Transcripts For KNTV Meet The Press 20240713

Some of the doctors say it will wash through. It will flow through. My guests this morning, dr. Anthony fauci, head of the National Institute of infectious dewreess, mike dewine of ohio, and j. P. Prits 0. Were headed there, a surge on hospitals. Ill talk to two experts about how prepared our Health Care System is for the coming spike in cases and whether our hospitals could become overrun with patients. Kn and the great shutdown. Chaos at u. S. Airports as travelers return from europe. Schools closing, Sports League cancel, theme parks going dark. Still, are we doing enough to slow the disease. Joining me are peter baker, chief White House Correspondent for innew york times, kasie hunt, david brooks, columnist for the new york times, and yamiche alcindor. Welcome to sunday and a special edition of meet the press. Announcer from nbc news in washington, the longest running show in television history. This is a special edition of meet the press with chuck todd. Good sunday morning. Americas recognition of the Coronavirus Crisis we now face seems to have grown at about the same pace the virus itself has spread. Slowly at first and then exponentially. As of this morning, there were rurally 3,000 confirmed cases of the coronavirus in the u. S. , resulting in 60 deaths, but theres been very limited testing. Gone is the nonsense that this is a hex. Gone mostly is the disinformation that this is nothing worse than the flu, and gone is the myth that were in i inconveniences. President trumps declaration of a emergency calmed the markets but only after it prompted wall streets worst day in more than three decades. Ill talk to dr. Anthony fauci. Two governors, and two Hospital Executives at the front line of this crisis, and we have our political panel. So many questions remain. Why has the u. S. Reacted more like overwhelmed italy than south korea where there appears to be some containment. Why do Health Experts seem so much more alarmed than the federal government is. Will the Health Care System be able to handle the surge in cases and ultimately, are we doing enough now to stop the epidemic . We know this. Life in america is changing, at least for the time being. Sadly, things are likely to get worse before they get better. Were moving into uncharted territory. Millions of students will now have to stay home. Financial markets in freefall. A nationoge, as efforts to contain a globep pandemic grind public life to a halt. Nervous, scared, confused. Not ruly sure whats going on. Governors in 19 states and washington, d. C. Have closed schools, the National Guard is now active in a growing number of states. Businesses are shuttering. Last night, airports from chicago to dallas to new york jammed with americans trying to come home. I have just enacted an executive order to activate the National Guard. A state disaster for all counties in the state of texas. We will close all k12 schools. On friday, the president declared a national emergency. A national emergency, two very big words. The action i am taking will open up access to up to 50 billion. And the house passed an emergency relief package. The legislation includes two weeks of paid sick leave and up to three months of paid family and medical leave for many americans, as well as food aid enhanced unemployment benefits, and free testing regardless of insurance coverage. There three most important parts of this bill are testing, testing, testing. Still, despite weeks of promises on testing on the subject of testing, we have been making steady progress. The production and shipping of tests that we talked about all week is completely on schedule. Anybody that needs a test gets a test. The atlantics covid tracking project reports fewer than 25,000 tests have been conducted nationwide. Nbc has confirmed about 3,000 reported cases but testing data is very difficult to collect. People should not say if you want a test you can get a test right now. We have a serious defish aeps. Do you take responsibility for that. No, i dont take responsibility at all. Because of the limits on testing, the actual number of cases is likely much higher. Even though we only have five confirmed cases, we feel that we could have up to 100,000 people in ohio right now who are carrying around the coronavirus. And joining me now is a very familiar face these days in this kries, dr. Anthony fauci, head of the National Institute of allergy and infectious diseases. Welcome back to meet the press. Good to be with you. Let me start with the testing issue. I start it there because i feel as if this is were on repeat. Every week, were told, no, were ramping up. And every week, we dont ramp up. Why should we believe that this is the week that this is going to work . Yeah, chuck, i think the reason is because we really made somewhat of a sea change here. Obviously, early on, we werent in the situation where we could actually get the tests out in a broad way. And i mentioned on the show last week that we need to get the private sector involved. Just a couple days ago, we had the ceos there who are going to be putting it in full overdrive. I would expect very soon. When i say soon, im talki ing days to a week where you start to see it go up like this. Not everybody tomorrow is going to be able to get a test, but soon, youll see a major escalation of capability and implementation. This is just one example. Steve peoples, a reporter for the associated press, he shared his experience. Im presenting symptoms. I want to get tested in north jersey. Primary care tells me to go to e. R. E. R. Says to call the health department. Health Department Tells me to go to urgent care. Urge ntd care says go to e. R. No tests. Youre going to hear individual ones, but as a group, its going to change, chuck. It really