Transcripts For MSNBCW Morning Joe 20200410

Adherence to the physical separation, the guidelines that the Vice President talks about, the physical separation, at the same time were seeing the increase in deaths. Were seeing rather dramatic decrease in the need for hospitalizations. Yesterday was Something Like 200 new hospitalizations. Its been as high as 1,400 at any given time. So that is going in the right direction. I say that, and i always remind myself when i say that, that means that what we are doing is working. Therefore, we need to continue to do it. I get questions a lot, dr. Birx and i, about these numbers, the projections. They went from 100,000, 200,000, now down to 60,000. Thats a sign that when, as i keep saying, when you take the data you have, and you reinsert it into the model, the model modifies. Data is real. Model is hypothesis. Okay . Thats what you have to do. Thats what i think were seeing. Dr. Anthony fauci at yesterdays White House Briefing, explaining a revised projection for deaths in the u. S. From the coronavirus that is dramatically lower than the previous estimate, joe. It really is. The doctors, as the wall street journal editorialized, as republicans are talking about, the doctors should be allowed to speak to the American Public. The doctors should be allowed to speak to americans who are concerned. Senior citizens who know theyre not getting good information when the president blusters. Who understands hes gotten this wrong from the very beginning. Who understand that scientists, doctors, those are the people that need to speak. Not donald trump, who has been wrong from the very beginning. Not his henchmen in the media. You have henchmen in the media attacking dr. Fauci, claiming he is some Hillary Clinton plant. Oh, my gosh. It is outrageous. Actually, its stupid. Its stupid. Also, there are deadly consequences to that kind of talk. We should know already because weve been there before. These liars in the trump media who have been downplaying this from the very beginning, who made sure that americans were illprepared. Who made sure that the president s lies were bolstered. You know, i was looking, willie. I saw a headline, a headline thats hard to read, from the la times this morning, that the u. S. Death toll topped 16,000 from the coronavirus. Incredible. This is, again, more people than died at 9 11 plus a 20year war in afghanistan. Plus the tragedy in iraq. Add it all up, more americans have died from this than all those wars. This is what donald trump said back on february 26th. When you have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be close to zero, thats a pretty good job that weve done. 15 people. Pretty soon, it will be close to zero. Weve done a pretty good job. Throughout february, he kept talking about how, in april, we were going to have warm weather, and it was all going to magically go away. Well, now were in april, and almost 1,800 people died yesterday of coronavirus, of a pandemic that he said would magically go away in april. Yet, as the wall street journal, and actually other conservatives are now starting to say, the president is hurting his cause because, well, almost 1,800 americans are dying in a day. Hes talking about his tv ratings. Talk about being illequipped, not just to be president , not just to be a leader in the middle of a pandemic, but illequipped to be a leader of anything. Youre talking about your ratings when more 1,800 people are dying in a single day. Its actually gotten too much even for republicans. Even for the wall street journal editorial page to handle anymore, willie. Yeah. To put it in terms he might actually listen to and might draw his attention, his Approval Rating has dropped again. Remember, it surged in the early stages of this, got him above 50 . Hes back down to where he was, as people watch this show every single day. Youre right, we see that contrast again yesterday, where dr. Fauci gets up in real talk, describes the numbers, describes whats happening, and says the death toll may be lower. That is great news. And weve gotten there because of social distancing, because of all these difficult policies that weve put in place. Weve all lived by and adhered to. Immediately, the president , according to the Washington Post, is talking again about opening the economy. Because he heard the death toll is going to be lower than he originally heard in those reports that said thered be between 100,000 and 240,000. Hes now saying by the end of this month or by may 1st, its time to open parts of the economy, large parts of the economy again, not making the connection that the doctors and the scientists and the Public Health officials make between the number being lowered and these policies working. So if you take these policies away, they say the numbers will go up again. As you say, the president yesterday, in the middle of this, in a day when 800 new yorkers died in the city where he was born and lived for most of his life, saying his ratings, at these news briefings, are through the roof, citing a New York Times article that compared his ratings to those of the bachelor finale. Thats what he was tweeting about yesterday. Oh, my god. By the way, all these trump talking heads that are saying we should reopen the economy now, that it is all a hoax, hey, rush limbaugh, go to your local publix and bag groceries. If you think its such a great idea help out. If you think it is such a great idea to reopen the economy, you can lead by example, by going to a Grocery Store and bagging groceries. You can do it today. Sure. Do it today. There are other people at other news outlets that say one thing on the air and, yet, do something completely different off the air regarding the economy. Saying, oh, its a you know what . If you think the economy should be opened up, why dont you go out and go out unprotected, without a mask. Do whatever you think we should do. You go out and bag groceries, or go out and pump gas. You know, i know and you know youre not going to do that. Youre just youre purposefully trying to amp your ratings by attacking doctors, like dr. Fauci, by attacking science. You think itll help with your ratings. Youre telling americans to go out and do things that will kill them, that will kill their loved ones, that will kill Senior Citizens. And youre doing it for ratings. But you wont do it yourself. So if youre not willing to go out and work in an office with hundreds of people around you, dont tell other people to do that. Because its just its not only hypocrisy, it is also deadly advice. By the way, after all that you have said from the beginning, like being a booster for the president , lying about this pandemic, when he said, we only have one person and its from china. Nothing to worry about, on february 22nd. When he said, oh, we have 11 people. Soon, itll be down to zero. We only have 15 people. Soon, itll be down to zero. Itll go away magically in april. Oh, other than the cruise ship, were doing great. Im not worried at all. You were going along with the president during that time, giving Senior Citizens bad advice. Giving the children of Senior Citizens bad advice. Giving the grandchildren of Senior Citizens bad advice. Giving false security that ended up, yes, we can say this, that ended up killing thousands of people who didnt get the message soon enough. So maybe you should just shut up right now and let the doctors and let the scientists and let the medical experts do everything they can do to save the lives of Senior Citizens. This is were talking about republican Senior Citizens. Im talking about saving the lives of democratic Senior Citizens. Im talking about saving the lives of conservative Senior Citizens. Im actually talking about saving the lives of the very people who make up the heart of your audience. You need to shut up. Stop talking about rushing straight into the economy because youre going to kill more people. Along with joe, willie, and me, we have cofounder and ceo of axios, jim vandehei, and historian jon meacham, whose new book is the hope of glory, reflections on the last forewords of jesus from the cross. Timely, with today being good friday and easter coming up this sunday. Of course, the president had talked about opening the country back up on easter. Now, he says, that was aspirational. Again, you heard dr. Fauci say that what were doing is working. We, the americans, and that we need to continue to do it. At the same time, the Trump Administration is now reportedly pushing to reopen much of the country by next month. Which is raising concerns among medical experts and economists. People familiar with the discussions tell the Washington Post that behind closed doors, President Trump has been looking for a strategy to resume Business Activity by may 1st. You can see it in the tweets of some folks on fox news who parrot what he says. According to the post, in phone calls with outside advisers, trump has even floated trying to reopen much of the country before the end of this month, when the current federal recommendations to avoid social gatherings and work from home expire. Here is what the president said during yesterdays briefing. I think we can say that we have to be on that downside of that slope and heading to a very strong direction that this thing is gone. We can do it in phases. We can go to some areas which are much