They didnt have to use it nearly to the extent they thought when they conceived it. It wasnt that they made a mistake. Nobody made a mistake. I would rather have too much than too little, err on the side of caution. Its incredible what they did including the two ships, the two great ships. I want to thank a lot of great people, great politicians. We are going to be announcing the political is tomorrow. We are going to be having senators. We are going to be having a meeting with the governors probably on thursday, meeting by teleconference on a lot of things will be discussed in some of the details will be discussed. We want them to do an incredible job of running their estates. I think they will do an incredible job, after having got to know so many of them. Each one will do an incredible job. The federal government is there. We have ventilators if they need them. We have beds if they need them. We have hospitals if they need them. We have a Testing Capacity thats now secondtonone where, again, other countries are calling us, countries that you thought were doing well are calling us for help on testing. So we are there to help. With that, if you have a few questions, we will take them. If not, that would be okay too. Go ahead please. Reporter mr. President , two questions. On your announcement about the w. H. O. , i understand your grievances with them. Can you address why its the correct time to do this now in the middle of a pandemic. President trump we are going to be dealing with countries and we are going to be dealing with leaders of different parts of the world. We spend 500 million a year, we have for many years, far more than anybody else, including china. I mean, look, i read off a long list of problems that we have, and weve had problems with them for years. It doesnt matter. We are looking at a term of 60 to 90 days. We are doing a very thorough investigation as we speak. It should have been done by previous administrations a long time ago. When you look at the mistakes that were made, all of the mistakes that were made, its something we have to look at. It is very chinacentric. I told that the president xi. I said the World Health Organization is very chinacentric. Meaning whatever it is, china was always right. You cant do that. You cant do that. Not right. We spend, again, its not a question of money but when we are spending 500 million and china is spending 38 million, 34 million, 40 million, 42 million in a case. Again, its not money. Its not right. Well see. This is in evaluation period but in the meantime we are putting a hold on all funds going to world health. We will be able to take that money and channel it to the areas that are most needed. Its another way of doing it. We have not been treated properly. Reporter mr. President , you mentioned youre going to be speaking with all of the governors tomorrow. To make recommendations. President trump probably thursday. Reporter thursday. What if they dont listen to you or take your advice or obey you . Well consider taking away their federal funding. President trump i dont want to say that. They will listen. They will be fine. I think we are going to have a Good Relationship. Dating the federal government. Not only for funding and im not saying take it away. They needed for advice, may be equipment. We have a tremendous stockpile we are in the process of completing. Were in a very good position. The cupboard was bare when i got here. Nobody ever thought a thing, in all fairness, to previous administer rations, nobody ever thought anything like this was going to happen but it did happen. The governors will be very, very respectful of the presidency. This isnt me. This is the presidency. The presidency has such a great importance in terms of what we are doing. You can talk about constitution. You can talk about federalism. You can talk about whatever you want. But the best way, i am talking now from a managerial standpoint, to let individual governors run individual states and come to us if they have difficulty and we will help them. John. Reporter you talked about having testing and tracing equipment and the facility for that in place to open up the government. Dr. Fauci said this morning that that critical testing and tracing ability does not currently exist. President trump i dont know. I dont know. Nobody knows. Reporter my question is will it exist by may 1st . President trump the individual governors have testing. The individual governors, we have many forms of testing a new testing is being developed. Our country has to get opened, and it will get opened and it will get opened safely. Hopefully quickly. Some areas quicker than other areas. But there is tremendous testing and the governors will use whatever testing is necessary. If they are not satisfied with their testing, they shouldnt open but they will use whatever testing is necessary. Go ahead. Reporter thank you, mr. President. Back to the w. H. O. , will you support the organization again if the leader is immediately replaced. Do you want to see them step down . President trump we are doing an investigation. I dont know the gentleman. I know there have been problems and its very unfair to the United States, just like the World Trade Organization has been very, very unfair and now they are coming into line. When they consider china and developing nation . Because china is a developing nation, they take massive advantage of the United States . Wide and other president stop this . Ive been talking about it from the day i got in and were looking at a very, very strongly. World trade. I have problem with world health and world trade, both of them. Im not sure which is worse. We will figure it out. Reporter you were just criticizing the w. H. O. For appraising china as