Trying to Balance Public Health and the economy. Good morning, everybody. It is friday, may 1st. Can you believe it . Im yasmin vossoughian. The president says he has seen evidence that shows that the coronavirus came from a lab in wuhan. Just hours before that, though, the office of the director of National Intelligence put out a statement saying in part this, the Intelligence Community concurs with the wide Scientific Consensus that the covid19 virus was not manmade or genetically modified. The we will continue looking at information to determine whether the virus came from infected animals or if it was the result of a laboratory in wuhan. While the statement clearly says the investigation is still ongoing, the president made these remarks when pressed yesterday. You said a moment ago you will soon have information on where this virus originated. The director of National Intelligence put out a statement saying they thought it was naturally occurring, not manmade who said that . It was the oh, he would know that. My question is have you seen anything at this point that gives you a high degree of confidence that the Wuhan Institute of virology is the origin of this virus . Yes, i have. Are you suggesting that you have evidence that it was not a naturally occurring evidence . Were going to see where it is. Were going to see where it comes from. And what gives you a high degree of confidence that this originated from the Wuhan Institute of virology . I cant tell you that. Im not allowed to tell you that. I dont want to go into that. So far, i think john has been trying to be or at least they seem to be trying to be somewhat transparent with us. But were going to find out. Youll be learning in the not too distant future. But its a terrible thing that happened. Whether they made a mistake or whether it started out off as a mistake and then they made another one or did someone do something on purpose. Meanwhile, four senior officials telling the Washington Post that the administration is now exploring ways to punish china for its handling of this virus, possibly by demanding financial compensation. Also, the Washington Post reported this week that President Trump was repeatedly briefed on the coronavirus earlier this year. And while speaking to reporters yesterday, the president appeared to confirm he had at least one briefing about the virus threat back in january before denying it seconds later. If you speak to the head of intelligent right now, you speak to the head, they did say that i was given a briefing when i said i was given it, not before, and they also said that it wasnt specific and it was not a panic briefing. It wasnt like, oh, were going to be invaded. It was in january, later january. Mr. President , so youre saying you got a briefing in january about no, im not no, you didnt hear me. I said intelligence is saying it. Okay. Lets talk jobless claims. 3. 8 million more americans applied for first time Unemployment Benefits last week, unbelievable, bringing the national jobless total to 30 million. Thats around 18 of the workforce. Meanwhile, the number of people receiving ongoing benefits hit 18 million last week, far surpassing the peak of 6. 6 million according to the labor department. The weekly pace of layoffs has slowed since the beginning of march, but millions more are expected to apply in the next several weeks and many are still waiting for states to process and even approve their claims. Joining me now, peggy collins. Peggy, good morning to you and great to see ow this friday morning. Wow, the numbers from yesterday now topping 30 Million People having applied for Unemployment Benefits over the last six weeks since this shutdown began. And we also know the number of claims is continuing to increase, one, because the understanding is the system is overwhelmed. Two because some people are still continuing to lose their jobs as companies are recognizing theyre not going to be able to come back. Do you see these numbers slowing anytime soon, peggy . As you say, yasmin, the numbers are staggering. We saw the figures high again in states like florida, california, we are seeing the pace of the jobless claim numbers slow a bit, but still, as you said, yesterday it was 3. 8 Million People who lost their jobs and that does not seem to be slowing very much in terms of the millions of people that are out of work. Lets talk about Small Businesses here and other relief programs, as well. How is this phase two of loan programs going for Small Businesses . How is the Federal Reserve stepping in to help out and what other relief programs could we look forward to amid this Major Economic downturn . Well, the fed came out yesterday with more details about its main Street Lending program to try to expand the number of businesses essentially that are eligible for that. So that program is available to mid sized businesses and Small Businesses. Thats loans. So thats loans that people and businesses will need to pay back. The Small Business program, as you mentioned, got another injection of money and started up again this monday and were seeing and reporting another surge of claims for that and small and large banks