His campaign as they try to get him reelected. Thats the reporting. It shows the fundamental problem were facing as a nation weve been facing for months. The reality is we have a million cases of coronavirus. We have more than 55,000 dead americans and theyre not just numbers. Every day more and more people, people that you and i know, friends of yours or loved withins or loved ones of friends, i remember at the beginning of this, coronavirus was this thing we tracked, right, the numbers of but distant. We heard about it. Now its not. Is there anyone that does not know someone whose been sick, someone who died . This is what it looks like in the sympathy card section in super markets and drugstores across the nation. There is not a single one left there. They are completely sold out. The grief and the trama is creeping into every crevice of American Life so the president is trying to roll out a policy that would look good for him and reelection chances. What will win for votes in the fall . We all want to reopen the country up and go back to normal. If you look around, there are some places trying to do it in a thoughtful and safe way. Take for example the two biggest car makers, gm and ford are bringing some people back to work to build ventilators and personal protection equipment. Here is how they are doing it. Before i walked into this facility today, i had my temperature scanned. I think its a very important part of the protocol. In the plant im in today, were wears face masks and face shields. Fords executive chairman bill ford said the company has also installed plastic barriers between each workstation to enforce social distancing. Everybody is also wearing watches that buzz if you get within six feet of somebody else. So thats a major u. S. Car manufacturer, the management and labor unions, auto workers coming together with smart, safe, Creative Solutions to try to do work. And were not alone in this, right . Almost every country in the world is battling the exact same virus. Its the same disease everywhere. Its contagious everywhere. Its killing people everywhere and economies are on lockdown and standstill everywhere and no leader wants that to be the case and everyone is faced with the same difficult chase choices and it as tough a governing problem as probably anyone has faced. Everyone is trying to solve it in their own way. After two months of lockdown, the Prime Minister of italy announced new guidelines for easing that countrys lockdown. It will start with reopening parks, factories and Building Sites and allowing people to visit their relatives in small numbers. Italy of course, one of the hardest hit countries in the world. Now they are trying to phase in return to some kind of normal. Other countries acted early and avoided italys fate and our fate. Taiwan managed to avoid a lockdown by putting in place cell phone contract tracing, temperature checks and social distancing. In new zealand the Prime Minister announced it stopped Community Transmission of the coronavirus and starting on tuesday because they have done that and been successful and moved quickly a bunch of nonessential Businesses Health care, and education activetive will be able to resume. New zealand is one of the places that had the toughest level of social restrictions. Same with australia as of sunday only 60 new cases were recorded there and they are also easing restrictions. The government there is for instance introduced a new Contact Tracing app where is based on the one used successfully in singapore and a million australians downloaded it here but in the u. S. , the person in charge who is tasked with this incredibly difficult moment with assessing these complicated questions leaders around the world are wrestling with, is a guy who spends his day watching tv and rage tweeting. He doesnt listen to experts. He listens to his buddies and calls them all the time like the my pillow guy and appears to lack the ability to actually feel empathy and grief or even just a basic protective duty towards the Public Safety of the American People who he represents. And that is why to go back to the quote i started the show with, that is why his Campaign Advisors have to couch their arguments to him in political terms because the idea of lots of dead americans for no reason will hurt your election is the logic he will listen to. This is how the president is doing it. Last week he blurted out hell give the commencement address to west point in june. That is news to them who sent cadets home and scrambling to get them back to the ceremony, back to their campus in new york, the epicenter of the crisis. Every president always says the toughest thing they have to do is send young people in harms way and here is the president doing that to get his photo op. And all this is happening as the Washington Post reports the president was warned about this virus, this Global Pandemic in his president s daily brief more than a dozen times in january, february. Joining me is a reporter who broke that story, greg Miller National security reporter. Gre greg, tell me what you uncovered. What were reporting, chris, is that the coronavirus references to the coronavirus were included in at least a dozen of the president s daily briefs. These are the very highly classified, prestigious reports that are prepared before dawn each day specifically for the president. So this is the most arguably the most important intelligence product that our spay agencies assemble every day and calling attention to the threat of the coronavirus in a way that amounts to a fairly steady drum beat throughout january and february. Part of the reporting indicates that one of the things they were calling attention to was the lack of reliability about what the Chinese Government was reporting externally, what they were saying