transparent but you were saying many of the same things about china just a couple of months ago. So how do you square your decision . President trump china is supposed to be spending 250 billion in our country. We are going to be watching very much to see. We got a little waylaid by the virus. But id love to have a Good Relationship with china. But if you look and we made a phenomenal deal. China has paid, because of me, china has paid us tens of billions of dollars over the course of a very short period of time. Some of that money has been spent to farmers where they have been targeted by china. We cannot let that happen. We cant let that happen. We ended up signing a very good tree deal. Now i want to see if china outlives up to it. I think president xi will live up to it. If he doesnt, that will be okay too because we have very good alternatives. Reporter today 600,000 cases, 25,000 deaths. I know you want to blame the w. H. O. But i have spoken hundreds of people across the country in the last few weeks who say they still cant get tested. And that they arent social distancing. Let me finish President Trump excuse me. I know your question. The governor supposed to do testing. Its up to the governors. Go ahead. Quiet, quiet. Quiet. Reporter mr. President. Reporter how are they not social distancing. President trump the governors are doing the testing. It hasnt been up to the federal government. Go ahead. Reporter a quick followup on the w. H. O. Reporter the question President Trump i told them when they put this guy here its nothing but trouble. He is a showboat. If you keep talking, i will leave and you can have it out with the rest of these people. If you keep talking, im going to leave and you can have it out with them. Just a loudmouth. Go ahead. Reporter if you could clarify, are you basically listing your slow the spread before them a one deadline . President trump the governors are going to be running their individual states. Some of them will say i cant open now. Some of them may last longer than we even with think. Others will say i can. I dont want to mention states. There are numerous states that are in great shape right now. They are viewing the rest of the country like, we dont even believe this is happening. We have a lot of those states. They are set to open practically now, i mean they would be open. Were going to let them open sooner than the date. We are going to pick a date, get a date thats good thats going to be very, very soon. Sooner than the end of the month. But there are many states out there that are looking at this and they are reviewing it. They are saying we shouldnt be even included in this. There are some who want to open up almost now. Now, if we disagree with it, we are not going to let them open. We are not going to let them open. Some governors said, has a lot of problems, a lot of cases, a lot of death they want to open early, we are not going to let it happen. Where they are to watch. Where there to help. But we are also there to be critics. On testing, very important, we have always wanted the states to do the testing. We are now providing great testing but the state has to provide the great testing and the ventilators. They didnt do that. We ended up going into the ventilator business essentially, and we have made tens of thousands of ventilators and we solve the big problem for the states. We want them to do the testing, and we are there to help. Please. Reporter i have a questio question. President trump one question. Reporter i have a question on the governors. Can i followup. President trump one question. Reporter can i followup on jordans question. Did you want to walk back on praising china in january . President trump why wouldnt i be respectful of china . China has paid is nothing in your last administration, nothing in any previous administration. They paid us tens of billions of dollars because what weve done. The trade deal we have, they have to give us 250 billion in purchases. Lets see if they do that, and they are also paying us 25 on 25 250 billion in tariffs. Taking billions of dollars from china. They never paid us 0. 10. Thats a great thing. If they dont produce or if we find out bad things, we are not going to be happy but right now and we are doing that. Thats what were doing. Look, we have an Investigation Underway. We are paying almost 500 million. We have an Investigation Underway on the World Health Organization. We will find out exactly what went on a we may be satisfied can be remedied and we may be satisfied its so bad they cant be remedied. If you cant, we are going to go a different route. Porta mike you are criticizing the w. H. O. For appraising china for being transparent but you also praised china for being transparent. President trump i dont talk about chinas transparency. If im so good to china how come im the only leader of a country that closed our borders tightly against china . By the way, when i close our border, that was long ahead of what anybody you can ask anybody that was in the room. 21 people. I was the one person who wanted to do it. Deborah can tell you that better than anybody. I was the one prisoner wanted to do it. Do you know why . Because i dont believe everything i hear it if we didnt close our border early, very early, long before the kind of dates you are talking about, we wouldve had thousands and thousands probably hundreds of thousands more deaths. Reporter i am talking about how President Trump thats enough. Reporter he said he would have data in the coming days, the coronavirus disproportionate impact on black americans. President trump is being worked on very strongly. Reporter when we have this . Reporter i would say within two weeks. We are working on it strongly. Cdc is working. In the