is. Once you get the heavy hitters from industry and private sector involved, theyre going to be able to make it go. Whats realistic about the spread of this virus right now . We had Governor Mike Dewine who is going to be on the show later on, he goes, yes, we only have 26 confirmed cases, but his scientific advisers say there could be 100,000 cases in ohio. Is that a fair estimation . It is. The nature of outbreaks is you percolate and then you reach an exponential fade. You look at every curve, it does this and then goes way up. Italy is an example of an individual country that did not implement the massive type of containment and mitigation. And it went way up. Theyre here now. Theyre really struggling. Our goal right now is that if you do nothing, its going to do this. Were going to get more cases, no matter what. But we need to do with containment and mitigation is to blunt that curve, because left to its own devices, its going to do this. How do you know do you have any evidence were blunting it . Right now, well, im sure that we are with what were doing. But the numbers dont tell us that yet. So whats going to happen is that if it goes like this and continues and doesnt come down, if you have a mound, you have done something. But you dont know about it until after the fact. On any given day, you cant say, oh, we blunted the numbers, because the numbers are still going up. No matter what you do. Its how much up they go that is the issue. I guess the question, though, is are we taking these precautions that you and others have said seriously. I dont know if you have seen overnight, these pictures at various airports at people scramble to come back from europe. Look at these crowds in ohare, crowds in dallas, at dulles. These are people because of this worry, they want to get back in the country from europe, and theyre being jammed together. This is the federal government, the governor of illinois basically said look, we cant do anything about this. This is the federal government. What went wrong here . I dont think anything went wrong. Its the nature of the problem. When you have a situation when people are in different countries, there are going to be restrictions. American citizens, their family, they can get back. They dont need to immediately get back because they think theyre going to get left down. Thats what they did do. But theyre not. They will be able to get back. When they do get back, theyre going to have some enhanced screening. Depending on the country. If youre in the european group, if youre with the uk and irela ireland, you have two weeks of selfimposed isolation. Italy, you brought up italy a few times. I want to bring up a story here in the boston globe where one Italian Journalist shared the following remark. Many of us were too selfish to follow suggestions, noawere on lockdown and people are needlessly dying. This is st. Paddys day. Is this a mistake. France just shut it down. Spain is shutting it down. I think pennsylvania is thinking about doing this. Should the country shut down bars and restaurants . You know, thats an individual question. What the country should do is absolutely and more so proportionately in those areas that have Community Spread. But as a country what areas dont have Community Spread right now, dr. Fauci . I mean real, obvious Community Spread. The question is you want to bring down and hunker down everywhere, even more so. Im not saying the rest of the country is okay, dont worry about it. Everybody has to get involved in distancing themselves socially. If you are in an area where theres clear Community Spread, you have to be much, much more intense about how you do that. Thats when you get things like school closings. You dont want a school close every school in the country, but there are areas why dont you . I ask this, do you worry that if some places do a lockdown but some dont, i take i think indiana is one of every state that touches indiana has closed schools but indiana hasnt, for instance. Are you risking something if not everybody is following the same guidelines . No, chuck, you always want to be ahead of the curve. The golden rule i say is that when you think youre doing too much, youre probably doing enough or not enough. Okay. Thats the thing youve got to do. You dont want to be complacent. You always want to be ahead of the curve. It depends on how far ahead of the curve you want to be. Dont even for a second think im saying we shouldnt i like to be criticized when i say oh, youre being too overreactive. Thats good for me. Let me ask it this way. We had a health care official say it to us, if we could guarantee people would get their sick leave pay, guaranteed we could basically do what fema does in a natural disaster, give people cash for the basics, for groceries, would you prefer a 14day sort of National Shutdown to slow this down . You know, i would prefer as much as we possibly could. I think we should really be overly aggressive and get criticized for overreacting. Have you made this point of view known inside the administration . Yes. Is it getting pushback or are they going there . In fairness, they listen and they jirly go with what we say. Should we expect more closures . Should more americans be prepared to be hunkering down at their house . I think americans should be prepared theyre going to have to hunker down significantly more than we as a country are doing. That means no restaurants, no bars, things like that . When you say no i hear you. Unlikely. Yeah, much more so. Obviously, youre going to have people go to restaurants anyway, but for the most part, and particularly if i can say this, this is particularly appropriate and relevant for people at the high risk. The elderly and those who have underlying conditions. Right now should really hunker down. The