less affected than others. It would be nice to open with a big bang and open up our country, or certainly most of our country. I think well do it soon. You look at whats happening. I would say were ahead of schedule. You hate to say it too loudly, because all of a sudden, things dont happen. But i think we will be sooner rather than later. How can the administration discuss the possibility of reopening the country when the administration does not have an adequate, nationwide testing system for this virus . Dont you need a nationwide testing no. System for the virus before you reopen . No, we have a great testing system. We have, right now, the best testing system in the world. There are certain sections in the country that are inquestion nom phenomenal shape already. Other sections are coming online, and others are going down. Dont you need to make sure people are safe going back to work . Well have it. Well see if we have it. Do you need it . No. Is it nice . Yes. Millions of people. Its not going to happen, as you can imagine, and it would never happen with anyone else either. Other countries do it, but they do it in limited form. Well probably be the leader of the pack. I mean, theres so much thats just wrong in what the president said. So much lying there. Were not doing better than anybody else if you look at per person, per senior, per patient. Were doing worse than so many countries, willie, in the world. This is something the Trump Administration has botched from the very beginning, and people have been saying, medical experts have been saying, weve been saying, everybody that really knows whats going on have been saying, you need to have extensive testing. You know, its the hypocrisy of donald trump trying to push everybody back into the work force without having adequate testing. I talk about his home county of Palm Beach County. You still really cant maybe 1,000, 2,000 tests a day in a county of 1. 4 Million People. Senior citizens who need to know whether they have covid19 in Palm Beach County and across the state of florida and wisconsin and pennsylvania. They cant really get those tests the way they need them. Here, you have the president , who is the biggest germaphobe, who gets a stack, and always has, a stack of hand sanitizers and wipes down before he even eats in his own restaurants, trying to push people back into the work force early, without even knowing whether theyre going to be working with people who were infected or not. Again, if he gets the testing, then we can know with certainty who has covid19 and who doesnt. Those who dont have covid19 can go into work. But he wont do that. Weve been begging him to do that on this show for a long time. Si scientists have been begging him to do it. He just wont get the testing necessary to allow the economy to open back up safely. Yeah. He talks about it like a luxury. He said, would it be nice . Yeah. But he doesnt think it is necessary. There isnt a Public Health official weve had on this show over the last two months who hasnt led with testing. We cant get our arms around this unless we know who has it. We cant send people back to work unless we know who has it. Youre right to point out that, yes, as a raw number, about 2 million tests, weve done more than anybody else. But were in a country of 325 Million People. Per capita, were not close. The reality is its a long road to testing everybody who needs to be tested. Thats a difficult thing to tell the American People, that this is going to go on longer. As he sees Approval Ratings slip, as he sees the unemployment numbers come in again, he knows this is headed in a bad direction. Its already in a bad place and getting worse. He believes by starting the economy again, that, somehow, will turn it around. A Public Health official will tell you the opposite. It might reignite the Coronavirus Crisis in places. Lets talk to an expert now. Director of the Global Health harvard institute. Also practicing medicine at harvard medical school. Doctor, ill get you to react to the president s characterization of testing as something that would be nice to have, but its not necessary. Willie, thanks. All of you guys, for having me back on. Everybody else has led with this, and ill lead with this. We cannot open up our economy without adequate testing. Lets think about what would happen if we did. Lets say may 1st, we opened the doors, everybody is back to work. Itd be great for a few weeks. For a few weeks, we wouldnt notice it at all. Then youd see massive flareups of cases across the country. All the hard work that americans are doing will have been wasted. We will have to shut down again, and we will shut down for much longer. So if thats what we want to do, sure, lets open up may 1st without adequate testing. But the right answer is and, again, to quote dr. Fauci, we dont make the timeline. The virus makes the timeline. Wait until the viral levels are really low in our country. Lets have a robust testing system. Then lets open up slowly. I think we can stay open, which is what americans want. We do not want to have to shut down again. Dr. J ha, weve talked about all these issues, the personal protective equipment, but testing really is the first thing we hear from doctors like you, who are experts in this area. What does a National Testing system look like . Obviously, its a long road to get everyone in the country tested. We know that. Right now, it is a patch wowork private laboratories and companies coming up with a concept. Some are fquick. Some are in development. How do we get everyone tested more quickly than we are right now . Yeah. We do need a national coordination, right . Every state has different barriers. There are states that cant test because they dont have enough swabs. I sort of shake my head, thinking, weve shut our economy down because we dont have enough swabs . Yup, thats the problem in some states. Other states dont have reagents. Some dont have infrastructure. The point of a National Strategy is that we need a federal government that coordinates, makes sure all barriers are going away. Tests are going to be local. The bottom line is were not going to get the kinds of tests we need and not every american needs a test. Everybody who needs a test needs to be able to get that test. We are far away from that. Were not going to get there through 50 different state strategies. We need a National Strategy. Dr. Jha, let me ask about the flattening of the curve weve seemed to witness, as Governor Cuomo holds briefings. He says hospitalizations are dropping, but it is a lagging number in terms of where this is headed. Hospitalizations being way down, what does that tell you . I think dr. Fauci said this earlier, and ill amplify. The incredible, hard work americans are doing, staying home i know staying home, having the economy shut is painful but it is working. It is working in new york. It is working in california. It is working in washington state. Its working in ohio. It is working wherever were doing it right. It is painful. By the way, the number of 60,000 deaths and its great, fewer americans dying is always better its more people than died in vietnam. Like, this is still a tragedy. Weve got to stay home and try to get those numbers even lower if we can. All right. Dr. Jha, thank you, as always, for your insights. Joe . Lets go to jim vandehei. Jim, we keep going back to it because every medical expert that we have on, every doctor we have on, says you cant open the economy without proper testing. For some reason, and ill be honest, ive been talking to the white house over the past month, just hammering home testing. You have to get testing done. It is a trillion dollar mistake, to not have this testing done. You look at the story of the failure of this administration. You can go back to february, where the fda went to trumps cdc and said, if youre a private entity, id shut you down. Youre so bad. Days later, the fda gave up on the Trump Administration and said, well allow private companies to test. Birx said 80 of the testing machines were out of use across the nation. She didnt know why. She said she was going to she seemed pretty upset about it and said she was going to check and see why 80 of testing machines were not in use. Then we just heard the good doctor say that, in some cases what was his exact quote were going to really shut down our economy because we dont have enough swabs . Like, this is the president s patchwork approach that has led to disaster when it comes to testing. It is a trillion dollar mistake. Jim, what i cant understand is why he still doesnt get it. Why he still doesnt understand our economy is going to lose trillions and trillions more dollars, and more americans are going to go bankrupt in the future, until he gets testing right and people know they can go back into the workforce safely. Theres no doubt that had the government moved a lot faster, had trump moved a lot faster on testing, on supplies, on preparing hospitals, that wed be in a way better position to be able to return to work at a much quicker timeframe. I do think the debate inside the white house is a little more nuance than some of the reporting overnight. Theres no doubt that the president wants to get some parts of the economy going in early may. Ive not heard of anyone saying itd happen in april. Most people inside the white house