back. Reporter you are talking about reopening parts of the country by the end of the month. If you do that and as a result you see a spike in cases in those areas. President trump some countries have in some countries havent. Im watching other countries, starting other countries as they open. I dont want to go into names because for some it would be a little bit embarrassing. Im studying other countries as we go along. Look at every country thats open. Some successfully, some okay. No total disaster but some okay. Some have to go back to the hot spot and fix the hot spot. We think we are going to do it very successfully. Again, we have one country but we have lots of different pieces. Its a puzzle. We have beautiful pieces, beautiful states with capable governors. They know when its time to open. We dont want to put pressure on anybody. Im not going to put any pressure on any governor to open. Im not going to say to Governor Cuomo, youve got open within seven days. I want him to take his time, do it right, and then open new york. Im not putting any pressure on the governors. Some of them dont need pressure or not pressure. They are ready to go. Thats a good thing. Well open it up in beautiful little pieces as it comes along. Please go ahead. Reporter he spoke about Governor Cuomo, wondering if you have any thoughts on some of his remarks him earlier today where he basically said that were new york to be pressured to be open, it would be, it would cause a constitutional crisis and he basically said that you declared yourself king trump. President trump i heard he said that but i didnt see the remarks but he understands how we helped him. He needed help. We gave him 2,900 hospital beds. He didnt use them. We gave him a ship. He didnt use it. I am saying thats good because you know what, that means he didnt need them. But we said it was too much but we wanted, we said err on the side of caution, as i said. We said look. We dont think you need it but if you do, we are going to have them built. The army corps of engineers did a fantastic job in the u. S. Navy did a fantastic job and we moved a ship that was not meant for covid and we had it redesigned for covid. But they still didnt have very many people going in. We will get along just fine. He understands. We will get along just fine. Reporter mr. President. Reporter mr. President , how do you assure workers and states that may reopen that are fearful about going back to work . President trump louder. Reporter your assurance to workers who are asked to go back to work but are fearful. President trump its going to be up to the governors. The governors want to make sure everything is safe. I think companies can do testing oon the may be a weekly basis. You dont have to do it every day with the same worker but they could do testing. They could do temperature gauges. They could do a lot of different things. And you know, we are only talking about a period of time. Eventually we want to go back to where we were. We want people actually sitting next to each other at ball games eventually. We are not going to rip out every other seat in baseball stadiums and football stadiums. We want to go back to where we were. I want people to understand that. We are not going to be like the way you are. We have 300 reporters in the back that want to sit. Look at this, the way this looks. I dont even like the way it looks. Although i have a lot fewer reporters, thats okay with me. Look at the way this looks. Ive never seen anything. John. Ive never seen anything quite like it. There are a lot of people. We dont want this. I dont want this. I dont want this. Eventually we are going back. Restaurants that had 150 seats are going to have 150 seats, not 50 seats. They cant make it at 50 seats. More importantly, the atmosphere is even better. We have to get used to it. We have to get used to it. I dont know the people are going to be shaking hands as readily. Some while. I said to some of the hospital people today will people be shaking hands again . I must say i was little surprised. Most of then said probably. There is some kind of a thing to it. I was never a big hand shake her but when i ran for politics i said i think i better shake peoples hands. Reporter a couple financial questions if i could. Larry kudlow said this morning that the current run rate. Money, plan to reup. What cane do as president to try to move it forward. President trump the problem is democrats want to put all sorts of things. Last time they put Kennedy Center and i hated putting Kennedy Center and i am Great Respect for Kennedy Center. But i hated putting in the bill because its just not appropriate. Right . They wanted it in. For whatever reason. They have their own political reason. I said watch the wave blows up. I think it blew up in their face. We want to take care of our workers. We will worry about other things and other pet projects of democrats and also republicans later. Its been a tremendously Successful Program and i think you see the banks have stepped up, hundreds of thousands of loan applications approved. Money is going out. Its been tremendous program. Obviously was a point where the money will be expired and we could use it for the workers. We want to make sure Small Businesses stay open, john. I think that will happen. Reporter californias governor sent out a list of six criteria for reopening the economy there. Did they consult on you with you on that . You said there were as many as 20 states that could reopen their economies as early as may 1st. Could you list some of those. President trump there are 20 states. I was given a number, 29 states who are in very, very good shape. I dont want to say whether or not the governors spoke with me about that weve had a very Good