Transcripts For FOXNEWSW Cavuto Live 20200425

I am neil cavuto, its very good to have all of you with us here as we pick apart what have been some growing fights right now between protesters in states where theyre not opening things up as swiftly or certainly not nearly as swift as they would like to see and were also going to be hearing from Peter Navarro at the white house, and what he is saying about how china has complicated this picture, and can we still trust china to make good on promises, if it hasnt really been enough when it comes to the coronavirus . All that coming up first right now to steve herrigan outside the cdc on how georgia is now slowly and i mean very slowly getting back to business. Steve . Reporter neil that reopening has been a controversial decision even here inside georgia it began yesterday, Governor Kemp allowing certain kinds of nonessential businesses to reopen including hair salons, bowling allies, as well as some gyms and monday theres going to be even more opening up with movie theaters and restaurants opening. Governor kemp cited a decline in the confirmed number of cases for that reopening and also cit ed the economic hit this state has had from this crisis about onefifth now unemployed and he said now social distancing will still be in effect for those workers and we talked to some store owners shop owners who are cautiously now beginning to reopen. Businesses are allowed to open, if they can follow certain protocols and guidelines and theyre going to be pleased to some extent as well. We expect to be pleased, and thats okay. Reporter the decision to reopen has gotten a lot of criticism even here in atlanta from the cdc, from the mayor of atlanta who said she wasnt informed before it happened and she basically told people to ignore what he was saying and even President Trump who thought georgia was moving too fast and georgia has 22000 cases at least so far of the virus, 900 deaths fewer than 1 of the population of georgia has been tested and there has not been a steady decline over two weeks and other states set to follow and let those stayathome orders expire april 30 including alabama, arizona, florida, texas and tennessee among anothers. Neil back to you. Neil steve herrigan thank you very very much so are some of these states particularly georgia where they still have a high number of cases moving too soon lets raise that with Peter Navarro also the white house and trade and Manufacturing Policy director. Peter good to have you. Good morning, neil. Neil what do you think of georgias move . The president was hoping the states getting back to business was concerned that georgia was moving a little ahead of its skiis. Do you agree with that . I like to stay in my lane and Vice President pence is doing a great job on the task force setting out the guideline, but the one value add i might have to this is that talk with the American People now about the calculus. What we know for a fact that the virus kills directly. We know for a fact that shutting down our economy has destroyed jobs. Its caused enormous stock market wealth loss which goes into pension funds. We know that its doing tremendous economic damage but the more subtle problem which is a serious problem that comes into the calculus, neil is the fact that economic disruptions kill as well. We learned that when china wiped out a lot of our factories in the midwest. We saw dramatic rise in suicide rates, and the opioids and alcoholism, death to co morbidity increases to things like diabetes, we also saw a sharp blow from the china shock then to the family structure. We saw more divorces, we saw more children in poverty, so when the president has been grappling with this whole issue of when to get the economy back, its a decision that no president should have to make. Its probably the toughest decision any president has to make but the people themselves, boots on the ground now, are understanding this tension between the death and destruction that the china virus can cause directly and the death and destruction the china virus can cause indirectly by shutting down our economy, so thats, i think thats the big picture here and were struggling with that but were learning as a people how to fight this virus. This is a war. Its a war that china started by hiding the virus, by hording personal protective equipment during the time it hid the virus and now, its ironic in my view disgusting that they are profit earring from that, so thats the big picture. Neil well let me ask you about the china part of that peter, could i ask you . Sure. Neil you have long been very critical of china even the trade talks, they had to verify everything they did and were promising. Im just wondering now they made a lot of commitments to the administration and the American People about buying a lot more goods from us but seeing as they misrepresented the seriousness of the coronavirus in their country, and might have had some help and assistance in that regard do you trust them to make good on promises they made to you . Neil, one of the most Important Documents is that issue this year is the recentpew research poll. Its an amazing poll that shows that over 90 of americans now believe that china is a threat, over 70 of Americans Across Party Lines have an unfavorable view of china, they are concerned about jobs, the trade deficit, the environment, human rights, and the military, so if you ask me, the author of death by china and the coming china wars whether i trust china i would simply say the American People no longer trust china, and theres something that i think neil so are they going to make good . Do you worry about that . Lets look at the promises they made. They agreed to buy a tremendous amount of our agricultural products. Its curious theyre now buying a lot of brazilian soybeans. Were watching that carefully. They also promised to stop all of this intellectual property theft and counterfeiting, but were being inundated now with counterfeit tests for antibodies and other things, and so do i trust the chinese . No. Let me give you theres something china would call the four kills. I think its worth going over because the chinese effectively declared war. They spauned that virus, the most likely explanation is it came out of a biological weapons lab, probably by accident, but who knows but more importantly, we know, they knowingly hid that virus, neil, for six weeks and thats the second kill because during that time, hundreds of thousands in wuhan and other chinese flew to places like new york and detroit and all around, milan, all around the world effectively seeding the planet with this wuhan virus and if they had simply been honest, honest with the world they could have contained it within wuhan and we wouldnt be having this conversation. Thats the second kill. The third kill, and chinas own customs data show this , we saw while they were hiding the virus , from the world, they went out and vacuumed up all of the ppe around the world, 2 billion masks they bought alone and they took it from countries in europe, south america, United States, and so when the people, the nurses of the brave nurses and doctors on the frontlines in new york and chicago and detroit and new orleans needed ppe, part of the reason they didnt have it is because of the third kill, the chinese that basically vacuumed that up and now the fourth kill is that theyre hording that and using that ppe as a weapon and their power to project it and to profiteer. Neil, these are 0. 30, 0. 50 masks at retail usually and theyre selling them coming to the hospitals here for 7 and 8 and so neil well its proof that they lied. They lied there with those four pillars they lied four times so im just wondering back in january and february when you were apparently sending signals in this memo that went to the National Security council and worried about this approaching virus and a potential pandemic that people didnt appreciate the magnitude of that because even then, you seem to be sensing that the chinese might be hiding something. Did that ever reach the level of the president . Indeed it did and as i was writing that memo to the task force, on the travel ban, President Donald Trump had already made the decision to do that and that was one of the most courageous decisions weve ever seen a president make he took tremendous heat. Neil well no doubt but he was always convinced that the chinese were trying to deal with the crisis and that i dont think thats fair, well theres a difference between public pronouncement and what you actually know and prepare for and i can assure you that the president neil so he had his doubts back then . There are no question, look hes one of the smartest guys in the world. He knows theres trust issues with the chinese. Neil the thing that bothered me, me being the china watcher for many years is the fact that they came here, shook our hands, broke bread, got near the president and on january 14 and 15, now, they knew over a month before that that we had a pandemic on our hands and the other thing they did neil is this is the whole debate about the World Health Organization. Trusted brands prior to this crisis now what people know is that china gained control of that agency through a proxy, from ethiopia, which is a client state of china, and basically china was able to hide behind the World Health Organizations shield while it essentially went through these four kills and this is a serious point in our history, neil, where we have to do first and foremost is a deal with the Public Health crisis, win this war and one of the things that im doing about 