trying to dole out those type of loans. In that case, those loans dont have to be paid back by the Small Businesses if, in fact, they keep their workforce or hire them back by later this year. Were still seeing huge demand by Small Businesses, but the government is trying, along with the Federal Reserve, to inject liquidity and get money to them as soon as they can. What is interesting, peggy, quickly here is it seems as if there is a catch22. If you are a Small Business taking on one of these loans and you dont necessarily wants to pay back these loans, you want to keep your workforce on but your workforce is wanting to apply for unemployment especially they may not know if this Small Business will ever actually get the loan. That is right. How many people do they keep in order to keep their business open and how many workers do they lay off because they might have the potential to get Unemployment Benefits which could help them stave off some of the damage in the longterm when they dont know how long they could potentially be closed. All right. Peggy collins, thank you. Stay close, my friend. Going to talk to you in just a little bit. On morning joe, former Vice President joe biden will address an accusation from a former Senate Staffer who says he sexually assaulted her 27 years ago. Nbc news chief Foreign Affairs correspondent and host of Andrea Mitchell reports. Andrea mitchell will have that story. And a word of caution, some of the details here are graphic. Watch this. Joe biden facing mounting pressure to speak out about an accusation he sexually assaulted a Senate Staffer in 1993. Former senate aide tara reed says then senator biden pinned her against the wall and assaulted her in a corridor. She started telling her story in march to news outlets including democracy now. I remember his hands underneath my blouse, underneath my skirt and his fingers penetrating me as i was trying to kiss me and i was pulling away. The Biden Campaign said this absolutely didnt happen. Reeds public account has evolved over time. Last year, she was among a handful of women who called out biden for what they called inappropriate although not sexually touching. Nbc news has reached out to five people reed said she told about the alleged assault either at the time orr since. Three former Senate Staffers told nbc news they do not recall any such conversation with reed. A fourth says reed did tell her about it at the time. A fifth person who also spoke with nbc but did not want her name used recalled being told about inappropriate touching, but not an assault. Reed says her mother called into larry king live in 1993 without identifying herself talking about a daughter having a problem with an unnamed prominent politician. Her mother died in 2016. Nbc cannot verify she was the caller. Earlier this week, linda lacost, a former neighbor, recalled reed telling her about an alleged assault several years after the alleged incident. La cost has not responded to our requests to verify the account. I do support joe biden. Im satisfied with how he has responded. The Trump Campaign has seized on the accusation, although the president has been accused of Sexual Assault by multiple women. The president has denied their accounts and commented i think he should respond, you know. Its it could be false accusations. I know all about false accusations. Ive been falsely charged numerous times. Nbc news has asked tara reed for an interview. Vice President Biden will be answering the allegations for the first time later this morning on morning joe right here on msnbc, yasmin. Our thanks to Andrea Mitchell for that report. Still ahead, with a lot of americans working from home, more and more companies have used Video Conferencing to get business done. But now one major Communications Company is facing a lot of lawsuits over privacy issues. Also, hundreds of demonstrators flooding michigans Capital Building to protest strict stayathome orders. Those stories and, of course, a check on your weather with our own bill karins when we come back. [spokeswoman] meet the ninja foodi grill. Get the perfectly grilled flavors of an outdoor grill indoors, and because its a ninja foodi, it can do even more, like transform into an air fryer. The ninja foodi grill, the grill that sears, sizzles, and air fry crisps. [anthony] hey mama, whats up . [mama] im confused. Confused about what, everything ok . Yeah, i only see one price on my phone bill. That doesnt sound confusing mama. Youre on tmobile, taxes and fees are included. Oh come on, theres always extra fees not on tmobile mama. Why cant all my bills be like this . I dont know mama. Bye mama, love you. Anthony . Umph at tmobile, taxes and fees are included. And right now, when you switch your family, get 4 lines of unlimited for just 35 a line. I dont have to worry about that, do i . Are irritated. Harmful bacteria lurk just below the gum line. Crest gum detoxify, voted product of the year. It works below the gum line to neutralize harmful plaque bacteria and help reverse early gum damage. Gum detoxify, from crest. Welcome back, everybody. Video Conference Company zoom has seen an explosion in membership as people have