Relationship. Gavin newsom. Very, very Good Relationship. In the back, go ahead. Reporter i have two questions. President trump one question. Reporter a person who cant be here. President trump who cares . They cant be here. Too bad. Reporter one question, the United NationsEconomist Says theres a danger that the food supply could be interrupted during this pandemic. I want to know what youre going to do about it. President trump our farmers are incredible. They are producing levels of food like unbelievable. Transportation, one of the reasons i have a transportation people on the line tomorrow for the delivery of the food. We are doing phenomenally with the food and i will say the stores, kroger and walmart, which does a lot of the food, and many of the stores, they seem to be in very good shape but i havent heard that at all. We are going to be very strong on food supply. How about one more question . The death projections that you mentioned are based on full social distancing until the end of may. If you ease up on these guidelines now, how many more americans do you think President Trump im not easing up. We will have guidelines even for the states that open. We will not have any problem with that. Your questions are very interesting questions. The states that are opening are not states which will have a problem with that. Plus they will have to adhere to guidelines until a certain point into the future when the enemy is vanquished. Reporter the reason they dont have a problem now is because of social distancing. If you ease the guidelines. President trump partially in some of it will stay in effect, much of it will stay in effect for a period of time but the reason also is its different kind of states. There are lots of room. They have fewer people have lots of room. Thats one of the primary reasons. I want to thank you all very much. A lot of positive things are happening. We are going to have some very strong recommendations for the governors. We are going to work with the governors. The governors are going to do good job and if they dont do a good job were going to come down on them very hard. We will have no other choice. Thank you all very much. Reporter getting to a point where we have millions martha President Trump in the rose garden and this is the first time weve not heard from the medical representatives in one of these briefings. This was really focused on business. Dr. Birx and dr. Fauci were in the front row. The big news out of this, a couple big pieces of information, one is that the United States is not going to fund the w. H. O. Anymore. We will get in the event more in a moment. Also the president talking about ventilators and how successful he feels we were in terms of ventilators and starting a new ventilator reserve program that will also talk about in a moment. Also some comments on the importance of the relationship with the governors which got a lot of attention after last nights briefing as well. Good evening, everybody. I am Martha Maccallum and this is the story. The virus by most expert accounts is starting the process of wearing down, according to the numbers were looking at. While the number of deaths is daunting, we also know that the predictions in the failed models were way off and that they triggered a lot of action that have left the economy devastat devastated. The ramifications of that are something we are going to wrestle with for some time. In this country over 25,000 people have died from the coronavirus so far. The majority of them in the hardhit new york region which has shouldered by far the biggest burden in this thus far. As a point of reference, the 2018 flu season, america lost 34,000 people, that was after many of the country had been vaccinated. Its a point that doesnt get brought up a whole lot. Over 16 Million People in this country have not lost their lives but they have lost their livelihoods. They have lost their jobs, their sense of security. They have gone from building new homes and businesses and going on for dinner and taking vacation to being basically, you know, locked up at home or wherever they are hunkering down and worrying, quite frankly, but what comes in the future. President trump said moments ago he believes the country must open up safely but also quickly. We will begin tonight with white house trade advisor Peter Navarro on the steps the administration is taking to get back to business. Peter navarro, welcome back to the story. Good to have you with us. I want to ask you, youve been very outspoken and obviously following the china issue and have written about it very closely. This move to extricate our funding from the w. H. O. Or to stop funding it i should say, do you agree with that move . I would imagine you do. The World Health Organization is a single failure during this epidemic. They hid information from the public. They failed to call this a pandemic long after others had rightfully done so. There is blood on their hands. I think President Trump is absolutely correct to have a full investigation of how that happened and what chinas role mightve been to that. We cannot have a World Health Organization thats going to fail us in a pandemic and thats what happened. Martha i am curious. Obviously you are very involved with the trade deal with china and the president just spoke about that moments ago. He said they promised to buy 250 billion of goods from the United States. That has been a little bit delayed, he said, given the virus. He basically said that better happen. If it doesnt happen, theres going to be a reevaluation here. I am wondering if, you know, there are any Strings Attached now to our relationship with china with regard to being truly transparent about the origin of this illness in this virus in the role