final thing i want to ask you about is our hospital preparedness. The ventilator situation and the respirator situation both seem to be potentially dire if this if we dont flatten the curve. How concerned are you . If you have a really massive increase in cases, theres no country or anybody in the world thats going to be perfectly prepared. But we have a stockpile, and we will hopefully be able to back fill and refill that stockpile. I think people should remember thats the reason why we want to blunt that curve. If you let the curve get up there, then the entire society is going to be hilt. Should all elective surgery be postponed . For the post part, elective surgery, keep people out of the hospitals except those who need to be in the hospitals. If you think you have symptoms, dont go to a hospital, right . Dont. Contact a physician, a health care provider, and get instructions on how to get tested but stay home. Final question is this. I want to show a picture of the briefing. Are you practicing enough social distancing . At the time, the president was being tested. You looked up here, and a lot of us were going, wait a minute, we have been told not to be in a crowd that small. You know, a crowd that small, but smiles theres business you need to do. But im working on it, chuck. Im working on getting everybody to do this. Elbows out. Dr. Fauci, i know these have been some long nights, long days. Thanks for coming on and giving us more information. Always good to be with you, chuck. In our new nbc news wall street journal poll out this morning, we asked registered voters how much confidence they have in government leaders to handle the outbreak. 75 say they have confidence in the state government. 72 said the same about their local government. 62 said the same about the federal government. And 48 said they have that kind of confidence in President Trump individually. Governors as the heads of state government, top that list, and we have two with us this morning. Mike dewine of ohio, and democratic governor j. Bmpb. Pritzker of pritzker, let me st with what happened at ohare. You werent the only airport, but every International Airport seemed to have a similar situation. Dr. Fauci seemed to say that is what is going to happen when you come back into this country. What do you believe should have been done that wasnt done. Thats not right. I have enormous respect for dr. Fauci, but thats just incorrect. We knew when the president gave the orders that european travel back to the United States was going to be cut off, that there would be an influx of people, americans and others, that would come before the final cutoff. So what should have happened . They should have increased the customs and Border Patrol numbers. And they should have increased the number of cdc personnel on the ground doing those checks. They did neither of those. Last night, as people were flooding into ohare airport, they were stuck in a small area. Hundreds and hundreds of people. And thats exactly what you dont want in this pandemic. So we had that problem. And then today, its going to be even worse. There are a larger number of flights with more people coming. And they seem completely unprepared. You have not gotten any reassurance from Customs Officials that theyre going to have more folks onhand today . Well, heres what i got. I got a call at about 11 00 last night after that tweet from a white house staffer who yelled at me about the tweet. That is what i got. Now, we have been talking to customs and Border Patrol officials directly on the ground at ohare. I have been working with the mayor and our senators to make sure were getting the federal government to Pay Attention to this problem because we cant have it happen all day today. Governor dewine, you have been among the more governors that have i think following dr. Faucis advice, and frankly, i think your own Health Official who said in pandemics, people think youre overreacting at the start. And then after its over, they think you have underreacted. Based on what you heard from dr. Fauci, are you going to close bars and restaurants in the state of ohio . Were certainly looking at that. We started off last week closing the schools. We reduced the number of people gathered together to 100. You know, we restricted access to our nursing homes, to our prisons. So were taking tough steps. And chuck, i think its very instructive, i know people talked about this before, but i just looked at a chart. You look at the pandemic of 1918, compare the two cities of st. Louis and philadelphia. And you saw philadelphia didnt get it, but the thing i noticed in the chart is philadelphia was only two weeks behind st. Louis. So philadelphias went straight like this. St. Louis is more like that, and so what it tells us is that all the people i have been consulting from dr. Amy acton who is doing a great job as my health director, but to national experts, they say look, every day counts so much. You cannot wait. Youve got to move very, very quickly, and look, these are tough decisions. Were inconveniencing people, making lives change, but we have to save lives. It struck me, governor, that on wednesday, i think you announced six cases. Thursday, 13. Friday, 26. We can do basic math here, double, double, double. Its what dr. Fauci said. Im certain youre not excited about your 2 00 p. M. Briefing today youll be doing. Do you have any indication that anything is bending this curve down to that mound yet . Well, i dont think we can tell, but you know, as the experts tell me, were always way, way behind in what we know. Our testing is just now ramping up. For example, cleveland clinic, university of cincinnati, some other hospitals are just now basically coming online in their ability to test. Were going to see the number of tests go up