned about the mental health impact of the pandemic, especially among people who already had underlying mental health problems before the coronavirus pandemic started. He called for an intense effort to deal with “brain disease.”

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Ornstein spoke on April 1, 2020, via Zoom with political science professor Larry Jacobs of the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey School of Public Affairs.

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Congressional scholar Norm Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute speaks about the government and leadership response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the economic and mental and physical health crisis it has caused.

Norm Ornstein on the congressional and presidential response to the pandemic

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