of the w. H. O. Will they be pressed on both things as part of a negotiation in the future . Martha, i think there is very interesting questions that need to be answered. But i think whats important for the American People to understand is what the white house is doing and what i specifically am doing is focusing on the supply chain, making sure the American People have what they need. If i can tell you a couple stories that illustrate as great hope for this economy over the next several months. Today General Motors in kokomo, indiana, rolled off the first ventilator. It did it in 11 days from start to finish. Thats incredible. Repurchasing an auto factory to ventilators. Whats going to happen now, even as the president is announcing a great strategic program. Ventilators, we are going to see them go as early as thursday into hospitals in chicago and over the weekend theres going to be ventilators delivered to hospitals in gary, indiana. What that tells me is that in this crisis we are able to move fast and flexibly. His Mother Company want to share with you which is a similar type of innovation. A couple weeks ago, the president was talking about he was concerned about having enough swabs for testing. I called general dynamics, a Great Aerospace company and said phoebe, im going to send you a swab to reverse engineer it and lets see what we can do in terms of doing production to scale. She did that within a matter of a couple days. Labs have called 3d printers. 303d printer farm and i found out they are capable of producing a million swabs a week with these 3d printers. Wanted to tell you . It tells me the new economy is going to be flexible and innovative. Back to the future, the third example, couple days ago i was talking to meera bill de blasio. I talk with him frequently. He put out an sos for suits. I asked, can we reinvigorate the old Garment District in new york and his eyes lit up over the phone. I couldnt see them but i knew it was happening. Today we were able to start moving a million yards of fabric and they are working with the National Council of textile organizations. They been tremendous. I looks like that could be an industry. Martha those are great. Thats what i see happening here, martha. Martha i think everybody commends the flexibility of these American Companies and businesses and i think that everybody in this country would love to see less of this, less of the supplies coming from china. When i watched those planes land from china and russia full of ppes for our hospital workers, i was glad though supplies were arriving but i was sad, peter, that we had to rely and other countries for these things. I think its great these innovations are happening in this country. The ventilators, sounds like we have more than we need now. Of these ventilators that gm is producing, are those going to go to other countries at this point . I think what we need to do, martha, across our ppe and supplies and medicines is build up both here domestically as well as much bigger stockpile that we can do. Yes, i think over time we may well become the leading exporter of ventilators to the world. A lot of them will sell. Theres going to be times where we will be giving them, america as a helping hand. Thats why i am bullish on this economy. I see a world in which we are going to be much more flexible, innovative. Breaking through regulatory barriers like the sound barrier in record time to do some of these things. Gives you great hope that will become martha innovation is great. Will become a country of manufacturing for American Workers who work with their hands and thats a future i think we can embrace. Sku and all right, very quickly. Are we going to hold chinas feet to the fire on these issues of transparency on why they havent told us information about the origin of this illness and where it comes from, will any of those have strings tied to our relationship, our trade relationship with china . Let me simply go over what we dont know. We dont know where the virus originated in wuhan. The theory is out there. We have to find out where it originated. We have to understand why china did not tell us for six weeks in which we lost precious time preparing for a pandemic. At the same time and martha, this is something we will not forget. China was basically vacuuming up the world ppe around the world. We didnt have it in new york and people didnt have it in milan. Thats a question that has to be answered. The question Going Forward is will they provide the ppe to the world as we go through this crisis without strings . These are big questions. Right now martha, we have to focus on the problem. Work the problem. One of my favorite books, work the problem. Thats what president donald j. Trump is doing. Hes doing wonderful job. Martha Peter Navarro, thank you very much. Good to speak with you tonight. Take care. Martha you bad. Joining me now is dr. Tom frieden, former director of the cdc and ceo of resolve to save lives. Good to have you with us. As former head of the cdc, your reaction to the president saying the United States will now withhold with further funding from the w. H. O. They were sort of toeing the line about what china was telling the world about this virus. We need a strong w. H. O. Every organization can look back and say what did we do well . What do we do poorly . The fact is w. H. O. Helps protect americans. Its an essential institution. A stronger w. H. O. Is essential. I think what we have to do is look forward. We are in a strategic feat against the virus. We are hunkering down at home so we can get ready to go out again. Thats the next step. What we need to see the focus on testing, isolation, Contact Tracing and quarantine of contacts. If we get those four things down, its