Appreciative. If they dont treat me right, i dont call. The governor of washington and the governor of nebraska join me, next. Plus Congress Passes an historic bill to help workers. Every dollar we spend is an investment in the lives and livelihood of the American People. Will it be enough . Ill speak exclusively to House Speaker nancy pelosi, next. Hello, im jake tapper in washington where the state of our union is staying at home. Today marks exactly one month since the first coronavirus death in the United States. Thereof n there have now been more than 2,000 deaths in america, a Staggering Number that has doubled in the last two days. More than six times as many deaths now as last week. President trump has backed off a plan to quarantine the new york region. Instead the cdc is issuing a travel advisory recommending that people in new york, new jersey, and connecticut refrain from travel for 14 days starting immediately. Health experts have submitted recommendations to the White House Task force on coronavirus that seek to reopen some schools and businesses in cities where infection rates are low, according to a Senior Health official. It would be an effort to strike a balance as americans across the country are losing their livelihoods, an economic catastrophe in its own right that congress is attempting to address by passing the biggest stimulus plan ever. Well talk to a lead member of the president s Coronavirus Task force in a moment. First, House Speaker nancy pelosi, thank you so much for joining us, i hope youre well and safe. I know your home district of San Francisco has been particularly hard hit. President trump is considering relaxing federal guidelines for coronavirus for some of the less affected parts of the country. Do you think he should . First let me say how sad it is that even since the president s signing of the bill, the number of deaths reported has doubled from 1,000 to 2,000 in our country. This is such a very, very sad time for us. So we should be taking every e precaution. The president , his denial at the beginning, was deadly. His delaying of getting equipment to where it his continued delay in getting equipment to where its needed is deadly. Now the best thing to do would be to prevent more loss of life rather than open things up, because we just dont know. We have to have testing, testing, testing. Thats what we said from the start, before we can evaluate what the nature of it is in some of these other regions as well. I dont know what the purpose of that is. I dont know what the scientists are saying to him. I dont know what the scientists said to him, when did this president know about this, and what did he know . What did he know and when did he know it . Thats for an afteraction review. But as the president fiddles, people are dying. We just have to take every precaution. Speaker pelosi, when you say the president s denial was deadly, he obviously downplayed the risks of coronavirus for several weeks and it wasnt until i think about two weeks ago that he started acknowledging the gravity of the crisis. Are you saying his downplaying ultimately cost american lives . Yes, i am. Im saying that. Because when he made the other day, when he was signing the bill, he said, just think, 20 days ago everything was great. No, everything wasnt great. We had nearly 500 cases and 17 deaths already. And in that 20 days, because we werent prepared, we now have 2,000 deaths and 100,000 cases. So again, we really want to work in a unifying way to get the job done here. But we cannot continue to allow him to continue to make these y underestimates of what is actually happening here. This is such a tragedy, and we dont even know the magnitude of it because we do not have the adequate testing. Our first bill was about testing, testing, testing. The second bill was about masks, masks, masks. Of course both of them were about addressing the emergency. We still dont have adequate testing. And we still dont have the personal protective equipment. And i thank you all for calling attention to the needs of our Health Care Workers and other First Responders who are risking their own lives to save lives. So again, lets review later what we should have done when. Now lets stop doing the same thing, which is to deny and to delay, and instead to get what we need for the states so they can meet the needs of the hospitals, to our Health Care Workers, who are our heroes, our First Responders and the rest so that they have what they need, so, again, they dont risk their lives while trying to save other lives. Speaker pelosi, obviously Congress Just passed and the president just signed a 2 trillion relief plan. Take a listen to what Governor Cuomo of new york had to say about that stimulus bill. I was shocked that they were so irresponsible in addressing the state and the city need. I mean, i never believed that they would just pass a piece of legislation that didnt address it. They just did not address the revenue shortfall. Whats your response to Governor Cuomo . We have to do more. I think this bill was just a down payment. We had in the house bill 200 billion. The final bill was 150. Neither amount was enough, because again, every single day the need grows. Ive talked to the chairman of the fed, the Federal Reserve bank, mr. Powell, chairman powell, and asked him to do much more because they have the authority to do so, even more authority, since we passed this bill. But we have to pass another bill that goes to meeting the need more substantially than we have. We have other issues that we have to deal with in the bill in terms of personal protective equipment and osha rules that protect workers. We have to do more on family and medical leave. We have to get peoples visits to the doctor covered. We have to do more in terms of the assault on pensions that was not addressed, but senator mcconnell said we would do it in the next bill. We have to address what happened to the district of columbia, which was really cruel, that they called it a territory and hence they got several hundred Million Dollars less in funding. The list goes on about what we have to do. Again, the states, the municipalities, hospitals, and other health serving institutions, need more resources. Its so selfevident. And i understand the governors anger, my own governor, we have big needs in the state of california. Why should the states and why should these hospitals be having questions about whether theyre going to meet the needs, life and death needs . On the subject of ventilators, for example, this is a life and death piece of equipment. This isnt about, lets breathe easier with a ventilator. This is about, lets breathe, period. Yet the president has been casual about the production act