think itd be midmay to late may. Ill tell you what he is hearing, like, why he is reacting the way he is. He is getting calls from fortune 500 ceos every single day, warning that theres going to be not only, like, economic catastrophe, but then for him personally, political catastrophe if the economy is not up and running, at least big parts of it, in june. What theyre warning is youve got unemployment headed towards 13 to 15 . Youve got Small Businesses that didnt get the infusion of cash quick enough. Theyre just not coming back. If you sit idle for two months, as much as a quarter of the economy might be hard to resuscitate on any plausible timeframe. Steven moore, who has been an adviser to him, has been telling him, listen, youve got four to eight weeks to get this right, or youre going to lose reelection. Part of this debate, while it is uncomfortable, it does have to happen. Like, at some point, some parts of the economy have to return. What you guys are saying is totally correct. The quickest, easiest way to do that is to have testing. Because the worst possible outcome is that you restart the economy, and then all of a sudden, you have a massive resurgence of the virus, and you have to go back into this mode. Sure. That would be catastrophic and something we probably couldnt recover from for years. Mika, thats what im so concerned about. Im concerned about the president not pushing the testing, not getting testing to enough americans, not working on the Antibody Testing like other countries are doing, and him opening up the economy halfway. People going back in, starting their Small Businesses back up again, if they still can. Small businesses are the ones that have bore the greatest brunt of this. Trust me, fortune 500 companies will always be bailed out. Its the Small Business owners that may be able to reopen their restaurants again. Then, without testing, theres another outbreak. They have to close down again another two or three months. It is absolutely devastating. I understand the need to reopen the economy. Which is why, mika, every doctor and every scientist and every business person that wants the economy to start back up and, man, its got to start back up as soon as humanly possible, as soon as it is safe for workers and americans. For that to happen, they need to tell the president , get testing right. Take it under the defense production act. Becokocome singularly focused. Where it should have been. Testing. Every single second of your day should be obsessed on getting testing to tens of millions of americans. Over 100 million americans. Whatever it takes. Not just for their health but for their economy. I remember us saying, god, three, four, five weeks ago, that this is not an economic crisis, its a health care crisis. When you take care of the health care crisis, the economic crisis will be resolved. Theres no shortcuts either. You cant cheat that truth hasnt changed. There are not shortcuts. No. There is not inheriting 400 million from your daddy and lying about real estate. You cant negotiate with a pandemic. Testing, testing, testing. At one point, joe, the white house was promising 27 million tests by the end of march. I believe the president now is bragging. Americans can see he is giving bad information. They heard him say, if you want a test, you can get a test. By the way, that was march 6th. He was at the cdc, and he said, any american that wants a test, they can get a test now. They heard that. Joe was raising the issue of these briefings. Weve been concerned about them. Washington post is out with an analysis of the coronavirus briefings, in which the paper says the president recounts rescue efforts that sound extensive but are often aspirational at best. Quote, these pronouncements and pledges have turned out, again and again, to be a description of the administrations aspirational response to the pandemic. Not the one doctors, nurses, and stricken families are reporting from the front. Repeatedly, this administration has used the daily televised briefing, quote, to describe efforts and actions that have not panned out. Here are a few examples the post lays out. As joe said, march 6th, President Trump promised that, quote, anybody that needs a test can get a test. He said that wearing a make America Great again hat. The reality, testing shortages remain widespread across the country, and people who heard that notah itknow that its a l. Hes lying about something that americans, republicans, democrats, conservatives, liberals, know in real time. Hes lying. March 13th, trump promised a googlepowered testing system that americans could access in store parking lots from their cars. Remember that . Fact, the announcement was news to even google itself. The system remains in its earliest stages. March 20th, trump twice in the same briefing claimed he invoked the defense production act. Fact, trump himself later backtracked, saying he had not used the dpa to order private companies to produce anything. March 27th, to great fanfare, the president signed a 2 trillion stimulus bill that includes direct payments to american families. Fact, some wont receive their checks until this fall. Others not at all. March 30th, as the hospital ship mercy anchored off los angeles, and the usns comfort steamed into new york harbor, the president proclaimed, quote, they are really ready to go. They are stocked with both talent and tremendous amounts of equipment. Fact, comfort has just began taking covid19 patients after floating nearly empty alongside a wounded city for days. Bad planning. March 31st, trump proclaimed the u. S. Stopped travelers from china and europe from entering the u. S. He says that to say he knew about this early on. He closed the country. Fact, in the two months following trumps imposed travel restrictions, nearly 40,000 people have arrived from the u. S. From china. Hundreds of thousands steamed into the country from europe before the administration issued a belated and very confusing ban. Again, as weve been saying here, as its been reported, you actually had, at the end of january, you actually had a member of the National Security council, deputy pottinger, who actually pleaded with the white house to shut down travel from europe by the end of january. Steve mnuchin and donald trump refused. They thought it would hurt the stock market. So they waited until, i believe it was march 11th, to finally impose a ban. By that time, new york had been infected, as medical studies show. Mainly from travelers from dwru europe, not from china. Jon meacham, here we are, with the president of the United States making what has to be considered one of the most farreaching and historic blunders in being illprepared for this pandemic. And having a blizzard of lies, all documented on tape, from the end of january through now. Yet, he continues. And what is so disturbing to me is the fact that it seems theres very little that anybody can do about it. Very little that people in his administration or in congress or in the media can do about the fact that this president just keeps lying. He keeps refusing to move aggressively on testing. Keeps refusing to do the very things that would help americans go back to work. Yeah. And the look, the briefings are now experimental theater in weaponized narcissism, right . Its just this relentless selfpity. Hes let the world see exactly what goes on in his head. Hes an open synapse of these things. Cannot, in fact, seem to learn from his mistakes. Whats so interesting to me, because ive adopted your mantra of that he is really a political day trader. I dont fully understand why, because this is in his interest as well as the National Interest for once, theyre aligned why there would not be a testing plan, right . We have plenty of time to argue about the initial phases of this. Did it come from europe, asia . How did it get to new york . Where was the ppe . Where were the respirators . Thats for the pandemic commission, right . That doesnt help anybody at this point. This is a threeprong strategy. You have to take care of the sick people now. You have to keep people from getting sick now. And you have to, as youve been saying, get the testing in order to open, not just businesses, but schools. You have to restore some normalcy to american life. Everybody you talk to privately and publicly, as well, says, look, nobody is going to go back to school if theyre not or get on planes if they arent they dont have a high degree of confidence that the testing is in a place where youre not going to have this second bump. My plea about this is we had a scientific revolution, and we had an American Revolution. The two were actually somewhat late. They were different verses of the same hymn, if you would. It was about reason instead of passion being the central engine in human affairs. This is a case where the American Revolution is now on trial because we wont Pay Attention to the lessons of the scientistic one. Yeah. You know, willie or yeah . I was going to say, the thing is, yeah, he is is a day trader, but when is he going to figure out that the lies he tells about a pandemic are always discovered . And not by Mainstream Media outlets in new york city or washington, d. C. Or los angeles, but by his own supporters when they go into doctors offices or when they try to get a test for their parent or for their grandparent