a box we can put the virus in. If we dont do that, we are going to be stuck in our homes for longer or we will come out again and the virus will come roaring back and do even more damage to our economy. We are all in this together and we need to focus on what we need to do today so that when we come out we can do so as soon and safely as possible. Martha its interesting to look at other countries and see how they are reopening. Austria, one of the first countries to shut down, is now starting to open stores and allow people to come in with face masks on. They say if there is no pickup in the virus they are going to reopen schools on may 2nd. Restaurants and hotels by the middle of the month. Is that a time frame that you think because we are a few weeks behind them is realistic here . What is a realistic time frame for us . To me i think its not about the date. Its about the data. You need three things. You need to know the virus is coming down to a manageable level. You need to know you can protect your Health Care Workers so the nurses and doctors who are on the front lines of it can be protected. And you need to know that you have the box. Test, isolate, Contact Tracing and quarantine. Those are key. There are going to be cases. They are going to be cases in clusters. We have to do a better job protecting our Nursing Homes which are bearing the brunt of this. I call them ground zero for th this. Thats what we are seeing. That box is keep it in the box. Keep covid in so that we can get out. That means ramping up testing. That means isolation. For anyone sick with his virus, we need to make sure they dont spread it to others. That means working with communities to find out who has been exposed so they can be worn. Same way you expect government to warn you when a hurricane is coming so that you can protect yourself and your family. You should be warned if you have been exposed to the coronavirus. You can protect yourself and your family. It might be that you get sick and youre not variable you could make your mother or father or child very ill and if they have a medical condition, they can end up dying. Thats what we need to do. We need to box it in. The sooner we do that, the sooner and safer we can get out. Martha all right, dr. Tom frieden, thank you very much, former cdc director. Good to have you here tonight. Thank you. Martha lets bring in the former ceo of sea kale restaurants. The author of getting america back to work. The theme of what the president was talking about tonight, andy and in the rose garden, the way to get this country back to work and you heard dr. Frieden talking about testing and the benchmarks that need to be hit before people are going to feel confident going back to work. What are your thoughts on what we heard from the president tonight . The president understands we cant continue to get keep the economy shut down for an extended period of time. The dollar has value because people value the United States economy. State governments need tax revenue to keep Police Departments and Fire Departments paid. Theres a lot, theres a lot of contingencies when you shut down. We have to wait until people are safe. We need to put procedures in place to keep people safe, particularly seniors. We have to get this economy open as soon as we can because nobody knows how long you can keep an economy like this shutdown of the longer we wait the more serious the problem becomes. Governor cuomo had this to say about his fear about opening too soon. Watch this. Oh, all right. We dont have it ready. Anyway, he basically said we have a real challenge ahead because the numbers are flattening. No time to relax. We are not out of the woods. In the reopening we could lose all the progress we made in one week if we do it wrong. A lot riding on this, andy. There is, and new york and particulars having having a very difficult experience. The president said we would reevaluate at the end of the month, we have a couple more weeks before we need to take a look at its. Everyone has their eyes on new york city. It needs to be open when people are protected. It needs to be open sooner rather than later because we dont know how difficult its going to be to get things going again. Martha i thought it was interesting we did not hear from the medical folks this evening. The focus was on the economy. I think we are going to see a larger role for the economic side of the conversation as we continue to move forward to these press briefings. The president read a very long list of labor leaders, ceos, athletic, sports leaders across the country. Its hard to imagine all those people in the conversation figuring out how to get this open again. How do you see this group actually helping . What do you think their role is going to be . I think a lot of the people mentioned people they are looking, the president is looking for input. Looking for someone to run this at the government level. Maybe mark meadows, larry kudlow, ivanka. Some one will be in charge of this at the white house. People on that list. They will reach out to others. The president is constantly reaching out to people and constantly talking to people trying to figure out what the best thing to do his. He called it the most important decision of his life and i dont think its an exaggeration. I think thats how he views it and thats how we should view it. Hes got to listen to the medical people, the scientific experts, Economic Experts and people out there in the Business Community every day who can give him input as to how long we can sustain Something Like this. Martha theres going to be a period of trepidation on the part of consumers and businesses who are concerned getting this process right. There is a deeper route i think in the country didnt get back to some sort of normal. Well see how it goes. Andy, thank you. Always great to see you. Pleasure to be here. Martha President Trump announces he will hold funds to the World Health Organization. There are new reports that u. S. Diplomats out of the alarm on the safety procedures that were existing in the wuhan, china, labs years ago to the state department. Senator john kennedy on how Congress Plans to get the bottom of the origins of this in our relationship with china next. I thought i was managing my moderate to severe Crohns Disease. Until i realized something was missing. Me. 