been ordered to stay home. But its now facing multiple lawsuits over privacy issues and fraud, as well. An investor filed a Class Action Lawsuit in california alleging zoom committed fraud when it failed to disclose problems with its software encryption. The suit says the short comings make the site vulnerable to hackers and unauthorized disclosure of personal information which devalues the stock. User lawsuits alleges a californian alleging the site failed to protect his data from facebook and linkedin and in all, the complaints against zoom highlight the following security concerns, failings over the way it encrypts user data, the potential theft of user data, leaked email addresses and calls and Encryption Keys being routed through china. Joining me now, danny cevallos. Wow, danny. Lots to cover here and not unexpected, to say the least. Anybody who has been on a zoom called, you now see that prompt that wasnt there when it first got started which is allowing your host to let you in, which wasnt necessarily there i believe when we first started doing zoom calls. None of this stuff looks good. What is the company, danny, saying about all of these alleged Security Issues . The ceo, eric lund, had to to say on his blog post we recognize we have fallen shorts of our security and privacy expectations. For that, i am deeply sorry and i want to share with you what we are doing about it. His blog goes on to post a few things they did on the site in march. But starting with the consumers, the consumers in this case have an interesting theory of liability. And one is based on what is called unjust enrichment. In other words, the company benefited or profited from their information in an unfair way because they didnt know about it and they didnt consent to it. But on the other hand, to some degree, the price of all of us living online and using all of these free apps is that we are giving up some of our privacy. As the saying goes, if the product is free, you are the product. So that is a challenging case itself. But to the extent this app allows people to peer into peoples homes who are not authorized to be there, then that invasion of privacy is a real claim and something the company does need to be worried about. So the running joke with zoom, since the start of this shutdown as we saw all of our 401 k s plummet is that we should have invested in zoom before all this because the zoom stock has gone up pretty substantially since february. Does the investor suit have much of a chance here considering what weve seen on the market . It does seem crazy, right, that theres an investor lawsuit against zoom, which any of us wish we had invested in six months ago. Because zoom has to be doing quite well. But the lawsuit has a point in that if youre an investor and you look at all the publicly available information about this company and if that company misled you or concealed information that an investor would have wanted to know, then there may be a lawsuit there. There may be a cause of action for a form of concealment of information. So even though zoom is going through the roof in terms of its stock value right now, at the same time, investors do have a right to have truthful Accurate Information available to them and not to be misled. All right, my friend, danny cevallos, great to see you. Please i xo yoenjoy your weeken. Still ahead, the white house is pushing to come up with a coronavirus vaccine. But the president s new comments about operation warp speed, come up next. About operation warp speed, come up next. Than even the leading multibenefit toothpaste. Crest. Wokeuplikethis migraine medicine. The 3 40 midshift migraine medicine. Introducing ubrelvy™. Its the migraine medicine for anytime, anywhere a migraine attacks without worrying if its too late or where you happen to be. One dose of ubrelvy™ can quickly stop a migraine in its tracks within two hours. Many had pain relief in one hour. Do not take with strong cyp3a4 inhibitors. Few people had side effects, most common were nausea and tiredness. Ask your provider about ubrelvy™ or access doctors from home with telemedicine. Migraines can strike anytime, anywhere. Ubrelvy™. The anytime, anywhere migraine medicine. Welcome back, everybody. The president yesterday expressing confidence in the administrations program to fast track a vaccine and produce hundreds of millions of doses by you years end. Watch this. On this vaccine operation warp speed, who is in charge of that . And are you overpromising when you say youre going to have 300 billion doses of vaccine no, im not overpromising. I dont know who said it. But whatever the maximum is, whatever you can humanly do, were going to have. And. We hope were going to come up with a good vaccine. Who is in charge of that vaccine . You know who is in charge of it . I am. Im really in charge of it. I would say were dealing with, as you know, the general and the admiral. Theyre very much he in charge. But i think probably more than anything, im in charge. And im the one that gets blamed and i get blamed, anyway. Lets bring in nbc meteorologist bill karins. Bill, good to see you this morning. You know, ive been talking to a lot