that would have called upon industries a while ago to be making this equipment. So again, its no use my granddaughter even said to me, why keep talking about it, if only he had done this, if only he had done that. Lets put that aside for now and say what we need to do now going forward. It really is a sign, here we are on a sunday morning, last sunday we were gathered in leader mcconnells office, Chuck Schumer and i, leaderer mccarth mnuchin. I said to them, i want to begin the meeting with a prayer. I quoted pope francis world prayer in the circumstance, he said, i pray we enlighten those who are responsible for the common good, that they will take responsibility for those in their care. And secretary mnuchin said, since you quoted pope francis, ill quote the markets. And so that has taken us to another area of values debate about this. I want to ask you, because when President Trump signed the bill, he brushed aside a key oversight provision with a signing statement. The provision would have an independent Inspector General reporting to congress about how the treasury loans out money to businesses. Congresswoman alexandria ocasiocortez responded by saying, quote, just like that, the congressional oversight provisions for the half trillion dollar wall street slush fund which were already too weak were tossed away the day the bill was signed, this is a frightening amount of public money to have given a corrupt administration with zero accountability. You and other democrats, especially Chuck Schumer, insisted on this Inspector General as a check on the administration and President Trump blithely said they werent going to abide by it. Whats your response . Its ridiculous. Two things, well, three. This is about americas families, how they deal with the Health Challenge that they have, their lives and livelihood. And parts of the bill was about making sure that we put workers first. The bill that the republicans putting forth was a gift to Corporate America that would trickle down to the workers. We did jujitsu on it, we turned it around into a bill that put workers and families first, and by doing that, to have, again, conditions placed on any money that would go to Corporate America. Recognizing that Certain Industries were under threat and that we needed, in order to protect the jobs, to put resources there conditioned on workers being paid, buybacks not being allowed, bonuses, ceo pay, the rest of that. The president wants to dismiss that, and in doing so, that is one of the things that the American People were so upset about, that money is going to these big firms and the rest without any conditions. He is really first of all, lets not even go into whether hes allowed to do it. But we dont accept that. We dont accept that. Well have our oversight in the congress. We have a panel that will establish and i see he said we shouldnt be able to appoint the staff to our own panel. I mean, really. But the fact is, its just the same business as usual for the president. Lets turn it back in favor of Corporate America at the expense of americas workers without any conditions that makes things better for americas working families. We will not let that happen. And as we go into another bill, for more money for state and local hospitals and other priorities that i mentioned earlier, we will continue to do so in a way that has conditions on any money that goes to if theres any other further money that would go to the business community. But lets not forget whats in there. Imagine, we had to fight republicans to save im sorry for interrupting, Speaker Pelosi, the president did not invite you or any of the democratic leadership or any democrats to the signing ceremony, and its been reported that you and he have not spoken in five months. Have you reached out to him to try to talk to him directly . Because obviously at a time like this, its important that all of our leaders are communicating as best as possible. Im the speaker of the house. Legislation is my responsibility. Responsibility in passing policy. It has not required any conversations with the nature of the policy and the passing of the legislation. Dont forget, i was there for the state of the Union Address and greeted the president at that time. Thats not whats important. Whats important is whats important to americas working families. Their health, their lives, their livelihood. And this is, again, to quote the pope, are or going to quote the markets in terms of where our vaults should be. It all should be balanced. And im hopeful, i believe the American People have hearts full of love. I believe that they are hopeful. And thats why theyre giving the president a chance. And again, i hope that those who advise him, the scientists who advise him, will get him on the right track so that he is making decisions that are in favor of ending this deadly pandemic rather than test whether he can quarantine a state or not as he had to reverse himself again yesterday. Dont fiddle while people die, mr. President. House speaker nancy pelosi, we wish you the best. Happy birthday, incidentally, we hope youre staying safe and healthy. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you, jake. I want to go to dr. Anthony fauci, director of the National Institute of allergy and infectious diseases, a vital part of President Trumps Coronavirus Task force, of course. Dr. Fauci, its always good to see you. I want to ask you about the latest development, the cdc now urging, quote, residents of new york, new jersey, connecticut, to refrain from nonessential Domestic Travel for 14 days effective immediately. This came after President Trump considered an enforceable quarantine, as he put it, for those states. Why did the administration go with this travel advisory instead, and will this help stop the virus . I think it ultimately will help stop the virus, jake. We had very intensive discussions last night at the white house with the president. As you know, the original proposal was to consider seriously an enforceable quarantine. We believed, and he agreed, it would be better to do whats called a strong advisory. The reason for that is you dont want to get to the point that youre enforcing things that would create a bigger difficulty, morale and otherwise, when you could probably accomplish the same goal. One of the issues is that the infection rate in new york city and the new york city area is about 56 of all of the new infections in the country are coming from that area. Thats terrible suffering for the people of new york, which i feel myself personally as a new yorker. So what was trying to be done is to get people, unless theres necessary travel, so all nonessential travel, just hold off, because what you dont want is people traveling