Transcripts For MSNBCW Morning Joe 20200323

Years. I got elected as a rich person. It cost me billions of dollars to be president and i am so happy i did it. Who cares. Who cares. All right. That is the president of the United States talking about his net worth during this national crisis. Good morning and welcome to morning joe. It is monday, march 23rd. So, mika, its interesting, you and i had a different reaction to yesterday. Yep. We also i mean obviously weve been very concerned from the very beginning, weve expressed our concerns about the president and starting in january, the intel agencies warning him that a pandemic was coming, that could really be deadly. Also, very concerned about the president saying at rallies that the press was whipping this up into a frenzy and to a hoax level. Been concerned about people with cable news shows talking about how this was just the press was trying to get donald trump through this. A lot of things to be very concerned about, the president saying if you want to test you can get a test just weeks ago and still that not happening. That said, and maybe im doing this the wrong way, you can let me know, you can let me know, you know, we have our low expectations on what i call the ground noise, the president talking about how much hes worth, the president talking about mitt romney or reacting in a way that really is inappropriate when he finds out that mitt romney is isolated. But that said, sorting through that ground noise and looking at the signal, yesterday, i saw actually the president trying to be bipartisan towards the governors of the two most affected states. I saw mike pence come up and talk about what i believe is most important still, other than everybody socially distancing and that is the testing. We have to be able to map where this disease is. We have to i mean, there were some positives that came out yesterday. I thought friday and saturdays press conferences were ill just say it absolutely frightening and the president , of course, went on tangents and cant stay on script. He devolves into self pity. And that is a very bad look for a commander in chief in the time of a crisis. Also, for the life of me, i dont understand why hes not using all the powers that hes using to really coordinate a National Response, like fdr coordinated a National Response in world war ii. Hes Still Holding back. Hes still deferring to governors. Its almost like he wants to blame governors if things go badly. Now, harry truman says the buck stops here and in a pandemic, the buck doesnt stop with the governor. The buck stops with the white house. This was the mistake george w. Bush made during katrina. And those of us that were on the ground in louisiana and mississippi know that federal government wasnt there because they were waiting for the state to come in and save the day. The state didnt have the resources or the leadership to do it. The pandemic starts at the top still looks like donald trump doesnt understand that. But youve looked at it completely different than i did. I didnt see much difference between yesterdays update and any of the others. In fact, i thought it was a lot worse. You know, theres no National Mobilization. Theres no triggering of the National Defense mobilization act. We still dont have tests. We dont know where we are. The entire country is flying blind. Flying completely blind as to whether or not theyve had it, had it or are going to get it. Thats where we are right now still. And the president talking about his salary, making snarky comments about mitt romney, this is a man who does not have the mentality to lead us through this crisis. Lets dive right in to the latest as to what we know with coronavirus spreading. State and local leaders pleading for help, laid off workers in need of immediate relief. Washington providing little assurance to weary americans over the weekend. The president rejected calls yesterday to use war time powers to address shortages of face masks, ventilators and other critical equipment. The senate also failed to advance a sweeping stimulus bill aimed at boosting American Workers and the faultering economy. That news sent stock futures tumbling once again. Mitch mcconnell tried to set another vote for 9 45 this morning, 15 minutes after the bell hoping tanking markets would put pressure on democrats but Chuck Schumer said no to that idea. The vote is scheduled for noon. The work of the senate was also complicated after senator rand paul announced yesterday morning that he has tested positive for coronavirus after reportedly having gone to the senate gym earlier that morning and attending a gop senate lunch friday. Okay. Lets ask this question really quickly because i think most americans are asking this, if you are tested for the coronavirus you suspect if you were tested to see if you have a pandemic or not, while youre awaiting the results of the test you go to a senate gym, you go some reports were from colleagues that he went swimming at the senate swimming pool, and then on friday again, sat in at a senate lunch on friday, thats as reckless as you get. It goes against every guideline that every public professional has given. Rand pauls has now put the entire United States senate actually in a horrible position. Were all doing it. Americans are being asked to do this. Everyone is trying to stay six to eight feet apart and wiping everything down and trying to stop the spread. Everyone is trying their best and yet rand paul thinks he can walk around and go to the gym and have lunch with people and i mean did he even tell them he had been tested . Not a good example. But we need our senate, we need our congress, we need washington to function from some level. Rand paul is now in quarantine, as are senators mitt romney and mike lee. After having come in close contact with paul who has the virus. Meanwhile as the number of cases spiked over the weekend, now at nearly 35,000, more states and cities are announcing variations of lockdown orders. Louisiana joins the mix with a statewide stay at home mandate to take effect at 5 00 p. M. Ohios starts at midnight and delaware is tomorrow at 8 00 a. M. Lets bring in White House Reporter for the Associated Press john thnathan lemire. What are the plans moving forward in this white house . These briefings are not heartening to worried americans about exactly when were going to contain this thing, have a handle on it or have enough supplies to deal with it. Every press briefing keeps putting off anything theyre announcing, even warships, theyre on the way. So lets go down the list, jonathan, and lets start first of all with some areas like, for instance, our concern, i think most americans concerns are making sure that american citizens can get tests, making sure that hospital providers, doctors and nurses, can get the masks and gloves and the protective equipment that they need, and that sick americans, whose very life depends on being a ventilator, can get the ventilators we need. From yesterdays press conference and the press conferences over the past several days, what can you tell us about progress on all three of those fronts and what the president and the white house is doing to move that forward . So lets start with the idea of the testing. As you said the Vice President suggests that americans will be caught up, the backlog of tests, much better position in the middle of this week. That is apparently some progress. Well have to see if they follow through. A different story with the masks and ventilators. The head of fema was on several sunday talk shows yesterday pressed by anchors as to when these medical workers will receive the masks they need and he couldnt give a straight answer. He couldnt let them know. He said were working from this stockpile or stockpile. Were asking the private sector. Let me ask you this, jonathan, and i think every american needs to be able to go to a website, maybe its coronavirus. Gov, go to a website and get straight answers how many masks hospitals have, how many masks are in production, and when theyre going to be delivered to hospitals because the real frustration here is, that well hear the same thing over and over again, i really dont need mike pence giving me just generalizations about how the American People are great and theyre i know the American People are great. We dont need that we dont need to be told that in a pandemic. We dont need to be told in a pandemic that churches are great. We know that churches are great. Jesus has got that. All right. We need to know about masks, we need to know about testing, we need to know about gloves, we need to know about ventilators. So i havent gotten a straight answer and im looking for it on tests, on masks,ed on ventilat. I hear the president talk about people who make liquor, says that every day, we get that, people that own distilleries are going to make enough Hand Sanitizer to last half a day in the United States. Awesome. But is there any place where we can go to see what the federal government is doing and who theyre coordinating with to see the numbers of masks and protective gear that are being made for our doctors and nurses and technicians who will save americans lives over the next three weeks . Is there a place where we can go to get that number . The answer is no. And its caused great frustration from those at the front lines. The mayors and governors across the nation. Yesterday as i said the fema head couldnt say how many masks are being shipped. The president has been reluctant to fully invoke the defense production act. He said it was because we dont nationalize business in the United States. He pointed to venezuela and said look, you saw how socialism works there. We dont want to do that here. Which, of course, is also because theres a political calculation to this, hes been painting democrats as socialists for months and plans to again when the general election heat up. So that is whats held him back to a degree, even though governor after governor has urged him to do so. We heard Governor Cuomo plead with the president , fully enact dpa, we need masks and vent laters. It crosses party lines. The republican governor of texas did the same. So well get to the ventilators in a second. I want to go back and ask why donald trump, why jared kushner, why somebody in this government, cannot give us straight talk, straight numbers, straight information about how many masks are in production . What do they expect the states, the hospitals, the nurses, the doctors, to need over the next three weeks when maybe up to a million americans are going to be infected . Maybe its 500,000. We dont know. Do you because these briefings are frustrating. I know a lot of people are starting a lot of journalists are saying, we need to just stop the briefings. Thats really going to be very hard to do for a lot of different reasons. Regardless of how bad the president can be at times during those briefings, americans are also getting information. But why cant they come forward and tell us this . Have you gotten an answer from the white house, why cant they tell us why cant we go to a site and see how many masks are being made, how many gloves are being made, what the need is, what the goal is, where we are, how long it will take in the process. All they say is 3m is making masks and well get some in a month. Talking about 500,000 masks thats a lot, but is it the 35 million well need by the end of the crisis . Not even close. Have you gotten an answer as to why they continue to wallow in generalities, instead of doing what any business would do, instead of doing what any leader would do, and that is, have the goal, have the number in production, have the different points of contact who are making the masks, why arent they doing any of that . What any leader would do . There is no straight answer. There are no details. The white house is still struggling to catch up to the scope and severity of this crisis. Theyre playing catchup. So let me ask you this, and im dead serious here, i think they are, i think theyre struggling to catch up, but im having to tell people every day who think that this president is intentionally dragging his feet by not using all the powers he can use, somehow hes still not taking this seriously enough. He talks about giving cruise lines that arent even based in america because they want to dodge taxes, he keeps talking about giving cruise lines tax dollars. He keeps talking about all of these bizarre i i thats just him. Yes, yes, hes unfit, temperamentally to be president , i get it, but the question is, is he trying his best . What do i tell people when they keep saying, hes still not taking it seriously and hes still just not doing what is required to save millions of americans lives . Would invoking the defense production act increase speed and focus on getting these products to the people . It absolutely would and governors and mayors across the nation are asking him to do so. Theres a suggestion by some that he is not wanting to fully lean into this because he wants to point the finger elsewhere if the efforts fail. If he doesnt fully enact it we see him repeatedly shift the onus to the states to come up with these items that they need. We also know this, part of whats hampering the issue, joe, why there arent the details, partially why that he cant the administration hasnt been able to level with the American Public is that his advisors are sometimes afraid to level with him. The president is looking through this still with a glass with rosy glasses believing this will be over sooner than later, dismissing Science Health experts, sometimes in meetings, when aides come and suggest hey this is dire and were trying to present to you a realistic sense of how long this can take and how bad it will get he doesnt want to hear it. He is someone who his whole life has asserted his own sense of reality. He creates his own truth. That doesnt work in this situation. And it may have worked with page six and some of the gossip pages and worked to a degree during the campaign. It is not going to work here. That is what alarms so many people in washington and across the nation. I will point to his tweet last night, late last night, he tweeted, we cannot let the cure be worse than the problem itself. At the end of the 15 day period well make a decision which way to go, which lines up with what were starting to hear around him, the belief that he feels these draconian measures to restrict the economy may do more harm than good even though that flies in the face of the Health Experts and hes going to be looking to push to a return it to a normal society far sooner than any Health Expert or doctor would want. I mean see, that wont work. Ed luce, it wont work because the virus doesnt care what donald trump thinks. A pandemic doesnt care what a nations gdp is. It only cares about who it can infect next. Its staggering to me, donald trump, after getting it wrong time and time again over the past several months by the way, ill say here, im cheering for him to get this right. Ive got a lot of reasons. Ive got as lot of family members who desperately need him to get this right. Yeah. But after being wrong so many times about this virus, being wrong about the testing, being wrong about the protective gear, it seems that hes still not leaning all the way in to this and acting he loves saying hes a war time president , hes acting like this is just another day. What what can you do you have any idea why hes not using the full powers of his presidency . No. I mean i think he has this weirdly romantic notion that he can exalt the private sector to do this somehow in an ad hoc, uncoordinated way. I think there is confusion within the white house about who is in charge. Jared kushner has apparently ripped up the original pandemic plan and has handed it to fema, but fema has absolutely no experience in ordering and securing the flow of medical equipment and medical supplies. And the governors, as youve been hearing from jonathan, the governors are in a dog eat dog situation where theyre essentially scrambling on the open market to get their share of very scarce sources of supply. I dont know, i dont have any special insight into why President Trump thinks this is a good way of ramping up production quickly because its not working. Production isnt being ramped up quickly. This applies to test kits as well still. Youre hearing very credible anecdotal stories from all over america, people who would in other countries be getting tests, being