40yards across the street in my of the office is working a great team on mobilizing our Industrial Base and supply chain President Trump is orchestrating the most rapid industrial mobilization that weve had since world war ii. If you look at the ventilator issue which was like the issue over a month ago, and people like Governor Cuomo were running around with their hair on fire, at this point in time, we are going to have more ventilators than we need and were going to have plenty to help our friends around the world. General motors, to its credit, took 17 days to stand up a factory and turn out its first ventilator and we were able to deliver those ventilators off the Assembly Line to hospitals in gary and chicago within three days, so im seeing that. Neil there was no doubt, the companies to do this was very impressive but peter i do want to get a sense from you now where were going and you talked in the beginning about balancing our economic needs, with our health needs. The president did hint there might be distancing provisions still in effect into the early summer. Isnt that almost inevitably going to mean that the vshaped recovery he hopes for and a lot of people seem to think its still possible, that thats harder to do, as people come back they cant crowd into as many restaurants and certainly theaters, itll be a different environment. It might be a slow go. Not at all a vshape. You began that discussion by saying i had talked about balancing our health and economic needs, but that wasnt my point at the beginning. My point is that theres Health Concerns whether you open the economy or not. In other words the virus kills directly but it also kills indirectly when we destroy our economy, you got suicides, drug overdoses, alcoholism all of that, so thats what were grappling with and as i said at the outset here, the Vice President , mike pence, one of the greatest Vice President s weve had, hes doing a fine job navigating where its a learning experience for all of us, but i think that the American People who are learning how to social distance and learning how to be responsible in terms of this whole thing. Neil but do you think itll be a slower recovery as a result . Slower economic recovery or Public Health recovery . Neil right. Economic recovery. The vshaped one i was talking about. Again im not going to forecast that. What im going to say is that were doing our best to defend the American People and nurses and doctors on the frontlines and doing our best to move forward with the economy and dont forget neil we havent even talked about this the tremendous work that congress in the white house have done in terms of stimulus. Neil Peter Navarro all well said, thank you and to a commercial break, here we go. Ded social distancing. Being prepared and overcoming challenges. Usaa has been standing with them for nearly a hundred years. And well be here to serve you for a hundred more. Neil all right open for business, well kind of, in georgia theyre doing it step by step, but it does include salons in the state, they will be practicing distancing provisions , and tatoo parlors and the like, some restaurants but it is a step in that direction and something that a lot of folks want to see spread out albeit safely across the country right now, and two guests who couldnt be more happy with whats going on is brook, and her mom, they are owners of Taylor Brooks hair salon, i believe in johns creek, georgia ladies welcome to both of you. Thank you. Thank you. Good morning. Neil so how do you feel now, and how long have you been, did this formally start yesterday and tell me a little bit about how its been going . Were pretty excited. Weve been planning on reopening our business since the governor like shut us down back in march, so we felt pretty organized and pretty prepared for the reopening yesterday. We were just kind of waiting around for the goahead for a date specifically in mind but we have been meeting with our staff and with our manager through zoom calling pretty much weekly and daily and coming up with a game plan on how we will reopen and gathering sanitation supplies throughout the month and everything so were thrilled to be able to get back to somewhat of a normal if not normal business as usual, but to get back to work. Neil how did it go julia . How many customers, i know you have to practice distancing so the salon isnt normally as full as it is but can you update me . Absolutely we have opened, actually, what were calling a soft opening. We do not have our entire staff that came in yesterday, or today. Most of our staff will be back by next friday, and so it was really kind of a great way to get going again, make sure that everything that we were doing in our protocols that we had in place were working and working smoothly for our staff and for our guests, so you know, you want a number i would say we had yesterday actually, we have a salon in johns creek, so that salon probably had oh, 20 during the entire day, people, and staff, and then in our Hamilton Mill location, we had probably about 1520 as well, really about the same. Neil well thats not too shabby brooke, im curious, you have to wear masks and the others there. Do the customers coming in . Yes, we are requiring everyone to wear a mask, that is part of our safety protocols. If they dont have a mask we are offering them to our guests we are able to order some actually a month ago, they just came in this week so thankful but yes, everybody is required before they even enter the building to put on a mask. And also we are taking their temperature. Neil you have to check their temperatures, right . Yes. We have a pretty strict protocol in place so when each of our guests arrive they have to do that. Neil i saw that, yes. They have to tell us and tell us they are here from their car and then we go over a list of questions with them and if they answer yes, they will be asked to reschedule at which point, if their stylist is ready for them because we resanitize between each client then they will come up to the door and check their temperature and then they put on their mask, sanitize their hands and then they can enter the building to receive their service. Neil all right i wish you both a lot of luck. I might fly down to you because i cant get my hair cut here in the new york or new jersey area so well see. We would love to have you. Neil ladies thank you both very much, best of luck. Well have more after this. Neil all right, theyre doing a lot more testing right now in fact the press would like to point out were doing more than any other country i believe combined but the fact of the matter is still not enough for a lot of people in a lot of states who say were not comfortable fully reopening until we have a lot more tests and as to complicate matters we hear from the cdc now that with some of these tests and the antibodies that accompany finding out whether you ever had it, a lot more people are discovered to at least carry the markers for this , so it dramatically explains the pool of potential patients and then low and behold in the middle of that the cdc announces there are some other symptoms that we didnt tell you about we think are worth noting and maybe help you decide whether you might have actually had this , thats the big sort of thinking now in the Healthcare Community that many many more americans and the official numbers we are given at least were exposed to this and might dramatically beef up the cases weve seen that for example, in la county where the number of possible cases suddenly zoomed 50 times earlier figures at least those exposed to this in new york a testing that went on also indicated that a lot more than thought might have been or continued to be exposed to this. Its gone and not an issue any more but it shows that theres wide exposure there in new york s case it extrapolates to about 2. 7 million new yorkers and then these symptoms i was talking about its expanded to areas like if you have chills or muscle pain, or sore throat, or a loss of taste and or smell this has been added to the long list of other possible symptoms that might be a covid19. Dr. Amesh joins us right now at Johns Hopkins University Center for health security, doctor always good to have you. First off on the testing itself and what its revealing, doctor, about the number of americans certainly worldwide were seeing as well but in this country with these Antibody Tests that might have had this and never knew it or might indicate the cases here are far higher or were higher than we were thought or thinking in the beginning. What do you make of that . This is not surprising. We know that this is a respiratory virus that spreads very efficiently from person to person and likely spreading in the United States long before we actually detected it maybe a matter of weeks as late as december and it has a spectrum of illness. Some people have very very mild symptoms they dont even know they are sick and we know were undercounting so when we do this type of Antibody Testing were seeing this has a much wider spread than we thought and actually increases the denominator of infections which helps us with our modeling in terms of the hospitalization rate and the case fatality ratio and that will help us plan Going Forward but this is what weve expected and really important that we do this in other parts of the country to understand what the true breadth of infection was and see where we are in this epidemic curve. Neil if people knew about these added symptoms about the chills and shaking and headaches, muscle pain, aspects of this , doctor, what will, what