of doctors, front line workers on this, physicians, nurses, and everybody wants a vaccine, right . But they worry that by fast tracking the development of a vaccine, the effectiveness and the safety of it may fall by the wayside, which is a valid concern if youre looking at a timeline thats possibly inside of a year. Yeah. You dont want the side effects worse than the actual virus, right . And that can happen. Thats what theyre going to test and, yeah, hopefully theyll get the efficacy right and get us a vaccine soon and hopefully as soon as theyre saying. If. Lets get to the numbers. We havent bent the curve much. Five, six, seven weeks. And yesterday, once again, 30,000 new cases. Actually, it was 30,829. Weve gone up the past four days in a row. As far as testing went, yesterday we had about 206,000 tests. This weekend, we will hit 2 of our population tested in the u. S. Lets jump to weather. We had this horrific storm yesterday. The wind was howling and the rain was nasty in areas of the midatlantic. Ive shown you trees and houses a million times. I havent shown you this. This is a tree falling into the house. Just cuts it right in half. I dont know how they knew. It must have been leaning. Thats probably why they had the video there. That was the homeowner running down the sidewalk. Everyone was out, no one was hurt. But its painful to watch. So lets give you your forecast as we go throughout the rest of the day. The storm will be exiting the northeast. Hundred degree temperatures will be moving from areas of it is Desert Southwest into texas and finally, let me give you some good news for once. And i dont put this on the news often. I wrote about time in the midatlantic and the northeast. Finally a gorgeous saturday. Sunday, some rain moving into the ohio valley, but still nice areas of the northeast. So, yeah, that video is crazy. I dont know, not many times ive seen video of a tree falling into the house. Yeah. That is incredible to watch. Thankfully, nobody was hurt. Thank you, bill. Still ahead, with about 30 million americans unemployed right now, were going to take a look at one new york city factory that is giving back in more ways than one. Plus, its the start of a new month and several states across the country are now easing up on coronavirus restrictions. Were going to take a look at what certain states are doing, coming up next. Ok at what certain states are doing, coming up next my patients i often see them have teeth sensitivity as well as gum issues. Does it worry me . Absolutely. They are both very much hand in hand. So you should really be focusing on both and definitely at the same time. The new sensodyne sensitivity gum gives us the dual action effect that really takes care of both our teeth sensitivity as well as our gum issues. By brushing with sensodyne sensitivity gum at home its giving you the relief that you need and the control that you need to take care of your oral health. And it creates a healthier environment. Theres no question its something that i would recommend. Theres no better story than your story. And ancestry can help you discover it. You could find new details in minutes. See photos from your familys past. Maybe even uncover something you never expected. You might just find the more you learn about your Family History the more youll want to know you try to stay ahead of the mess. But scrubbing still takes time. Now theres new powerwash dish spray. Its the faster way to clean as you go. Just spray, wipe and rinse. It cleans grease five times faster. New dawn powerwash. Spray, wipe, rinse. Get the perfectly grilled flavors of an outdoor grill indoors, and because its a ninja foodi, it can do even more, like transform into an air fryer. The ninja foodi grill, the grill that sears, sizzles, and air fry crisps. And. L music fades in . Hey hi featuring the Emmy Awardwinning voice remote. Access to your favorite apps, including netflix, prime video, youtube and hulu. All without changing passwords and inputs. The most 4k content and movies and shows on any screen. The best Entertainment Experience all in one place. Welcome back, everybody. Were going to begin this half hour with dr. An though noon faucis warning to states that are beginning to open their states but dont yet have the ability to do contact tracing. The only thing i can do is from 40,000 feet continue to urge the ones who dont have that capability to really go very slowly and those that do, go ahead and go by the guidelines. The guidelines are very, very explicit and very clear. Theres a lot of leeway because we give the governors the opportunity to be very flexible. But you have to have the corporals of the guidelines. You cant just leap over things and get into a situation where you really are tempting a rebound. Thats the thing i get concerned about. I hope they dont do that. So dr. Fauci, again, stressed that states should follow federal guidelines and only reopen if they have a twoweek decline in coronavirus cases. And the ability to identify, isolate and Contact Trace people who, in fact, test positive. With regards to some of the states that are easing restrictions, by the end of this week, stayathome orders and other restrictions will be eased or lifted in at least 21 states across the country affecting roughly 116 million americans. Here are a few states that were keeping an eye on. Georgia today will lift a statewide shelter in place order for most of its 10. 