from that area to other areas of the country and inadvertently and innocently infecting other individuals. We felt the better way to do this would be an advisory as opposed to a very strict quarantine. And the president agreed, and thats why he made that determination last night, and i believe he tweeted it out last night. Dr. Fauci, the u. S. Now has the most officially reported coronavirus cases on the entire globe, of course that requires you to believe all the other countries reporting, including china. But lets for now assume that the u. S. Numbers are the largest. Do you believe that the u. S. At the epicenter of this outbreak . The semantics, jake, whatever you want to call it, its certainly the focus of whats going on right now. We have a very difficult problem here. We have areas of the country such as the new york area. Well be seeing places like detroit and other cities start to get into trouble, where the curve did what exactly i said on this show and other shows some time ago, it putters along a while and then it goes way up. When it does that, youre really in full mitigation, its very difficult to do containment. So we want to strongly do mitigation in those areas like new york city and the surrounding metropolitan area. At the same time that we dont neglect other areas of the country where it looks like there are just relatively few infections, because we have a window of opportunity there, as the Speaker Pelosi said, to get out there and test. If we do testing, identification, isolation, getting people out of circulation who are infected, and contact tracing, we might be able to prevent those areas from getting to that stage where we would have to do mitigation, which is much more difficult and much more frustrating than trying to contain. Dr. Birx said yesterday, as you know, that she doesnt think any city will be spared from this virus. How many cases do you think the u. S. Will reach . A million cases . 10 million cases . Or do we not even have any idea . You know, jake, to be honest with you, we dont have any firm idea. There are things called models. When someone creates a model, they put in various assumptions. And the model is only as good or as accurate as your assumptions. Whenever the models come in, they give a worst Case Scenario and a best Case Scenario. Generally the reality is somewhere in the middle. Ive never seen a model of the decis diseases that ive dealt with where the worst case came out. They always overshoot. So when you use numbers like a million, million and a half, 2 million, that almost certainly is off the chart. Its not impossible, but very, very unlikely. I mean, looking at what were seeing now, you know, i would say between 100 and 200,000 cases. But i dont want to be held to that, because excuse me, deaths. Were going to have millions of cases. But i just dont think we really need to make a projection when its such a moving target that you can so easily be wrong and mislead people. What we do know, jake, is that weve got a serious problem in new york. We have a serious problem in new orleans. And were going to be developing Serious Problems in other areas. So people like to model it. Lets just look at the data of what we have and not worry about these worst case and best Case Scenarios. Let me ask you, so dr. Fauci, were about to hit the last day of the 15 days to flatten the curve. Everybody watching at home wants to know how long you think its going to last. What steps does the United States need to take right now in order to see a light at the end of the tunnel, and when might that be . Jake jake, what i want to see is a flattening down of the curve. People ask me, should we be pulling back on new york, obviously not. New york is doing this, new orleans is doing this. When we start to see a daily number of cases instead of increasing and escalating, they start to flatten out, turn the corner, and then start coming down, when we see that, then you can start doing the modification of the intensity of your mitigation. As ive said before, its true, the virus itself determines that timetable. You can try and influence that timetable by mitigating against the virus. But ultimately its what the virus does. When i start seeing this happen, then ill come back on the show and tell you, you know, jake, i think were at the point now when we can start pulling back a little. But not right now, and several of the places i just mentioned. Theres this discussion out there about loosening the social distancing guidelines in some parts of the country. Cnn is reporting that some federal Health Officials are preparing a recommendation were some parts of the country will be able to open schools and open businesses. And yet i hear that and then i hear what youre saying, and dr. Birx, when youre saying that there are these hotspots that we know of, new orleans, new york, and that we dont really have an idea of where other hotspots might be, you just agreed with what Speaker Pelosi said, because of the lag in testing, there could be hotspots in all sorts of cities that we dont know and were just not there yet. So what do you think about the recommendations that some part of a country might be able to loosen the guidelines, given the fact that we, at least according to you, dont even know where these next hotspots will be . Great question, jake. And thats the reason why, if you look at an area, any area, take one that has a moderate degree of activity, you cant just empirically say im going to loosen restrictions there. You can do it, but you absolutely must have in place the capability of going there, testing, testing in an efficient way, not take a test, come back five days later and find out if youre infected. Testing, knowing in real time if a person is infected, and then getting them out of circulation and contact tracing. Because if you release the restrictions before you have a good eyeball on whats going on there, youre going to get in trouble. So im not against releasing the restrictions. Im actually for it, in an appropriate place. But i dont recommend it unless we have the tools in place in real time to do the things i just said. If we can do that, we can keep things contained without slipping into the need of having to mitigate the way they are in new york, in new orleans, and other places now. So its doable. But its only doable if you put the tools in place. Do we have those tools . Vice president pence said that there have been more than 600,000 tests across the country, which is certainly an improvement from where we were a month ago, but there are 330 million americans. 