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Aand were here for you ry day fespecially now,rs. Doing Everything Possible to keep you connected. Through the resilience of our network and people. We can keep learning, keep sharing, keep watching, and most of all, keep together. Its the job weve always done. It is the job we will always do. The w. H. O. Failed to investigate critical reports from sources in wuhan that conflicted directly with the chinese governments official accounts. There was credible information to suspect human to human transmission in december 2019 which should have spurred the w. H. O. To investigate and investigate immediately. Martha President Trump same the World Health Organization dropped the ball by not investigating what was happening inside china at the outset of this pandemic. Going there and getting on the ground and taking the luck in finding out what was going on. There are reports that the federal government mightve missed some warning signs. The Washington Post reporting the two years before this outbreak, u. S. Diplomats raised concerns about safety issues at a lab in china in wuhan, warning the labs work on coronavirus and their potential human transmission represents a risk of a new sarslike pandemic, they wrote a couple years ago according to this Washington Post story. State department is not commenting on the existence of the diplomatic cables and top u. S. Military officials tell fox news they find evidence of the viruses origins to be inconclusive. Several republican senators are launching investigations into that. Joining me now a senator john kennedy of louisiana. Thank you for being here. These cables that were reported in the Washington Post, i dont know what you cant roll back the clock a couple years but it does raise a lot of questions about what was going on in those labs and what is going on in those labs and chinas lack of transparency and sharing it with us. It also said the new have had a serious shortage appropriately trained technicians and investigators needed to safely operate this High Containment Laboratory environment. What do you think about all of that . Martha, we know the covid19 coronavirus came from a bat. We know that because of the genetic composition. We know it also started in wuhan, china. The Chinese Communist party said it started when a Chinese National eight that flesh at bat flesh. Just one problem, the meat market didnt sell bats and there was no evidence the first victim was even close to the wet market, as they call it. Today we have found out that there is speculation. I want to emphasize speculation that the covid19 coronavirus that has infected the world accidentally escaped from a Biomedical Research lab in wuhan china. We dont know if thats true. But the absence of evidence is not necessarily the evidence of absence. American scientists visited this Biomedical Research lab where they were studying bat coronavirus and their transmission to humans and they came back and sent a cable two years ago to the state department saying this is an accident waiting to happen. If this virus gets out, we are going to have a world pandemic. China has some explaining to do. I have dealt with the senior Political Leadership in china. The people in china are good people and i believe that. The Political Leadership has very casual relationship with the truth. They dont share western values. They will steal the hair off your head. In this case, they refuse to let anybody talk about the origins of the virus. They wont let any scientists in china publish anything about the virus without permission of the communist party. They have refused to share the genetic material from the virus and the original victim with us. The doctors and the reporters who originally reported on the original victims there have suddenly disappeared. Nobody can find them. This is not going to be the United States just asking these questions. Its going to be the whole world. Martha absolutely. Youre absolutely right. These are the other epidemics that have been traced to china. The asian fluid 1957, hong kong fluid ninth and 682003, sars. The bird flu outbreak. There is issues relating to these wet market and potentially this lab we are talking about. I want to play a sound bite from general milley. I want everyone to listen closely to what general milley is saying when he was asked about the origins of this and whether it came from the wet market or whether it came from the lab. Listen to this. Should be no surprise to you we have taken a keen interest in it and weve had a lot of intelligence take a hard look at it. I would say its inconclusive. The weight of evidence seems to indicate natural. We dont know for certain. Martha seems to indicate natural. It was an accident but we dont know for certain. Go ahead, senator. With all due respect, to the general, there are things he can say and there are things he cant say. Congress needs to investigate this. Not just congress, the entire world. Let me say it again. The Political Leadership in china does not share western values. They will eat your lunch in the sack eight came in and lie to you the whole time about it. Im