about the extent of transmission and whether it was under control, is that right 12 . Yeah, these reports start off flag men t fragme fragmentary. They say it looks like there is an outbreak in wuhan but these spy agencies throw more resources at this each and every day and piecing together more information about the virus, they are tracking it as it spreads to other countries and other continents and they are trying to call that to the attention of the president on a very regular basis. Just to be clear, the context of the president ial Daily Briefing is the most important intelligence product the community produces and there is a real battle what gets into that briefing. An organizational battle, battle between two different parts of the intelligence come mmunity showing up in the briefing day after day is a way of saying this really matters. Yes. I mean, this is where the u. S. Intelligence an lialysts put th most important information. I mean, so much remarkable amount of energy and people go into preparing this single report each and every day and not very many people get it. Obviously, its Main Customer is the president of the United States and also goes to some cabinet secretaries, secretary of defense, secretary of treasury and so forth and other people, as well. This is the highest priority intelligence product that exists and so some things that are happening that you want the president s attention on are going to end up in the pdb. Do we know what the president s reaction was to this . I mean, we dont know. I have to say, chris, we also acknowledge this in our reporting. How much of this material registered with the president because one, he doesnt read the pdb unlike his predecessors, he does not sit down each day to digest this product. He doesnt read it, doesnt skim it. He realized exclusively on an oral briefing he curtailed to two or three times a week. Hes getting an oral briefing from an analyst but skips the reading of the pdb so its hard to know how much of this material made its way to him. We know its included in the brief and that brief is delivered to the white house each and every day. We dont know how much it registers to him. Across this stretch of time, of course, he is in jan and february the period of time were writing about, his very dismissive of the threat of this virus as late february he is still saying its going to go away, its going to magically disappear. There is no big deal. Its going to go down to zero, things like this. And this is as late as late february youve got now, we have evidence of multiple parts of the u. S. Government folks inside the cdc inside the intelligence community, some folks in dod some reporting there is a growing sense in the internal reservoir of knowledge that is the u. S. Government which is an enormous undertaking this is very serious and very pressing. Not only that, chris, you have people inside the white house including the deputy National Security advisor who by early february are saying we need to go farther than restricting travel to china. This outbreak reached europe. We are not doing our jobs unless restart restricting travel there and that doesnt happen for another six weeks, and you heard the governor of new york just this past week talk about how the United States may have closed the front door on the coronavirus but left the backdoor open and we now know that the outbreak in new york is predominantly traced to the spread of this pathogen through europe. The infection in new york comes from europe, not from china. All right. Greg miller along with his colleague. Great reporting. Thank you very much. Thank you. Joining me now for more on what we do to reopen america, the director of the Harvard UniversityGlobal Health institute and doctor, you know, i think americans often we get very tunnel vision and get very admired in american exceptionalism how we do things but this is a problem dozens and dozens of countries are confronting at the same time. When you sort of survey the landscape, what are the lessons to learn there about how the other people are figuring out how to solve a very difficult problem . Yeah, so chris, thanks for having me back on. Look, the biology of this virus is the same everywhere. And the responses have differed but we know certain things work. So we know that countries that jump out early and are aggressive basically get it under control faster and can open up sooner. Not only is that a south korea example but also new zealand, germany, there are a whole series of countries that took it much more seriously and that means they can open up sooner and even though they are opening up sooner, they are still opening up very carefully and thats the big lesson to learn for americans. One of the aspects here there is a few aspects here, one is right, if you move earlier and have less of an outbreak, you can probably open up a little sooner. Another is about testing, which a drum we banged on the show for months and Public Health experts banged. There is a piece today about sort of the fact that the states dont have the Testing Capacity they need and there is gaps of 100,000 in new york, you know, 68,000 in new jersey, 23,000 in illinois, theyre short of the tests they need. Today you got Vice President sort of promising everyone they will have access to the tests they need but unclear if thats a going to be enough and b, delivered on. Whats your sense in that regard . Yeah. So that stat analysis is based on work that we did really trying to look at where is every state in the country . And how much more do they need . I think at this point, you know, weve heard so many promises from the white house, if you remember, chris, six weeks ago, five weeks ago they were saying millions of test kits going out next week. At this point, i think all of us want to look