or for their loved one. Like, hes lying about things that every american knows he is lying about. Thats why republicans are saying, these are bad for your political standing. The wall street journal wrote an editorial yesterday that said, if mr. Trump thinks this is going to help him against mr. Biden, hes wrong. This is what i dont understand, he is lying about things that are the lies are uncovered that very day. As you know, and weve known for years, its a show up there. He said it explicitly yesterday. He tweeted that his ratings are through the roof for these coronavirus briefings, like a bachelor finale. He is watching the numbers. How are the ratings . How are my Approval Ratings . One of the ratings he saw yesterday was that unemployment number, which was terrible and devastating. There are people we all know whose businesses are going under, and it touches every part of american culture. He knows that number, for him, pause he s because he sees everything through the prism of his own presidency, are bad. He knows it could hurt him getting reelected in the fall. He thinks, as a kneejerk reaction, its time to open the economy. Lets go overseas and check on the cities where coronavirus has had an impact. London, Senior International correspondent keir simmons. In beijing, nbc news Foreign Correspondent janis mackey frayer. At the vatican, Foreign Correspondent matt bradley. Welcome to you all. Keir, ill begin with you. Good news yesterday, Prime Minister Boris Johnson was released from the icu. What more can you tell us about his condition this morning . Reporter thats right. So hes still in the hospital. We dont know how long for. He is no longer in the icu. His dad though saying that he does need to take it easy, that it is going to be slow progress. In a sense, the British Government still being run by the cabinet and not by the Prime Minister. Just to talk about what you guys have been talking about, the British Governments scientific adviser also saying it is through testing, and there is a crisis of testing here, too, that we will escape from this lockdown, and that it is going to take time. To give you a picture of the global data, willie, and how the uk and the u. S. Fits with that, this is the chart. New york state, 163,000 cases, actually now has more cases than other parts of the world. Italy, 143,000. Spain, 153,000. China, 82,000. Another chart from the financial times. You can see those lines on the chart, which are the numbers of deaths from coronavirus. For the uk and the u. S. , rising more steeply than they have in other countries at any other time. Thats the global data picture that tells you how worrying the situation is. More global data just on testing, again, bringing home what you guys have been saying. They look at it in terms of the numbers of tests per million. In the u. S. , according to one website, 7,000 tests per million of the population. That is fewer tests than in italy, where theres been this terrible crisis. Than in spain, where there has been this terrible crisis. Another point from here in the uk that is being talked about ii is, and it is important. The number of tests for the coronavirus itself and the other test for antibodies. In the uk and other countries, none of the tests are authorized. Theyre worried about whether they work. Theyve been authorized, at least one, by the fda there in the u. S. Only a few countries around the world, australia, singapore, china, are also authorizing those tests. Pause in many cases, the tests have a success rate of maybe 93 , 94 . So the worry is about the antibody test, that if you bring in the wrong test, you get the wrong results and the wrong outcome. Uk having the same struggles with testing were having in the yoi United States. Keir simmons, thank you very much. Lets go to beijing, where we find janis mackey frayer. The lockdown in wuhan was lifted a couple days ago. The city of 11 Million People where the coronavirus pandemic began. How is it working right now . Are there concerns about a second wave, now that they have opened this . As china has been easing some of the restrictions across the country, and certainly in wuhan, there is this worry of it triggering a second wave of inflection. With people, thousands of people now fanning out across china, that could chart new transmission routes for the virus and bring on this resurgence of cases. Weve seen tighter restrictions over the past week to ten days. Its not just in china. It is countries across asia. Wevetightened, flights being cut, because of a surge in the number of socalled imported cases. These are people who are coming back into countries from other places, primarily the United States and europe, places at a higher risk for transmitting the disease. With that, weve seen the numbers slowly tick higher. In japans case, weve seen them spike. As a reaction, governments are tightening things even more. Here in china, yes, the lockdown in wuhan has been ended, but there are still hundreds of millions of kids who are not in school. Factories are not running at full capacity. There are still people working at home. A lot of businesses, like gyms and swimming pools, have been closed. Thats along with a lot of changes in the daily rituals here. Just to give you an indication of the protocols that have been put in place for people leaving wuhan, they needed to people needed to be tested for the virus before they could book a train ticket or a flight out of the city. They were tested again before they boarded the train or the flight. Upon arriving in beijing, where there is a cap on the number of people who can arrive on a given day. Theyre put into quarantine 14 days. Theyll be tested again before theyre allowed to roam freely. These are the measures china has in place. Theyre toughening tracking on asymptomatic cases. Again, so they can have the data they need to believe the situation is truly under control. Right now, not even the authorities believe that the epidemic is completely clear. Janis mackey frayecs mackey beijing, thank you. Lets move to italy where we find matt bradley at the vatican this morning. Stunning scene that weve already witnessed, the pope conducting mass to an empty st. Peters square today. Of course, its good friday, easter on sunday. What is easter going to look like at the vatican this year . Reporter it is going to look, willie, a lot like this. Nobody there. It is going to be the pope, once again, cutting a very lonely figure, doing his mass. Probably indoors, once again, without celebrants. Hell be celebrating basically alone. Just officients. Itll be beamed across the world, what the pope is calling the beam of love. Trying to reach as many people as possible. This isnt just about the actual observance of these holidays. This is easter. This is the biggest day of the year here. This is about the charities, as well. Those charities are suffering. As youve been talking about on your program, theres going to be, after the medical crisis passes, everybody is expecting an economic crisis. This institution is no different. Theyre going to be girding for a massive wave of unemployment. Theyre going to be drying to create an Emergency Fund to bring up their hospitals, schools, homeless shelters that are going to be needed more than ever after the actual medical crisis passes and the economic one hits. Theres also some positive thinking going on here. People at the vet catican, they hoping this easter will see a resurrection of faith. I spoke to a senior official at the vatican, and hearsres what had to tell me. There will be a day, a new spring, and we will come out of this emergency. We can really have a more human society, a more human humanity. You know, with people more capable of feeling more ready to help the poor and to reinvent even the economy. Reporter yeah, so the vatican is clearly hoping that this whole crisis actually reignites, sort of renews an affinity for this very ancient institution. Willie . Nbcs matt bradley at the vatican for us this morning. Thanks so much. Joe, the scene thats going to play out on sunday at the vatican with the pope inside an empty st. Peters square is playing out on a smaller scale in church ace crosaces across td states. People will celebrate easter. Theyll observe good friday over screens, listening to their pastors and breesepriests. People sell rating passovers, listening to rabbis. Not gathering but finding a way to show the faith. Thats what so many people have gone over passover. It is what many will do on good friday and then do again on easter. Watch through live streaming. Jon meacham, you know, the pace of life throughout the 20th and 21st centuries has quickened to much. Weve had little time for reflection. Here, we find ourselves where the entire world has come to a standstill. Yeah. Just scenes of death and disease and pain and destruction. Really, its crippling for so many people. A lot of people who are watching right now, the isolation, the loneliness, people by themselves, cut off from other human interaction. Its certainly we have time to reflect right now on how terrible, actually, things have been. I would say, and im speaking only for myself, how much weve taken for granted throughout our entire lifetime. Ive got a feeling that even the small things, after this terrible tragedy passes, even those small things that we once