do you tell people who said yeah, i had that, yeah, i had that too. What do they do . Depending on when they had these symptoms if it was in november or october unlikely ton the coronavirus just based on what we know the way this spread across the world but if they have those types of symptoms in january or february , it might well have been the coronavirus and when we get Antibody Testing scaled up and have reliable tests because there are some issues with tests giving false positives well be able to understand whether or not somebody had been exposed and we still dont know what that means in terms of immunity and how long that might last or how durable that immunity is but thats how were going to figure this out is with Antibody Test to figure out if people were exposed in the past. Neil doctor, the World Health Organization has been warning apparently you could actually catch the coronavirus more than once. Is that true . So we dont know particularly with this coronavirus but we do know that there are four other seasonal coronaviruses that cause about 25 of our common cold and in those instances, after a period of time, several months your antibody levels drop and you can be experimentally re infected in Laboratory Studies its unclear whether this is a case with this corn and there is reason to believe that probably can get reinfected but we dont know what that window is. Is it months, is it a year hands going to be really important as we try to use Antibody Tests to do Public Health actions, and understanding if those people are able to be reinfected and if they are reinfected are they contagious again or is it a silent infection . All of those things are important questions we need to answer. Neil doctor, thank you very much, dr. Amesh here looking at again, some of these new sort of guidelines of the cdc and greater extent the World Health Organization issued on this fast moving target of who has the coronavirus and who does not all right were going to be exploring by the way exactly the vulnerability of the america population to an uptick in cases once everyone gets back to work. It might not be as alarming as some people have presented it , after this. Im your mother in law. And i like to question your every move. Like this left turn. Its the next one. You always drive this slow . How did you make someone i love . That must be why youre always so late. I do not speed. And thats saving me cash with drivewise. [mayhem] you always drive like an old lady . [tina] youre an old lady. Neil all right, we are waiting to hear from Florida Governor ron desantis, who has opened up a good man it beaches in the state, but hes just urged beachgoers not to gather in crowds and to continue the social distancing rule and that is a lot easier said than done where they have tried that in other areas on the water, for example, in california and some counties it proved an effort to get people not to congregate in crowds. Well also get an update how he plans to continue rolling out sort of a phasing out of restrictions that have been in effect in the Sunshine State for a little more than a few weeks one of the latest entrants in the socalled home lockdown system that is now encompassed about 94 of americans although that number is coming down every day with whats going on in georgia and texas. In the meantime youd also miss the fact there was another big news item in the past week the virtual collapse in oil prices, for a while, earlier in the week we were looking at negative prices, in other words, someone would have to pay you for the privilege of having that oil. Now the fact of the matter was that it stalized a little bit, oil prices did come back, but they are at multidecade lows because the world has shutdown so its not surprising that even talk of some key producers wanting to cut supplies like 20 millionbarrels a day doesnt cut it when it looks like they have to really do it by 30, 40, maybe 4550 millionbarrels a day depending on on the analysts so a lot of those stocks came back by the end of the week but its still very volatile, Lauren Simonetti here to give us that. Good morning. Really whats going on in the stock market as well. Lauren . Lauren and were not out of the woods yet, neil good morning oil could go negative again, we saw tremendous swings this week and while stock prices and oil prices and they moved in tandem. Lets talk about oil first. If you look at where the commodities closed on the week just under 17 a barrel that is so low, but it was a gain of 50 in the past three days because on monday as you mentioned, neil we saw oil prices contract, go negative for the First Time Ever on the may contracts because seller s were basically paying buyers to take the oil off their hands, where do you put the oil . Storage capacity whether at sea or on land it was filling up way too fast. The issue is americans are at home under lockdown were not filling up the gas tanks, planes are grounded not burning jet fuel and American Factory production largely set in so demand is contracting far faster maybe two to three times according to some as fast as supply is actually contract ing. There is some hope we are starting to see some states ease on their lockdown start to explore how to open back up and then Americans Companies will use more oil. Also treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin is exploring a plan to rescue the battered energy sector, to try to keep some of these drillers in business and it might include the government taking an equity stake in some of them. Still, President Trump relatively optimistic yesterday. Listen. President trump we got hit by this and it was devastating to the Energy Business all over the world. So we will be able to, once this straightens out, and once you get the demand and then youll reduce the supply a little bit, itll equalize and going to be great again. We will make the Energy Business great again. Lauren [laughter] well it wasnt a terrible week speaking of great again, with all of this going on with the stock market. Friday, up but negative on the week but neil if you look at the nasdac, the nasdac was almost positive on the week, nonetheless all three major averages down for the first time in three weeks and for the month it is almost may, for the month i cant even believe this , best month since october of 2011 with gains of at least 8. 5 for all three major averages, neil. Neil do you know whats remarkable that lauren if you think about it the dow itself is now, you know, recouped about 55 of the downdraft, and isnt all that far, you know 5,000 points or so from alltime highs, wouldnt seem unthinkable when it was flirting with 18,000 or less, it is a remarkable come back so someone is pretty confident things are going to get better. Lauren its almost like the stock market is doing the v recovery whereas the economy, main street, well were not sure what shape that recovery is taking yet, are we . Neil yeah, and does the v turn into a. Or l, but looking at traders they seem to think that the worst of this could be over. Well see. Weve had bounces before but this is a pretty impressive bounce. Lauren thank you very very much, Lauren Simonetti. You know, oil prices and where were going and the promise support the president has outlined as lauren was just debt ing into i want to raise that right now, with john brown, you might remember the former ceo joining us right now ofbp. John brown its very good to have you. What do you think of this and this wait that a lot of people have had to think when does the oil turn around . Obviously the last few days trading oil kale back from these incredible lows but it is still pretty low in the scheme of things. Where do you see it going . How do you see this all sorting out . Well of course, we had too much supply of oil before coronavirus hit us, so we have a lot of supply, we have very weak demand , demand is down probably 30 on average, so the cuts being offered wont actually cut it, and oil is being stored actually in storage. It reminds me very much of what happened a long time ago in the 8586 period, whereas the reverse happened, people have supply, and eventually, it cant and they opened it up and prices collapsed and they stayed low for 17 years, so i think here, were going to see lower for longer and very volatile too the reason i say that is its easy to have an over supply and restoring demand to the right level is going to take a lot of time, a lot of time indeed and theres plenty of oil around and theres plenty of oil in stock at the moment. Neil you know, many say it would take an extraneous event im not saying what happened 10 years ago this week with the Horizon Oil Spill that came after your tenure at the helm of the company, but that that had an unexpected pushup on prices here, supplies seemed to look like it was in pair ill things stabilized a little bit. The latest catalyst for those who liked to talk about a comeback and also what iran is doing right now in the persian gulf, and the president has already said if they keep doing that, shoot them. So im wondering whether that could be one of those events that in a weird way pushes prices back up because we havent lost sight of the fact that we still live, the virus notwithstanding in a fairly volatile world particularly in the middle east. What do you think . Absolutely. Theres a lot of volatility but you know there used to be a time when a revolution or a proxy would increase the price of oil and now days, it doesnt do that , that much because theres so much of it around, so it will not make a monumental difference someone will make up the