at the facts on the ground and even when they promise today sort of 2 of americans getting tested every month way too little. It would take us four years to test every american. I think were far behind. Its nice to see the white house acknowledge that were not doing enough. I see that as progress. But they still dont they arent taking the sort of enormity of the problem seriously, and until they do, we can open up. Were just going to end up shutting back down again. Thats the concern that all of us have. This is the big i mean, this to me, the doomsday scenario here which i dont like to focus on because its been a lot of doomsday around here for months, the doomsday scenario is a state like texas opens up and things they do it Texas Governor abbott republican to his credit fairly responsible plan i think in terms of whats going to open up when and social distancing and things like that but a state opens up and things look like they are going okay, if you lack the proper testing and surveillance in the epidemiology term, we know how what an mfer that disease is and what a long fuse that is and if the thing starts going, youre host. Yeah, that is the technical term, hosed. Right. Youre absolutely right. This is essentially what happened the first time around and the whole point of the shut down was to buy ourselves time so we could do it right the second time. And there are states that i think are being very responsible. So there are some states that i think are reasonable to open up. Montana and wyoming and alaska, small number of cases, good number of tests. Georgia, texas, other places like you can its not only important to have a small 234urnumber of cases and a good plan for not opening up too aggressively, but if you dont have a good amount of testing and tracing and isolation, youre not going to be able to keep infected people out from susceptible people and the basic biology is infection will take off again. So unless the biology changed, we are going to end up in the same place and thats i think what were all worried about. All right. So the devils advocate, okay, weve had those enormous outbreaks in places in northern italy and we saw it in wuhan and new york, the worst outbreaks were in places that werent really implementing any policy, right . Where sort of the biological transmission rate, the disease was able to reek havoc in this crazy way but a place thats come out and reopening with the awareness of social distancing and rules, we would expect right that that will mean that outbreaks wont take the same shape, right . Would they be not as severe if they were to get another one . So its not that they wont be as severe, it will take longer to build up. So theres this term we talk about r. T. Which is the realtime, at that moment what is the reproduction factor . If the natural reproduction is around three, one infected person infects three more people in a more kind of staged opening you can imagine it could be two and that means youll still get exponential growth but will take longer. Right. None of that prevents at two youll still have Health Systems getting overwhelmed. Youre still going to get into trouble and still get a lot of sick people and a lot of people will end up dying. Right. So its not enough. Point being like it is just not enough partly because of the chance mi transmission of this and we have a largely naive population that doesnt have antibodies. If you bring that three down to two, which is an establiaccompl, you have to have testing and surveillance as well as some kind of social distancing. Yeah, so the basic, basic point here is we got to keep infected people away from susceptible people and the way you do that is through some social distancing or testing in isolation. Those are your only two strategies. And if you want to give people confidence about going back to work, you got to tell them if they go to the coffee shop and pick up a cup of coffee, theyre not going to get infected. Its a little social distancing. Dont go hug the guy giving you coffee but testing and isolation so if the guy was infected, you know hed get a test and be out of there and hed have somebody uninfected giving you the coffee. Thats what you got to know. I always learn a lot from these conversations. Come back again soon. Thank you very much. Thanks, chris. Next, the tale of two outbreaks, how seattle got ahead of the spread and new york city appears to be the worst outbreak in the world. What seattle did differently after this. Working on the front lines, and heres one small way that you can help them in return. Complete your 2020 census today. 2020 census data helps communities plan funding for hospitals, clinics, and Emergency Services across the country. An accurate count helps Public Health officials know who is at risk, and First Responders identify the resources they need to protect our communities. Complete your census at 2020census. Gov and help shape our future. But if you look to the land, its a whole different story. From farms to backyards, wheels are turning. Seeds are being planted. Animals are getting fed. And grass is growing. And families are giving their all to the soil because no matter how uncertain things get, the land never stops. So to all those linked to the land, we say thank you. Were here for you because we all run together. Yeah. This moving thing never gets any easier. Well, xfinity makes moving super easy. I can transfer my internet and tv service in about a minute. Wow, that is easy. Almost as easy as having those guys help you move. We are those guys. Thats you . The truck adds 10 pounds. In the arms. Okay. Transfer your Service Online in a few easy steps. Now thats simple, easy, awesome. Transfer your service in minutes, making moving with xfinity a breeze. Visit xfinity. Com moving today. Right now it looks