took for granted, well never be able to take for granted again. This will change us on this good friday and beyond spirituality. Yeah. A secular and sacred response. The secular one is if you think about american history, broadly put, we have not had a common experience of this duration that genuinely affected everyone, since the great depression. The cuban missile crisis publicly lasted a short period of time. September 11th, the fear, the anxiety. It was geographically limited. So the depression, world war ii, are far more analogous in terms of the communal experience. So this does have the capacity to change us in more fundamental ways, i think, than anything since pearl harbor, really. Were also approaching were going to be approaching unemployment numbers that were where they were at the end of the 1930s. What finally put america back to work was not the new deal but the second world war. So thats something to bear in mind in terms of proportion. The more sacred answer is this is the holiest week for christians and jews. Passover, good friday, the great vigil tomorrow, easter sunday. My view of today, good friday, is, in many ways, its the hinge in western history. Its the hinge of history. What happened at golgatha, and we know as much about jesus as socrates. We know what he taught and where he died. It is selfevident. How we tell time was determined today because of the events of the passion. The last thing ill say is passion itself is particularly relevant at this moment. Because the root of the word is to suffer. Its about jesus suffering through the arrest, the trial, the crucifixion, and then ultimately overcoming it through the triumph of easter. But we are all, in a way, in tribulati tribulation. Were all suffering something. And id argue that, actually, a reengagement with the story of ones faith is a useful way forward. Like you said, whether its spiritual, as we were talking about, or secular, just being showing kindness to others, where in the past, maybe we havent done as good a job. Or being more understanding, being more thoughtful, being more mindful than we have in the past. Certainly, this is giving everybody time to reflect during this terrible time for so many millions of americans. Jim vandehei, it seems that that, the crisis, the weight of the crisis, while at times seems to escape the president , who is talking more about his ratings and really not seeming to connect on an emotional level with americans who are dying or who are sick or who are out of work, losing their jobs. Certainly, Republican Leaders in the United States senate have even started to speak out, asking the president to cut back with the press conferences, to let his medical staff speak. Which, of course, is highly unusual for republicans to criticize. Weve seen governors before that trying to be defiant, saying they were going to party with their constituents on st. Patricks day. Those governors have now shut down their states. They understand the level of this, too. We find ourselves in an interesting position where you actually, for the first time, have a disconnect between what the president of the United States is saying and what a lot of Republican Leaders are saying about this pandemic. Its interesting because you talk to those republicans. A lot of them want trump to be pence. They think mike pence does a good job of sticking to the facts, showing empathy when hes behind the podium, and talking a lot more about the American People. For all the things that have gone wrong, i think one of the delightful things of the last couple weeks is ive been shocked by how wellbehaved most people have been. Most people have stuck to the stay at home rules, even though theyre extremely hard. The amount of generosity i see from family members, from friends, from people in our community, its kind of awesome. Thats the thing that gets overshadowed when its got to be trump, trump, trump, the trump show, doing his press briefing. Most people are behaving well, and the American People, in moments like this, as meacham has chronicled in all his books, they kind of do rise to the moment. They will listen to government. That is the thing. Whats frustrating to me about this conservative narrative, and im getting a lot of texts from my conservative friends saying, this is overhyped. You listen to fauci, a democratic plant. Even trump doesnt say that. Trump is the one, the president of the United States said it could have been 2. 2 Million People. Then he said it could have been 100,000 to 250,000 people that die. It is a good thing if only 40,000 people die or 20,000 or 60,000 people, compared to how dad it could have been. But that only happened because the American People did the right thing under extraordinary circumstances. Hopefully, that part of the story will be the thing that sort of shines beyond the moment of politics. Jim vandehei, thank you. We the only hope. You know, i am still god smacked at the things im seeing on twitter on good friday, of people who follow this president blindly, trying to separate fact from fiction and, honestly, trying to do that because it is really a matter of life and death. There are people who seem to feel like President Trump is more important than the lives of American People. Ill share more about that later. Still ahead on morning joe lets i cant believe what im seeing. Lets underline, willie, what jim vandehei said. If you really yes, in the political realm, trudonald trums doing everything he can do to suck up all the oxygen. Willie, its not helping him. It is hurting him politically. It is hurting him in the polls. But the bigger story, i think, jim has underlined. The American People have done a remarkable job. Republicans, democrats, independents, conservatives, liberals, that arent on twitter every day. They dont watch cable news every day. People have been responsible. People have engaged in social distancing. There have been the exceptions. The spring break, the people in florida on the sandbars. A lot of stupidity in the early stages there. For the most part, the American People have come together as one, and they have done what is necessary to flatten the curve. That is something we should really celebrate on this good friday. And during passover. This is good news. Americans have come together. For the most part, acted really responsibly. Yeah. The bottom line is this stuff works. Thats why we always say listen to the scientists. Listen to the Public Health officials. No, dr. Fauci is not a democratic hack. No, dr. Birx is not a democratic hack. These are people who studied these things their entire lives and want to save as many lives as they can. I was driving in new york city yesterday up amsterdam avenue from 60th street to 125th street. Very few other cars on the road. You had lines of people outside Grocery Stores. 6 feet apart, one by one. The streets were empty. Lines outside cvs. 6 feet apart because theyre only letting so many people in at a time. The sound of sirens never stopping. You have the biggest city, arguably the most important city on the face of the earth, that has totally shut down because people are listening. People are doing a good job. Theyre paying attention. Many cases, at great cost to them in their jobs and their businesses and their lives. Absolutely. Theyre doing it. As the charts showed yesterday that were presented by Governor Cuomo, in terms of hospitalizations in new york city, it is working. People have to continue that. Thats why scientists and Public Health officials are concerned that the president seems ready to open parts of the economy, just when all these practices appear to be working. Still ahead on morning joe, new york now has more cases of coronavirus than any other country in the world. Governor andrew cuomo will be our guest on the heels of that stunning headline. Plus, first, it was crowded beaches, and now this. In florida, hundreds of people line up in packed crowds for unemployment assistance. Why they were forced to break social distancing protocols, next on morning joe. Limu emu doug [ siren ] 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. There will be parties and family gatherings. There will be parades and sporting events and concerts. To help our communities when they come back together, respond to the 2020 census now. Spend a few minutes online today to impact the next 10 years of healthcare, infrastructure and education. Go to 2020census. Gov and respond today to make americas tomorrow brighter. Its time to shape our future. I think we can say we have to be on the downside of that slope and heading to a very strong direction that this thing is gone. We could do it in faphases. We could go to some areas less affected than others. Itd be nice to be able to open with a big bang and open up our country, or certainly most of our country. I think were going to do that soon. You look at whats happening. Id say we are ahead of schedule. You hate to say it too loudly because all of a sudden, things dont happen. I think we will be sooner rather than later. We need to have a plan nationally for reopening the economy. What we all want is for it to happen as quickly as possible. We want to avoid a false start, where we partially reopen, and that results in a spike in coronavirus cases, and then we have to go back again to square one. We want to avoid that. Boy, ill tell