turned down for getting tests. I dont know why President Trump doesnt realize that its still very bad. You know, the South Koreans, the South Koreans knew at the same time we knew, Steve Rattner, that they had a pandemic coming. The same day they had their first case and we had our first case, within a week, they had a test. That was in, what, late january i think. Here we are at the end of march, and were still so far behind on testing and, steve, you know, i understand we need the testing primarily so we can find out who is sick, who is not sick, who needs to be isolated, who doesnt need to be isolated, but theres another part of this. You need to know whether you have the coronavirus because 80 of americans are going to go through that without a lot of serious conditions and when theyre through that, theyre going to be healthy and immune from the virus in the future so they can go on with their lives. They can go back to work. They can relieve those who are trying to keep businesses afloat. They can start reviving this economy again, but they cant do that if they dont take the test and they dont know. I saw Peggy Noonans tweet last night that shes taken a test and had symptoms for weeks and still doesnt know whether she has the coronavirus or not. Its really just remarkable how inevident the inevident epts the United States of america still is compared to other countries. We all know that the administration has been way behind the curve from the very beginning and that does start at the top with donald trump in the sense that he went through this period of essentially denying it existed, saying it was just a few cases, saying it was going to go away by springtime and never really doing anything about it and now hes trying to do something about it but not really a manager as weve talked about many times on the show. He was a real estate entrepreneur. Trying to organize all of this and figure out how to lead it and who is going to do what, has been beyond his skill set. Plus he does these briefings and raises all these false hopes and drugs and when its going to go away and so on that are unrealistic. Instead of focusing his time on getting this done. I think jonathans point about him using not using the defense production about because he wants to turn around and blame the democrats brand the democrats as socialists seems right and thats threatening our country over politics of all things. Yeah. You know, john meacham, john is with us, john, the president keeps saying that hes a war time president , but hes not actually using war time measures to protect americans. What were talking about, war, you know, one of the most prestigious groups that have put out a study on the coronavirus and what its impact may be on americans, said that if we dont do this right, up to 2 million americans could die. We see these numbers doubling. Every day we wake up and see them doubling. You can look at the chart. Were actually moving ahead of italy very soon on the number of cases. We are going to be the most infected country on the planet because of poor leadership. And john, its interesting, also, unbelievably sobering that 2 million number is also about the number of americans who have died in every war we have ever fought as a country since 1776. Yes. This is war. In fact, the death toll could be worse than easily be worse than any war we have ever fought, including the civil war where 700,000 americans died, unless we get this right. Its pure science. Were still having trouble not getting this right. This is pure science. This is medicine. These are facts. A pandemic doesnt give a darn about the art of the deal. Because you know what, a pandemic doesnt negotiate. It just kills until people separate and its killed. Yeah. One of the tragedies, one of the many, many tragedies thats unfolding is to criticize the president for 40 or more of the country sounds as though were all engaging in predictable partisan paintball about something. This is as serious as it gets. Fdr said on his inaugural the line we all remember the only thing we have to fear is fear itse itself. The line that got the biggest cheer that day and mrs. Roosevelt and she was chilled by this fact, was when he said i might require war timelike executive powers to govern as if we had been invaded by a foreign foe and the crowd roared because they were hungry for that leadership at a moment when a quarter of the population was out of work. There is a st. Louis fed official who said last night or over the weekend, that were probably looking at 30 wshs we may be looking at 30 unemployment before this year is out. That is worse than march 1933. Im willing to grant and a lot of folks have not in the past, they dislike it when war time president s, our friend Michael Beschloss wrote a book about war Time Leadership and how president s often overreach, but take the best part of that, take the clarity of war, take the capacity, cultural capacity of americans to agree to the projection of sources to what churchhill called blood, tears and sweat and follow it through. Dont declare war and then say, its up to andrew cuomo. A lot of us would take andrew cuomo now easily. And im not being a smart alec here for once. My sense is that you can just feel this. It is greek tragedy. Theres an inevitable result. We know were going to get to a national lockdown. We know what the experts are saying requires this stronger shortterm pain to prevent longterm genuine chaos, both in terms of health, but the ripples on the economy in so far as there is an economy. Its going to be shut down. If we it pretty much is now, and its harder and harder to start it back up. You need a clarity of mind, a calmness of purpose, and a capacity to be honest and admit when youve been wrong. And i submit to you, whether those three characteristics are present right now in the oval office. Theyve never been. You know, the thing is, the president of the United States and those around him were told two weeks ago, two weeks ago, think about this, mr. President , you have to lock this country down. If you do not lock this country down, americans will die and the economy will be ravaged. Here we are two weeks later still sleepwalking through history, still doing half measures, still not on a national lockdown. This weekend in florida, people were still on beaches this weekend in florida, people were still gathered at sand bars jammed together on boats. This weekend in florida, five College Students tested positive for the coronavirus who had been at spring break. Miami herald editorial board, coronavirus is killing us in florida. Governor desantis, please act like you give a dam. People in florida are begging for leadership from the governor, from the mayors. Some of them are doing it. And from the president. Thats just the thing. Ron desantis proves that you cant trust 50 governors to do this right. Ron desantis proves that hes been more concerned about allowing thousands of spring breakers to keep partying on because business interests are pressuring him to let spring Breakers Party on, than he is on doing whats best for the health and wellbeing of Senior Citizens all across florida. Ive talked to doctors and scientists who have said, this is the worse Case Scenario where you have a lot of young people that may have the coronavirus that may be asymptomatic that are going to come in touch with a lot of Senior Citizens in the oldest state in america. Yeah. And theyre not doing ron desantis is not doing what he needed to do two weeks ago to protect florida seniors. Not only did he not shut down florida, he kept spring break open. Were starting to see in louisiana the effects of mardi gras, the effects of these mass gatherings. Louisiana is being hit hard by people who went to mardi gras. And then got this virus. All of this is happening because again, were not even halfway in on battling this virus. Were blind. People are thinking they can take 30 pieces of silver here and 30 pieces of silver there and hoard it before the pandemic really hitsp and the impact is the economy gets ravaged more. Ive said it for weeks now. Mr. President , ill say it again, this is not an economic crisis. This is a health care crisis. If you will do everything thats required to take care of the health care crisis, then the economic crisis will go away. But these half measures, are going to keep this economic crisis going on through the summer and into the fall if you dont act decisively. This is not going to be over in 15 days or 14 days. You cant put a number on it. You need to lock the country down, you need to get everybody testing, you need to be on war footing. You need to do everything that you can do right now to be on war footing, sign the i mean, dont sign it, use it trigger. Trigger the defense production act for testing first but then for medical supplies and protective gear and ventilators. You should be working 24 hours a day. These factories should be working 24 hours a day like roosevelt and late 41 and 42 got american industry working 24 hours a day to produce bombers, produce weapons, to produce tanks. We beat the nazis and we beat the japanese, because what fdr did. And yes, half a million americans died in that long four year war. 2 million could die in this war in the next six months if you dont do this. Ed luce, on top of that, you have the senate that cant come to a deal. What thats going to do for markets in america at 9 30 when the markets open up, im fearful its going to be more blood letting on wall street today. Whats happening with that bill . The bill is kind of stillborn. Theres clearly an unbridgeable gap between the democrats side and Mitch Mcconnell with Steven Mnuchin. This 500 billion in Corporate Bailout funds with very, very few conditions attached, enormous discretion for the treasury to select countries with weak Strings Attached to them for bailout while having pretty weak protections for workers who are losing their jobs who have been furloughed is clearly something unpalatable to nancy pelosi and to Chuck Schumer so we were looking at another day of a game of chicken between Mitch Mcconnell and the democratic leaders. Its a bill that fails to learn a lesson from 2008. The idea that you can get private jet companies and cruise liners and hotel groups, some of which are owned by the first family of america, receiving funds, discretionary funds, with minimal oversight is i think sort of spectacular misreading to what the public reaction to this would be. A bill like this needs aid going out to states, governors, mayors, as well as the direct checks to ordinary americans and it needs enormous resources going into the medical sector first and foremost to fighting this virus by building up capacity at hospitals and amongst medical professionals across the country. It doesnt really do that. It produces a big round number, 1. 8 trillion, but too much of the breakdown of that number is for like special Rewarding Industries that arent necessarily at the front lines. I can understand why this has been voted down by democrats, but something new is not in its place and the markets are going to hate that. And the fact that come on theyre still focusing on the cruise lines. Come on. Theyre still focusing on private jet companies, still focusing on the 500 billion slush fund only Mitch Mcconnell would think in the time of this crisis that it made sense to give the largest multinational corporations that already spent all of their money with the trump tax cuts on stock buybacks only Mitch Mcconnell would think that a 500 billion corporate slush fund was Worth Holding up help to working americans in kentucky and across the country. Its inexplicable. I think, mika, it makes sense to get nancy pelosi and Steven Mnuchin together. They have worked through some things in the past. I think thats what the president is going to have to insist on because right now, Mitch Mcconnell is not taking this seriously. Hes still thinking that the American People are going to turn over 500 billion, a half a trillion dollars, to this administration so they can pass out Slush Fund Money to their key supporters. Its not going to happen. Weve got many more angles the markets are going to crash if Mitch Mcconnell doesnt figure that out very quickly. Well be looking at that as well. Still ahead on morning joe this is how we can beat the coronavirus, two leading doctors explain how the u. S. Can still avoid the worst outcomes of the outbreak, but only if we act now. Plus, the president of the American Medical Association who had a simple word to describe the vast shortages of protective gear for medical professionals on the front lines of treating coronavirus, unacceptable. Florida congresswoman debbie mucarselpowell on her push to get all of the beaches in her state closed. We can also get back to Steve Rattner talking about the markets today. Overnight the markets crashed. Were going to ask him what all these things were talking about including the senate bill, what impact theyre going to have on your Retirement Funds later in this show. Well be right back. To take me through this journey. Theyre not just treating the cancer, theyre treating me as a whole person. Call us at Cancer Treatment centers of america i appreciate what makes each person unique. Thats why i like Liberty Mutual. They get that no two people are alike and customize your Car Insurance so you only pay for what you need. Almost done. Markets today. U ink . Markets today. I dont see it. Only pay for what you need. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. So wim searching for info on options trading, and look, it feels like im just wasting time. Wasted time is wasted opportunity. Exactly. Thats why Td Ameritrade designed a firstofitskind, personalized education center. See, you just oh, this is easy. Yeah, and thats oh, just what i need. Courses on options trading, webcasts, tutorials. Yeah. Their awardwinning content is tailored to fit your investing goals and interests. And it learns with you, so as you become smarter, so do its recommendations. So its like my streaming service. Well exactly. Well except now, youre binge learning. Oh, i like that. Thank you, i just came up with that. Youre funny. Learn fast with the Td Ameritrade education center. Call 8662950917 or visit tdameritrade. Com learn. Get started today, and for a limited time, get up to 800 when you open and fund an account. Thats 8662950917, or tdameritrade. Com learn. Hey allergy muddlers. Achoo . Do your sneezes turn heads . Try zyrtec. It starts working hard at hour one. And works twice as hard when you take it again the next day. Zyrtec muddle no more. So before we went to break, we were talking about Mitch Mcconnells bizarre 500 billion slush fund for multinational corporations. Obviously thats not going to pass the United States senate. Why waste the time now . They didnt get the majority for that. Certainly the idea of having a 500 billion slush fund to give to private jet companies, 500 billion slush fund to give to cruise lines that avoid american taxes by setting their business headquarters offshore, giving 500 billion of the slush fund to give to Donald Trumps hotels, its not going to pass. So its workingclass americans who are going to be suffering. Steve rattner, i fear when the stock market opens up, its going to be all americans with 401 k s, with retirement plans, that are going to take another hard hit because this 500 billion slush fund for multinational corporations has killed this senate bill and will now actually cause the markets to collapse even more. Talk about what your concerns are with the bill and also your concerns about the markets today . What are we looking at . Sure. Let me start with the bill because the bill is central to the markets and the markets are going to react very heavily if not exclusively based on the developments around what happens with this bill. And lets go back a little bit in history, joe, and talk about 2008 because what happened in 2008 as you may remember is the bush then Bush Administration in september of 2008 came up with a bill, a little bit like this, that would have provided a 700 billion fund to be used by the treasury to save banks and ultimately it was used to save Auto Companies. The house voted it down. The markets collapsed. Six or seven days later hank paulson famously went up to nancy pelosi and said we need this and she agreed and they passed what became the t. A. R. P. Bill. Im not going to say everything about it was perfect but the t. A. R. P. Bill