like the worst coronavirus outbreak in the world based on the numbers that states and other places reported, countries as well which themselves are not picture perfect at all. But based on the data we have the worst outbreak appears to be in new york city. Listen to this statistic. At least one out of every 500 new yorkers died from this virus. And while there are a lot of reasons for that from the failure of federal leadership to particular features of new york city and a new article argues part of the reason for the severity was a failure of local policy. Politzer prize winning journalist that wrote that piece joins me now. Charles, i was really gripped and persuaded by the reporting you presented in the article. Whats the basic case here . The basic case is that at the beginning of a opinion dpandemi a window where if leaders say the right things and put scientists front and center, we can convince people to stay home. In seattle they did that. In new york it was much more but d muddy and complicated and a pandemic is as a medical health crisis, new york failed and as a result we saw cases explode. I think ill play some things the mayor said. This is hard. All this stuff is hard. It was fairly clearmayors view of this early on was not ring the alarm, this is a time to shut it all down at all. Take a listen to the things he said during that period. Where do we stand from new york and what you know about whats happening in cities around the world . You know, Franklin Roosevelt the famous quote, we have nothing but fear but fearist sel itself. For most of new yorkers life is going on. If you love your neighborhood bar, go there now. Some places are closing schools on mass. We think thats a mistake. St. Patricks day parades in dublin, boston, denver have been cancelled. Whats the status of new york city . Its not a slam dunk to say this is something that should be instantly cancelled. It is a slam dunk by march 11th to cancel the st. Pattys day parade and was an indicator the mayor did not have eyes on the scale of this. What does your reporting say about that . Well, dr. John freeden who used to be the commissioner of Public Health in new york and the head of the cdc estimates if de blasio and cuomo shut down new york ten days earlier, we would say 50 to 80 less deaths. De blasio has gotten a lot of applause in the past with the Ebola Outbreak for being very aggressive about saying dont panic. Dont overreact. We need to keep new york going even if we have a couple situations of illness. Obviously, its very different here. The second thing according to my reporting is that de blasio as a long history of tension with agencies particularly with the department of health and so as experts, his fantastic Public Health officers are coming to him and saying shut things down, he was relifting, his staff was fighting with him. Two of them had to threaten to resign in order to get the city hall to shut down the schools and restaurants. Yeah, you report this that theres two people the citys assistant commissioner of diseases and the Deputy Health commissioner who indicated to staff they were going to publicly resign unless the mayor finally took action, i think the schools, right, and other things on that sort of fateful monday when new york is one of the later places to do it. Thats exactly right. I should make clear, nooeeither those spoke to me. They are both very great Public Health officers and marcy lateen and dr. Lateen is revered around the nation. Shes a graduate of something called the epidemic intelligence service, part of the cdc and theres about 3,000 across the nation and the front lines, the shock troops for responding to this and other pandemics and epidemics and one of the things that the training really stresses is when you are communicating it is critical at the beginning of a pandemic you say what you know and dont know, that you maintain trust and that most importantly, you say the same thing over and over and dont muddy the message by saying one thing and doing another and de blasio and cuomo have been criticized for that. De blasio on the day that the gyms were closing down in new york city, he asked his driver to take him from the mansion where he lives to the parks to get in one last workout. Even his consultants and advisors said that was a terrible, terrible perhaps unethical idea. What finally is the lesson here about what seattle did in terms of the messaging they gave, the consistency of it and not moving too quickly but moving in a very specific way towards what ended up being a full shutdown . What seattle did is what the cdc and the Epidemic Intelligence Services says youre supposed to do. They put the science in. There is this real risk if a politician is the head of communications when youre talking about a pandemic youll politicize the communications. Some people asked the people wont do what theyre being told because they dont trust the politician. What seattle did is put the scientist front and center and moved very aggressively to shut things down. In fact, dr. Jeff duchen who is the head of Public Health for seattle king county went to one of the top politicians and said look, we need to shut things down immediately. I know we cant do that today but the population will be ready for a shutdown in two or three days from now. And one of the things that the politician did is called microsoft, which is of course, based in an area near seattle and said look, we dont have any cases yet. We only have one hand full of fatalities across the country but when you tell your workers to work from home, amazon did the same thing because they know by emptying the streets and these commuters, 100,000 employees, everyone would get the message this is really serious. Something is going on when the government says stay home, we should stay home. All