you, weve been talking about, willie, needing to listen to medical doctors, listening to scientists on reopening the economy. Lets listen to the fed chief there, Jerome Powell is exactly right. The worst thing we could do was jump in too early with a false sta start. All that does is get people back at work, the virus spreads again, and then were facing another two or threemonth shutdown. Itd destroy the Small Businesses in america, most likely. Thats the scenario we have to avoid at all costs. That was a significant moment, to have the fed chair come out and say that. Remember, the president has had a rocky relationship with the fed chair. Will the president listen to the chairman of the Federal Reserve and to dr. Fauci and dr. Birx, or will the advice were hearing from people like secretary mnuchin and, for some reason, attorney general william barr, who did a Television Interview a couple days ago, saying the measures are draconian and we have to get the economy opened up again. He has to take the gotcha questions, as he called them, from the press. Lets open the economy again. Will he listen to the people close to him, who have been good and loyal to him, through impeachment and everything else, or will the president listen to scientists and the chairman of the Federal Reserve . Remains to be seen. Thats the question we grapple with every day. He listened, mika, to Steve Mnuchin the end of january, when he had the National Security council asking him, at least pottinger in the National Security council saying, please cut off travel from europe. He refused to do that for over a month. The impact was absolutely devastating. Were still living with that. You cant listen to Steve Mnuchin when youre talking about whether to ignore doctors advice or not. Again, weve done that before. Weve seen whats happened when donald trump we havent done it before, but donald trump has done it before. Donald trump tried to underplay this. Donald trump said we were going to be open by easter. Aspirational now, he says. Now, hes saying, lets open the beginning of may. I dont know when we can open, but i know this, a lot depends on when testing is ramped up and when employees, not just the employers, not just the ceos, but the people who work for the ceos, know they can go back to work safely, and theyre not going to bring home a pandemic thats going to kill their mother or father or grandparents. If you had someone who was sick, very sick, and a doctor gave you a timeline, and the timeline was not met, not even close, and you asked the doctor what happened, and the doctor said, i was just being aspirational, youd never go to that doctor again. Thats what trump is doing with these Daily Briefings. He talked about easter being a day for a big reopening. Asked about that today, just being aspirational. We dont need you to be aspirational, mr. President. We need the truth. We need you to step aside so we can hear from the doctors. You know, donald trump has a choice. He can listen to dr. Fauci and dr. Birx and medical experts, or he can listen to people like rush limbaugh, who are saying open the economy now. Rush limbaugh, early on, was talking about how this was like the flu. Or he can listen to other talk show people who said this was all hype. That the media was pushing a hoax by talking about how extreme this pandemic was going to be. So here we are again. The president can listen to who he wants to listen to. If he listens to the same people who supported him, walking this country over a cliff in january and february, well, then were going to, once again, be over a cliff in may, june, and july. Hes got a chance to get testing widespread and to keep this country locked down until when people go back to work, when Small Businesses reopen. They can stay open for good. That has to be the goal. To help Small Businesses survive. To help workers get back to work for good, not just for three weeks, before theyre sent home again. Historian, author, and msnbc contributor jon meacham is still with us. Joining the conversation, we have donny deutsch. And pulitzer prizewinning columnist and associated ed for of Washington Post, and msnbc political analyst, eugene robinson. Good to have you all on board. The state of new york is the global epicenter for the total number of coronavirus cases. The empire states more than 162,000 cases outranks both hardhit countries of spain and italy. The death toll continues to spike. Yesterday saw the highest uptick yet, with 799 deaths. Now more than 7,000 new yorkers have died from the virus. By the way 7,000. We have to say that these numbers, 162,882 in new york, any medical expert or scientists will tell you that that wildly understates the actual number of people in new york who actually we know of yeah, who have th coronavirus. The hospitalizations rose by only 200, the smallest day increase since restrictions began. Governor andrew cuomo, who will be our guest this morning, reiterated that while this is a positive sign, new yorkers must continue to be cautious. We should all be concerned, especially new yorkers. Were flattening the curve, thats good news. It is good news. Now, i can relax. No, you cant relax. The flattening of the curve last night happened because of what we did yesterday and the day before and the day before that. If we stop acting the way were acting, you will see those numbers go up. Overwhelmed by the growing number of dead, new york city morgues have changed their policies to keep unclaimed remains for just two weeks before they are buried in a public cemetery. According to officials, burials have increased from one day a week to five days a week. On hart island, contracted workers are beurying at least 2 people a day. Willie. Oh, my god. Meanwhile, for the First Time Since the coronavirus outbreak began, california saw its first daily decrease in icu hospitalizations. Governor gavin newsom announced yesterday the virus is spreading at a slower rate, and that the number of icu patients dropped 1. 9 , totaling just over 1,100 patients across the state of california. While this offers a sign of hope, Governor Newsom continues to prepare for the worstcase scenario in his state. One data point is not a trend. One data point is not a headline. So i caution anybody to read too much into that one point of data. Nonetheless, it is encouraging, and it just, again, reinforces the incredible work that all of you are doing to practice physical distancing. Donny deutsch, Governor Newsom performing the way that Governor Cuomo has been at his news briefings. Which is to offer the bits of optimism in the data, but also to keep everyone vigilant, to keep the people in his state vigilant about the way theyre carrying on, and underlining that social distancing is, in fact, the reason the numbers are staying low. As a lifelong new yorker, a snapshot of what youre seeing . New york . I mentioned i was driving through the empty streets of the Upper West Side yesterday, and i have to say, the minute you stop hearing one siren at 66th street, youd hear the next one at 72nd street, and on and on until you got up to mt. Sinai hospital, where the road was blocked off. Theres a line of ambulances, people in protective equipment. It is a bleak scene in new york city, but the streets are empty because people are listening and they are practicing what the government is telling them to do to get us out ahead of this. Yeah. I was looking up madison avenue yesterday. Look up ten blocks, you saw maybe two, three people. To jim vandeheis point, it is easy to overlook this, as far as how we all have performed. It is amazing how this country not talking about the politicians, necessarily, or certainly not all of the politicians have stipepped u and done the almost impossible, stopping our lives. What i cant understand about the president you contrasted gavin newsom, andrew cuomo, dewine. Its the human thing to do, being extra conservative. The thing youll lose by a landslide is if, god forbid, you open up and it happens again. Which it will. Every scientist tells you that if we dont have the testing, if we dont have the testing, it will happen again. Thats what will destroy trumps reelection bid. If i was advising him again, its the right thing to do to save lives id say, mr. Trump, you cant be too conservative. Youll never be faulted for erring on the side of safety. The fact he continues his cheerleader mentality and joe mentioned earlier, hes getting daily calls from the fortune 500 ceos. The economy will come back, whether were down one month, two months, three months, itll come back. What wont come back, mr. Trump, is you as a president if you jump the gun. Picture it. How are we going to go to restaurants . Say three weeks from now, itll open up. Are you going to a restaurant and sit next to you, look 2 feet over, and theres a person . Its almost a fate itll happen again. Mr. Trump, if you have your own selfinterest at heart, go on the conservative side for once in your life. That is your only chance of getting reelected. Some republican lawmakers reportedly believe the White House Press briefings may be hurting the president and the party. New york times reports gop lawmakers and Administration Officials want the president to limit his briefing appearances and concentrate on both exni ecc recovery and his reelection. Quoting from the article, mr. Trump