600,000 plus or whatever the number is. How many tests need to be done before you will feel comfortable knowing where the hotspots are, so that some restrictions can be loosened in the future . You know, jake, i dont think its the quantitative how many tests you need. You want to get tests out there that one can get a test easily, in real time, with a result right away. So right now, if you compare a couple of weeks ago to where we are right now, we have an amazingly larger number of tests than we had before. But what i want to see and i want to be satisfied is that those tests are being implemented on the ground where we need them. Thats the connection, i want to make sure, not just tests out there, but are the tests able to be implemented. If we can do that, jake, i think we can reasonably, with the safety of the American People in mind, pull back on some of the restrictions. But you have to have all the players and all the material in place. Thats what were trying to do. Right, but it doesnt sound like those tools are in place right now. You know, jake, in some places they are and in some places theyre not. We have to be honest and realistic. Because you go to a place and people say, i still cant get testing as quickly as i can. But that situation is being less and less common as the days and weeks go by, because the more were hearing of people who maybe could not get tests before, are getting them now. It still is not a perfect situation, because im sure people will be calling up and saying, i needed to get a test and i couldnt get it. Hopefully thats much, much less frequently than we saw a week or two ago. When do you think you will be comfortable with the amount of testing being present so that restrictions can be lifted in some parts of the country . You know, i think its going to depend a lot, jake, on the availability of those rapid tests that you can get really quickly, 15 minutes or so, youll know right away, so when you identify someone who is infected, that person doesnt go out into society for a few days, infect a bunch of people, then you bring them back because the test is positive. When we get those tests out that you can do right away, rapid point of care and do it, then i think well be closer. To put a time on it, jake, i dont know. Its going to be a matter of weeks. Its not going to be tomorrow and its certainly not going to be next week. Its going to be a little bit more than that. And exactly when it will be, i think relates to the question you asked me. When are we going to get that material, those tests. And the ppes and other things that people can utilize with that. When we get it out there, thats when were going to be able to do what youre talking about. But that of course, what youre saying makes it very clear that when the 15 days are up, from the 15 days to flatten the curve campaign, that will be this week, you dont think were ready to lift guidelines yet. Jake, were going to obviously seriously discuss and consider that. My own opinion, looking at the way things are, i doubt if that would be the case. But, you know, were a group, were a task force, were going to sit down and were going to talking about it. Obviously what you see me describe is a little iffy there. So well take it as it comes. Well look at it. And if we need to push the date forward, we will push the date forward. Governor cuomo has been talking about needing 30,000 ventilators. Theyre not using them right now. But he says that his experts are telling him that he needs to prepare for that. Do you have any reason to doubt that 30,000 ventilators for new york is what his Health Officials are recommending . You know, theres a lot of different calculations. My experience, i tend to believe Governor Cuomo. There are some that say there are ventilators that are there in a certain place thats accessible, we just need to connect the dots to get them accessible. So there are two issues here. Are there ventilators there that you can use that you need better accessibility to, if so, get them, if not, then give them to him. One way or the other, he needs the ventilators that he needs and hopefully we will get him the ventilators that he needs. They may be closer to him than is realized. But if theyre not, well get them there and if they are, well try to help him get access to the ones that are there. Bottom line, hes going to have the ventilators, period. Last question for you, dr. Fauci, i have to ask you about something the president said at his press conference on friday. Take a listen. When theyre not appreciative to me, theyre not appreciative to the army corps, theyre not appreciative to fema, its not right. I said, mike, dont call the governor of washington, youre wasting your time with him, dont call the woman in michigan. You know what i say, if they dont treat you right, i dont call. Dr. Fauci, can you assure the American People that whether or not they get the help they need from the federal government does not depend on whether their governors are appreciative enough of the federal help or flattering enough of the Trump Administration . Jake, i think the reality, not the rhetoric, but the reality is that the people who need things will get what they need. Theres a reality and a rhetoric. I think that i mean, i know the spirit of the task force and when we talk about when people need things, doesnt matter who they are, we try to get them what they need. All right, dr. Fauci, god bless you, thank you so much for the work youre doing, we really appreciate it, thanks for talking with us today. Good to be with you, jake. The cdc is issuing new Domestic Travel restrictions for the new york region as new york city sets up makeshift morgues for the first time in that city since 9 11. Joining me is the mayor of that city, bill de blasio, mayor de blasio, thanks for joining us. The cdc is telling residents from new york to refrain from nonessential Domestic Travel for 14 days effectively immediately. Whats your reaction . Jake, actually i dont think its the most central question before us right now, because im just entirely focused on making sure we have what we need to save lives in new york city. The only comment i would have on it is, weve got to be mindful of families that at this crucial moment want to reunite, whether that means families coming back to new york or leaving new york to go to another place where theyre based. Weve got to be really respectful that in the middle of a crisis, families have the right to be together. This is going to be a long crisis, jake. I think this whole discussion of how quickly we can restart is missing just how deep a crisis this is, not only in new york but its going to spread around the country. We should get more girded for the sheer timeline here. Other than that concern, a travel advisory isnt something im going to fixate on. I want to know where were going to get the ventilators