right. Thank you so much for sharing that great reporting. Thanks for having me. Ahead, new concerns that Mitch Mcconnell risked sending the country into a depression with his resistance to providing states crucial federal aid. Thats next. Any place you are. You can deposit checks from here. And you can see your transactions and check your balance from here. And pay bills from here. Because your bank isnt just one place. Its virtually any place you are. Just download and use the chase mobile app. Visit chase. Com mobile. Motor . Nope. Not motor . Its pronounced motaur. For those who were born to ride, theres progressive. Confident financial plans, calming financial plans, complete financial plans. Theyre all possible with a cfp® professional. Find yours at letsmakeaplan. Org. Some republicans led by Senate Majority leader Mitch Mcconnell seemed ready to punish states whose budgets are decimated. Here is rick scott of florida. Its unfair to the taxpayers of florida. We sit here and we live within our means and then new york and illinois and california and other states dont and were supposed to bail them out. Thats not right. Nope. That is not the way our union works. For instance, when a hurricane devastates florida, we as u. S. Citizens from all over the country gladly pay the billions of dollars it takes to help our fellow americans who happen to live in florida. Additionally, it is worth keep income mind that just the math of what scott is saying is wrong, states like new york are sending more federal tax dollars to the federal government than they get back in services and states like rick scotts florida get back more money from the federal government they give. It is clear, though, this is going to be a titanic battle over Financial Aid to states. Joining me now is betsey stephenson professor of economics at the Gerald R Ford of policy. She formally served as a chief economist at the department of labor. Mitch mcconnell in an interview floated this idea of allowing states who we know all of the state o states finances will be wrecked if they have a problem they can declare bankruptcy, which theyre not allowed to do under law but what would be the economic effects of saying to the states too bad . Well, i think as you pointed out, its a little ironic the states that traditionally contribute the most to the federal spending that send in more than they give are being told they shouldnt ask for handouts right now. The reality is, though, every state is going to suffer under covid because when you dont have people working as much when we have unemployment only have, you know, the economy under performing, states are bringing in less revenue. They will bring in less revenue from households, businesses, conferenc conferences, from conventions and the types of ways in which from sales tax and because many states actually have balanced budget requirements, they have to immediately make things work. In fact, by the middle of march we had barely started to see the economy suffer but yet, we were already actually seeing a reduction in local Government Employment. So the reality is that if we dont as the federal government doesnt step up and help state and local governments out, by the time were ready to send kids back to school, there isnt going to be many teachers left there to teach them. This was a headline from the Washington Post mcconneelder m rejection, you start cutting state budgets all over the place, youre going to cut back on employment and demand and have a selffulfilling proof fee. The other aspect is mcconnell tried to get ahead of this by calling them blue state bailouts and its clear hes retreating today and the reason is its not just blue states. Like every state is going to be in very, very rough shape and theres going to be pressure on the senators and republican side for help for their states, right . Yeah, i think that thats answer luteally right. This is going to hit every state. We saw in 2008 something we had never seen before, which was the reduction in employment and spending by state and local governments worsened the recession. Normally, we have Government Employment at all levels helping to support the economy and support employment in a recession. We failed to help the states out in the last recession. It contributed to the severity and the last recession. At the worst point, there were 250,000 fewer teachers working in the United States because of that. Thats exactly the kind of situation that were going to face but i think its going to be worse this time because i think that what were really needing in order for the economy to recover is preserve as many relationships between employers and workers as possible. Its going to be really hard for people to find brandnew jobs, make connections with new employers, there is going to be a lot of distancing and distrust out there and so cutting loose a bunch of government workers who are competing with people who are working in the private sk to sector that lost jobs well see long unemployment spells is a mistake that will make the entire situation worse. This idea of sort of repeating the mistakes, i mean, is what is so terrifying for me because it really was brutal and extended misery for a lot of people. It does seem that the politics of this are a little different in so far as mcconnell has had to back away in a few days. And so there looks like this is going to be a fight. Democrats are focused on this. This will be a big fight in the next piece of legislation, do you think . It absolutely will be one of the big fights. Youre looking at states are estimates ive seen are that states are going to face 500 billion short fall over a couple of years. States like michigan 12 to 14 hole in the budget. These are really big holes. Its a time where if we get the economy going again, we actually need the people who work for the state and local government. People like our teachers, our hospital workers, our firefighters, our emergency personnel. If were laying all those folks off, thats going to make people even more skiddish that they can go back to work. They are going to know there is not support in the community. All of this is going to compound. All right. Bet si stesey stephenson, thank much. Thank you. Ahead former Vice President al gore on the federal response to the covid crisis and implications of the nationwide shut down and the potential of an oil industry bailout some people started to float. He joins me just ahead. Your mission stand up to moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis. And take. It. On. With rinvoq. Rinvoq a oncedaily pill. Can dramatically improve symptoms. Rinvoq helps tame pain, stiffness, swelling. 