dramatically, but what im telling the people of ohio, look, none of this should be a surprise. We know theres a bunch of people out there carrying this virus around. Thats our message, particularly to young people. You may not get really, really sick. You may get lucky, but you may take that to your grandma who is 80, and you know people in theiriatetheir 80s, the mortality rate is 15 to 20 . Governor pritzker, chicago does st. Paddys day on a level many cities do not. You have been concerned about the crowds at bars and restaurants around over the weekend. Are you thinking about shutting down bars and restaurants, particularly after hearing what dr. Fauci said. Let me compliment governor dewine. We had to provide the leadership because the federal government has fallen down on this. They didnt advice us to shut down events. Theyre not the ones who advised us to close down schools. We made those decisions on our own. Were on our own. I wish we had leadership from washington. Were not getting it. With regard to st. Patricks day, we shut down the parade. We didnt cover the river green, like we usually do, and i have advised we need to keep our crowds smaller. We put a limit of 250 people in gatherings. We canceled all the gatherings larger than that. Yesterday, what we saw was many young people who think theyre impervious to this went out and celebrated. And i had my 2 30 briefing yesterday called out the problem of people on the street, and unfortunately, we havent seen a lot of movement. People arent understanding that even if youre healthy, even if youre young, you may be a carrier and youre going to hand it over to somebody else. Covid19 is spreading because even Healthy People can be Walking Around giving it to other people. We need to go on lockdown. I was just going to say, it sounds like then so are you going to close bars and restaurants . That is your plan . You sort of contradicted yourself saying you were going to keep the size smaller, but then youre making the case to lockdown. What im telling you is we have been on the trajectory now. And planning for each of these steps, because its not easy. You can imagine each one of these decisions has consequences to them that are not just about the pandemic. Theyre also about peoples livelihoods. Were actually looking hard at that Decision Making today. We obviously saw what happened in europe. Nowhere in the United States really has there been a lockdown on bars and restaurants, but its something were seriously looking at. Both of you have primaries on tuesday. You have indicated a couple days ago you guys will go forward. Any hesitance, governor dewine, you first . Were going to go ahead, but were telling people, again, to be careful. The good thing in ohio is we have basically four weeks of voting. People can vote today. Were urging them to go vote today. They can vote monday. They have 13 hours on tuesday. That just naturally spreads it out. Were asking them to be very, very careful. Governor pritzker, any second thoughts about the primary on tuesday . We have done the same as ohio. We have actually lengthened our hours of early voting. We have mail balloting. We have record mail balloting this year. Were going to go ahead with it, but we have been extra careful at all of our polling places. Everybody is practicing good hygiene and making sure its safe for people to come and vote. Schools are closed so many people will be voting in schools, and there wont be big crowds. I have a feeling it may be the last primaries we have for a little while, anyway. Governors dewine and pritzker, thank you for joining us. Thank both for your service. One of the great fears in this crisis is that hospitals could become overwhelmed by a tsunami of cases. When i come back, ill talk to two top Hospital Executives on whether our Health Care System whether our Health Care System can survive whats coming t but were also a company that controls hiv, fights cancer, repairs shattered bones, relieves depression, restores heart rhythms, helps you back from strokes, and keeps you healthy your whole life. From the day youre born we never stop taking care of you. Doprevagen is the number oneild mempharmacistrecommendeding . Memory support brand. You can find it in the vitamin aisle in stores everywhere. Prevagen. Healthier brain. Better life. woman no matter what business you are in, Digital Transformation never stops. Verizon keeps business ready for whats next. man we weave security into their business. second man virtualize their operations. third man and could even build ai into their customer experiences. We also keep them ready for the next big opportunity. Like 5g. woman where machines could talk to each other and expertise could go anywhere. woman when it comes to Digital Transformation, verizon keeps business ready. Welcome back. If the thousands of confirmed cases of covid19 turn into millions, how will our Health Care System manage . The steps were taking like social distancing are all an effort to flatten the pandemics curve so hospitals arent overwhelmed. That is why this flattening of the curve is such a priority. Joining me is the president of ucla health, and the president of massachusetts general hospital. Welcome to you both. Let me start with you, dr. Slaven, about the things that mass general is doing. When are you preparing for what is going to be the peak of this curve, whether its a mound or a spike, is this coming in days, weeks, when do you expect it . Good morning, chuck. This is something that places like mass general and hospitals around the country do on a daily basis on a small scale. We have been preparing for disasters for over 100 years, and for this particular one over the last two months. Were taking a variety of steps to get ready. We, like other parts of the society, are promoting