was what saved the economy. I dont like many elements of this bill or the special treatment for airlines and for other industries that have gotten Mitch Mcconnells ear. I dont like some of the theyre actually reopening a loophole or two that was closed in the 2017 tax bill, i dont like that, a lot i dont like about this, but its not practical for the congress we need aid to business and the people. If we dont save these companies there are not going to be any jobs and Many Companies are going to run out of money and we need to come up with a mechanism to do that. Congress obviously cant sit there and say im going to lend this much to this guy and this much to that guy, it has to delegate the authority. The problem youre having in washington at the moment, i talked to a lot of people in washington, theres no trust. The democrats as youve said, view this as a slush fund. They dont trust the administration to implement or execute it. There is no alternative because congress cant sit there and allocate loans one by one to every medium sized business around the country that needs it. And so the lack of trust thats existed on the hill for the last several years since trump really and even in late obama has essentially brought us to a place where we are deadlocked and based on that the markets are going to roll over. But steve, this its hard to compare george w. Bush and barack obama, because they in effect were working on this together because this happened at the end of george w. Bushs term and the beginning of Barack Obamas term. You cant compare them, unfortunately, to donald trump and Steven Mnuchin because nobody is going to trust donald trump and Steven Mnuchin to pass this money out based on need. Donald trump has made it very clear over the past three and a half years he rewards his political friends and he punishes his political enemies. Again, he keeps talking about cruise lines. Hes going to bail out cruise lines that arent even American Companies that take american dollars, but then go off shore so they dont have to pay american taxes. There is no sometimes theres no trust because of a toxic political culture. Sometimes theres no trust because the parties that are asking for trust have shown over by their past conduct they are not worthy of trust in government and i think most people in washington would suggest that donald trump and Steven Mnuchin are not worthy of trust and being handed a 500 billion check and say you can just go do what you think is best for america. That doesnt end well for anybody. I totally agree with you, joe. The American People are looking to washington to solve this problem and if we fail to solve this problem because you have two sides that dont agree and i totally agree i dont trust donald trump or Steven Mnuchin either given their performance that they were going to drain the swamp but then they filled the swamp. We need to have an independent person look over this or delegate it to the Federal Reserve but we have to come up with a solution. In addition to helping ordinary americans, helping states, in addition to providing money to hospitals all the things youve been talking about, if we dont find a way to provide liquidity to millions of American Businesses whats happened in the stock market and economy so far would be nothing compared to what would happen. So this money, this 500 billion, could be transferred to the fed for its discretion or i cant hear joe you could have donald trump or and nancy pelosi each select a special master and those two people, mika, would be the ones who would make the decision on who was going to be getting the money. Weve done it before in other areas. We can do it with this too. This is a nonstarter having Steven Mnuchin have all the power and authority over half a trillion dollars. Its never going to pass. All right. We have a new piece in the atlantic magazine which explains how we can beat the coronavirus. Joining us the two coauthors are professor of pediatrics at Indiana School of medicine and contributor to the New York Times dr. Aaron carroll and director of the Harvard Global Health Institute dr. Ashish jha, a practicing physician and professor of medicine at harvard. Joining us dr. Dave campbell. Dr. Carroll, how do we beat the coronavirus . We have to do two things. In the short term really engage in strong mitigation, slowing down the number of cases showing up really fast, and we do that by a lot of the things weve already done. Social distancing, staying in the house, staying away from each other and also creating a lot of the equipment that were going to need to handle the massive surge of sick people. Thats the short game. The long game has got to be suppression. We have to squash this thing and we do that by testing lots of people, figuring out who is sick, isolating those who are even though they might be living with, think about that at least and get prepared for the fall when this could get really, really bad. Okay. But the suppression involves testing. We dont have it. Yeah. Right now youre talking about something that we cant do. No. But we have to. We know that we have to. So we have to stop saying things like its going to happen soon or its right around the corner or, you know, were going to have it any second. We have to start really doing it. Other countries have. Its clearly possible. We have the resources and the money. We really just got to get our act together and start doing it. Testing is only part of it and not necessarily the most important part right now. What we need to be doing is making the equipment and resources to protect our Health Care Workers and get them what they need to care for the people who are going to get sick because theyre going to get ca are going to get sick. Theyre going to get sick. Its coming. This is like december 8, 1941 and everyone said we need bombers. Right. We cant just say oh, its going to happen. Its going to happen. Testing remains the most critical thing for our long term health. And we still arent doing it right. I hope this week the president and the Vice President tell us how were moving forward on testing. Doctor, how do we actually get a Mass Mobilization of supplies . It is the president actually using the defense production act . Yeah. Good morning. Look, first of all, on testing, we tested 40,000 people yesterday. Thats progress. So good news is were not abysmal. Now were inadequate. Thats progress. We have to be testing three to four times as many people as that, right . We still have a long way to go. We have hospitals now filling up and doctors and nurses taking care of people without adequate supplies. That is a travesty. When those guys get sick, the doctors and nurses get sick, nobody is around the hospital to take care of you when you get sick. So weve got to fix that right away. Every city and state is trying to figure out how to do this on their own. We need the president to come out and use the dpa or whatever powers hes got to say this is priority number one. We have the resources, the ingenuity, were going to take this on. I havent heard that. I mostly heard, hey, we got it. Its coming. Dont worry. Im worried. We dont have it. We got to get it. If we can prepare how this looks like in a week or two, dr. Dave campbell ran paul tested positive. A couple concerns about that story. Of course, were concerned about his health. But what other issues has his case raised . Paul is a senator and a physician. Americans right now are looking to leaders to follow their example. So it must be clear that senator paul needed the test because he had it done. And it was positive. But he was asymptomatic. So he is proven in one Single Person the importance of testing people who are asymptomatic who are having reason to believe they were exposed to the virus. Only dr. Paul knows how intimate his exposure was that caused him to test positive. It must have been intimate because hes positive. The part that is exceedingly hard for me to comprehend and even accept is that once he knew he was likely to be needing a test and got it that he went out and exposed others. He went to a lunch. Went to a gym. Went to a pool. As a physician, that part doesnt make sense to me at all. And not practicing what the president even is preaching. Dave campbell, one more for you. New york and california being hit hard, new yorks hospitals already overrun. What is the next hot spot for the coronavirus . I believe its going to be florida or at least likely to be florida. We have all the spring breaker thats have come down here, overrun our beaches and sand bars. They locked that down. But we have the Senior Citizens, the oler people that are sick that are ill, that live in nursing homes. Thats a perfect storm. We have spring breakers and old people. I cant think of a worse combination. My guess is this week well see florida numbers spike, particularly deaths in older people. Doctor this underlines a bigger problem. Ran paul and the mistakes that were made by Florida Governor allowing spring breakers to continue on spring break. I guess 45, 50 of people 18 are asymptomatic through this based on an article i read this weekend. So you could if you cant test people who came in contact with somebody who had the coronavirus but arent showing symptoms, then we really are just flying blind right into the side of a mountain, arent we . Yeah. Were still flying blind. And its really hard to fight a battle like the coronavirus until we have clear sight on how bad the cases are, how many people are infected, where theyre infected, who theyre infecting. None of that is doable until we get broad testing it which is why right now in last week i was on morning joe, i said we need a national pause. We have to get our arms around this thing. Once we have our arms around this thing, we can make smart decisions about can we let some places relax a little bit . What kind of things can we do . You cant make any of those decisions unless you have data and testing is what gives us data. All right. Jonathan, at this point what these two doctors are talking about is what we can do to stave this off. The images of what this will look like a week or two from now from what ive heard from different doctors that weve been talking to and scientists could be really bad. Thats right. And mayor diblasio was on meet the press yesterday and said new york city is a week or two away from running out of equipment. Lets talk worst Case Scenario for a moment. New york city emerged as the nations hot spot for this. The cases i believe went from 300 to 9,000 in the span of a week. What are we looking at in terms of how do you expect the numbers to spread in new york and how dire could it be the federal government doesnt step up with the needed equipment . So first of all, we should recognize that even with good protection a lot of the infections are baked into the cake. The numbers are going to continue down the path way theyve been which is doubling every three days. Thats horrific but its going to continue probably for a little while even if we do a good job with this. The hospitals are running out of equipment they need to protect themselves which means that as they get sick, its going to be harder to provide care for americans. Again, there is only so many ventilators and beds available. We need to start ramping that up. Theres not yet the real commitment with actual numbers and dates of delivery that we need to be seeing. Its important to state again and again this is the short term game. Weve got the fall to worry about and the long term game. All those numbers of millions coming. Thats still to come. Aaron campbell, thank you for being with us. Doctors, thank you as always. Dr. Za, will you stay with us for one minute . I have a question for you it he top of the hour. Our thanks to dr. Aaron carol as well. President trump had to deal with several crisis in his Business Career and his personal life. Hes no you troo w trying to us and bra vad yoe to combat a global pandemic. Peter baker joins us next with the latest reporting. Plus, michigan congresswoman Haley Stevens on how to mobilize u. S. Manufacturers to create the medical supplies that hospitals desperately need in this Public Health crisis. Morning joe will be right back. Crisis. Morning joe will be right back to take me through this journey. Theyre not just treating the cancer, theyre treating me as a whole person. Call us at Cancer Treatment centers of america were a country not based on nationalizing our business. A person over in venezuela, how did nationalization of their businesses work out . Not too well. The concept of nationalizing our businesses is not a good thought. We may have to use it along the supply chain in minor way. We have millions of masks being done. We have respirators and ventilators and a lot of things happening. Just the threat of using it. Using it is a big deal. Again, its generalities. Like i said last hour, we need to see the numbers, mr. President , every day. Its just a rolling mass of generalities. We need specifics on how many masks to Public Health Officials Say we need . How many masks do we have. And what are you and your administration doing to get us to where we need to be on masks, on gloves, on protective gear, on ventilators, and most importantly, ill say it again, on testing. How ironic it is that the same man who told larry king in 2009 after the bank crisis, after the Bank Collapse that we needed to consider nationalizing banks. Now as president of the United States, he wont even nationalize, like, the makers of masks for, again, for a short period. Like fdr did in world war ii. Again, ill say it again. We got on our war footing in world war ii 500,000 or so americans died in that war. It was a grave war. And, yet, if this is not done right, again, the best minds in this field say up to two million americans could die if the president doesnt lock this country down and get to work, have washington get to work, organizing, coordinating the creation of this productive this protective gear. That would call for him to actually fully envoek tinvoke t production act and that is him refusing to do so. Its the law that allows the federal government to compel production by private companies of things such as ventilators, testing kits, masks and gloves. According to the New York Times, the administration has enacted mostly minor provisions of the law. But Industry Leaders have lobbied the government not to fully enact it. Companies argue it would bog them down in red tape when they need to be free to react to market changes. Right now though, weve got chaos. Weve got no numbers. The times reports that executives are also reluctant to freely offer production of the needed supplies without purchasing guarantees. So here is the latest as the president rejects calls to use wartime powers to address shortages of facemasks, vent lateo ventilators and other critical equipment. The senate failed to enact a sweeping stimulus bill. That news sent stock futures tumbling once again. Mitch mcconnell tried to set another vote for 9 45 this morning, 15 minutes after the opening bell hoping tanking markets put pressure on democrats. But Chuck Schumer said no to that idea. The vote is scheduled for noon. The work of the senate was also complicated after senator ran paula announced yesterday morning he tested positive for coronavirus. Its just unbelievable how reckless he was. Reportedly having gone to the senate gym earlier that morning knowing he had been tested and attending a gop senate lunch on friday exposing other senators to the virus paul is now in quarantine as are senators mitt romney and mike lee after having come in contact, close contact with senator rand paul. As the number of cases spiked over the weekend, now nearly 35,000 more states and cities are announcing variations of lockdown orders. Louisiana is joining the mix with a statewide stay at home mandate to take effect at 5 00 p. M. Ohio starts at midnight. And delaware is tomorrow at 8 00 a. M. Meanwhile, the coronavirus continues to rampage across the globe with italy reporting more than 1,400 deaths over the weekend. And the total death toll, the highest in the world, nearing 5,500 as the country moved to ban all travel within its borders. And the summer Tokyo Olympics could be postponed according to the International Olympic committee. Australia and canada said they will not attend the games if they happen this year. Back with us, White House Reporter for the Associated Press. The director of the Harvard Global Health Institute, dr. Za. And lets also bring in our capitol hill correspondent and host of kacie d. C. On msnbc, kacie hunt and former white house adviser for Health Policy under president obama, dr. He manual. So, doctor emanuel and dr. Ja, i have a personal question first. Were talking about quarantining, isolating, keeping people in and out of our homes and our lives if they possibly have been exposed. What have we figured out what the time is between exposure to the coronavirus and catching it and the first symptoms . The World Health Organization says 5 to 14 days. Do we have a better grasp on that . Ill start with you, zeke. 5 to 14 days is right. The problem is its variable. Some people have literally no symptoms and dont even know theyre sick or they have a cough and thats all. Or theyre having a fever. I think that incubation period is part of the problem of figuring out who to test and who not to test. Its one of the reasons we need this Community Survey to find out how prevalent it is in the community, what proportion of people arent having any symptoms or what proportion of people are having symptoms, needing to be hospitalized. We have data from china. That may or may not apply to the United States. I think doing that widely in two cities is kind of important to go forward. But joe, it does seem like the president is deciding to run in the opposite direction. Rather than taking bold moves to lock down the country. I prefer rather than social distancing, its not the social you want, its the physical distancing you want rather than say that we need physical distancing throughout the country, closing down restaurants, schools, throughout the country, he seems to be saying, you know, well, maybe well open up things. Well let some businesses, some states go. This is irresponsible. Its irresponsible just as youre watching Health Systems collapse. You know, were talking about masks. The government itself projects we need 3. 