not accusing the Chinese Communist party of anything but they have some explaining to do. If they have nothing to hide, then they need to let us talk to the doctors and the reporters if they are still alive who first discovered the virus, and they need to share with us the genetic material from the person in china who were originally caught the virus. That would be a start. Martha that would be the kind of thing you would help an organization like the w. H. O. Would be putting down the clamps on to make sure it happened. We havent seen that happening in this situation. It breaks my heart to say but we cant depend on the w. H. O. Martha senator kennedy, always good to see you in all the best even the people of louisiana who are obviously going through a tough time and we are thinking about you. Thank you very much, senator. Next i will speak with brit hume about whether reopening is up to the president or estates. We got a little bit of clarification on that. First up next. I just love hitting the open road and telling people that Liberty Mutual customizes your insurance, so you only pay for what you need [squawks] only pay for what you need. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Your cells. Trillions of them. Thats why centrum contains 24 key nutrients to feed your cells, supporting your energy so you can take care of what matters most. Centrum. Feed your cells. Fuel your life. We know how important it is to have a safe, reliable vehicle right now, so toyota is here to help. For your peace of mind, many of our Service Centers are open. If you need to replace your vehicle toyota will defer your payments for 90 days. And every new toyota comes with toyotacare, a nocost Maintenance Plan for two years or 25,000 miles. Were here for you. Contact your local toyota dealer to see how they can help. Toyota martha the government maps out a plan to reopen the country over the next couple weeks, there is an emerging rift it potentially over who will have the power to open the country back up. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo was quick to push back today against president s claim that he would have total authority on reopening the economy. The president responded with this just a little while ago. Watch. President trump we have beautiful pieces and beautiful states and they know when its time to open. Im not going to put any pressure on any governor to open. Im not going to say to Governor Cuomo you have to open in seven days. I want him to take his time, do it right and then open new york. Im not putting any pressure on the governors. Martha here we have brit hume, fox news political analyst. Not surprising the president s claim of total authority over the states got a lot of constitutional dustup and it ruffled a quite a few feathers. You are tweeting about it as well. And, that was one of his serial exaggerations with which would become so familiar. Governor cuomos initial reaction which was to say it this would a constitutional crisis, that shows how excitable he is sometimes, too. The truth is, theres not much here. The president s comments tonight made that pretty clear and hes also been saying even at the same time he was carrying on about his absolute authority that he was going to do this in conjunction with the governors and its more than evident tonight that thats what exactly what he plans to do. I think this is much ado about not much. Martha i would imagine that because this is a highstakes and high consequence decision that the president wants to share the responsibility with each of these governors across the country as they decide whether or not they are able to open up. Theres 29 states that have very little exposure to this. When you think about the experience in those places, when they watch all of this and the economy has been hit very hard. When you are living in one of those places and you are one of the 70 of the country that doesnt know anyone that has cobit 19, whats that extremes like . Martha, i think we have to agree that this locked down under which are now operating in nearly all the country is a pretty crude instrument. The belief was it was necessary, or this thing was going to rage like wildfire all across the country. The first place it was detected really was the first place we saw what looked like big flareups on the west coast and it didnt really rage like wildfire. The computer modeling on this has been wildly off base, predicting all kinds of things, even with the social distancing and other measures that have turned out to be completely wrong. I think to anybody and part of the country where youve had no outbreak, its got to be extremely frustrating, not to mention the economic and personal damage its doing to countless people. I mean, this really does raise the question of whether the cure could be worse than the disease. You have millions of people across the country out of work and it will be very interesting to see this rollout and if these 29 states will go first. Britt, thank you so much. Thats the story of tuesday april 14, 2020. We will see you back here tomorrow night, Tucker Carlson coming up right after this. Have a good night, everybody, stay safe. Tucker good evening and welcome to Tucker Carlson tonight. An awful lot of americans are still dying of the of the coronavirus but nevertheless there are more and more signs that the worst could be behind this country rather than ahead. For the very latest we go down to the chief news correspondent chief trace gallagher. The total numbers of new cases and new deaths across the country get the most attention because of its sheer impact. Those numbers for the most part are down and what the experts look at as a percentage of increase in new cases. On march 24 we had just under