social distancing, asking our staff who can stay at home to stay at home, canceling elective surgery and trying to do as much Outpatient Care through tele medicine, particularly for vulmurrable populations and were training our staff and getting ready to engage in this difficult challenge that lies ahead. Do you have a timeframe at all that your experts are telling you based on what they think is happening in new england. We think that the next week or two are going to be critical. We have begun to see cases in this area but we expect them to rise dramatically in the next couple weeks. You have had the west coast dealing with this a little longer than the east coast. What have you learned over the last six weeks that tells you what we should be expecting over the next six weeks . Well, thank you for having me. I want to first start by saying this is definitely an unprecedented time for Health Care Systems in our country. But chuck, i want your viewers to also know the remarkable effort that our staff are making around the clock to really prepare and implement our Emergency Preparedness plan for the covid19 outbreak. And all of this is really consistent with our mission of an Academic Health system to really treat the most complex injury and illness we see with our team of experts to really train that next generation of Health Care Professionals on how to face these outbreaks and to conduct that leading Edge Research and discovery that hopefully will lead to more cures. So we focused on, in addition to all the things that peter mentioned, our big focus has been how do we establish surge capacity, recognizing that most of our hospitals are full. So our efforts have looked at really how we can create additional places to care for patients. If you go past our Emergency Department now, youll see tents erected in the parking lot that allow us to increase Emergency Department capacity. Throughout our 180 clinics throughout los angeles and southern california, were encouraging telemedicine visits so we can create additional capacity there. We set up a satellite drivethrough testing station. We were fortunate at ucla health, our virology lab was one of the first to Start Testing and doing our own tests that really save us time. Were hoping to continue to increase capacity, and having that drivethrough area allows us to really contain patients from coming in to our main hospitals where our most sick patients are. Doctor, it seems as if the thing we keeps hearing about, respirators and ventilators, the Health Care Equipment Health Care Workers need to treat folks, and ventilators because if it gets really this is one of the things with breathing issues for those that are elderly. What are your concerns . Has the federal government stepped up enough on this front . My concern is i think we need to think about this in almost a warlike stance. My concern is that we have millions of Health Care Workers around this country who are prepared to do battle against this virus but im concerned there are at least a couple areas of supplies they need in order to fight that virus as effectively as possible. One is the testing we need, and dr. Fauci commented on that, and i hope indeed that private labs are going to ramp up testing. We started at mass general to increase our testing as of yesterday. Why was it yesterday . Why wasnt this six weeks ago . Can you help explain to viewers why your lab and i talked to johnese about this earlier, they got online last week, too. Why did these private facilities take so long to get online . It was just a day before yesterday that we got regulatory relief from the fda so we didnt have to jump through hoops. The fda relaxed its regulations so we could begin testing immediately. My other big concern is personal testing equipment. Even before the most significant battles lie ahead, our supplies are low. I heard from hospitals around our region and our country that their supplies are low. And we need the federal government to engage in a manhattan project, to get industry to create surgical masks, eye protection devices, gowns, sore our Health Care Workers can engage in this battle. We wouldnt want to send soldiers into war without helmets and armor. Last question for you. One thing the federal government hasnt done yet that you would like to see them step up and do. Again, i would echo what peter has mentioned about supplies. We have to make sure we have the personal protective equipment to keep our Health Care Providers and our patients and families safe. Johnese and peter, good luck over the next couple weeks and perhaps couple of month. I know were all hoping you can handle this surge capacity. Thank you much. For the latest on the coronavirus, follow the live blog on nbcnews. Com coronavirus. When we come back, President Trump says hes doing a terrific job confronting the crisis. Is he . Panel is next. Thousands of women with metastatic Breast Cancer, which is Breast Cancer that has spread to other parts of the body, are living in the moment and taking ibrance. Ibrance with an aromatase inhibitor is for postmenopausal women or for men with hr her2 metastatic Breast Cancer, as the first hormonal based therapy. Ibrance plus letrozole significantly delayed disease progression versus letrozole, and shrank tumors in over half of patients. Patients taking ibrance can develop low white blood cell counts, which may cause serious infections that can lead to death. Ibrance may cause severe inflammation of the lungs that can lead to death. Tell your doctor right away if you have new or worsening symptoms, including trouble breathing, shortness of breath, cough, or chest pain. Before taking ibrance, tell your doctor if you have fever, chills, or other signs of infection, liver or kidney problems, are pregnant, breastfeeding, or plan