difference. I think theres a balance of risks here. I think that i come back to the demand side, part of the world, maybe not the whole of america, but parts of the world are very concerned about carbon dioxide, what goes into the atmosphere, climated change and in the concerns about health which covid is giving us the push to reduce the amount going into the atmosphere will increase over time and that will probably hit the demand for oil. Every year we get more oil efficient so saying to me its not a time to think of the price of oil going. Neil all right, john brown, thank you very very much the former ceo of bp, again thatll take some time and a lot depends on the rollout of people getting back to work and business and maybe i dont know if thats possible this early on but something resembling business. Were still expecting to hear from governor ron desantis. He continues slowly reopening the Sunshine State. More on that after this. I dont know how you can just keep indefinitely writing checks we were 20 trillion in the hole to begin with and all World Governments who are already in debt doing this. How can the whole world but writing this funny money . Well because its a matter of life and death and the more we invest in science and health, the quicker our economy will recover from the pandemic. Well it will recover unless people get wise to the fact that were just writing checks for money that doesnt exist. Neil so this actually could hurt more people from the disease itself, how majority chief deputy whip dan killday on that from the beautiful state of michigan. Congressman what did you think of that . Hes saying that its enough already. Well i just think that we have to provide the help thats necessary for people to protect themselves and i think that we all get the point. The problem is theres just not a Good Alternative at this juncture so youve seen big numbers of democrats and republicans both understanding there are downstream consequences to this spending this money, but think of the consequence to a Small Business of losing everything they have if we dont provide help or the consequence to a family of losing everything they have if we dont provide this help. Theyre in a far left position to deal with losing everything they have than the United States government is to speak through fiscal policy that might help us come out of this , so i get the point. I just dont see the alternative. Neil im just curious though, congressman, when you get the chicago tribune, blasting the Illinois Senate request for another 41. 5 billion, or asking for some money to deal with problems in the state, the same time a number of state governors have been talking about relief from the federal government, Mitch Mcconnell earned some of their wrath by staying states can always apply for bankruptcy and always file that, but thats so far off the mark because these are a lot of states that are having these problems and they seem to want the government to take care of it. Well its a governmental problem. I think there are two distinct questions. One neil isnt it a state problem where a lot of states try to deal with this and let the federal government deal with it, that its gone down coronavirus, this might deal with past budgetary, the coronavirus has nothing to do with. Well that was the point i was going to make. There are two areas one costs directly related to and revenue losses directly related to coronavirus. Thats fair game. I think there is a separate question about how state and local governments are funded, and what we need to do to rationalize that whole process but as it relates to the specific losses and the specific costs associated with coronavirus, we need a national response, some states are getting hit a lot harder than others. Thats not the choice that those states are making so i think theres a legitimate role for the federal government to provide that kind of help. Neil all right, dan kildee, thank you very very much continued good health be safe, dan kildee the House Majority chief deputy whip by the way were looking at other states trying to find novel ways to maybe financially express their frustration with china in the case of missouri, suing china. That state tosses attorney general is here after this. Neil all right, this is a good day to order a jersey mikes sub thats donating 20 of all sales this weekend to covid19 relief, the company ceo joins us right now. This has generated a great deal of interest. You have franchises and stores pretty much everywhere. What are you expecting today . So feeding america. Org is where you go to contribute if youd like and also to come into the store saturday and sunday were expecting to raise over 2 million with our crews and teams all across the country, sort of fire it up and ready to go and i am suited up as well so im going to get back there and were going to run to several stores around and do our part as well, so i still slice, sprinkle and wrap, still love to do it. Neil yeah. And you keep saying i dont know how you manage keeping thin, but let me get an update are you vulnerable to any of these food plant shutdowns in the midwest and weve seen whats going on with hormel foods, and its affected more than a third of our pork supply thats a lot of ham sandwiches there and much much more. How are you dealing with that . Has it disrupted stuff . Sure, so weve been on the phone with our manufactures actually even before the plants shut down, kind of anticipating what was going to happen, so our supplies are made fresh, like every twoweek supply so actually we have them backing up our supply to the provision, to the suppliers so were kind of staying ahead of the game but yes, its a growing concern in the next coming months, as the food supply and the shortages of meat and poultry and but hopefully, itll overcome that. Neil all right well watch it very closely, peter thank you very much and good luck on this moneyraising effort its going to do a lot of good for a lot of people as the jersey mike s ceo coming to us from miami. We are also speaking to miami keeping a close eye on florida, that states governor is going to be seeing reporters pretty soon. Apparently, willing to detail a little bit more about warnings for those who want to go back to the beaches they can but they have to practice the social distancing provisions. Kind of hard to do when the weather is perfect and a lot of people are saying look were on the beach and not bothering with social distancing. Thats what hes run up against. Well have more after this. Omeowners are using home equity to improve their monthly cashflow and preserve their savings. Most people thought the three legs of retirement pension, Social Security and savings. Would be enough to get by but its kinda like this three legged stool. A little wobbly. 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We do know that the meat is going to get in your store shelves might get there late and might be pricier. The fear seems to be the plants hit with a number of coronavirus cases, smithfield in south dakota, 100 such cases now extending to the number of tysons operations, this could get more problematic. Well keep a close eye on that and explore this with a number of top medical officials as well. In the meantime, whether this comes up at the Health Care Task force briefing at 4 p. M. , whether or not the president will participate in that. It was short and sweet last night. Lets get the latest read from Mark Meredith at the white house. President trump spent the week speaking with governors, World Leaders and lawmakers trying not only to confront the health crisis, but the economic as well. The president signing in law the funds for the paycheck protection program. The measure going a little further providing additional funds, 310 billion for paychecks. 60 billion and some from hospitals and to expand testing. 30 billion to the Paycheck Protection Fund will be reserved for small Financial Institutions, including that serve minority and distressed communities, exit ending vital relief to thousands of africanamerican and businesses and their employees. Theres no firm timetable when the next stimulus bill could be approved by congress. Theres no firm date on that and that the administration is kicking around a number of ideas to help jump start the economy. One is a new push on infrastructure improvement, an idea thats floated around the administration for several years and could come up in the weeks ahead. The white house says theyve seen some five million tests since the virus came to the u. S. Testing is expected to ramp up in the weeks ahead, leading the vicepresident to remind americans the number of cases is likely to go up. 30 billion to the Paycheck Protection Funds will be reserved for small Financial Institutions and including those that serve minority and distressed communities, extending vital relief to thousands of africanamerican and hispanicamerican Small Business owners and their employees. Now, we are waiting to see whether or not we are going to get an oncamera briefing from the white house. Weve learned that the vicepresident is going to be in the situation room around 4 00 today for the latest as they try to get information about the virus itself, but its not clear if were going to see an oncamera briefing today that could be because when the president faced widespread criticism for injecting chemicals. President said he was being sarcastic, but a lot of people are talking about that. Neil i noticed he didnt take questions last night and maybe thats coincidental, but the president might not make himself such a