6 million residents. The order requiring elderly and medically fragile residents to smelter in place until june 12th. Connecticut is moving forward with its first step in a gradual multi stage process of lifting restriction owes businesses and activities. The roleback there is expected to begin may 20th, which will allow Outdoor Dining at restaurants. On monday, florida will ease restrictions statewide, but will keep the three largest counties closed. And in california, state leaders are closing beaches after they were packed over the weekend, despite social distancing orders. Also, state lawmakers nationwide continue to wrestle with public demands for business to resume and the need to protect public health. In michigan, a stand off in lansing nearly reached a breaking point. Yesterday, hundreds of people who tested outside the state Capital Building calling for an end to michigans state at home orders. Dozens of protesters chanting let us in. Several protesters tried to reach the house floor where lawmakers were debatesing an extension of the Governors State of emergency. A lot appeared to be armed. A state Police Spokesman telling nbc news that it is legal in michigan to carry firearms as long as it is done with lawful intent and the weapon is actually visible. One state lawmaker was there and praising the sergeant at arms to prevent protesters from getting in. Talking unemployment here. 30 million americans are now out of work. Many of them as a result of the coronavirus vaccine. To make face shields for front line workers. Once you walk in this door, you understand the magnitude of the work that youre doing. Eli jamison never thought he would be here. But six weeks ago, he lost his job at a brooklyn Clothing Store when the coronavirus pandemic turned his life upside down. And almost everyone here has lost their job, too. To hairdresser marlo beacher who had to close her own salon. Its kind of like the new reality. Since i cant practice doing hair, its time to figure out what i can practice and do to at least contribute to what life is right now. All found new jobs and a new purpose here at shield our heros nyc. As the pandemic spread across new york and the city went on lockdown, jessica works and her partner, Rob Herschenfeld swung into action to help those on the front lines by making face shields. So committed, they drain dollars their Bank Accounts to get their project off the ground. It was 11 00 a. M. On a monday. I reached out to some friends of mine in the tattoo industry and the food and beverage industry. Im producing shields. We made 1,250 shields that day. That was then. The this is now. With over 50,000 face shields a week going to mt. Sinai hospital in new york. How many people have you actually hired at this point that would have been otherwise unemployed . At this point, we have about 30 people that weve hired in the last three weeks. For now, this is the new normal here and it is all they can hold on to not knowing what the future may bring. Im not sure that for a lot of the people working here there will be the restaurant job to go back to or the salon to go back to or even the tattoo shop. A community of strangers forging new highs and a renewed purpose, helping those on the front line of the covid pandemic staying safe one face shield at a time. I will do this for as long as the shields are needed for our health care workers. Ill be here. Joining us once again, peggy collins. Peggy, good to talk to you again. Lets talk about Small Businesses. You have companies flourishing during this pandemic because theyre making face shields for front line workers, helping people that are otherwise unemployed now that were unemployed and now employed by them. Then you have other businesses not necessarily shuttering their doors and not knowing if theyre going to reopen. What type of companies are you, a, seeing a surge in hiring during this covid pandemic and what do you think things will look like once we emerge from the fog . Reshaping of the economy is one of the most stark things happening right now. The business that you just profiled, incredibly resilient. Weve seen a number of Small Businesses pivot quickly to make hand sanitizers and other things. But the ones that have been hit hardest are restaurants, hotels, hospitality industries, hair salons, and with a number of states reopening not only today, but through the weekend and monday, like tennessee, florida, texas, weve been talking to a lot of Restaurant Owners that are struggling with not only how do you reopen at less capacity in order to make your customers safe, but how do you decide when your own workers are safely safe to go back and serve the public . Also the followup question to that is then, peggy, how do you maintain business and eventually thrive . Because if we have in this thing for the long haul, at least next winter until we get a vaccine, it is likely that a lot of