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Those in the seventh Congressional District are preparing to do it all over again. As of now, the Wisconsin ElectionsCommission Says nothing has changed for the may special election. Theres a special election in wisconsin with in person voting in just two weeks. Its utter madness given what happened the last time around, here is a chart of the confirmed coronavirus cases in wisconsin which is seen an uptick in new cases over the past week. There is some evidence that suggestions the last round of voting may have accelerated the spread, at least 36 voters and poll workers tested positive for coronavirus after the primary vote and that figure is likely to grow in the coming weeks. And while allowed minority of wisconsin voters spurred on by the president and other right wing Interest Groups want to quote unquote reopen the state. Thats them there standing next to each other protesting. A poll last week found 23 of wisconsin people think social distancing measures should be relaxed and overwhelming majority thinks the state is doing the right thing. The situation why no excuse absentee voting is vital and popular. 60 of americans support allowing people to vote by ballot including republicans. Many elected republicans including the president are trying to block it and time is now running out, undust indusin leaders say it could require making commitments in the next few weeks. Congress must act to fund such voting and states need to do whatever it takes to make it happen because people should not have to choose between their health and participating in democracy. In this moment of crisis, a lot of rules have gone out the window in terms of what kind of policy is and is not feasible, which will make for an encouraging moment when you think about the possibility of really bold and ambitious Climate Policy but the fear the Coronavirus Crisis will lead to a doubling down on, say, fossil fuels. There is talk of a bailout for the oil industry. Joining me to talk about this and the moment we find ourselves in, someone advocating in policy that spent eight years as Vice President of the United States amidst of several global crisis, al gore. Mr. Vice president , let me start on on this question of where you think the u. S. Is right now at this moment, in terms of how it has dealt with the crisis. Oh, boy, chris, its hard to know where to begin. Theres no more Important Role for a president than to lead a nation through a crisis, and that means unifying people, and leading not only your political base, but reaching out to others with whom you disagreed, and donald trump has made this all about himself. He has ignored repeated warnings, news reports this evening, showing yet more warnings that were ignored. He ignored the science, as he has done with the Climate Crisis as well. He has engaged in a kind of a magical thinking. Hes pushed dangerous and potentially deadly snake oil type remedies. Hes lashed out at people who have been asking length gat questions and who have pleaded with him to try to mobilize the federal governments resources. And now luckily, there have been others that have stepped up, governor, democratic, and republican governors, in many cases, dr. Fauci, over scientific and medical experts, this has brought a lot of good out in the American People, but this is a dangerous time for our country, chris. This is, you know, when people all around the world are just dropping their jaws in amazement at the things he says, thats not good for anybody in this country, and weve got to get through this in spite of donald trump, but it has been an irresponsible, incompetent, and in many ways disgraceful performance. You have such an interesting perspective, mr. Vice president , because you served as a senator for years and obviously Vice President , and are very familiar with what the actual confines of the american political system and all of the chokepoints can be and worked so much on climate where generally radical steps are necessary in order to avoid catastrophe and the balance of those, i wonder where we are at this moment, because there does seem to be expanded horizons as we watch all kinds of new policies being floated to try to get us through this, if that gives you some kind of hope about where we are and what the future is. Well, as someone has said, were in a kind of crysalis, we are continuing to navigate according to the coordinates of a world that has radically changed, and its a challenge to ascertain what the world to come is going to look like. No doubt, there will be many similarities, but you mentioned the oil bailout proposal at the beginning of your comments. This Climate Crisis and the covid19 pandemic are linked in some ways, the preconditions that raise the death rate from covid19, a great many of them are accentuated, made worse, by the fossil fuel pollution. Not the co2, which causes the Climate Crisis, but the particulate, the