prominent feature of the briefings. Are you hearing more on that . Yeah, we heard from the White House Press secretary, she did, what we call a gaggle in the white house driveway and its up to the president every day whether he wants to do on camera briefings. They say theyve done so many already, but a lot of people will be speculating whether or not theyll be pulling back from this after the comments made on thursday, but this happened before when we saw the white not put a briefing in the schedule and one pops up in the afternoon. Things pretty much change hour by hour. Neil youre young. You can keep up with it. Thank you very much, my friend. Great reporting as usual. Mark meredith at the white house. Theres been a battle back and forth between the governor of new york and of all people the Senate Majority leader, Mitch Mcconnell, when Mitch Mcconnell had said in a radio interview that states that wanted more money, they can always go the bankruptcy route. There is precedence for that, in the 1980s they did that and they do live to fight another day as the corporations that file for bankruptcy, but that really got governor Andrew Cuomos dander up here and became sort of a central focus of his, that the federal government, if Mitch Mcconnell wouldnt have any help. Thats a bit of an exaggeration because the federal government has provide the new york and other states lots of help. Jacqui heinrich is in new york with more on that. The rift spilled into its third day yesterday. Andrew cuomo slamming that suggestion from Mitch Mcconnell that states that are cash strapped and needing federal aid should be allowed to dechair bankruptcy. Cuomo slammed that in a news release or slammed a news release from mcconnells staffer that reportedly circulated after mcconnells comments on the radio show, stopping blue state bailouts. The new york governor railed against mcconnell for partisanship and that new york state distributes to the pot and kentucky is number three taking from at that pot and he challenged mcconnell to pass a law and send it to the president to sign. Pass the law, i dare you, and then go to the president and say, sign this bill allowing states to declare bankruptcy. You want to send an International Message that the economy is in turmoil . Do that. Mcconnell said in an interview with conservative radio host hue hewitt wednesday theres some concern among republicans that federal aid would in part be used to cover Workers Pension shortfalls. Mcconnell said you raised yourself with the pension programs, theres not going to be any desire on the republican side to bail out state pensions by borrowing from future generations. It was revealed this week, kentucky is receiving 1. 7 billion from the cares act, i with was signed into law in late march, and new York Governor Andrew Cuomo did not pass up a chance to make note of that amount, neil. Neil thank you very much. Jacqui heinrich in midtown manhattan with a lot more on that and shes right well hear more about that. I dont know if you heard about the talk about china, what it knew, whether it knew it, and whether its kahoots with the World Health Organization. And one state says we dont need more proof that the chinese were lying about this stuff and we think we have ample grounds to sue them. Its not quite that simple, but eric smith the attorney general with us right now. Good to have you. Youre the only state in the country that has taken this move, but its very tough to extract money or to sue a foreign country, so youd have to change some, i guess, rules here first, wouldnt you . Well, actually, here is what we know so far is that the Chinese Government is engaged in a campaign of deceit and deception and misrepresentations, misled the world in critical weeks in december and january about the nature of this virus, this deadly virus thats been unleashed to the world. And what weve got now is untold human loss, no part of the world has been spared, including my home state, we have over 200 lives lost and 6,000 cases so you have a real human toll, people separated from their families, not being able to go to Nursing Homes to visit loved ones and funeral homes. The Economic Loss to missouri at least 44 billion. Ten of billions for our state. And our legislature goes back next week to try to craft from these circumstances. And these are concerns we have and we believe the Chinese Government should be held accountable for their actions and inactions. Neil first, theyd have to fess up to it, right . The only other case i could see this that parallels this, is pan am 103 disaster and libya was behind that and Moammar Gadhafi denied, and finally fessed up and the lockerbie, and then it took economic pressure to do this. Dont you need Something Like that . Its a fair question. And typically, and i think what youre getting to is that its a sovereign nation, and they claim protection. So weve alleged public nuisance, negligence, not just how they handled this, but also, with a lot of other factors of them dealing with the situation, but its important under the federal sovereign immunities act, there are exceptions to that. Theres a commercial activity exception, so we allege that theyre handling with the wuhan virology lab, the hoarding of ppe, they went from a net exporter to a net importer of ppe and keeping the world in the dark and running the hospital system. Those or objectives we believe fits into the sovereign immunities act and why we believe our claims have merit and why we dont think well be the last state to do this. Neil youre the only state doing it, but you might be lighting a fire. Well watch it very closely. Attorney general, thank you for taking the time. Thank you. Neil all right. In the meantime, here, were talking eventually america getting back to work. Its going to come slowly and it may be bumpy, but for the u. S. Auto industry which is really, really hurting, the whole global Auto Industry is, there is talk about them reopening plants in the next weeks and months. How quickly they can do that is probably anyones guess. Not super quickly. And joining us is the hyundai America President and ceo. Good to have you, sir. What are hyundais plans in this country and as far as reopening, partially reopening . How would you describe it . Well, good morning, neil and thank you for having me. Well, the coronavirus is being impacting very heavily the automotive industry. You know that they are in total about 10 million american jobs impacted and at the moment, all plants in america are halted. So most of the oems and hyundai, we are planning to restart producing as of the first week of may, in our case, may 4th. Obviously, the safety and health is the top priority, were going to do it in a phased in approach so we can just run past the production as if nothing happened. Were going to ensuring that were going to have testing to all of our employees before they come to work and one needs to respect social distancing and weve seen the plan, especially in the common areas. And the sanitation procedures and obviously, all align with the c. D. C. Protocols. So quite a challenging time for us. Neil do you worry that there wont be an appetite to buy cars . A lot of people are scared not only of the virus, but even whether theyll be able to have a job to come back to . So it could be a Long Time Coming for customers to start filling your show rooms and to start showing any interest in such a major purchase. For most americans, thats their second biggest purchase. Youre exactly right. Weve seen the second part of the month of march, and in the month of april, a significant down trend demand of about 50 which is dramatic. Thats why we call to congress to try to support this industry by trying to support the customers. So, you know, one of the things that weve seen thats happened in other countries is that the customers are not willing anymore to utilize public transportation. So we think that there is a program that supports those customers and others that are maybe waiting to get their purchase. Were going to be able to save a lot of american jobs in this industry. You know, hyundai alone has about 125,000 direct and indirect employees through the nation. When you get into this the we realize theres a risk of 2. 