5 billion masks over the next 12 months. And, you know, President Trump and Vice President pennsylvania are talking about millions of masks. Were off by, you know, three orders of magnitude as us scientists like to say. And dr. Ja, we talk about that period between five and 14 days. So if you want to make sure that somebody has does not have the coronavirus and can actually come into your house, is it are we talking about a full 14 days . Should it be closer to five days or do you need to stick hard and fast to that 14day limit . Yeah. Look, theres a lot were still learning. What we think is you may not develop symptoms for up to five days after you got infected. But you should still test positive if you have the infection. Dr. Fauci has, again, were all going with the best available science. Dr. Fauci laid this out pretty well a few days ago f. If i got infected this morning, my test should turn positive in three to four days. If i was exposed to day, if a week later im negative, i probably dont have it. But this is the kind of stuff were going to find out when we start doing more extensive testing and tracking people. But were still pretty far behind. And so we got to really keep pushing on ramping up on all of this. So let me ask you, doctor, ill go back to zeke on this. We have the ability to see how this pandemic moved in china. We dont know if we can completely trust their numbers or not. But still, china is an example for us to look at. Italy, also an example. I noticed this weekend it was a horrible weekend for italy. Had Something Like 750 deaths on friday. I think it went down about 100 to 650 or so deaths on saturday. And, of course, theyre paying for the sins of politicians from two weeks ago who were still telling them to go out and drink wine and go out to theaters. Im wondering do we believe that were soon going to see the effects of social distancing and the quarantines in italy, are we probably two weeks in going to start seeing that curve flatten out . How is the United States comparing to italys arc right now . Yeah. So, look, everything we do this morning were going to seat benefits of that in two weeks. Thats the basic rule of this stuff. So were going to, you know, so italy went on lockdown about ten days ago. My hope is that over the next few days you start seeing that arc sort of start to flatten a bit. I think well see that with italy. Of course the people that are sick in hospitals are going to continue dying for as their disease course continues. Im hoping the case numbers there will flat en. Look, in the u. S. , we still havent done what every Health Expert i know believes we need to do which is take a national pause, to take a National Break to do physical distancing. And then we have two more weeks to run. So anybody who thinks like were around the corner, were going to beat this thing, were going to be back doing everything we were doing three, you know, two months ago, no. Weve got a ways to go. Every day we delay, were delaying the time that life can begin to go back to normal. I dont understand what were waiting for. Like its not going to get better tomorrow. I think were waiting on the president. I think were waiting on the president as well. I dont understand it, zeke. I know Health Care Professionals. I know Business Leaders have been telling this president for two weeks to shut the country down or this pandemic will explode. And the economy will go into a depression. And, yet, the president still taking half measures. Im curious what would you tell the president if you could talk to him right now . So first of all, joe, want to say that the half measure or the lockdown idea had been told to the president weeks ago. We definitely need to break it down. On the physical distancing, we need to definitely have the country shelter in place. We definitely need to close restaurants, close schools, close all social gatherings, cancel events, especially things like spring break in florida where you had the sort of petri plate with revellers and elderly people. And we need to enforce that as dr. Xwchlt a said, what were seeing today reflects what happened two weeks ago. Were going to have to keep this in place probably for eight weeks. There is just no alternative to that. Even when we get to the top of the curve, you cant ease up. So, you know, you have to wait to come down. If you look at china where they did a much more severe lockdown, it took eight weeks to come back down. Thats what we have to do. People have to understand that. And people have to be, you know, encouraged and told that thats the way. You need strict enforcement of that. Weve seen that even in places like new york where you put it in place, you dont have strict enforcement. People are ignoring it. Its hard for americans to say, look, i feel fine and then say i have to be in the house for the next three, four weeks . That doesnt compute with people unless you explain it to them in detail. I think the second thing we need to do is we need to think about how we can serve Health Care Workers and serve the stuff they need and redistribute it. You know . One thing china did is it flooded the province with all sorts of vent lateors, doctors, and other things and were not doing that. Repositioning the masks we have so that theyre in the hot spots like new york and california and Washington State. We need a full inventory across the country. Same thing with ventilators. We need a full inventory and we need to move them to where theyre absolutely needed. We need to take the testing out of health care systems. We should not be doing testing at hospitals. We need to establish thousands upon thousands of testing places so doctors and nurses are not testing and they can stay healthy to treat and care for patients not test patients. Theres a long list of the to dos we need to take doctors out of retirement. And keep doctors who have, you know, visas here to stay in the United States. So there is a long list to do. Were not doing it there in washington. Its raily taa really tall o. Lets bring in peter baker. Peter, your latest used to meeting challenges with bluster and force. Trump confronts a crisis unlike ever before. You just heard that long list from the doctor as to what is needed to get a handle on this crisis. Is the white house even close to doing what needs to be done . Back it seemed like the president last night overnight seemed to be heading the other direction seemed to be worrying that the cure, as he put it, is worse than the disease. He put it in all caps and tweets. The tweet saying that 15 days well reassess and he doesnt want things to get worse because of what theyre doing. They have to convince them to keep going in the direction theyre going. This is a huge disruption, especially for a president that is calling on the economy to be his calling card. Now the economy is in a meltdown. A lot of people getting hurt economically and so hes trying to balance what he sees is the Economic Issues with the medical issues. Hes not probably seeing it in the same way that the doctor outlined. Yeah. Go ahead, joe. Im wondering, peter, we have to ask a question. We probably know the answer. Is there Anyone Around the president explaining to him that the economy is never going to get better if we dont get past this pandemic . That the pandemic doesnt have a 15day deadline. The pandemic is not looking at markets. Its looking at the next person, the next ten people, the next 100,000 people to infect . There are moments you think he understands that. He says in the briefings, look, i dont care about the economy right now. Well rebuild it once were done. I care about the deaths and preventing human tragedy. He says that. When the cameras are off and hes in the, you know, oval office or wherever with his advisors, there is obviously a part of him that is wondering about that. Is doubting that. The tweet last night seemed to case that ive talked with people at the white house who worry that theyre overreacting even today. And theyre creating a 2 trillion hole in the deficit and putting 30 of americans out of work. Those are daunting numbers for any president. And so i think that, you know, the medical advisors, the Health Advisors are telling them one thing. The economic advisors are the once flashing the yellow light. And hes left there to try to figure out the way forward. All right. Kacie hunt, lets talk about what is happening on capitol hill. We have similar issues where direct care is needed. A direct response is needed for the American People for our hel Health Care Workers, for our hospitals and in terms of supplies and rerouting money to people who are going to be out of money for the weeks and months to come. What is holding up a response, a full throated response with no bells and whistles for other interests to the American People . Right now there is functionally a standoff in the senate when the stakes have literally never been higher. Mitch mcconnell wanted to press forward with setting up how they could get this done with a vote on sunday. And democrats after Speaker Nancy Pelosi came back to washington and sat down in a room with mcconnell and schumer, essentially put a stop it to. Democrats all went down on the senate floor and said, no, were not going to do it. And, you know, its left us with a ton of questions about how this unfolds. Peter is right, spending 2 trillion at or 1. 8 trillion where it stands right now is impossible to wrap your head around that, you know, republicans would be on this path to doing it. Now, of course, democrats are concerned about particularly the 500 billion nasdaq there for business. They think that he can do whatever he wants it with. Theyre saying, look, we need more protections. This money cant go out to corporate america. The bottom line here is that im not sure anyone sees a way through this right now. Its been true that congress has inevitably, sometimes messily stepped up in major crisis. We saw this with the financial billout. There was a bill, i remember sitting in washington it from the house gallery, there was major Financial Rescue package on the floor. On the first vote it failed. The markets absolutely tanked. And that seems to be the game that were going to be playing throughout the course of the day today. Mitch mcconnell wanted to have another vote on this at 9 45. Why then . The markets would be open and absorbing the shock he thinks theyre going to take because of this. Now that vote is put off to noon. That doesnt mean you wont see the same effect. So this is something that needs to happen. Urgently for americans that need the help. If they stall those and turns into giant, you know, messy game of back and forth, there is no telling what might happen if this president decides he doesnt want to see it at all. He obviously put the secretary at the forefront of this. But my two questions for you, first, do you anticipate there is more white house pressure in the next day or so or next few hours . And secondly, talk to us about the rand paul situation. All the senators in quarantine. How the mechanics and logistics of them not being there, how is that going to effect what happens today . They are so angry with rand paul. Many senators didnt know he took the test. There are two that are self quarantining because they sat next to hichlt he was in the gym. He was in the pool. People are blown away he would have gotten the test and then put himself in that situation. The senate gym has been closed. It is usually staffed. Staff has gone home. Theyre not doing that. But it is combination lock. The senators are legislate themselves in to the gym, you know, while all americans, you know, here are dealing with the fact that no one can do that. Theyre all closed down because were supposed to be being more careful. Ben mcadams has been hospitalized, his office said with coronavirus symptoms. I mean, people are very frustrated dhoent feel as though rand paul was taking this seriously. And there is a risk to the entire senate. They have no plan to vote remotely if they need to. If senators are using the combination lock to get in the gym, what are you, teenagers . Do you have the teenage brain . Do you think nothing applies to you . Because actually i think this virus is coming most of your ways. Because youre in that age category of risk. And im not trying to be funny or snarky. We need leadership in washington and can you not get sick. This sounds insane the way theyre behaving. I guess dr. Emanuel, it is stating the obvious. But rand paul did just about everything wrong personally. If youre being tested for the coronavirus and if if youre still awaiting your results. He did what everyone has said on this show the worst. He got tested because he suspected it and then rather than self quarantine which we advise everyone to do after a test until they get the result, went out and he literally spread it. And i think your analogy with the teenage brain and behaving like an irresponsible teenager is right. And youre also right the senate is a perfect petri plate, even better than florida because everyone is together. They have to negotiate and sit side by side down there on the senate floor. This is a very bad situation. Totally irresponsible. We should be looking to our lektlek elected officials to be models gf behavior. We have a lot of politician thats are not models. We have president trum thap gets up at the News Conferences and you notice behind him, i cant tell you how many emails and phone calls i got, what are all those people doing behind him . I thought we were talking about physical distancing, 6 feet apart. Those press briefings ought to have one other person and thats it without all the crowding together. And, you know, this level of lack of leadership, again, the things were asking the public to do that were not emulating, is not being emulated by our Public Officials and especially by a physician. I cant tell you. Multiple times rand paul sort of violated his basic oath of being a physician that he should model good healthy behaviors. Doctors, thank you. Peter baker, kacie hunt, thank you for your reporting. Still ahead on morning joe, President Trump touteded his great relationship with china. But did that great relationship cloud his ability to listen to intel warnings about this coming crisis . Plus, well look at the reporting that the Justice Department is now seeking new Emergency Powers amid this pandemic. And lawmakers on both sides of the aisle outraged. Youre watching morning joe. Well be right back. Morning jo well be right back. We find a way to get through it. Its