these restaurants that youre talking about are going to be operating as reduced capacity, right . So theyre not going to be bringing in the kind of capital that they were bringing in eight weeks ago. How are they going to reach their overhead unless we continue to have some of these Small Business loan programs that a lot of these restaurants arent even seeing. Thats right. So the money from the federal programs obviously is key. Theres talk about another Stimulus Program coming around the bend. Weve seen a number of small and mid sized businesses try to decide whether to furlough, cut hours, even wages to keep some workers on and turn to the technology. Thats one area weve seen Big Companies like amazon be able to hire. Weve seen other companies and even restaurants trying to rely on technology, websites, gofundme campaigns. But people are trying to hang on, but were seeing more and more businesses buckle the longer this goes on. Peggy collins, great to see you this morning. Still ahead, Vice President mike pences about face following criticism over ignoring mask guidelines. Your first look at morning joe is back in a moment. Morning j is back in a moment. Who has time for wrinkles . Neutrogena® rapid wrinkle repair®. Weve got the retinol that gives you results in one week. Not just any retinol. Accelerated retinol sa. For not only smoother skin in one day, but youngerlooking skin in just one week. And thats clinically proven. Results that fast or your money back. Unless youre attached to your wrinkles. One week is all it takes. Neutrogena®. In nearly 100 years serving the military community, weve seen you go through tough times and every time, youve shown us, youre much tougher your heart, courage and commitment has always inspired us and now its no different so, were here with financial strength, stability and experience you can depend on and the online tools you need because you have always set the highest standard and reaching that standard is what were made for the coronavirus continues to affect us all, and we are here, actively supporting you and your community. Every day, were providing trusted information from top health experts. Sharing tools to help protect families from fraud. And creating resources to support family caregivers everywhere. As always, you can count on aarp to advocate for you and your family. Join us and stay connected at aarp. Org coronavirus for you and your family. New tide power pods one up the cleaning power of liquid. Can it one up whatever theyre doing . For sure. Seriously . One up the power of liquid, one up the toughest stains. Any further questions . Uh uh one up the power of liquid with new tide power pods. I do motivational speakingld. In addition to the substitute teaching. I honestly feel that thats my calling to give back to younger people. I think most adults will start realizing that they dont recall things as quickly as they used to or they dont remember things as vividly as they once did. Ive been taking prevagen for about three years now. People say to me periodically, man, youve got a memory like an elephant. Its really, really helped me tremendously. Prevagen. Healthier brain. Better life. Welcome back, everybody. Vice president mike pence wore a mask yesterday while touring a General Motors plant in indiana that is producing ventilators. Its significant because he faced criticism for not wearing one during his visit to the mayo clinic earlier this week. His staff had even threatened action against a reporter for tweeting about how pence was notified of the mayo clinics rules on masks. The gm plant in cocomo, indiana, had similar protocol necessary place requiring workers to wear, quote, medical grade protective masks. The Vice President thanked workers for their help saying that the plant had already made 600 ventilators. With that, i want to take a turn and get a check on your weather with nbc meteorologist bill karins who has been tracking our covid numbers for us. Take us through it, bill. Yeah. Lets get into the fatality curve. This is the one we desperately want to see the accelerate up the curve flatten out. This is a leonard graph. This builds. This will never go down, but we dont want to see it continuing at that angle up. We want it to more slowly go up. Yesterday, we went over 63,000 cases and yeed alonsterday alon the deadliest day weve had so far since weve been tracking this. At some point next week we should hit 70,000 fatalities. We ended april averaging 30,000 new cases each and every day. You can see where that peak plateau is there. Look at the last four days. Each of those bars represents the day. Weve gone up the last four days. So right when we thought we were finally dipping and we were heading towards a lower number of daily cases which will in the end result in less deaths, the last four days we go rights back up again. So frustrating, to say the least. Now lets get into that forecast. We have a lot of people waiting to get their power back on in the midatlantic region yesterday. During the day today, it moves up into new england. The heaviest rains will be from new york city north wards during the lunch hour. By the time we head towards this