soot, and of course, President Trump is trying to use this crisis as an opportunity to turn the valves wide open for more pollution. And we also see it with the horrendous differential mortality rates among africanamericans and to some extent, hispanic americans and native americans, as well. This crisis has exposed some longstanding witnesses in our president , but some longstanding weaknesses in our country, if we, just to pick one example that existed before this began, the death rate for africanamerican children from asthma is ten times the death rate for caucasian children from asthma. You see the big increase in death rates from covid19. And there are many factors that cause it, and you know them, chris, you wrote that book, and you spelled this out, inadequate access to america, unequal economic, poor housing, and environmental injustice, because communities of color, because theyve had a legacy of being deprived of the same political and economic power to defend themselves, are way more likely to be downwind from the smoke stacks and breathe that pollution in, downstream from the Hazardous Waste flows adjacent to the coal ash and hazardous Chemical Waste sites, and this is now being manifested in these horrendous death rates. But we can get through this. And on the other side of it, we can build a new energy system, a new transportation system, a new approach to health care, and habitat and housing. You know, this happens at a time when the oil industry and the fossil fuel industry as a whole is kind of on the ropes anyway. If you look at all of the new Electricity Generation built last year in the world, 72 was renewable. Mostly wind and solar. And were seeing it cheaper as a source of electricity in two third quarters of the world than fossil fuel, and soon, in a few years, in 100 of the world, evs are taking off, within two years, they are going to be significantly cheaper than internal combustion engine, regenerative agriculture, i wont go through the whole list, but the opportunities are very large. Its striking when you look at those, weve shown these photos in the show about what happens if you take the internal combustion away from, you know, from major cities around the world, whether its in shanghai or in los angeles, or, and people are seeing air cleaner like theyve never seen. Right. With air pollution, both in terms of the Health Effects and the visual effects and jogging in certain places is harder, it is sort of this underlying atmospheric part of what we have kind of come to acclimate to, it doesnt have to be that way, is one of the lessons ive taken from this. The similarities from the covid19 pandemic on the one hand and the Climate Crisis on the other have been discussed, both illustrate the extreme danger of ignoring the scientific warnings until its almost too late. But there are some differences. Instead of lasting for six months, eight months, a year, two years, the Climate Crisis will have impacts that last for centuries. Now, heres another big difference. We have seen policies that essentially shut down large areas of the economy, as paul krugman said, to put it in kind of a medically induced coma, until we can conquer this advice and thats hurt Economic Activity a lot. But where the Climate Crisis is concerned, its the greatest opportunity for creating new jobs and sustainable Economic Growth that the world has ever seen. So on the way out of this crisis, and of course, all hands on deck now, to solve this crisis, in spite of President Trump, but when this is over, we need to rebuild in a way that keeps the air cleaner, and keeps the water cleaner, and stops trapping all of this extra heat that is destabilizing the climate system, and disrupting the water cycle, and causing these horrendous consequences that the scientists have been shouting from the rooftops warning us against. A final question, last minute, we have here, you know, the degree to which these, the sort of parallels between these two crises, the last thing i think about is just the way that ultimately, even though the effects are disproportionate, it is also something that we all share, we all, the human body susceptible to the virus, we all breathe the air, we are all in the climate, that there is going to be needed global coordination to battle this, and also the climate. Right, we share the same atmosphere. We live on the same earth. We just had the 50th anniversary of earth day. And we share the same future. And so yes, and we have to recognize that in spite of the rise of china and the beginnings of serious growth, in india, and improvement in their quality of life, still, were in a period of history where the United States remains the only nation that can organize and coordinate and lead a global effort. And i mentioned at the beginning that were in real trouble. If i could say one thing to republicans who are listening, look, this election coming up is one where i hope that a lot of people will put the country first, and try, even in this time of extreme partisanship to try to set that aside, and look at what is at stake here, i mean seriously, were really in trouble with the kind of performance in the oval office weve had. Weve got change that, chris. I know that sounds partisan. But its more than that. Its way more than that. Former Vice President al gore, its always great to talk to you, thank you for making time tonight. Thank you. That is all in for this evening. The Rachel Maddow show starts right now on this monday. Good evening, rachel. Good evening, chris. Thanks, my friend. Much appreciated. Thanks to you at home for joining thus hour. Happy to have you here this monday night. Id like to you meet jennifer steenburke, the head of nursing at the icu, the intensive care unit, at the memorial herman southwest hospital, which is in housto