not about taking care of ourselves, but taking care of each other. Checking on our neighbors. Lending a hand where we can. And just being there. Its the sum of the small parts that make a big difference. To help you get through this, we promise to do ours. Were offering chevy owners complimentary onstar crisis assist services and wifi data to help keep you connected to the things that matter most. And, if you need help with your current vehicle account, were here. For those who need a new chevy, interestfree financing for an unprecedented 84 months, with deferred Monthly Payments for 120 days on many of our most popular models. You may even have the option to shop online from your local dealer. And take delivery at home. Its just our way of doing our part. Tv sports announcer yeah, thats my man there. Tv sports announcer time out. Lets go to a commercial. Nooooooo not another commercial when you bundle your home, auto and Life Insurance with allstate you could save 25 . In fact, the more you bundle the more you can save. Put the other game on if its important to you allstate can protect it. Home auto and Life Insurance you could save 25 . If its important to you allstate can protect it. What . Bundle and save with allstate. Click or call for a quote today. I have Great Respect for china. I like china. I think the people of china are incredible. I have a tremendous relationship with president xi. I wish they could have told us early better what was going on inside. President trump on saturday still touting his tremendous relationship with the leader of china. Its a relationship that reportedly led trump to dismiss u. S. Intelligence information that he and his aides received as early as january that the outbreak could turn into a pandemic. According to the washington post, the Intelligence Report did not specify when the virus would come to america or give particular steps on how to tackle it, but it did track the spread in china as well as in other countries. And warned that chinese officials appeared to be downplaying the threat. President trump, however, seemed to trust his relationship with xi whom he believed was providing him with reliable information about how the virus was spreading in china. Despite reports from Intelligence Agency thats chinese officials were not being candid about the true scale of the crisis. Hoeing yn gigley said it is more than disgraceful dont even read that. Its a lie. Lets just come on out. Its a lie. Ill tell you why its a lie. Because you have the president s own words. Of his own tweets. How did these people do this right now . Its amazing. T its amazing he would lie to the American People. He trusts the leader of china. And we have the information. It is a matter of record that the intel agencies warned them and we have the president s tweet. So what is despicable is actually the person lying to the American People and the time of a pandemic. Joining me, president and founder of the group and media, ian bremer. The president seems to have a schizophrenic response to china. He trusts the president. He trusts china and n. January and february when he shouldnt. Then he starts calling it the china virus and everybody gets, you know, outraged at that. Then he talks about how much he loves china and how much he loves president xi. Why the schizophrenic response . Well, on the one hand, he understands that a patriotic response in the United States and a war fighting scenario against a foreign chinese virus and it did come from china and the chinese did cover it up and it is why we have the explosion we do across europe in iran, in the United States, around the world. Thats go to help the approval ratings. On the other hand, by the way, pretty much the entire cabinet is onboard for a consistently hard line message thats particularly true for secretary of state pompeo who is leaning into it a lot harder and more consistently than trump has. But trump also understands that reopening a trade war between the u. S. And china especially right now is pretty counterproductive. And you could feel him talking about that and his press conference last night when he said, well, theres still going to be buying. Im hearing theyre buying lots of ag. There is no way on gods green earth that theyre going to make their 200 billion of commitments under the phase one trade deal. Its going to be massive i did lee laid if it ever hits. So trump wanted an excuse to hit them hard right now on that. He certainly could. He is trying to have it both ways. Unlike the United States, the chinese are on point. They have a consistent message. They are responsible for all the critical supply chain and medical supplies. Theyre getting it out there. The theyre even donating it around the world. They even took the step of exonerating that whistle blowing doctor that died from the virus and originally was trying to tell china and the world about the virus. You never see the Chinese Government that do that. They just did it over the last couple days. So ian, lets also talk about as americans. What were facing. Schizophrenic response from the president. Also, we have two very real realities that are competing with each other. One, youre correct. This started in china. Everything that were enduring is as a country right now started because of china. And what happened in china. Anybody that is not is a fool and a science denier. The second part of that though is that weve got to depend on china. Theyve already been through. This theyre working furiously on a vaccine. Theyre working furiously to present themselves to the world as actually a savior in a virus, in a pandemic that they started. So we really dont have the option of just bashing china. They are. Whether we like it or not. They are our partner not only in the economy but the chinese are our partner in bringing this pandemic to an end, arent they . Joe yushgs rig, youre right more difficult than. That our trading that just in time supply chain is really dangerous when theres big crisis. And so youre going to have a whole bunch of american corporations that before were pretty happy using china as the va factory for the world. Now theyre decoupling. They want to show theyre patriotic, have more jobs in the western hemisphere and move out. The pressures around technology, around manufacturing and services and moving way from the chinese which is why the americans and chinese have a comparatively stable relationship is because we rely on each other so much. So, joe, your point we need to figure out what the chinese have done and are doing to respond to this extraordinary global coronavirus crisis, we need the private and public sectors cooperating. Yes. We need to do that when there is virtually no trust. When they were responsible and when our countries are actually moving in opposite directions. This is a really tough one right now, joe. I dont expect the end to come. Ian bremer, thank you so much. We greatly appreciate you being with us. Come back tomorrow if you can. This is the sort of crisis and this is the sort of nuance that your father was so extraordinary with. You have to deal with two competing realities that actually arent just competing with each other but are clashing with each other. You have to synthesize those two realities and figure out how to work with china, how to fix this pandemic, how to bring it to aend with the help of china and then after this is over have those really tough, difficult talks with the leadership that did too little too late. And you need, like a trace of trust to align strategic interests. Its critical for both countries right now. One way china combatted thur coronavirus outbreak is to engage in massive surveillance and indefinite detention of its citizens. The u. S. Department of justice is reportedly seeking new Emergency Powers that would potentially ask chief judges to detain people indefinitely without trial during emergency situations. Yes, i just said that. According to ppolitico, they detail the departments requests to lawmakers on a series of topics ranging from statute of limitations to asylums to the way Court Hearings are conducted. The requests also propose that Congress Grant attorney general william barr power to ask the chief judge of any District Court to pause Court Proceedings in times of emergency. No. No. No. This should be very concerning to most. The requests are unlikely to make it through the democratic led house. But theyre asking. Politico notes the move is tapped into a broader fear among Civil Liberties advocates and some of President Trumps critics he would use a moment of crisis to push for controversial policy changes. When asked about the dojs documents to congress, the Department Spokesman declined to comment. Of course. Joining us now, chairman of the libertarian party. Thank you for being on this morning. Nick, what works in china, obviously does not, should not work here, the United States of america. One of good pieces of news is bipartisanship in the most dramatic way. Mike lee is saying over my dead body this will never pass. The doj is pushing for some pretty radical powers right now. This is exactly the wrong response for this kind of crisis. The issue with the spread of the pandemic is proximity. Its not a public order issue. Putting people in indefinitely detained inside a corrections facility or a jail is exactly the wrong thing you want to do if youre trying to stop the spread of an infectious virus. Jonathan . Nicholas, were seeing this as joe pointed out rather loudly rebuked from both sides of the aisle, but we are, of course, seeing changes to american society. This is, you know, we have guidelines from the federal government. Weve seen states order shelter in it places. And the president sel said hell reevaluate after 15 days. What is the right balance between personal freedoms for americans and the collective good in terms of health and safety . So the right balance is that we need a president that can show leadership. Leadership is not what you say. Leadership is what you do. As other people have noticed, the president says one thing but he acts in a completely different way. Just like your children watch what you do, even if it krikts what contradicts what you say, this president needs to show leadership. The government needs to get out of the way of businesses and industry that are working hard right now to try and help. Factories are converting to printing masks instead of dvd covers. Philanthropists are sending supplies in. Harbor freight is asking hospital thats dont have enough personal protective equipment to contact them. And this instinct that the government should do something is the wrong one. We have anned amgs that has proven it is incompetent at managing the resources it already has let alone the idea that they should manage other parts of the economy. What the president needs to do is get out of the way and remove those barriers to massive testing so we know what is going on. And leaders like gavin newsom in california that have random testing data about the background level of infection in the state need to release that data publicly right away so that we can confront this crisis. So, nick, theres a fight going on right now in the senate. Mainly over 500 billion slush fund that Mitch Mcconnell is pushing. So donald trump and the secretary can decide who gets the 500 billion and who doesnt. Should americans be concerned about that slush fund without really any Strings Attached . So heres what needs to happen in the congress. Leaders of both parties have been engaging in political gamesmanship. There is a bill that would pass with no problem at all. A clean bill that offered Cash Payments to americans and delayed the tax filing deadline and had no bailouts for any industries, for any businesses, for any politically connected donors would sail through the house and senate and get signed and get help to americans immediately and then they can spend as many weeks as they want to arguing over who gets the better side of any bailout for corporations or politically connected interests. But theyre in the way of help getting to real americans right now and what we need is congressmen and senators to stand up and submit discharge petitions to get a clean bill to the floor and get sintd by the president. Payments to people not industries. Because the economic dislocation that is going on here, there are industries that will never be the same. And having the government try and figure out where to spend your taxpayer money to invest in businesses that may not make it through this because theyre fundamentally different, you know, the federal government cant handle the money very well. Its probably better if theyre not investing yours and mine. And we just got kacie hunt just tweeted, Chuck Schumer is meeting at 9 00 this morning. The chairman of the libertarian party, thank you very much for joining us. Always great to you have on, nick. Thank you so much. Still ahead on morning joe we have very good liquids for doing this, sanitizing the masks. That is something theyre starting to do more and more, sanitizing the masks. President trump on saturday suggesting that Health Care Workers sanitize and reuse their masks instead of throwing them away. Well talk to the president of the American Medical Association about that and much more ahead on morning joe. G joe. Craig melvin, im reporting from home. I came in contact with someone that tested positive for coronavirus. So out of an abundance of caution, im here. But were going to get through this. In fact, the reality is this is the new reality for lots of folks all over this country. L o. Give me your hand i can save you. Lots of money with Liberty Mutual we customize your Car Insurance so you only pay for what you need only pay for what you need. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. past them because she didnt sknow they were talking to her. G and she would just walk right deborah i just could not hear. I was hesitant to get the hearing aids because of my short hair, but nobody even sees them. avo our nearly invisible hearing aids are just one reason weve been the brand leader for over 70 years. deborah when i finally could hear for the first time, i started crying. I could hear everything. avo call 1800miracle to start your 30 day riskfree trial and schedule your free hearing evaluation today. Welcome back. New yorks version of a stay at home order is in place. The governor called a pause. It went into effect last night. In the hours before the mandate took effect, the state reported 4,000 new cases. There are now close to 17,000 cases in new york. Thats 48 of all nationwide cases. 