to become pregnant. Common side effects include low red blood cell and low platelet counts, infections, tiredness, nausea, sore mouth, abnormalities in liver blood tests, diarrhea, hair thinning or loss, vomiting, rash, and loss of appetite. Be in your moment. Ask your doctor about ibrance. Welcome back. The panel is here. David brooks, yamiche sal cinder, kasie hunt, and peter baker, chief White House Correspondent for the new york times. I feel like this morning, peter, we heard a little bit, if you read between the lines of dr. Fauci and the governors of this, of the federal government is leaning in but perhaps not as much as they would like to. Because on one hand, theyre making the case that we need to were not doing enough, and on the other hand, theyre not ready to call for more action. Stunning to hear they got the fda approval yesterday. This is mass general, one of the leading hospitals in this country. I thought one of the most interesting moments came when dr. Fauci was on the hill and asked is it going to get worse . Yes, its going to get worse. What about things like nba games . Yes, things like nba games should be shut down. Within 24 hours, all sports shut down. Theyre craving direction. Theyre craving for washington to tell them what are we supposed to do at this point . And theyre not hearing from the president. The president is kind of a bystander as School Superintendents and mayors and governors make these decisions to shut down life and the president hasnt given the Firm Direction theyre looking for. Kasie, did you hear dr. Fauci recommend closing down bars and restaurants . It seemed like he wasnt willing to quite say that. But he kind of implied it. If it were me and i owned a bar or restaurant and listonene to the interview, i would think this is the best plan. To peters point, thats what were hearing from the community. Im hearing it from my friends looking to us in the media for guidance on what to do. Americans know this is something they need to be worried about, they need to take action in their own lives. Even if they feel concerned, they have no idea what to do. The lack of clarity is a serious problem. David brooks, this was after the wednesday address, noah rothman wrote, theres no excuse for the kind of carelessness in a prepared address to the nation. The cumulative effect of these errors and compromise measures was to leave the nation less confident than before the president spoke. The president might have been better off keeping quiet, but the point is it does seem as if that lack of confidence, and you start to see it, its spreading with different people on how to deal with this crisis. We see it with every fall official, none can get in front of President Trump so they all have to hang back. I had a friend, somebody i care about deeply, call me last night and say he had a fever. I had no idea what to tell him. It was very unnerving. The next instinct is, im going to drive up and see him, but we cant do that either. This goes against human nature that we cant care for our loved ones. We have a president who doesnt feel the emotions of other people. Therefore, he cant read the country. Six months ago, he cant say people are really hurting, theyre afraid out there. I have to act. He lacks that sense. Hes not really seeing the country. Hes reading what people think about him, which is all he sees. Therefore, all his reactions are late and deadened. Yamiche, this is the last two weeks. Take a listen. Finding very little problem. Very little problem. Now, you treat this like a flu. Its going to disappear one day. Its like a miracle, it will disappear. This is their new hoax. Anybody who needs a test gets a test. It will go away, just stay calm. Some of the doctors say it will wash through. It will flow through. Missing urgency. Well, the defining characteristic of the Trump Administration has been this real challenge for truth, this real challenge of the facts, alternative facts. You had the president say all sorts of misinformation intentionally or not intentionally. You had the president s lawyer say truth isnt truth. What you have here is a president , who as david said, wants to calm people because people are frankly terrified. Theyre scared, people are crying in their cars wondering if they should be in big crowds and the president really bungling easy things like an Oval Office Address that should have said heres the things you need to do. Instead, it had him say misinformations like were not sure if all goods will be banned from europe. We dont know if Insurance Companies are going to cover the treatments of coronavirus. He obviously had to clean all that stuff up. What you have is a leadership vacuum that people are worried about. The governors have filled the vacuum. Im curious, congressional republicans, it seems to be offline, theyre very concerned that theyre basically being judged through the prism of how the president is responding. Governors get to separate themselv themselves. This is a crisis on capitol hill. You know, were going to spend the coming week waiting for the senate to take action on a compromise that came late into the night on friday between the white house and house democrats. And its not clear to me that there is a path forward with senate republicans. Theres so much internal squabbling. Theres other priorities and issues theyre trying to deal with. Nobody can give me a timeline, can say oh, yes, were all going to get onboard. The senate, if all 100 senators agree, they can act like nat. It takes a minute or two. If they want to do it that way, they can. So far, no indxz theyre going to. Thats just surprising on Mitch Mcconnells part, frankly, because usually hes laser eyed, knowing. I ackohl dont think this is a Mitch Mcconnell problem. But there are some other republicans