3 million jobs against pentup demand. Neil from your mouth, all right. Thank you, sir, very very much. Best of luck to you. Okay, the battle over hydroxychloroquine, maybe not the magic bullet that some had hoped, including the president of the United States after this. Safe drivers save 40 safe drivers save 40 thats safe drivers save 40 . It is, thats safe drivers save 40 . Hes right there. Its him safe drivers do save 40 . Click or call for a quote today. All right, i might have misstated earlier on. I cant blame anybody, but myself. I think i referred to 4 p. M. The white house with the task force as a briefing. Its a meeting so theres no guarantee theyre going to be addressing the press today. I apologize for that. But you know, andrew, i think ill blame you, is that okay . And in the meantime i also misspoke, i was referring to jersey mikes, the fast food sandwich concern that is concerned about the meet and pork plants shut down across the country and how it could boomerang, and it called it mikes or something. And hydroxychloroquine, its largely a malaria drug and meant to treat lupus, lo and behold, the president and others started saying this might be something that could handle and deal with the coronavirus itself. Now, there have been a number of studies, including one at the va hospital and then the f. D. A. Finally weighing in that showed that those that took it, especially those who had underlying conditions like heart ailments, respiratory issues, it was not the magic bullet many hoped it would be. Several of them died, but the f. D. A. Effectively said given those and anything else, anything for this outside of a clinical trial, certainly in a hospital would not be the right idea. I want to explore there more with dr. Jeanette, the medical physician and Fox News Contributor as well. What do you make of the whole hydroxychloroquine, good or bad for the coronavirus to take . First of all, neil, this medicine, hydroxychloroquine is an approved medicine, but like you said only for malaria, lupus, Rheumatoid Arthritis and used under a compassionate use for people critically ill and potentially dying and there was a study that came out of france showing it might help, might help save lives which is why we used it here in america to try to save lives in our patients. But the study out of the va which included about 400 people, 370 people, some died and 11 given nothing, but Supportive Care died. So 28 put on the hydroxychloroquine versus 11 who did not receive it. The thing is though, this study did not include other factors of why na could have potentially caused the death of some of these patients, so, it didnt look at the big picture, but certainly some information that we have to take into account. The f. D. A. Recommends it should not be prescribed outside of a clinical study, im sorry, outside of a clinical setting outside of the hospital because of the concern for the way this medicine can affect the heart. It can cause irregular beating of the heart and cause problems with vision and if you include it with zithromax, you combine them, you might have a problem. Medicine is trial and error until we can find something that works. The key is to do it safely. In this situation we were so desperate to try to keep our patients alive and i think because of this study out of france is why it was so publicized in the media. If it was another drug like remdesvir, or others that had a study in another country we probably would have promoted that as well. I think right now we have to continue the studies. There are so many medications and vaccines under trial, i think thats fantastic. We have to conduct those studies safely and efficiently and hopefully something will come out that works. Neil doctor, thank you very much. Well keep a very close eye on that. In the meantime, you know in national emergencies, the National Guard is there to help every step of the way and now its extending that help to monitoring our food supply timely, given whats been happening lately. Stay with us. All right, ive heard of calling in the National Guard and this got my attention when i heard that iowa was calling in the National Guard to bring testing kits to Meat Processing plants because several in the states and other states, by the way, have been hit very, very hard with workers who could track the coronavirus itself. Hundreds all taken together. I dont know what that means, that whether the longterm affects on our food supply. I know it affects at least one third of our pork supply. More than 43,000 National Guard members are already helping out in various ways, but this is unusual here. General joseph lingle, National Guard chief with us right now. Thank you for coming. An unusual request, what would your folks do in checking out these plants . How would that work . Yeah, neil. Thanks for having me. You know, the National Guard is obviously able to do a variety of tasks, specifically related to the Meat Processing facility, thats true that, you know, north carolina, iowa, some other states that have big the Meat Processing industry is big, the National Guard asked to focus on the specific Meat Processing individuals. Weve gone into the plants where theyre forced, where theyre certainly working in close quarters and distancing is a challenge. We have to make sure that the men and women processing the food can stay covidfree and we can keep the supply of food going so the men and women across the United States have meat in the stores. Neil you know, general, i know and the f. D. A. Says that virus cant transfer through food, thats good to hear. I wonder whether our food supply is compromised. Obviously i know youre not a doctor, but is that a worry Going Forward. A lot we dont know, the unusual number of Meat Processing plant workers who were affected here, disproportionately. So im wondering if there is some sort of connection. So, you know, neil, i think that this is just another problem here that the covid19 virus has presented us, that the nation has to deal with. You know, the initial process and what weve been dealing with the last six weeks have been, you know, the American People have come together and they have done the social distancing and stay at home as the nation has asked so we can bend the curve here and weve bent the curve. The wildfire has been tam pd out and now the nation is moving to opening and get the economy up and running again. All the things following on from that to keep the food supply going and making sure that people can do things and that this wildfire doesnt start again. This virus is going to smolder until theres a vaccine, which is a year, year and a half away. So, theres things and the food supply and keeping people fed and food banks and mitigating is something the National Guard will do across the spectrum, whether its just the Meat Industry or whether its helping people do testing or helping people do, you know, awareness of the Contact Tracing issue thats going. So, i think this is just another way the National Guard can help the nation deal with this crisis. Neil you know, general, how are you holding up . You know, you guys who provide all the help and no one asks how you guys are doing. Im thinking of your 44,000 men and women spread throughout to try to help us get through this. I know youre not getting much sleep or much time to relax or down time. How is everyone doing . Everyone is doing great and thank you for asking. I think the nation has got to be a lot of pride and thanks for first responders, for the whole na nation, the men and women of the National Guard and everybody coming through for the whole response to defeating the covid19 epidemic. We know this is not a shortterm emergency. The National Guard is the nations First Military Response Force in times of domestic crisis when were not doing the War Fighting Mission and going abroad and we have 30,000 men and women. But when were focused on the homeland, were used to doing things that recover quickly, hurricanes and floods and as devastating they are theyre generally done in a few weeks or a month. But this will be the nation dealing with this pandemic. Neil general, how do you handle when people are impatient, with the protests in many states, run by republican governors or democratic governors. A lot of people are antsy and want to get out of their homes, they want to get back to work and worried about their jobs and still very, very worried about the virus, but thats a delicate balance. Dealing with that and keeping people, again, their anxiety contained, it seems to be getting tougher because these protests are just increasing kind of everywhere. How do you juggle that . Yeah, neil, well, you know, this is a historic event, right . In 2020 and the covid19 virus is going to go down in the history works its going down in the history books and im impressed how weve come together as a nation to deal with this, from coast to coast, borders, north to south, america is focused on doing whats right. The American People, sure, this machine that we have, this economic machine that runs the world, really, it wants to get back to work and it will, but i think that its very, very important that we realize that for the longterm weve got to stay focused on all the things that the scientists and science is telling us to do and you know, we understand people are frustrated and worried and we know that this, too, shall pass at some point, but people are scared and theyre worried and they need their jobs and their money and thats why having the National Guard as we can show up and be prepared to help and assist, whether its handing out food and food banks. Or whether its doing tests on people in airports to see if maybe theyre infected as they cross our nation. All of those things are critical to keeping the American People, you know, supplied and happy as we endure this together as a nation coming out the back side of this. Youre making that possible, general. My thanks to you and your men and women. Thats not an easy job here. General lengyel, thank you very much, were monitoring that, too, and the protests. Several planned today, i believe we are up to 18 states and cities under one form or another, theyre getting itchy, want to get back to work, but theres always that balance when they certainly violate distance provisions and the like, whether theyre doing more harm than good, the constitution arguments, the health care arguments and people keep arguing back and forth. Thats our right, were americans. All right. Well hear from Governor Andrew Cuomo and what appear to be hospitalization counts in the state after this. All right, this whole shutdown is getting serious right now. Tyson shutdown in pasco, washington after two of the key pork plants. If youre keeping track separately, an indiana hog farm has been temporarily shut down and two down in minnesota and smithfield is closing an operation after this one in south dakota and this one in illinois. Thats compromised