and the ppes and the doctors and the nurses to save lives in new york that would be lost otherwise, because thats the standard to me. Are we going to be able to save every life we can or do we risk that possibility, and im saying in a week or two, do we risk that possibility of losing lives that could have been saved if the equipment and the supplies and the personnel were there when we needed them. So lets talk about that, because you have been calling for more ventilators, more icu hospital beds, more masks, more ppe. Your 9 11 system in new york city is overwhelmed with almost twice as many calls as normal. What do you need from the federal government right now and when do you think youll run out of the capacity to care for any new yorker who is sick . So jake, ive told the president , the defense secretary, the chairman of the joint chiefs, all of them, and i want to say theyve all been very available, very responsive. Ive told them all the same things. Sunday, april 5th. We have enough supplies to get to a week from today, with the exception of ventilators, well need several hundred more ventilators very quickly. Otherwise we have enough supplies to get through next sunday. We will need a major reinforcement by sunday, april 5th, in all categories, especially ventilators but other areas as well. Personnel is becoming more and more an issue. The military is very responsive on this, they have a lot of doctors and nurses. Ive made a direct request to the president and the military to find us immediately more military medical personnel and get them here by next sunday, but also to start figuring out how to get civilian medical personnel from around the country here. Were talking about a sharp escalation ahead. Weve got almost 30,000 cases now. Over 500 deaths already. Were over a quarter of the nations cases, here in new york city. I only can guarantee you the next week. Thats how difficult, thats how challenging it is. And our front line Health Care Workers, jake, are giving their all. Theyre in harms way. We need to get them relief. We need to get them support and protection but also relief. They cant keep up at this pace for weeks and weeks and weeks ahead and expect to save lives the way we need them to. Lets talk about the way youve handled the response in new york city. I want you to take a listen to yourself and your message to new yorkers, these are three different clips, one is from january, one is from february, and one is from early this month. Its important, just go about your lives, continue living as you have. New yorkers should go about our lives, continue doing what we do. This should not stop you from going about your life, should not stop you from going to chinatown and going out to eat. We want people to still go on about their lives. We want people to rest assured that a lot is being done to protect them. The last clip was from march 13th, just about two weeks ago. In retrospect, is that message, at least in part, to blame for how rapidly the virus has spread across the city . Jake, we should not be focusing, in my view, on anything looking back on any level of government right now. This is just about how we save lives going forward. We all were working, everybody was working with the information we had and trying of course to avoid panic. And at that point, for all of us, trying to keep not only protect lives but keep the economy and the livelihoods together, keep ensuring people had money to pay for food and medicine. This was a very different world just a short time ago. But the bottom line is, none of us have time to look backwards. Im trying to figure out how we get through to sunday, next sunday, and then what we do the week after that. And thats the only thing we should be talking about in this country. By the way, any other place in this country that thinks this is just going to pass them by and is going to be a nonissue, its in all 50 states now. And what were all learning at the front line is this moves very, very fast, in a way none of us have ever experienced in our lives. The focus has to be on getting the personnel, the ventilators, the supplies where they need to be. When each region of the country starts to see that improvement, the way dr. Fauci described, when you see the caseloads go down, and you actually have the testing to know whats going on, then send those personnel, send those ventilators to the next place that needs them the most. Thats what well have to do. I think the military is the only part of our nation that can organize and engineer such a massive effort. Mr. Mayor, you say you dont think you should look backwards, but youve criticized President Trump for, quote, actions that are far, far behind the curve. I mean, mr. Mayor, werent your actions in this outbreak also far, far behind the curve . Jake, i in real time said, and this was weeks and weeks ago, as it was happening, that we were not being given the testing we needed. I think the big historical point here that will be looked back on is, if this country had had the testing when we needed it, this could have been a very different reality. But theres no time to go back over that. Theres only time to focus on getting through the next week and the week after that. You could ask all the questions you want. Theyre fair. But i think the time to deal with these questions is after this war is over, because literally here in new york city, it feels like a wartime environment. I am talking to doctors, nurses, front line Public Health leaders. Theyre literally trying to figure out whats going to happen just days from now. And theyre watching an escalation, jake, that weve never seen in our lives. The only comparison is to 100 years ago, the spanish influenza pandemic. The only comparison to the economy in our lives is the great depression. None of us have ever experienced this. Weve got to focus on today, tomorrow, next week, if were going to get through this. Mayor de blasio, thank you so much, good luck dealing with the crisis. Our thoughts and prayers are with all our brothers and sisters in new york city. Thank you very much, jake. With the city of detroit an emerging coronavirus hotspot, President Trump approved michigans disaster declaration but not before taking a few shots as michigans democratic governor Gretchen Whitmer. The governor joins me now from michigan. President trump approved the disaster declaration for your state on friday. You tweeted that you expected to receive 8,000 more masks from the national stockpile. You have been critical of the nations response and help for michigan so far. Are you now finally getting what you need from the federal government . Well, were relieved, frankly, 112,000 masks yesterday morning means well make it