in the conference, there was a strament from ron johnson complaining about some of the bill. There are other issues at hand that some senators, mike lee is focused on the fisa renewal. The eye is not on the ball right now in the senate. How does the president deal with that . Well, hes subcontracted it out to steve mnuchin, actually. Hes been a nonplayer when it comes to these negotiations. He said steve, you take care of it. He hasnt even spoken with nancy pelosi in weeks. The two are estranged because of impeachment and other issues. Hes left it to his treasury secretary. And you know, thats a consequence of the partisan wars we had these last three years when the number one official in the country and number three official in the country are not on speaking terms, that doesnt lend itself to the kind of action washington needs. Brooks, what would we say about another country whose politics are so dysfunctional their heads of two different branches couldnt speak to one another. We would call it a failed state. So, we have weakened our institutions overdecades. We had candidates run against the swamp. The swamp looks pretty valuable right now. You want an establishment that can do stuff. What were lacking right now is a complete mobilization. The federal government should send 1,000 checks to everybody. We need the hospital gowns, the ventilators to be built. It should be a world war ii mentality. Then it took a consciousness, we had institutions that worked. We have weakened them. I dont get the sense it feels as if the administration sees this as a political inconvenience still. Not everybody in the administration. The political folks in the administration is probably a better way to look at it. You vathe president looking at his own political future and saying the thing i was going to run on apart from maybe culture wars is the economy, and thats the thing im most worried about. Thats why you had those lastminute negotiations where the president was trying to see, why cant i get my pay roll tax, the industries that are going to be hit that might strain my ability to be reelected, why cant they get the help they need . I think all of that is coming. Its a political disaster. And the only way to fix it is to make it less of a medical disaster. Its the only way through it. 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The cancellation of the frozen 4, which is college ice hockeys mens championship, thats costing the city of detroit 10 million. Atlanta was preparing to host the culmination of the mens march madness tournament, the final four, now that city is losing more than 100 million. And south by southwest, the music, film, and tech conference in austin, texas, that cancellation will lost that city 355 million. Flight cancellations are creating a huge economic crisis for the Major Airlines and their workers. In fact, flight schedules have already been slashed to levels even lower than they were after the september 11th terrorist attacks. And in an effort to fill any seats at all, ticket prices have fallen rapidly. These are next day roundtrip tickets during peak spring break time. And the prices are still falling. Those same flights for may are now only 97 round trip. And Hotel Cancellation rates are spiking across the globe. 40 in north america. Just over 50 in europe, and a whopping 90 rate in asia. The point is, the financial repercussions globally will grow fast and hit hard. Health and safety obviously comes first, but many will be feeling the economic strain of this pandemic for a long time, not just weeks, not just months, but maybe even years. When we come back, how at fidelity, online u. S. Stocks and etfs are commissionfree. And when you open a new brokerage account, your cash is automatically invested at a great rate. Thats why fidelity leads the industry in value while our competition continues to talk. Talk, talk doprevagen is the number oneild mempharmacistrecommendeding . Memory support brand. You can find it in the vitamin aisle in stores everywhere. Prevagen. Healthier brain. Better life. woman no matter what business you are in, Digital Transformation never stops. Verizon keeps business ready for whats next. man we weave security into their business. second man virtualize their operations. third man and could even build ai into their customer experiences. We also keep them ready for the next big opportunity. Like 5g. woman where machines could talk to each other and expertise could go anywhere. woman when it comes to Digital Transformation, verizon keeps business ready. Welcome back. We have some numbers. 45 of registered voters polled say they approve the way President Trump is handling the coronavirus, while 51 disapprove. Check out the partisan split. This also is somewhat familiar. Democratic disapprove by an 84 13 margin, and republicans completely flip the script and approve of the handling by that similar enormous margin. But the partisan split goes well beyond that. Far more democrats than republicans are concerned that a Family Member will catch the virus. Look at that difference. Democrats are far more likely to avoid large gatherings than republicans are and much more likely to change trar travel plans. David brooks, this is the unintended consequence a lot of us fears of this polarization of how people get information. That, to me, is to show that how two thirds of the country gets their information from one set of people and one third of the country gets it somewhere else. You see it there. Yeah. Its crazy. I mean, is cancer a partisan issue now . The virus is a partisan issue. You see all reality through a partisan lens. Thats just one of the divides that opens up. I read back about all the pandemics over centuries. You think people come together in a crisis . In pandemic, they flow apart. Reporting