evening and sunset, still some lunch. The steadest rains will be in the areas of northern new england. By the time we get through tonight, its all over with. And it clears out for your saturday, which is the best news overall. Other stories today, the heat building in areas of texas and finally your weekend forecast, gorgeous weather. All of the east coast goes throughout saturday. The only problems on sunday, some rain in the ohio valley. Hopefully we all can get out there safely this weekend and enjoy some of that sunshine. A lot of the areas of the country didnt have a nice april. Yeah. I hope we all can, as well. Looking at those numbers, bill, i hope we are continuously shocked by the magnitude of the numbers. Over 60,000 deaths at this point and just remembering that it is reprehensible that 60,000 americans have lost their lives over the last two months because of this disease. And its not slowing, yeah. Yeah, its not slowing. Were going to go live to nbc for an early look at what is driving the day on wall street. As we go to break, more of the unique efforts under way to help americans who are struggling during this pandemic. Five years after the series finales, the hit show parks and rec coming back to raise money for the covid19 response fund. Last night on nbc, the entire cast reunited for a socially distanced special. That visited all the characters in isolation, including amy poehler, rashida jones. Were back in a moment. Rashidas were back in a moment youre on tmobile, taxes and fees are included. Oh come on, theres always extra fees not on tmobile mama. Why cant all my bills be like this . I dont know mama. Bye mama, love you. Anthony . Umph at tmobile, taxes and fees are included. And right now, when you switch your family, get 4 lines of unlimited for just 35 a line. Heres a razor that works differently. The Gillette Skinguard it has a guard between the blades that helps protect skin. The Gillette Skinguard. So were working 24 7 toected maintain a reliable network, to meet your growing internet needs. Were helping customers who are experiencing Financial Difficulties stay connected. Were increasing internet speeds for low income families in our internet essentials program. And delivering selfinstall kits to your door. Nos comprometemos a mantenerte conectado. Were committed to keeping you connected. For more information on how you can stay connected, visit xfinity. Com prepare. Welcome back, everybody. An additional 3. 8 million workers filing for first time Unemployment Benefits. Y juliana is joining us live from london on this. At what point can we expect to see these numbers begin to decrease . Its a good question. And the numbers that came in in the last week of data were actually more severe than economists had expected. They were looking for about 3. 5 million americans to have claimed unemployment and 3. 84 was the number that came in. That means that more than 18 of the working age population has now filed claims. The big number to watch will come next week. It will come next week, is the Unemployment Rate itself. This will come as part of the labor departments monthly report that is due on friday. Thats the report to keep an eye on next week. Now, we have heard from a number of Big Tech Companies this week and how theyve been impacted by the pandemic. Amazon, one of the key names reporting yesterday. Amazon, no surprise, saw sales jump as people did more Online Shopping as they were stuck at home. But the Group Reported a 29 rise in q1 expenses, as it launched a huge recruitment drive to try to meet the inkreets in demai increase in demand. The message from jeff bezos, if you are an amazon shareholder, you may have to take a seat. Plans to spend around 4 billion in the second quarter, warning it could post its first quarterly loss in five years. Shares in amazon traded lower on the back of this news yesterday. Yas, back to you. Lets talk about macys here. Were hearing theyre planning on reopening some of their Stores Starting on monday. With plans to have them all open in the coming weeks. Tell us more about this decision here and the timeline for the opening, and what theyre going to do to keep not only the shoppers safe but the workers. So starting on monday, macys is planning to open 68 of its stores, reopen those stores in states including South Carolina and georgia, which have been very quick to reopen their economies. They will be operating on reduced hours, from 11 00 a. M. To 7 00 p. M. They will take precautions around social distancing, to try to ensure not only customers but also the employees are kept safe. About a quarter of these stores are within Simon Property groups malls, which introduces another layer of complexity when it comes to ensuring customers remain safe. If it goes well, 50 more stores are scheduled to open may 11th. It plans to open its 775 stores in the next six weeks. Since march 18th, all of macys stores have been shut. Back to you. That is an optimistic timeline, to say the least. Cnbcs julianna tatelbaum, live from london. Great to see you this morning. Up next, axios one big thing. Coming up on morning joe, amid calls to address a new allegation of Sexual