through the weekend. Weve got a lot of hospitals that are already at capacity. We had a thousand new cases yesterday. We know that number will be even higher today. We are working all angles. So were grateful for fema, were grateful for the Vice President , he and i chatted yesterday. We know theyre working 24 7. We are as a state trying to procure Everything Else we can to meet the needs of the people of our state. And asking our residents to chip in as well, if they can if a business manufactures n95 masks, take them to the local hospital. Weve got distilleries making hand sanitizer. It has to be all hands on deck. We shouldnt be fighting one another. We need to be fighting covid19 together. Governor, President Trump has been going after you personally, saying that you dont appreciate the job that the federal government has done for michigan. He said on friday, this. When theyre not appreciative to me, theyre not appreciative to the army corps, theyre not appreciative to fema, its not right. I say, mike, dont call the governor of washington, youre wasting your time with him, dont call the woman in michigan. You know what i say, if they dont treat you right, i dont call. What is your response, governor . I dont have energy to respond to every slight. What im trying to do is work well with the federal government. Ill tell you this, there are people from the white house on done working 24 7 just like we are in the states. Were all stressed because we have people dying right now. I need assistance and i need partnership. So thats what were starting to see out of the feds. Were grateful for it. But theres so much more work to do. Detroit is the dire situation in detroit is getting worse by the minute. So all of our energy really needs to be focused on getting ppe to the people of our country. But right now, in michigan, we are in need. And i need all the help we can get. You said on friday that, quote, vendors with whom we had contracts are now being told not to send stuff here to michigan and were instead working with the federal government. Two Michigan State lawmakers are seeking to help you, quote, remove any and all roadblocks you might be facing with those vendors. They say you havent released the names. Can you tell us the names of these vendors and what exactly is going wrong there . So i think people are trying to make this into a different story than what it is. The story in michigan is the same as in massachusetts, the same as new york, the same as illinois and minnesota. We, the states, are trying to actively get every piece of ppe that we can. Were bidding against one another, and in some cases the federal government is taking priority. Weve had contracts that were in place that were set aside or were delayed or were canceled altogether because the goods that we had contracted for are going to the federal government. And its a source of frustration, not unique to michigan, but its a unique situation that we have in our country right now. And its really i think creating a lot more problems for all of us. And thats what i was talking about. My role is not to out vendors, because i think theyre concerned about retribution and potential problems for them later. My role is to get every piece of personal Protection Equipment that i can get into the state of michigan. We have nurses wearing the same masks from the beginning of their shift until the end, masks that are supposed to be for one patient. We need assistance. Well need thousands of ventilators. Were doing everything we can to get the kind of help we need. Were getting help from the federal government. But these other pressure points are real. And there are a lot of lives at stake. Right. A lot of the cities and states competing against each other, bidding against each other for these direlyneeded supplies. The Surgeon General said on friday that this coming week is going to be worse than last week, especially for cities such as detroit. Your states chief medical executive told cnn on friday that when it comes to coronavirus cases, quote, we think were still on the aggressive upslope and you still have several weeks until you hit the peak you. Added almost 1,000 cases yesterday alone. How long can your Health System survive this and hold up without being so inundated with patients, your doctors face the kinds of choices that nobody ever wants to face . I know, its gut wrenching, jake. We knew it was a matter of time, not a question of if, covid19 would come to michigan. Thats why weve been on the front end of taking aggressive steps. Part of the job is to make sure that people understand why this stayathome order is so important. This is a novel virus. There is no cure, there is no vaccine. We dont have enough of the equipment that our nurses and doctors need. And so the best thing that we can do is slow the spread. That means staying home. The virus cant go from me to you if were not together. And thats really the most important thing that were always trying to educate the people of our state. And my fellow governors across the country are doing the same. We need to slow the spread so that our hospitals have a fighting shot at treating people. Weve got a number of hospitals that are already at capacity. Were going to see this number continue to climb because even though the order has been in place, its going to take a while before we see the benefit of it. And so were asking everyone to do their part, to stay home and stay safe and save lives and support our Health Care System to meet the needs of the people that are in such dire straits. Governor whitmer of michigan, our thoughts and prayers are with the people of your great state. Thank you so much. Stay in touch if you need anything that we can help bring attention to. Thank you. One of the nations first coronavirus hotspots, Washington State, just saw its biggest o oneday surge in deaths as the president is also criticizing that states leader, washingtons democratic governor jay inslee, who joins me now. Governor inslee, thanks for joining us. Your state has been dealing with this crisis the longest. Yesterday the mayor of seattle told cnn theyre, quote, running blind and still have almost no testing in the seattle area. So i want to ask you, what does your state need, what do you not have enough of right now . Well, we have a desperate need for the testing kits. Weve had some considerable success building up the capacity to analyze the samples when theyre taken. The university of washington has been successful, weve done some really good things there. But we simply dont have the materials to take the tests itself, things as simple as the swabs. The little vials, when you put the swab in it to send it to the lab, it needs a medium in it to preserve