about a third of our just pork capacity there. Im leaving out so many of the others here. What is the fallout . Brian duncan is a hog farmer and we go to him and hes calm and levelheaded and somehow get through it. Man, oh, man, you get it left and right. What do you make of this, brian, how serious this is getting when it was just the smithfield plant in south dakota, it seemed like a oneoff and now six other plants to that oneoff. Whats going on . Well, neil, welcome back to a rainy day here in northwest illinois. Im going to look at you called me a young man, ill revel in that for a moment. Neil, its getting real and serious and the impact felt up and down the supply chain from producers such as myself to retailers, to the consumers, and its about people though, neil. Its about people that work in the system, the people that process the animals and those people need to know theyre safe. This he need to be to know theyre healthy, theyre going to positive Work Environment and we need to ensure that happens so we can get the supply chain back up and moving, neil. You know, brian, youre the expert, i read a prompter so i think i qualify. But one of the things ive noted brian, in the plant closings, is they start with a lot of people getting exposed to the virus and then they have to shut down the plant. And i know it didnt the f. D. A. Doesnt transfer to food, i hope theyre right, im not medical expert. Are you worried that americans are going to hear forget whether the pork gets to my grocery store, im afraid to buy it. What do you tell them . Again, neil, usda, again this week unequivocal, neil, go buy it because its safe. Covid19 is not a foodborne illness, i assure you, i remember our conversation two weeks ago, safe, nutritious, delicious, keep those thoughts in mind and shop with confidence. I think the issue is going to be for consumers their selection might be limited at times, you know, consumers have gotten real spoiled, neil. We can go to the store and i shop in the same stores you do, neil. We can go to the store and buy pork chops already with the bone out of them or chicken pieces, cut however we want. I think as we go forward here for a little while at least, neil, consumers are going to maybe learn how to cut their own pork chop from a loin or buy the chops with the bone in as we do all we can to keep this food supply safely moving to the retail sector. Neil you know, when i heard and we just had a National Guard leader here talking about going to one of the plants to give a good look and all. Is there a worry that it will disrupt the supply chain, maybe for quite a while, and that people who are eager to get, you know, their pork chops or what have you will have to wait a long time and when it does get there, its going to be a lot more expensive. What are you envisioning . Well, i do think there are some unknowns and ive got to tell you, i was so encouraged by your last interview and i was able to listen to your National Guard general. Thats encouraging. What needs to happen to prevent the unknowns is to get the processing plants recognized as critical areas and a high priority for testing, and to give the employees their valuable the valuable people that work in those plants confidence to return to work. I think there is going to be a disruption. I hope it doesnt last long. One of the first plants to close was a tyson plant on the pork side in columbus junction. Now, that has started to slowly come back online so thats an encouraging report. But youre right, neil, we could lo lose be down 30, 40 of our pork harvest capacity and there are longterm implications for that. The wellbeing of the farm sector, im particularly worried about, neil. Neil youre from illinois, one of the states tentative easing up on restrictions and im wondering how that affects your business and obviously, everyones top priority is keep everyone state, but the longer you keep states tight with the provisions, how is the balance of illinois to your liking . Well, neil, you raise a tremendous issue that actually has been keeping me awake at night now some as we think about the fabric, particularly of Rural America. Rural illinois, neil, we dont have a lot of businesses. Weve got small retailers and small restaurants and you know, neil, even our places of worship have been impacted by this. The longer we stay closed, i worry about what we look like on the back side. Theres not a lot of people standing in line to open businesses in polo, illinois. I think we need good organizational thought what the fabric of Rural America is going to look like and how we maintain it on the back side of this. So, yeah, theres some real worries and real concerns out here. Neil well, you keep going, my friend. And youre the salt of the earth, and, yeah, i still think youre a young man so keep at it and i want you to resolve this because i certainly dont want to reduce myself to salads. So get this done. Very good seeing you. Continued good health and thank you for always helping us out in these circumstances. And remember, neil, nothing improves a salad like bacon. So keep that in mind and you stay healthy, my friend. Neil you are a great salesman. Brian duncan, hog farmer and so much more. All right. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo speaking right now. The status of new york. The election sites for testing. I assume, and my questions, my educated guess is that independent pharmacies will take us up on this, there are 5,000 pharmacies in new york state, some of them have already been doing it, some of the Larger National change, but if your local drug store can now become a collection site, people could go to their local drug store, there are about 5,000 in new york. They would be Collection Sites that would quickly ramp up our collection capacity. So were doing that. And since we now have more Collection Sites, more Testing Capacity, we can open up the eligibility for those tests, right . We had a protocol wi with eligibility. And not everybody could get a test. Thats the big complaint across the board, everybody wants a test and couldnt get a test because we had a tight screen on the eligibility because we had limited capacity to test. As you increase the capacity to test, you can increase the eligibility. And first responders, Health Care Workers, and essential employees. Why . Because these people have been carrying the load and they have been subjected to the public all during this crisis and because theyre public facing, right . These are the people who you interact with. You get on the bus, this is the bus driver. You get in the subway car, this is the subway conductor. You are interacting with government, these are the people who youre interacting with. If theyre infected, they could possibly spread it to a large number of people. So, were dramatically increasing the capacity with these groups. Whether first responders, firefighters, paramedics, emts, police officers. Police officers, state, local, county, sheriffs, et cetera. Also, correction, parole officers, probation officers, people who are in the prisons, they can now go to the increased number of correction sites in the state and theyre eligible to get a test. Health care workers, broad definition, direct care providers, health care practitioners, medical specialists, occupational therapists, psychologists, psychiatrists, Residential Care program managers. So if youre working in a facility, Mental Health facility, et cetera, Community Group residence youre now able to get a test and quote, unquote, essential workers, essential workers are the people who have been keeping everything running. You know, when we say we closed down the economy, we didnt really close down the economy, all right . We closed down the economy relative to what the economy was doing, but you still go to the store and buy groceries. Your lights are still on, right . Someone is picking up the garbage in front of your house. So, those essential workers have been functioning all along, and these essential workers and god bless them, we want to make sure they are now eligible for tests, again, because theyve been working all along. Theyve been exposed, and also, because when you go into the dry cleaner, this is the person on the other side of the counter who is interacting with dozens of people a day. So we want to make sure those people get tested. As we continue to develop our Testing Capacity and the labs are coming up to scale, the Collection Sites are opening, the more testing we have, the more we will open eligibility, hopefully one day, we get to the point where anybody who wants a test can walk in and get a test, right . That was the dream. But we found out quickly that we couldnt do that. You have 19 Million People in the state. So we had to prioritize. Were still prioritizing, but were opening up that prioritization. The more capacity, the more tests, the more well open the eligibility criteria. Were also focusing on our Health Care Workers and first responders. Were doing Antibody Testing for our front line Health Care Workers. And were starting today coming up to scale with four facilities in down site new york. Obviously, down state new york handled the bulk of the cases not only in this state, but in the nation and were going to the hospitals that had a large number of covid cases come in and were doing Antibody Testing there, as quickly as we can and to the Largest Scale that we can. Hearst hospital was one of the citys, new york citys Public Hospitals. When we talk about hospitals down state there are about 100 hospitals. About 11 of the 100 are whats called Public Hospitals. New york city runs them. As part of their health and hospitals corporation, those Public Hospitals really saw a large number of people and they were under stress and they were under stress, frankly, even before the covid situation, but e elm hearst hospital for the number that they were handling, month montfior is covid hospital. We want to give them all right, well continue to monitor Governor Andrew Cuomo, governor of state of new york. Hes talking about hospitalization and certainly the issue important for the governor, the criteria to get them back to reopening their states, partially or in a staggered fashion, is the testing, thats been dramatically beefed up, antithe Antibody Testing. Thats revealing because in new yorks case it showed the markers for the virus in two out of 10 who took the test. That would roughly translate into 2. 