Assault, the likely democratic nominee, joe biden, will be our guest. Morning joe is moments away. This is an athlete, twenty reps deep, sprinting past every leak in our softest, smoothest fabric. Shes confident, protected, her strength respected. Depend. The only thing stronger than us, is you. That family doesnt have to take out of their house. It relieves stress off of me to let me know im doing something good for the community, not just papa johns. Im doing something good for the community, you cant always stop for a fingerstick. Betes with the freestyle libre 14 day system, a continuous glucose monitor, you dont have to. With a painless, onesecond scan you can check your glucose with a smart phone or reader so you can stay in the moment. No matter where you are or what youre doing. 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Are you thinking about leading the country though in a moment of mourning, for all of the lives lost, the more than 60,000. Of course i am. I dont think anybody can feel any worse than i do about all of the death and destruction thats so needless. Nobody. But i also have to make sure that we handle the situation well. Nobody is thinking about it more. Nobody nobody has spent more time late in the evening thinking about whats happened to this country in a short period of time. But at the same time, we have to get our country open again. Were doing that, step by step. Tennessee is an example. Step by step, were opening up our country. And i really believe that, next year, we can be maybe even be we have a lot of stimulus. Well see, by the way, about package four, phase four, but i really hope we can be as good or better. I built it once. Were going to build it again. All right. Lets turn to axios am with the cofounder of axios, mike allen. Great to see you today. Happy friday. Happy may day. Give us the axios one big thing. Even the senate cant get enough tests. This is incredible. Yesterday on a conference call, the Senate Chiefs of staff were talking to the congressional physician, brian monaghan. Average age of a senator is 61. Highrisk group for coronavirus. One of the chiefs said to the physician, will you be able to test our senators . Incredibly, he said, no, there arent enough tests to test 100 senators. If youre hearing happy talk about the availability of tests, now you know. He said, were only going to be able to test people who are ill or people who have symptoms. Not only that, the Senate Physician doesnt have access to the highspeed, 15minute testings theyve been using at the white house. He told the chiefs of staff that it will take two to seven Business Days for him to get his results back in order to and until then, senators are going to need to quarantine. Why does it matter . This is a microcosm of the testing problem we have around the country. People are going back to work on the front lines and dont have Capitol Police to keep people 6 feet away. They have it even worse. That is incredible, to say the least, in spite of the fact that the senate is still coming back, even not having that rapid testing. Lets also talk unemployment here, right . Mike, at this point, 30 million folks unemployed over the last six weeks. The system is overwhelmed. It is inundated. How are state agencies, how are they handling this most recent wave of unemployment . This is another place the system is not working. The tech side of states is overwhelmed. We talked to a man in northern florida who, a month ago, march 28th, applied for unemployment after he was laid off from the goodwill. A month, coup and a couple dayse still hasnt heard. Why is this happening . Our tech and Business Reporters looked like this. One, the bureaucracy is overwhelmed. There arent enough people. Second, the tech is way out of date. These systems just werent built for this. Third, the systems have some friction built in. A lot of the states wanted to encourage people to get back to the work force, so they intentionally made it hard. Now, you have this unbelievable backlog in state after state. People are desperate. Theyre not able to get answers. This is how bad it is, the states are juryrigging solutions. In kentucky, theyre telling you, oh, when you get the error message that says we havent received your application, just ignore it. We actually have. How does that make you feel . Wow, not bad. Mike allen, thank you. Going to be reading axios am in a little bit. Sign up for the newsletter at signup. Axi signup. Axios. Com. That does it for me on this friday morning. Im yasmin vossoughian. Morning joe starts right now. If you speak to the head of intelligence right now, you speak to the head, they did say that i was given a briefing when i said i was given it. Not before. They also said that it wasnt specific, and it was not a panic briefing. It wasnt like, oh, were going to be invaded. It was in the january, later january. Mr. President , so youre saying that you got a briefing in january about im not saying it, no, no. You didnt hear me. I said, intelligence is saying it. He just President Trump said he got a briefing. I mean, even the director is laughing in my ear. Willie, he just said he had a briefing