it. We just dont have those simple things. Thats why weve got to mobilize the entire Manufacturing Base of the United States, like we did in world war ii, for things as simple as these testing kits. This is so severe in my state, ive had a person have to drive 300 miles to pick some up to deliver them, 40 vials. So we have a desperate need for all kinds of equipment. And we need a full scale mobilization of the incredible Manufacturing Base of the United States like we started on december 8th, 1941. I think thats what we need. Governor inslee, earlier in the show dr. Fauci said there are parts of the country where its not difficult to get tests or testing kits and parts where it im s im stunned that in Washington State you still dont have enough tests. How are these tests being given to states and localities . How can it possibly be that Washington State still doesnt have enough . Heres why we need a federal response to this. Let me give you an example. I was talking to elon musk the other day, who is helping us get some ventilators, which we really appreciate. There are some Business People who are helping states. And he was pointing out that we dont really necessarily have a shortage of ventilators but we have a maldistribution of ventilators, where we have ventilators sitting in places they wont be used and not going to states like Washington State, like new york, like california. This is where we need federal allocation to get the assets where theyre needed, a, and b, to mobilize manufacturers to produce these sometimes very simple products for the entire national stockpile. We need both of those. Thats where the federal government can really help. Governors, republicans and democrats, are being as aggressive as possible to build the manufacturing capacity. But i really think having a federal response to that would be helpful. Now, were getting help from the national stockpile. We have got thousands and tens of thousands of masks and gloves. We really appreciate from the federal stockpile. We have soldiers, the 627th from colorado arrived yesterday to build a hospital for us in century link field. So there are some good things happening from the federal government. We have a lot of gratitude for everybody involved in that. But we could use a more coordinated federal response. President trump said he hopes to use increased surveillance testing to get people in some areas of the country that have not been hard hit back to work faster. I understand your state is not one of those places, necessarily. And it has a lot of hotspots. But if President Trump were to issue the guidance to do so, would you lift your statewide order so that people in parts of the state that are not hard hit would open their schools or businesses . No. We need to make decisions based on science and reality. And there are some hard realities we have to understand. And that is, unless we continue a very vigorous social distancing program in my state, this will continue to spread like wildfire in every single corner of my state. That is inevitable scientific fact. And we have only one weapon to prevent that, and that is to continue our social distancing. We are seeing some very modest success in bending that curve just a little bit. But thats very unpredictable. And we have a long, long ways to go. I think its high probable that the twoweek stayhomestayhealthy initiative will have to be extended just because of the epidemiological evidence. Boy, i would not want to be responsible for opening the door to the virus so it can ravage places that seem okay today but in ten days can be at full scale burning through our hospital system. And weve seen this happen. Weve. President trump has been going after you repeatedly. He said youve been constantly chirping. You werent showing enough appreciation for the administrations response. Listen to what he says he told Vice President pence about you and governor whitmer. When theyre not appreciative to me, theyre not appreciative to the army corps or fema. Its right. I said mike, dont call the governor of washington, dont call the woman of michigan. You know what i say . If they dont treat you right, dont call. Do you think that your relationship with the president and his clear animosity towards you is impacting your ability to get what you need from the federal government to save lives of people in Washington State . Well, i certainly hope not. Were going to expect the best from all our partners. We have partners. I met with the army in my state yesterday building a hospital. We certainly have a great working relationship with the army. We have good open lines of communication with fema. And as Gretchen Whitmer indicated, were still talking to the Vice President after the president said that, she had a conversation with mike pence, i assume that i will as well. Those communications are happening. I spoke to the director of fema yesterday about a glitch that i hope can get fixed. I think were continuing to have good partnership. Were not distracted by some of the noise out of the white house. Were continuing to work as a team. So i feel good about that. Boy, we have a lot more work to do. All right, governor jay inslee of Washington State, god bless you. Our thoughts and prayers are with the people of Washington State. Let us know if theres anything you need from the federal government that youre not getting. The pandemic is expanding deeper into the United States, this week nebraska reported its first coronavirus deaths. The republican governor of nebraska joins me now. Thank you very much for joining us. President trump said he will make a decision on whether to relax social distancing guidelines in certain parts of the country such as your state that are not right now hot spots for the disease. But i have to ask you, while nebraska does not have the same kind of case load as other states, you just reported your first two coronavirus deaths. Do you think loosening the restrictions is a good idea right now . Well, i think one of the other things the president said is that this is not a one size fits all answer. That states will be on their own or rather states will be able to make their own decisions. Thats what were doing here in nebraska. We have one of the world leading experts at university of Nebraska Medical Center in infectious diseases. Weeks ago we put together a plan for how we would address this. I think the president kicked the country off with the tenperson rule he put in place two weeks ago. We got a plan. We will continue to work the plan. It involves breaking our state up regionally by Public Health districts and how many cases we have in those districts and putting our restrictions in place. Well continue to work that plan. How many