5 of all cases worldwide. New york city alone has more than 9,000 cases with hiss status really the national epicenter. Governor andrew cuomo says new yorkers should prepare to be in isolation for up to nine months. This is not a short term situation. This is not a long weekend. This is not a week. The time line, nobody can tell you. It depends on how we handle it. But 40 , up to 80 of the population will wind up getting this virus. All were trying to do is slow the spread. But it will spread. It is that contagious. Again, thats nothing to panic over. In another development, usa today reports that auto giant General Motors has agreed to use its currently shuttered factories to help make vent lators for overrun hospitals. Tesla will join in the effort also while ford continues to weigh the task. The Auto Companies were fearful just days ago that they couldnt produce the small components of the precise machines to fda requirements but the president announced yesterday that the agency has relaxed the approval process for the medical devices. But there remains the question of how fast the production lines can be converted for the much needed production to begin. Joining us now chairwoman of the House Research and technology b subcommittee congressman. She served as chief of staff to president obamas Auto Rescue Task force that saved gm chrysler and more than a million jobs. Thank you very much for joining us. I guess the first question i have for you is how can these Auto Companies get in line with kind of a Mass Mobilization to try and help this country stem the curb of this crisis without really an order from the top, President Trump . Well, first let me start by saying, thank you so much for your dedication and your teams dedication to your profession at this time. To everybody watching, we know that you are worried about your financial security, your health security, and House Democrats are fighting for you and we will not let you fail. In terms of a National Call to action, this is our world war ii moment. This is our time to come together as a nation, to rally our manufacturing base. The announcement came last week. The big three halted production and with that thousands of suppliers, millions of jobs, countless individuals have been impacted, and now is our time to rise to the occasion, meet the need of producing the protective equipment that our hospitals need, ventilators and put people to work. Secure this nation at this time. This is an industrial call to action. Okay, but if you get that industrial call to action, you can either do it individually i guess in your district with Different Companies but wouldnt it make more sense if the president actually invoked the defense production act and got some uniformity going here . The defense production act is absolutely a tool. Many of us in michigan and throughout the country, members of congress are calling on the president to do that. Thats certainly a tool. Also working with the companies to do so. What we would like to say is were not going to let you fail. We know people are worried. We know companies i drove past many of them on my way in here today are seeing zero revenue. Jobs are on the line as well as help on the line. Were looking at Great Depression levels and we need the president to step up. Im calling on him. Im willing to work with anyone. Im here representing my people in a moment of triage. Congresswoman, some of these automakers maybe pushing the effort here to manufacture ventilators but their future is uncertain. Will this Auto Industry as part of the stimulus, part of the relief package being negotiated will the Auto Industry as the governor of your state just nungsed yesterday will need some help . Its all tied in together. This isnt a bail out. Were not talking about bail outs. Were talking about securing assets. Securing the Industrial Assets of this nation. Were seeing an unpleasant picture here. We dont know what this looks like on the other side. We do know we dont have a country if we dont make things, if we dont have an Auto Industry. Were not looking for cash to companies. Were looking to secure their assets through federal monetary policy. The other thing is and ive been saying this all along direct, cohesive, clear assistance to every american. I got engineers who are making 80,000 and going to be out of a job and their w2 is not meeting the levels they want. Its time to give them financial security. This is not normal. This was not expected. This is a pandemic. Its global. Were not the only nation fighting it. By golly were the nation to lead it globally and ready to do it here. Im willing to work with anyone. The time for politics and partisan back and forth is over. Manufacturing is the great uniter. Its coming from michigan and were doing it here. Who is coordinating the auto try efforts at this point and what exactly do you need from President Trump if you could talk to him directly . So, we need him to reestablish what we had in the Obama Administration with a senior counselor for manufacturing policy. We created this National Network for manufacturing innovation. Theres a dozen labs all over the country thats focused on open sourcing, the Digital Thread that will connect these suppliers to one another so they can meet the on time delivery that our hospitals need in this moment. Lets get that roll back in place. Im paying attention to what kudlow is saying. Im working with my colleagues through the manufacturing process that tim ryan and congressman reid were coming together. Its all hands on deck. Doesnt matter what party you are. What matters we coalesce, come together and the president appoint somebody in his office to lead this charge. Also our friends at the National Association of manufacturers, they are doing a fabulous job. They put out a big call to all the manufacturers. We need to open source this. We need to regionalize this and meet the pressing needs in our hospitals. I want to tell you something else. I talked to a mayor in my hometown. He spent his weekend going to construction sites trying to source the ppe for hospitals this need it. That was saturday. Today is monday. What does this look like on thursday . We should have been doing this yesterday. Were all hand on deck, though. Were ready and willing to work with anybody. Im telling the president right now im willing to work with you on this. Congresswoman Haley Stevens, thank you very much. Still to come this morning two more important voice in the fight to stop the spread of the virus. Florida congresswoman debbie mulcarselpowell urging the governor to shut down the beaches. Theyd of the medical American Association raising alarm on Equipment Shortage on the front line of this crisis. Morning joe will be right back. More than ever, your home is your sanctuary. Thats why lincoln offers complimentary pickup and delivery servicing. Well pick up your vehicle and leave you with a lincoln loaner. Thats the power of sanctuary. 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I could hear everything. avo call 1800miracle to start your 30 day riskfree trial and schedule your free hearing evaluation today. Thats why lincoln offers complimentary pickup and delivery servicing. Well pick up your vehicle and leave you with a lincoln loaner. Thats the power of sanctuary. If i within it will cost me a lot of money. It cost me billions of dollars to become president. When i ran i said it will cost me a fortune. Look at my legal costs. Its very hard for rich people to run for office. There are a lot of rich people around. Got a lot of rich friends. Cost me billions of dollars to be president , especially with all the money i could have made for the last three, four years. I got elected as a rich person. So it cost me billions of dollars to be president and im so happy i did it, because who cares . Who cares . All right. That is the president of the United States talking about his net worth during this national crisis. Good morning and welcome to morning joe. It is monday march 23rd. So, mika, its interesting, you and i had a different reaction to yesterday. Obviously were very concerned from the very beginning. We expressed our concern about the president and starting in january the intel agencies warning him that a pandemic was coming, that could really be deadly. Also very concerned about the president saying at rallies that the press was whipping this up into a frenzy and to a hoax level. Been concerned about people with cable news shows talking about how this was just the press was trying to get donald trump through this. A lot of things to be very concerned about. The president saying, if you want to test you can get a test. Just weeks ago and still not happening. That said and maybe im doing this the wrong way, you can let me know. You know, we have our low expectations on what i call the ground noise. President talking about how much hes worth, the president talking about mitt romney or reacting in a way that really is inappropriate when he fines out that mitt romney is isolated. With that said, sorting through that ground noise and looking at the signal yesterday i saw actually the president trying to be bipartisan towards the governors of the two most affected states. I saw mike pence come up and talk about what i believe is most important still other than everybody social distancing and thats the testing. We have to be able to map where this disease is. There were some positives that came out yesterday. I thought friday and saturdays press conferences were, ill just say it, absolutely frightening, and the president , of course, went on tangent, he cant stay on script, eddie evolution into selfpity and thats a very bad look for a commanderinchief in the time of a crisis. Also, for the life of me i dont understand why hes not using all the powers that hes using to really coordinate a National Response like fdr coordinated a National Response in world war ii. He Still Holding back. Hes still deferring to governors. Almost like he wants to blame governors if things go badly. Now harry truman said the buck stops here and in a pandemic the buck doesnt stop with the governor, the buck stops with the white house. This was in tthe statement geor. Bush made in louisiana. The state waited for the federal government to save the day. The state didnt have the resources or leadership to do it. A pandemic still starts at the top. Still looks donald trump doesnt understand that. You look at it completely different than i did. I didnt see much difference between yesterdays update and any of the others. I thought it was a lot worse. You know, theres no National Mobilization. No triggering of the National Mobilization defense act. We still dont have tests. We dont know where we are. The entire country is flying blind, flying completely blind as to whether they have it or going to get it. Thats where we are right now still. And the president talking about his salary, making snarky comments about mitt romney. This is a man who does not have the mentality to lead us through this crisis. Lets dive right into the latest as to what we know with coronavirus spreading. State and local leaders pleading for help, laid off worker in need of immediate relief. Washington providing little assurance to wary americans over the weekend. The president rejected calls yesterday to use war time powers to address shortages of face masks, ventilators and other critical equipment. The senate failed to advance a sweeping stimulus plan to boost the faltering economy. That sent stock futures tumbling. Mitch mcconnell set another vote for 9 45 this morning, 15 minutes after the opening bell, hoping tanking markets would put pressure on democrats. But Chuck Schumer said no. The vote is now scheduled for noon. The work of the senate was also complicated after senator rand paul announced yesterday morning that he has tested positive for coronavirus after reportedly having gone to the senate gym earlier that morning. And attending a gop senate lunch friday. So, lets ask this question really quickly because i think most americans are asking this. If you are tested for the coronavirus, if you are tested to see if you have a pandemic or not, and while youre awaiting the results of the tests you go to a senate gym . Some reports were from colleagues that he went swimming at the senate swimming pool. And then on friday, again, sat in on a senate lunch on friday. Thats as thoughtless as it gets. It goes against every guideline that every public professional has given. Rand paul has now put the entire United States senate actually in a horrible position. Were all doing it. Americans are being asked to do this. Everyone is trying to stay six to eight feet apart. Everyone is wiping everything down. Everyone is trying to stop the spread. Everyone is trying their best and yet rand paul thinks he can walk around and go to the gym and have lunch with people and, i mean did he even tell them he had been tested. Not a good example. Also we need our senate. We need our congress. We need washington to function from some level. Rand paul is now in quarantine as are senators mitt romney and mike lee. After having come in close contact with paul who has the virus. Meanwhile as the number of cases speck over the weekend now at nearly 35,000, more states and cities are announcing variations of lockdown orders. Louisiana joins the mix with a statewide stayathome mandate to take effect at 5 00 p. M. Lets bring in White House Reporter for the Associated Press, jonathan lameer. Jonathan, i guess what are the plans moving forward in this white house . These briefings are not heartening to worried americans about exactly when were going to contain this thing, have a handle on it or have enough supplies to deal with it. Every press briefing keeps putting off anything they are announcing, even war ships. They are on the way. So lets go down the list. Lets start, first of all, with some areas like, for instance, our concern most americans concerns are making sure that american citizens can get tests. Making sure that hospital providers, doctors and nurses can get the masks and gloves and protective equipment that they need and that sick americans whose life, very life depends on being on a ventilator can get the ventilators we need. From yesterdays press conference and from the press conferences over the past several days, what can you tell us about progress on all three of those front and what the president and the white house is doing to move that forward . So, joe, lets start with the idea of the testing. The Vice President suggests that americans will be caught up, backlog of tests should be in much better position by middle of this week which is a little delay from what they said but thats parental some progress. Well have to see if they follow through. Different story with masks and ventilators. Head of fema was on several of the sunday talk shows yesterday pressed by anchors as to when these hospitals, medical workers will receive masks they will need and he couldnt give a straight answer. Were working from this stockpile, were asking the privatesector remember let me ask you this, jonathan, and i think every american needs to be able to go to a website. Maybe its coronavirus. Gov, go to a website and get straight answers about how many masks hospitals have, how many masks are in production, and when they are going to be delivered to hospitals, because the real frustration here is that well hear the same thing over and over again. I really dont need mike pence giving me just generalizations about how the American People are great. I know the American People are great. We dont need that we dont need to be told that in a pandemic. We dont need to be told in a pandemic that churches are great. We know churches are great. Jesus has got that, all right. We need to know about masks. We need to know about testing. We need to know about gloves. We need to know about ventilators. So i havent gotten a straight answer, and im looking for it on tests, on masks, on ventilators. I keep hearing the president talking about people who make liquor. He says that every day. We get that. People that own distilleries are going to make enough Hand Sanitizer to last half a day in the United States. Awesome. But is there any place where we can go to see what the federal government is doing and who they are coordinating with . To see the numbers of masks and protective gear that are being made for our doctors and nurses and technicians who will save americans lives over the next three weeks. Is there a place where we can go to get that number . The answer is no. And its caused great frustration from those at the front lines. The mayors and governors across the nation. Yesterday as i said, fema couldnt say how many masks are being shipped. The president has been reluctant to fully invoke the defense production act. Yesterday he said it was because we dont nationalize business here in the United States. He suggested, pointed to venezuela and said look you saw how socialism works there we dont want to do that here which, of course, also because theres a political calculation like this hes been painting democrats as socialists for months and plans to again when the general election heats up. Thats what held him back to a degree even though governors after governors have urged him to do so. We heard Governor Cuomo yesterday plead with the president , we need masks and ventilators. It crosses party lines. The republican governor of texas did the same. Well get to verz ventilatoa second. I want to go back and ask why donald trump, why jared kushner, why somebody in this government cannot give us straight talk, straight numbers, straight information about how many masks are in production. What do they expect the states, the hospitals, the nurses, the doctors to need over the next three weeks when maybe up to a million americans are going to be infected. Maybe its 500,000. We dont know. Because these briefings are frustrating. A lot of people are starting, a lot of journalists are saying we need to stop the briefings. Thats going to be very hard to do for a lot of very different reasons. Regardless of how, how bad the president can be at times during those briefings americans are also getting information. But why cant they come forward and tell us this . Have you gotten an answer from the white house, why cant they tell us, why cant they go a