7 million new yorkers who had or at least exposure to the virus or the antibodies for the virus. So getting a better handle on that, the number of cases and those who have beaten it and keep in mind, better than 85 diagnosed with this beat this and beat it handily. That number could grow exponentially higher and even in percentage terms, given some of the discoveries weve had with the Antibody Tests that can easily, you know, locate where the u. S. Had it. You might have had cold, sniffles, chills. The c. D. C. Expand the markers for these things, but these Antibody Tests go further than that. And the governor would like to see more of that. Most governors would. One of the things were following as we follow the governor. One of the things the governor touched on in prior briefings was that in Nursing Homes, as much as the case certainly in new jersey. Theyve proven to be the epicenter of a lot of the deaths we have tragically seen in this country. Better than 11,000 have come out of Senior Health care facilities, hursting hom Nursing Homes and that sort of thing. George operates four such facilities around the country. Very good to have you. Is it your sense that were getting a better handle on identifying the population and within centers such as your own, to get the tests beefed up to the point you know the problems before you have a problem . Neil, quite frankly, were still a good way away from having the adequate testing that we need to identify both staff and residents that are infected with the virus. We all know this virus can be carried asymptomatically through our staff that are returning home every evening, new admissions coming from hospitals. Our patients that are going outside the center for life saving procedures, such as dialysis and chemotherapy, all providing elements of risk as those patients and staff return to our center. So without the ability to truly proactively test both residents and staff, it is a very still a very, very challenging battle to fight. Why is that though . When i is it a fault that it would seem to me common sense since this is the center of the highest concentration of deaths, certainly cases going way back to the seattle area and im just wondering why it continues and bedevils your industry where you cant get the test you need to sort of round the curve on this . Neil, no request he that when this pandemic started, we go back, you know, to early mid march in genesis when we saw our first cases and we were aggressively looking to acquire necessary ppe, still the necessary equipment for our caregiving staff is still a issue. There just was not adequate Testing Capacity. Also, the process of obtaining tests was just not there was not adequate supply of those testing resources. Theres also an issue as Governor Cuomo just stated, of prioritization. Theres no question that the coronavirus, the pandemic started and hit our hospitals the hardest and the quickest. And the priority around testing had to be there. So, as we looked at testing priority, Nursing Centers, residents and staff, priority level two and still are, versus hospital workers and hospital testing at priority level one. So, what we do need is a recognition that the population in Nursing Centers are very vulnerable by their nature. Its an aged, frail population that obviously well, everyone would know that now, you know. Everyone would know that now and it must be exasperating because thats pretty obvious certainly given the numbers and cases and both those administering the care and getting the care, especially those patients have to leave the facility for kidney dialysis or anything like that. Im just wondering at your facility, there are quite a few of them here, do you have safeguards in place . In other words, people cant visit their relatives in the centers, that theyre practicing distancing rules, kind of hard to do in some occasions, i understand. But what are you doing in the meantime to get a handle on this . You know, weve heard met or exceeded all c. D. C. Or cms requirements around Infection Control. Literally, since the end of february, early march. When we first started to see exposure to the virus. We severely limited visitation. Ultimately eliminated visitation for in i family member, even at end of life situations. We have now begun to isolate entire facilities. You heard Governor Cuomo talk about covidonly hospitals. We now have created covid on l hnl only Nursing Homes in an effort to better isolate those patients that are coming in either with known covid condition or suspected covid, you know, upon admission to our center. Were also isolating all new admissions in quarantine units upon once again in attempt to limit the spread of the virus and ultimately looking at eliminating the entry of the virus into our centers. That virus has exposed about a third of our centers at this point. Neil all right. So with 400 centers, we have that virus in over 130 centers so were doing everything humanly possible and we have been to keep it out of those other centers and when it has been introduced into the centers, trying to, you know, implore compliant Infection Control procedures in all of our centers to prevent the spread. Neil all right, well, good luck with that and hang in there, george hager of the ceo of 400 such centers that again, the focus of a good deal of attention with everyone, including the senior centers, Nursing Homes and a dispro nat numbers. The latest on iran. We are ready to respond to any more of the harassment the iranians had of ships that we have in international waters. The president has already given the military the authority to shoot them if it comes to that. General gary boykin, much, much more with us. General, good to have you. What do you think that iran is thinking in the middle of this whole crisis thats going on on the virus, to start, you know, harassing our ships . Well, i think irans got a lot of internal problems ap weve watched that materialize over the last two or three years and quite frankly, i think theyre taking advantage of this opportunity because america is struggling with this whole covid thing and youve got a major Strategic Asset sitting in port in qualm because of this covid. I think theyre taking advantage of the opportunity, but i think its largely for, you know, internal propaganda that theyre out there punching the giant and look, i think that the president s decision to eliminate these patrol boats that are harassing our ships, even though its not a new thing, i think that his decision was a good decision. Neil definitely, secretary of state pompeo was talking about ir irans space program, that they launched a rocket and they say it made orbit. Theres no proof of that. Pompeo is saying that this is dangerous, not peaceful. What do you think . Yeah, it is. It means theyre one step closer to an intercontinental ballistic missile. Now, you put a Nuclear Warhead on that and they can reach any place on the earth. And this has been one of the things weve been concerned about and you know, there is a u. N. Resolution that prevents them from doing this although they interpret it a different way. This is a bit disconcerting. If in fact it was successful. That has yet to be determined, but they did fire this from a location that american intelligence had not been aware of previously in the central desert portion of iran. Maybe we just missed it. I think it remains to be seen as to the credibility of this success of this missile test. Neil all right. General, thank you very much. I guise apologize for the truncated nature of this. A lot of breaking news. And from Kevin Hassett gagling with reporting. He was asked about the burn rate on the funding of the loans, he thinks that it lasts four weeks and unemployment to go up and nothing too surprising on the front and this is a situation that will take us a while to get over and letting you know that protests are planned across the country today and well see more in the next hour and then the hour after that. In the meantime, the concerns about this continue unabated, but our coverage on it continues unabated on it as well. Leland vittert and weve got Gillian Turner coming up to take you through the latest on anyone and anywhere here. Ill see you on monday. There are now more than 900,000 coronavirus cases confirmed across the United States. 36,000 of those cases added since just yesterday morning, thats friday. Welcome to americas news headquarters from washington d. C. Its great to be with everybody at home and leland, great to be with you. Im joining you from a mobile studio today so were giving this a whirl. Im Gillian Turner. Leland eventually well be back on the set together again. Gillian one day. Leland as you point out the number continues to grow. Georgias