tests have been done in nebraska . As you know, one of the concerns that weve heard from people such as dr. Fauci and others is that this disease is likely far more widespread than we know because of the lag in testing, only about 650,000 tests so far in a country of 330 million. There may be a lot of hot spots out there we dont know about. How many tests in nebraska, do you know . Weve done a little over a couple thousand tests. I dont think theres any governor who thinks they have enough tests, but again working in conjunction with our experts at unc, we put together a plan and program that assumed we would have limited testing to begin with. Were using rules of thumb like how many people in every region can you find that you cant figure out how they got it . Thats a good indication of xhoouni community spread. Thats when we put our most restrictive Health Measures in place. One of the big concerns is rural hospitals. One of the deaths in your state that reported was in rural hall county. Studies show many Rural Counties dont have any icu beds, and that rural areas are more vulnerable to the disease because the residents are older, they possibly have more health problems. Can the rural Health System in nebraska handle this crisis assuming it does become a fullblown crisis in nebraska . I think the key there is first of all managing it so that we slow down the spread. Thats why we put these restrictions in place. The second thing is were working with our local Public Health districts to didnt out personal protective equipment, make sure we got that where we need it. Were requesting people to let us know what their needs are. We do the same types of testing in our rural areas that we would do for the urban areas. The same screener, if you will, to indicate we do the the testing. Frankly with regard to the rural hospitals, they already transfer patients today based on their ability to handle it. Its a practice thats already in place that if a hospital has a case, they dont feel like they can give the proper care to, we make arrangement to transfer to a different hospital. After President Trump referred to the criticisms voiced about his administrations handling of the crisis, after he called that a hoax in february, you felt the need to tell your constituents that coronavirus itself was not a hoax. Do people in your state think this is a hoax . Why did you feel the need to make that clear . I was actually at a press conference, a reporter said he received a text from somebody saying this is not serious, this is a hoax. So i in the middle of the press conference, the reporter asked me that. I said no, this is very serious. We have to take it seriously. We have a plan for how were going to work it. We need people to Pay Attention to the plan so when we ask them to take these measures, these restrictions like closing down restaurants to dine in, limiting groups to ten people, we need groups to follow that. You said you have 600 ventilators in your state, but youre seeking more. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said things in his state are so bad that extra ventilators should be sent from other states to new york and then when the disease leaves his state and goes to other parts of the country, they can be redeployed as needed. I understand you have to do the best thing you can for nebraska nebraskans, does it give you pause to compete against a state like new york . How have you found the Competitive Bidding between states without one federal government overseer of who gets the supplies . So, we are doing an analysis right now of what we are projecting our needs for hospital beds, icu beds, ventilators, and were going to be seeking to be able to get that. So, you know, i have not experienced the issue that some of my colleagues have talked about with regard to the federal government stepping in maybe in front of their orders, their orders being delayed or canceled. We also are going to be looking to buy personal protective equipment and other supplies directly for the state of nebraska. Frankly i think that, you know, again, you can have it one way or the other. You can have the federal government do everything or have the states do everything. I think were trying to get the process down now, i would prefer we leave it up to the states to manage this. I think thats going to be a better outcome. You cant have it both ways. You cant complain because the progr federal government is stepping in front of your orders, and then say the federal government should be doing everything in the first place. Governor ricketts, best of luck to you. Stay in touch with us. Let us know how we can help. Great, thank you very much. Appreciate it. Finally from us today, we want to take a moment to honor and thank the medical workers on the front lines. Trying to save the lives of others, stretched beyond all means and still showing up to work every day fully aware that they could be exposed. Theyre shorthanded, short on supplies, many are being told to reuse singleuse masks for a whole week. They see patients without the protections they need. You wouldnt take a firefighter and ask him to run into a burning building in a bathing suit. Thats essentially what theyre asking us to do. New yorkers in the epicenter of this outbreak leaned out their windows to try to give a twominute ovation to the medical professionals changing shifts. One from their number tragically unable to hear the applause. He tested positive for the virus on march 18th, and he died on tuesday. This is how his sister described him. Everything happened very quickly. He was healthy, he did love his job. The smile and the pictures that youre seeing, that was him. Other doctors and nurses and Health Care Professionals from coast to coast are right this moment, some of them, in critical condition, intubated, fighting for their lives. As of now the majority are healthy. Knowing the dangers they face every day, many are updating their wills and funeral plans. Some of them just in their 20s or 30s. It was great to see that video of new yorkers applauding Health Care Workers during the shift change, a better way for the United States to honor Health Care Workers is to get them the masks and the personal protective equipment they need, so they can be there when and if you or someone you love needs them. Applause is nice, politicians getting them, the box of n95 masks that would be even better. The fact that too many professionals dont have them, thats a national disgrace. Fareed zakaria gps starts now. Gps, the Global Public square. Welcome to all of you in the United States and around the world. Im Fareed Zakaria coming to you live from new york. Today on the show, an exclusive interview with the Prime Minister of