site and see how many masks are being made, how many gloves are being made, what the need is, what the goal swhere we are, how long will it take . All they say 3m is make being masks well get some in a month. Again talking about 500,000 masks thats a lot of mavericks. Is it 35 Million Masks that well need by the end of this crisis . No. Not even close. So have you gotten an answer as to why they continue to wallow in generalities instead of doing what any business would do, instead of doing what any leader would do and that is have the goal, have the number in production, have the different points of contact who are making the masks. Why arent they doing any of that, what any leader would do . There is no straight answer. There are no details. The white house is still struggling to catch up to the scope and severity of this crisis. They are playing let me ask you this. And im dead serious here. I think they are. I think they are struggling to catch up. But im having to tell people every day who think that this president is intentionally dragging his feet by not using all the powers he can use. That somehow hes still not taking this seriously enough. He talks about giving cruise lines that arent even based in america because they want to dodge taxes. He keeps talking about giving cruise lines tax dollars. He keeps talking about all of these bizarre thats just him. Yes, yes, hes unfit temperamentally to be president. I get it. But the question is he trying his best . What do i tell people when they keep saying hes still not taking it seriously and hes still just not doing what is required to save millions of americans lives. Jonathan, would invoking the defense production act increase speed and focus on getting these products to the people . It absolutely would and governors and mayors across the nation are asking him to do so. Theres a suggestion by some that hes not wanting to fully lean into this because he wants to be able to point the finger elsewhere if the efforts fail. If he doesnt fully enact it we see him shift the onus to the states to come up with these item that they need. We also know this, part of whats hampering this issue, part of the why theres not the details, park shally why the administration hasnt leveled with the American Public is his advisors are afraid to level with him. The president is looking through this still with rosy glasses still believing this will be over sooner than later, dismissing the science and Health Experts and sometimes in meetings when aides come to him and suggest this is dire, were trying to present to you a realistic sense how long this can take and how bad it will get he doesnt want to hear it. Hes someone through his whole life has his own sense of reality. He creates his own truth. It doesnt work in this situation. It may have worked with page 6, on the gossip pages and worked to a degree during the campaign. Not going to work here. Thats what alarms so many people in washington and across the nation. Ill point to his tweet late last night. We cant threat cure be worse than the problem itself. At the end of the 15 day period well make a decision which way we goes which lines up what were starting to hear around him he believes these draconian measures to strict the economy may do more harm thanned good even though it flies in the face of the Health Experts and hes looking to push to return to a normal society far sooner than any Health Expert or doctor would want. But see that wont work. It wont work because the virus doesnt care what donald trump thinks. A pandemic doesnt care what a nations gdp is. It only cares about who it can infect next. Its staggering to me that donald trump after getting it wrong time and time again over the past several months by the way, ill just say here, im cheering for him to get this right. I got a lot of reasons. I got a lot of family members who desperately need him to get this right. But after being wrong so many times about this virus, being wrong about the testing, being wrong about the protective gear, it seems that he still is not leaning all the way into this. He loves saying hes a war time president. Hes acting like this is just another day. What do you have any idea why hes not using the full powers of his presidency . No. I mean i think he has this romantic notion that he can exhort the privatesector to do this in an ad hoc, uncoordinated way. I think theres confusion within the white house about who is in charge. Jared kushner has apparently ripped up the original pandemic plan and has handed it to fema. But fema has absolutely no experience in ordering and securing the level of medical equipment and medical supplies. And the governors as you have been hearing from jonathan, the governors are in a dog eat, dog eat situation where they are essentially scrambling on the open market to get their share, very scarce sources of supply. I dont know. I dont have any special insight as to why President Trump thinks this is a good way to ramp up production quickly because its not working. Production isnt being ramped up quickly and this applies to this applies to test kits as well. Still, youre hearing very credible aanecdotal stories whee people in other countries getting tests, getting turned down for tests. I dont know why President Trump doesnt realize that its still very bad. Coming up on morning joe well speak to Daniel Newman who was an actor in the zombie a apocalyptic drama. Mr. Newman recent lie tested positive for coronavirus. And in his saga to get that test he saw some eerie real world echoes of his walking dead past. Walking dead past 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. Sure, principal is a fibut think of us as a protect your family as it grows company. A put enough away for college company. And a take care of your employees company. Were a help you ride the ups and downs of the market company. And when its time to retire, were a weve been guiding you toward this all along company. Think of us as all these companies, and more. Principal. Retirement. Investments. Insurance. Hey allergy muddlers. Achoo . Do your sneezes turn heads . Try zyrtec. It starts working hard at hour one. And works twice as hard when you take it again the next day. Zyrtec muddle no more. Dr. Anthony fauci head of the National Institute of allergy and Infectious Diseases on friday having to temper President Trumps remarks about the possibility of using an antimalaria drug to treat coronavirus patients. Dr. Fauci gave a pair of frank answers over the weekend in which he addressed what seems to be his frequent need to push back against misleading or false claims by President Trump regarding the coronavirus pandemic. One was with the New York Times which fauci said quote, ive been telling the president thinks he doesnt want to hear. I have publicly had to Say Something different with what he states. Its a Risky Business but thats my style. I say it the way it is. And if he gets pissed off hell get pissed off. Thankfully he is not interestingly. Fauci says quote i dont want o embarrass him or act ike a tough guy. I want to get the facts out. Instead of saying youre wrong, instead just talk about what the data and the evidence is. Its been quite a balance, mika, its been an important balance, and he is right. The president seems to grant him deference on medical issues even if they disagree. Lets hope that continues. He does keep going back to this malaria medicine, and theres an article in bloomberg by Kristen Brown and Riley Griffin where three been writing a series of articles in bloomberg about how the president is depending on a study where there were six subjects. And theres no science people hope this medication works. But the president keeps talking about it over and over again, and theres no evidence that it is going to work. And theres a quote in this bloomberg article that says this is like the captain of the ship taking the only lifeboat where passengers are forced to drown because doctors have been getting a rush for this malaria medicine which is used to treat lupus and arthritis. And theres going to be a shortage of drugs for the areas where this actually does have an impact on improving peoples lives. To an area where we just literally dont know. We have absolutely no clue what the impact will be. As the coronavirus continues to spread across the u. S. Some lawmakers are taking the necessary precautions to ensure the safety of their residents. Last thursday governor ivy of blaem issued statewide shutdown of all beaches, child care facilities, dine in restaurants and bars in a bid to increase social distancing. In Florida Governor ron de santis issued a number of executive orders that include the closure of all movie there auditor y auditoriumss beaches. Yet the Florida Governor is under intense heat for not acting forcefully enough in his state. And in mississippi officials are pleading with governor reed to shut the beaches in their state. This guy is unbelievable. He said he has no intention of doing that and hes asking people to pray for the people of mississippi and yet hes not going to help the people of mississippi. Protect their state from the ravages of the coronavirus and this isnt like its happening in wuhan any more. Look at louisiana right next to mississippi and look at the devastation that could sweep through that state. This once again is why, you know, leaving it to the governors can be extremely chaotic. It can lead to very inconsistent response. Its beyond me why there isnt uniform National Guidelines and National Mobilization to deal with this. This is almost to the point of why, like what would be month at the vafting the president to not want to help people. You cant help a patch work solution, mr. President , to a pandemic. There is no hes got to know that now. Theres no patch work solution to a global pandemic, mr. President. You have to take the steps that people were begging you to take two weeks ago. I understand you ignored the warnings from your Intel Community in january and february. I understand that you trusted president xi and china. You said it in your tweets. I under you messed up on testing. You said if you want a test you can have a test. Well still weeks later people cant have that test. You know what . You can start new today, right . We need you as a nation to start new today. America is hoping you will start new today and take the steps that you are asked to take two weeks ago. Shut down this country for two weeks. It will look radically different on the other side of those two weeks. The economy can start moving again. But if you do a patch work approach to a global pandemic, this economy will be ravaged for the next six to ien months. Joe, to your last point, very close friend of ours who has lupus cannot get lupus medication since trump announced it would help with covid. Its on back order every where. Your point in real life to someone that we know and love dearly. Thats the president of the United States continuing to talk about this recklessly on the air when he has no idea whether it will work or not and dr. Fauci has warned him time and again. Thats what this bloomberg says. Its like taking a lifeboat away from people and having them drown and so our loved ones, your loved ones that have arthritis that have lupus or that have malaria are not going to be able to be treated with this drug because the president is speculating about something he knows nothing about. Mr. President , do what you can do. Shut down the country for two weeks. If he did it two weeks ago we would already be the markets wouldnt be crashing today. Shut down the country for two weeks, mr. President. Because ron de santis has proved in florida you cant trust governors. The mississippi governor has proved you cant trust governors. There is no patch work solution to a global pandemic. You cant trust all the governors. Okay joining us now, democratic congresswoman debbie mucarselpowell of florida and msnbc contributor Mike Barnicle joins the discussion as well. Congresswoman, florida look like its next in terms of having staggering numbers. What your hearing in terms of supplies being in place for the people who will need it and also testing in florida . Where does it stand . Good morning, mika. Look ive been getting calls from Health Care Providers that they are going to be running out of supplies within the next few days. So this morning i sent a letter to Governor Desantis asking him put a stayathome order for the entire state. Do not conduct try to control this pandemic and the spread of the virus here in the state of florida by conducting patch work solutions. We need to start being proactive, not reactive for two weeks now. Weve been having communication with the department of health and two weeks ago they couldnt accept or declare fact that we had immunity spread. We have over 1,000 cases here in the state of florida. A third here in Miamidade County which has closed down their hotels, restaurants. Economically weve seen a huge impact on our economy but were not going to be able to start our road to an economic recovery if we cant control the spread of the virus. We have a very vulnerable population in the state of florida almost a quarter of the people here are over 60 years old. Im concerned that the governor is not keeping appropriate action. You know, Mike Barnicle, its really incredible that ron de santis has continued to let people congregate on beaches all over the state of florida. We had pictures of people on sand bars just jammed together in boats, partying this weekend. This weekend as americans are dying. And the president wont aggressively use the defense production act. He wont put this country into a national lockdown. When Health Care Officials and Business Leaders were begging him to do it two weeks ago. Joe, if you talk to a lot of experts, i was fortunate enough to spend most of friday afternoon around one of the greatest hospitals in the world, the one here in boston, your find what they are looking at and dealing with every day and in the case of Governor Desantis in florida hes going the opposite way from what the experts the people on the front lines indicate ought to be done. The first thing we need is fact based truth from Public Officials. Thats what they will tell you. You get it here in massachusetts from charlie baker, you get it from andrew cuomo in new york, Governor Newsom in california, youre getting fact based truth. Second thing they talked about is theres absolutely no need and in fact kind of dangerous to have these daily pep rally from the white house led by the president and the Vice President that what you do need is you need Anthony Fauci and a stream of epidemiologists and experts in their field stand up and tell the country about the fact based truth. That threads our biggest dilemma. You know what is it. In order to solve this problem, in order combat and defeat this virus or put it in abeyance you need total buy in from the American Public. Nearly total buy in from what they are going to be asked to do and they will do it. Theyve shown in the past they will do it. But its hard to get total buy in from the American Public when the people when a person asking for that total buy in sometimes is donald trump who has spent 40 months dividing the country. I mean you can look weve all gone back and look at the past talk of the past four or five weeks, hoaxes, its a myth, it will go away, only 15 people have it, all of that. But we have to fight ourselves and put that in the background because theres a vehicle to take care of all the lies and all the incompetence that the American Public has been dealt and that vehicle is called an election and its held in november. Then thats what ive been saying. Youre so right, mike. Well worry about this all in the fall. What we can do is what we can do right now. What the president can do is what the president can do right now moving forward. Jonathan lameer, its so interesting that Health Care Officials are warning us about how savage this pandemic could be with americans if we dont do the right things. And yet you have mike pence going out just beforery other day going, in effect just americans, you need to know its really not that serious, its not really that dangerous, its not going impact most of you. And hes just sending the absolutely wrong message to those teenagers who are going to a beach, to those teenagers and College Students that are going out on sand bars and congregating in the hundreds and then taking that pandemic home to their