from every crisis for the last 1,000 years of this sort is neighbors withdraw from neighbors. You get widened class divisions. You get out of fear, you get a spirit of callousness. Dont forget xenophobia. In 1918, we lost 600,000 americans to flu, and nobody wanted to talk about it afterwards because they were ashamed of how they behaved. We need to take steps to make ourselves decent neighbors. People need to get on next door, so at least you know whats going on right around you, which is super important. This is going to be not only a Health Crisis and a financial crisis. Its how we treat each other is going to deteriorate, and were not going to like who were about to become. Wow, you painted an even more bleak picture. This was a depressing finding because this idea that, that people judge their Public Health warnings through the prism of the party, the person it belongs to. Its pretty crazy. And theres this idea that, of course, the president has not helped the situation by being talking in front of thousands of people, calling at least the reporting of this a hoax. Making it seem as though people talking about the virus being an issue was really a personal attack on him because he feels so personally aggrieved this is happening. What you see here is the fact, as you said, theres a polarized nation. People are getting information sometimes from President Trumps twitter account, and hes been trying to downplay this from the beginning, including contradicting his own Health Officials. I also think a really important part of this poll was on page 16, which was question 20, when they said who do you feel very confident be specific, would you . Who do you feel confident about how theyre handling this, up to 75 said they were happy with the way the states were handling it. Less than 50 said they were confident in the way the president was handling it. Kasie hunt, its within this ba backdrop, democrats are far more concerned about this. This is the backdrop for tonight. Bernie sanders, joe biden, what may be the final democratic primary debate. We have states postponing primaries. Georgia is the latest to do it, louisiana did it earlier. Well see what happens after tuesday, how many more states join. How does Bernie Sanders go after joe biden tonight on a topic that isnt about coronavirus . Im not sure he does, chuck. I mean, you have seen Bernie Sanders himself already sort of struggle going after joe biden. Theres been some great reporting, rudy kremer wrote about why that was, because he still has fond feelings because joe biden treated him well before Bernie Sanders was a thing, and Bernie Sanders continues to appreciate that. I think we have seen health care be the center of all of these democratic debates, or most of them, anyway. I think youll see some more of that tonight, most likely, but i think that it is nearly impossible situation to be seen having a political squabbling match in light of whats going on. Peter, im not interested in the Nfl Free Agency news im reading about now, when they have nothing else to write about, and i get it. It feels like i think this makes Bernie Sanders job almost impossible. Yeah, he wanted clearly to have one last idealogical headtohead oneonone kind of confrontation with joe biden to talk about the direction of the party before the likelihood that he ends his campaign. This next set of primaries on tuesday do not favor Bernie Sanders, but biden has a great deal of momentum, and Bernie Sanders wanted to have one last chance to say i think this is what our party should be about, and its been completely taken over by this one issue. David, i want to close with the cultural changes that this is going to inevitably make on america. You spend so much time sort of chronicling the good and bad of the societal changes that have taken place over the last generation. In one fell swoop, we may make massive changes on how we interact with ourselves that will last a generation. I do think loneliness and isolation are core problems underlying a lot of our other problems and now social distancing has become a virtue. Thats going to make that problem of loneliness, detachment, alienation even worse. Its up to us, neighbor by neighbor. We cant go and knock on the doors of our neighbors, but if we had the emails of our neighbors, we could have communication. Old people die when theyre not looked up on in the crisis. So check up on the old lady next to you. Dont physically go next door. Send an email, drop a letter. Something. It is a time for culture wars. The president has called this a foreign virus. There are many people not wanting to go to chinese restaurants. It isnt the time to say these people gave it to us. Thats what the president was saying when he was blaming the eu for not closing their borders. If you want to blame, blame earth. We all live on the same planet. The one positive thing i will say, i think i have heard from old friends more in the last week than i have in the Previous Year or year and a half. I do think there is an element of common humanity that i hope is bringing people together despite some examples of poor actors stockpiling purell and other things. You dont have to check your phone if theres nothing else going on but one thing. Thank you for watching. Pleads, take the advice, avoid big groups. Practice social di the coronavirus pandemic is reaching new levels. Some never implemented in modern day america. Schools, restaurants, bars, all close as the Government Works to increase social distancing among citizens the message from the top the americans will have to hunker down significantly more to fight coronavirus the testing stations will begin to roll out in the coming days and weeks. Democrats went head to head at a safe 6 feet distance last night. Early today begins now good morning