parents and grandparents and possibly killing them. Youre right, joe. And more than that the president has now declaring a message himself that seems directly in contradiction with what his Health Experts are advising him and could make matters worse. We talked about his tweet last night saying about the 15 days. Hes on a retweet binge on the same idea after 15 days perhaps hes suggesting this moment of national its ligs should end. America should go back to work. Theres an impatience from the president. I had a question also for the congresswoman, you know, we obviously right now the state of a fiscal stimulus bill is up in the air, its in limbo. The senate is working on it. Can you give us an update to what House Speaker pelosi has told you and how quickly you need to mobilize to get back to washington . At this point were not in agreement with the Republican Senate proposal. Well work on our own package. Part of the concern is it doesnt have enough funding to support our Health Care Infrastructure again. To control the spread of this virus. We need to make sure American Families and American Workers are able to get a paycheck, get that cash influx. We cant pass a 500 billion economic stimulus package just to support Large Companies without having workers rights being protected. I can until im getting calls on a daily basis from constituents that have already lost their jobs. We have to ensure they not only get cash into their pockets but those still employed can remain employed. We agree with the Small Business part of this deal but at this point were going to be having a conversation later on today to talk more about the details we support family leave, we need to expand the sick days that Many Companies are not right now enforcing. We need to make sure states protect unemployment benefits. In the state of florida we have the lowest rate of unemployment insurance. Weve been asking the governor to raise the insurance. But at this moment were still in talks, and we will be told when we need to get back to d. C. Im one that supports the fact that we need to look at ways where we can legislate while were in our districts, home working here because it could put a lot of us who have to travel back to d. C. For a vote. But we need to put the American Families and American Workers first. All right, congresswoman, this afternoon you so much. Debbie mucarselpowell, thank you so much. We really appreciate it. Mika, theres not a single scientist, not a single physician, not a Single Health care expert that would tell the president that people can go back to work in two weeks. That would be radical and it would affect the lives of millions more americans in jeopardy. Before we go to break stock futures surged in to the green a few minutes ago after the fed announced several new measures. One includes a pledge from the Federal Reserve to buy unlimited bonds. Whatever amount is needed to get markets moving again. Before this announcement futures were tanking after the senate failed to advance an economic stimulus bill. Up next, the president of the American Medical Association on what doctors need today to tend to coronavirus patients. Keep it right here on morning joe. Keep it right here on morning joe Breast Cancer on my birthday. I thought, im not letting anything take me away from my family that loves me and needs me without a fight. When i came to Cancer Treatment centers of america, they said were going to do everything we can. I just felt confident, they are behind me. I had six, seven doctors that worked together to take me through this journey. Theyre not just treating the cancer, theyre treating me as a whole person. They have naturopathic support, occupational therapy, nutritionists, i took advantage of all of that. And thats why i think i am where i am today and im very grateful for that. Get care like no other. Call us at Cancer Treatment centers of america. Get care like no other. To bring all of these stories thatity ive heard to life. I wanted to keep digging, keep learning. This journey has just begun. Bring your Family History to life like never before. Get started for free at ancestry. Com yes. 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. Ok. Yep. Transfer your Service Online in a few easy steps. Now thats simple, easy, awesome. Xfinity makes moving easy with twohour appointment windows, even on nights and weekends. Go to xfinity. Com moving to get started. Officials are calling the widespread medical supply shortages unacceptable as more concern is raised for Health Care Workers working on front lines to treat the coronavirus. Joining us now we have the president of the American Medical Association dr. Harris. Dr. Harris, has President Trump said anything that gives you any hope that these supply shortages will be stemmed any time soon . Well, good morning, mika and thank you for having me and first lets start with the why. People are dying and more people are at risk of dying and becoming infected and all of us can do our part. We need to physical distance, we need to stay away from large crowds. But the American Medical Association is calling on the president to use allele seve le government, to do whatever he can to get us the supplies we need, the personal protective equipment. We still need more tests. The a mrcama has been requestine tests for a now. We need more ventilators in anticipation of the surge. The president need all levers at his disposal to get the ventilators and equipment. Today we dont have them. Im hearing stories ofry day where physicians are reusing masks and being asked to resterilize masks. The community is coming together making masks but this is unacceptable of ad hoc way of getting professionals and other Health Care Professionals the supplies they need. Mike barnicle has a question. Mike . Doctor, what you were just saying, i was in contact with a nurse just last weekend, this past weekend, and she has been using the same mask for a week, a week with the hospital where she works, a large, very reputable hospital telling her take the maverick home with you. But my question to you, doctor, is how is it that given the warnings and the signs that were out there that physicians, that medical experts knew of from november and december, how is it that these hospitals, so many of them are without critical things like face masks . Well, certainly its due to the supply. We know and have known for many weeks that we were going to get a surge of folks who will require testing, who will be ill. But somehow we have not matched the moment and making sure that the supply meets the demand. Now its certainly difficult to predict exactly what the demand will be, but we knew that we were going to need more of this equipment. And certainly we need, again, the administration, the president , to call on industry, the ama has suggested a sort of marshal plan effort or manhattan type project. This is all hand on deck. And today is already too late. And so its enough about talking. We can no longer just say the right things. We have to do the right things. And for us the metric at the end of the day is whether or not these supplies are in the hands of doctors and nurses and other Health Professionals and that we do have ventilators that are being delivered. Right. Doctor, how bad is it . Talk to the president right now and tell the president how bad it is for doctors and nurses on the front lines in new york and Rural Health Care areas and in los angeles, san francisco, Washington State . Well, joe, im hearing heartbreaking stories. You know, i heard another one of my colleagues say that at any other time were using a mask or southeast things that we are being asked to do would be grounds for dismissal. Certainly many of these products are for one time use only. And certainly using these products over and over again put us at increased risk of infection for news Health Professionals as well as the patients. So, you know, again enough of the words to get to action. Yes, we do. Dr. Harris, thank you very much. Our next guest, Daniel Newman is an actor who standard on the hit Television Show the walking dead. In his recent New York Times oped entitled acting in the walking dead didnt prepare him for the pandemic. He compared his tested for the coronavirus after experiencing symptoms following a trip to australia. And daniel joins us now. Did you ever get the test, daniel . Good morning. They did test me, but they said that the government did not allow them to process the test. Unfortunately, they said its really just for severe symptoms, elderly and specifically people that have just traveled to china and italy. It took me all day calling every urgent care that i could possibly call in georgia after i got news that somebody in our group tested positive. And i developed symptoms when i came back. So i really wanted to protect my family and the community. And nobody had these tests. We are so, so far behind. Nobody had these tests. And so finally after they transferred me to the Health Department, the Health Department couldnt help and they transferred me back to calling more hospitals, i finally found one emergency room that said we have the test. They quizzed me. They asked me all about my symptoms and then they told me to come in immediately. And, yeah, they had me test for everything and then they said your symptoms are too mild. Were going to send you home to selfquarantine along with a long line of everyone else that was there to be tested just they couldnt process tests. Wow. Mike barnicle has a test. Yes. First of all, how are you feeling today, right now . Im feeling a million times better and honestly, that was really my biggest kind of issue with this whole thing and concern is that i felt like i had maybe a common cold or a little bit of a flu. I didnt feel great, but you hear these Horror Stories about people dying and youre like, well, i dont have that. Yeah spoenge, so on a normal situation i never would have gone to get tested, especially to an emergency room, but when you hear somebody in your group tested positive, you take it really seriously real quick. But you you must realize sorry. Go ahead, mike. You must realize now that you could be used as an object lesson for what to do because a lot of things you did, through no fault of your own, you did wrong. The thing is to call your pcp, your personal care physician immediately and not go to an emergency where its all clogged up and tied up but as long as youre okay now and feeling better, we feel better. Yeah, thank you, sir. Appreciate that. Unfortunately my pcp did not have the test and none of the urgent cares i could find in atlanta had the test. Again, i had to call around until i found an emergency room that had it. And i didnt want to waste any time and potentially expose anyone else if i had it. Real concern is youre seeing all the spring breakers out in florida and youre seeing everyone playing basketball and doing normal things, and you wonder if people were able to get these tests would they really be taking those risks and exposing people . Thats a huge concern. Daniel, thank you very much and, gosh, we hope you feel better. Yeah, daniel. Thats sort of what were talking about here. His point, joe, is that were walking blind through this. If we had mass testing, where anyone could get a test, we would know so much more about where we stand with this and perhaps there wouldnt be the risks being taken right now which is spreading this virus around the country. Jonathan lemire, the president is talking about getting america back to work. Heres a great example of how the testing not only helps those who are sick but actually those who catch the virus and, yeah, lets look at daniels example for instance. He may have had coronavirus. It sounds like a real possibility. Hes not going to know whether he did or not because he didnt get the test results. But if he did get coronavirus, then he wont get it again, and he will be able to go back into the economy. If 100 Million People are infected by the coronavirus, 80 are supposed to get through it with fairly mild conditions. Thats 80 Million People that could go back to work, go back to their lives, get the economy kickstarted again. But because we werent able to test all these americans, were never going to know who has been infected and who hasnt. And we keep flying in the dark. And its the economy and its workers and its Small Businesses that will continue to suffer in the midst of this pandemic. It cant be underscored enough the sea change the president s tweets and retweets would indicate if he does follow through. Well hear freedom him at a briefing. Hes been very impatient already. Only a week or so into this, about how things are going, about the slow progress against this virus and the toll its taking on the economy. If he does push for this, if he suggests that 15 days would be enough and that america should go back to work, how does dr. Fauci, how do those other Health Experts handle that . Do they resign . Do they publicly break with him . That would add another layer of real concern to this everdeepening crisis. Mike, it would be an act of suicide for our society if the president did that. An act of suicide. For millions of americans, it would be the height of recklessness and irresponsibility as every medical professional says he needs to do just the opsposite and hes been told that for two weeks. You may be recreating the 1918 plague. It would be that serious. Every doctor tells you testing, testing, testing. But when were testing nba players before were testing nurses who are working every day, Police Officers working every day, Public Safety officials out there emts working every day, theres something wrong with our priorities. All right. We really have to pray that the next president ial News Conference is more serious and the president stops talking about himself, stops ripping, stops talking about things that are not true or that are not going to happen for weeks and starts giving this country some uniform guidance across the board. That does it for us this morning. Stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage after this short break. I thought i was managing my moderate to severe Crohns Disease. Until i realized something was missing. Me. You ok, sis . My symptoms were keeping me from really being there for my sisters. announcement final boarding for flight 2007 to chicago so i talked to my doctor and learned humira is for people who still have symptoms of Crohns Disease after trying other medications. And the majority of people on humira saw significant symptom relief and many achieved remission in as little as 4 weeks. Humira can lower your ability to fight infections. Serious and sometimes fatal infections, including tuberculosis, and cancers, including lymphoma, have happened, as have blood, liver, and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure. Tell your doctor if youve been to areas where certain fungal infections are common and if youve had tb, hepatitis b, are prone to infections, or have flulike symptoms or sores. Dont start humira if you have an infection. Be there for you, and them. Ask your gastroenterologist about humira. With humira, remission is possible. No. Uh uh, no way. Come on. No. No. N. Ni ni, no no only discover has no annual fee on any card. Hey allergy muddlers. Achoo do your sneezes turn heads . Try zyrtec. Zyrtec starts working hard at hour one and works twice as hard when you take it again the next day. Zyrtec. Muddle no more. And try zyrtecd for proven relief of your allergies, sinus pressure, and congestion. Hi there. Im stephanie ruhle. Its monday, march 23rd. Heres whats happening. At this very moment, negotiations are set to resume on a multitrilliondollar relief package to help businesses and workers being decimated by the coronavirus. As of this morning, there are roughly 35,000 confirmed cases across the United States. About half of those are in new york state. 446 people have died across the country. Today, you have states, businesses and Everyday Americans pleading with the federal government for more help. The administration announced some new action last night offering fema to build medical stations and ordering them to and offering to pay for the National Guard in the hardest hit states of washington, california and new york. But it is up to congress to come up with a stimulus bill to help American Business owners and their employees. And so far, they have failed the American People. After negotiating all weekend long, t