sometimes drowns out his own message, said senator Lindsey Graham of south carolina. He reportedly told the president a, quote, once a week show would be much more effective. From west virginia, Shelley Moore capito said it was going off the rails a bit, and suggested he should let the Health Professionals guide where were going to go. Reports from multiple outlets show mounting republican frustration over the president s inaccuracies and rallylike performances during this National Health crisis. A top political adviser to the president told the times the briefings are giving former Vice President joe biden, quote, ammunition each night, by sending the president out to the cameras. The wall street Journal Editorial Board is also out with a stinging rebuke of those daily president ial briefings. Writing that the sessions have become a boring show of president versus the press. Trump responded to the oped, tweeting about the Television Ratings of the briefings. Lets bring in nbc news correspondent hans nichols. Hans, i just this is sort of common sense at this point. This isnt complicated. It doesnt involve a foreign country, an intelligence official, and documents, where you have to piece together different parts of it. This is science. This is a virus that is attacking americans across the country. There are mass graves in new york city for unclaimed bodies that are now not being held more than two weeks. There is literal, visual, factual information that americans see every day. Its not a trick question. I just wonder, does anybody in the white house understand that the country has been shut down and people have time now to watch the news, to read about this virus, to see whats happening in their community, and then to see the president boldface lie. They dont need us at this point, although we are frustrated and trying our best to parse together whats going on, and separate fact from fiction. Americans can see this for themselves. Does anyone in the white house want to tell the president that he is hurting himself every time he speaks . Or does no one have the ability to get through to him . Reporter i certainly think Lindsey Graham has the ability to get through to him, and he tells the president what he thinks. You heard Lindsey Graham, at least in the New York Times piece, basically tell the president , a, dont open the economy before we actually have testing. When you look at sort of the trump whisperers, the trump barometers, there are people in his orbit making this case. He heres the issue inside the white house. I dont know if we want to call it a debate, discussion, outright conflict. You have a situation where you have dueling task forces, plnl potentially. You have the health task force, led by fauci, birx, pence. Then you have the economic side, led by mark meadows. Thats all healthy. You want to have a robust debate. What you want to have though is everyone in the same room, not two competing sets of information, two competing information feeds. Thats why i think mark meadows role in this second task roforc is going to be crucial. Well see if he is an broker or whether hes tipping to open up the economy perhaps faster than the Public Health experts want. There is a discussion in the white house. I think kevin hasetts role will be important. He is coming back in a private capacity. He has the ability to distill the numbers for the president in a way that resonates with the president. Well see what role he plays in this, what role meadows plays in this and, importantly, who is the president listening to . We know Lindsey Graham is saying, you cant open the country until you have testing. We also know Lindsey Graham thinks the president should be a little less prolific, shall we say, in those press conferences. Mika . Yup. Thanks, mans. You kn hans. Also, the practical matter of this. You have dr. Fauci, dr. Birx, and all these people standing up on stage two, three hours. Gene robinson, i mean, these are the people who are on the front line of this crisis. These are the people who have a small, small team, really. Theres no czar. Things are not organized in a way that can streamline. The president isnt using dpa on testing. Theyre scrambling, this small group of people, to try and figure this out. And also inform the public. They are standing, just saying, on a practical, physical level, as they work 24hours a day, and were looking at 18months of this, behind the president for two to three hours. He is peawasting their precious time, some would say, so he can bloviate and have little fights with reporters and make sure, you know, thats noticed and talked about. It is, for me, that is the deepest insult to this entire process, that he is wasting his top scientists time. These people are tired. Theyre working hard. They have to listen to him tell lies and find a way to navigate trying to get the truth in there. This is crazy. In the middle of a pandemic, when 16,000 americans have died. You wonder, could that number be lower, had the president done his job . A lot of people are asking that question. You write, gene, trump might want to get a head start on packing his bags. Hes already talking about voting by mail being fraudulent. Doesnt the military vote by mail . Im confused. I think voting by mail would make the most sense health wise in the middle of a pandemic. Of course it would. And, you know, hes claiming that vote by mail has fraud. Hes flailing in terms of his political position. He recognizes the danger that this pandemic poses to his reelection. Yet, he stubbornly refuses to listen to the scientists and to do to take the only course of action that would benefit his reelection, which would be to do the right thing. To do the sort of nationwide, systematic surveillance testing, so we find out who has this virus. How widespread is it . Where is it . We get a baseline of information so that then we can start to think about reopening the economy. But, you know, if he comes out with a date, and we know how rash he is, and we know that this is what he wants to do, so if he says, were going to reopen may 1st, well, who is going to reopen may 1st . Who is going to go, you know, to a baseball game . Who is going to go, as donny said, to a restaurant . Who is going to go to a crowded store and mix it up like before, not knowing whether or not the people around them have a virus that they then might take home to their families . What company is going to risk opening up and potentially having employees getting sick, customers getting sick . The country is going to ultimately decide when its safe to reopen and restart the economic activity. And what the president ought to be doing is giving us all a basis for making that decision. We dont have that yet. He specifically says hes not going to do it. He says its not going to be widespread testing. We dont have to test everybody. We have to test a lot more people than were testing now. White house that promised at one point 27 million tests by the end of march is at 2 million, jon meacham. I cannot think of a more significant reason to use the defense production act than to get testing in a robust, uniform, organized, massproduced way for the American People. Absolutely. Its not really that complicated its a complicated task, but its not a complicated question. Id like to ask donny, because this is his business. You know new york so well. Two things, really. One is, who are you trusting as you watch whats unfolding, at least in the official information this sounds crimin criminalesque but the Public Information coming out of the white house . Secondly, who in trumps new york world, in the world of the grand havana room, the regency hotel, who could make this point to him in a convincing way, that he has to focus on the testing . It can be trump testing. Call it whatever he wants. Sure. Great question. First answer, i, like everybody else, listen to the doctors. Itd be interesting. One of the most rep r repry reprehensible things trump did is talking about his ratings. People arent tuning in to see you. I think numbers would be higher if there was a briefing without you. I wouldnt pound your chest about your ratings. Theyre not tuning in to see you. As far as who can get to him, the only people hell be listening to, and i wont mention specific names, are the ceos. If a ceo said, mr. President , i know you want to get it open. I know you want the economy to bounce back. Thats going to backfire on you. Everything is about you. The thing to do for your best interest, nobody faults you for playing it safe. It has to come from the businesspeople, the people who speak his language. Who talk about earnings per share. People who talk about bottom line. Hes on the phone with a dozen of them every day. He has his people. I wont mention names to get them in trouble or make them heros, depending on your viewpoint. The businesspeople have his heart and his mind. A lot of them are telling him its time to reopen the economy. Well see who he listens to. For now, lets bring in chief Foreign Correspondent Richard Engel. Richard is in london. Ri he had an hourlong special on msnbc about a coronavirus pandemic, and there is another one playing this weekend. Good morning. Tell us more about what youre looking into for this weekends special. Reporter so the First Special was about the virus itself. What is this coronavirus . It was pretty new at the time. Where is it going . How is it spreading . How bad could it be . This one looks at the societal impact. The closures, the Economic Impact. Because this isnt just a health crisis. This is really an everything crisis. It impacts how we live, how we interact with our families, stress. It is also revealing. Because, like any crisis, that reveals something about ourselves. Certain people rise to a challenge, and certain people crumble. It shows how societies are reacting. Certain countries have done tremendously well, pulled together. Other countries, and unfortunately United States is in the category, have been flailing somewhat. So this looks at the broader scope of the project. One of the main aspect it is the economy. Even after we eventually get over the first wave and have to deal with subsequent waves going forward, the Economic Impact of this going to be very long lasting. One of the things that i try to explore is how are people going to get through this . How are they going to get over this hump because we really dont know how long it is going to last. One of the people i spoke to was just an old friend of mine, a cabdriver here in london. We walked through this we went through this completely empty city. You know this city better than anyone i know, by far. What do you think about what youre seeing now . Its heartbreaking. I mean, generally, this is full up. Everywhere you look, theres people. In my lifetime, never, ever seen it like this. Reporter i met an old friend of mine, pete, a black cap taxi driver, london tour guide, and former pro boxer. Like millions of others, hes now facing an uncertain future. When was the last time you picked up a fare . Two weeks ago. The last time i drove as a cabdriver was two weeks ago. Reporter how long can you keep going if it stays like this . If it stays like this, three months. Most people have got nothing. I have three months, four months, then i have to dig into money i put away for my longterm. But the longterm is you dont want to think about it. Reporter as i was walking through central london, and youre probably experiencing this in manhattan, for the First Time Since ive known this city, you can hear your footsteps. You can hear the birds. There are no other sounds of cars. It feels like the city is lifeless, like people were just told to leave in one day and bo boarded up their shops. A lot of the shops have boards along the window fronts. It is unlike anything ive seen. When you go back and read accounts of the london blitz, it wasnt like this. Even during the blitz itself, people would go inside when the airraid sirens came. When the sirens ended, theyd go back in the streets. They would pick up the debris. They would get together. So there was more social life and more solidarity here during the blitz. Now, people are hiding from each other. The only time you really see people is when theyre scurrying out to go buy groceries. If you approach them, they try and avoid your path. Or you see them out of their windows, banging pots to celebrate the health services. Youre right, richard. In new york city, the silence is haunting. You wonder, where did all the people go . Theyre up in their apartments, listening to the orders theyve been given. Nbcs Richard Engel. We look forward to your report. On assignment with Richard Engel airs this sunday at 9 00 p. M. On msnbc. Mika . Donny deutsch, thank you for being on this morning. 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Weve worked to provide you with the financial strength, stability, and online tools you need. And now its no different. Because helping you through this crisis is what were made for. This piece is talking yeah . So what do you see . I see an unbelievable opportunity. I see bestinclass platforms and education. I see awardwinning service, and a trade desk full of experts, available to answer your toughest questions. And i see it with zero commissions on online trades. I like what youre seeing. Its beautiful, isnt it . Yeah. Td ameritrade now offers zero commissions on online trades. Yes. Yes. Yeah sure. Yes. Yes. Yeah, yeah no problem. Yes yes, yes a thousand times yes disover. Accepted at 99 of places in the u. S. Newsweek recently looked back at the promises the white house made in the month of march on coronavirus testing. It found that the administration promised as high as 27 million tests. Tracking analysts say only about 1 million total tests have been administered nationwide. Thats different than what the president even said yesterday. On march 10th, Vice President mike pence declared more than 4 million more tests would be available by the end of that week. Newsweek reports President Donald Trump increased this number just days later during remarks on march 13th. He promised 1. 4 million additional tests would be distributed by march 16th, which added up to more than 5 million available tests by the end of march. Another white house official would go on to proclaim, on march 21st, that 27 million test kits would be available to patients before the end of the month. Compare that to what the president said yesterday. Reporting today that we passed 2 million tests completed in the United States, first time. Most anywhere in the country. Its a milestone for our country. It is a milestone anywhere. Nobody has done anywhere close. Good god. No one has done as badly. Yes, i agree, if thats what youre saying. Senior policy fell low at the center for Global Development joins us. U. S. Foreign aid disaster director and coordinated the white house ebola response. Also with us, former u. S. Attorney and msnbc contributor oh, we have barbara mcquaid. She recently wrote a piece for usa today on how george w. Bush advised a plan for pandemics like the coronavirus. Trump is ignoring it. Well get to that. Jeremy, im curious, where are we . Do we have any idea, really, where the United States is in terms of testing, and what is the possibility well get to mass uniformed testing any time soon . Well, right now, were backsliding. The volume of testing has increased by about a third over the past few weeks. The volume of cases has increased by about 500 . Yeah, the absolute number of tests is going up, but were actually testing less and less relative to the growth in cases. That is not a recipe for getting out of this. Whats more, we still lack the kind of national Public Health infrastructure to trace the contacts of those cases and get people into quarantine in a targeted way, rather than the broad brushed National Quarantine were stuck in right now. Right. Youve got an initiative to help local leaders battle coronavirus. It seems to me, you know, the second and third, understanding the real time spread in your community. Slow and reduce transmission. Focus on highrisk groups. All these measures though, how can they really be carried out without testing . No, thats right. You have to be able to see where the problem is in order to target how you fight it. You know, we have to assume it is everywhere right now, which is why were in such we basically had to shut down the country. We need to get to a point, and it starts with testing, where we can target those quarantines, target support on the facilities that need that help. We need a workforce at a National Level to enable us to do that. The covid local tool is for community weve lost the sound there. We need federal leadership. Oh, sorry. Okay. Thats okay. We got most of it. Sorry about that. Ill try this again though. Before we do, back to barbara, im just curious, when you hear f fauci and birx, and we read where we are with testing, any sense of how far away the United States is on getting this right . Weeks, months . Its difficult to know, mika. Hold on, barbara. This was for jeremy. Jeremy, any sense from what were hearing from the experts as to how far we are away from getting this right . Months away. I mean, its been more than a month since we were promised that this would be fixed shortly. They began rolling out some of the new measures the end of february. Here we are, partway through april, and we are still nowhere close to where we need to be. The smart money is itll take a while. Wow. Barbara mcquaid, you say that bush devised a plan for pandemics like the coronavirus. You say trumps ignoring it. Is he flatly ignoring all the prep that was given to him . And was there a large amount of it . My understanding is that the Obama White House briefed the incoming administration. There was sort of a guidebook. I mean, this is not like one little line in a document that shows there was a warning. These were blaring, screaming headlines, saying prepare. Yes, mika. Number one, this particular threat was wellknown in 2017, during the transition. The Obama Administration participated in an exercise for the incoming Trump Administration. One of the hazards they addressed was a pandemic flu situation. The structure that was put in place, as i wrote about, in the Bush Administration is a detailed implementation strategy. How to go about responding when there is a pandemic. So even if the Trump Administration missed the Early Warning signals in december and january, they are still dragging their feet. There is a detailed plan about the things the government, the federal government, should doing. One of those is to surge resources. Rather than having states, on their own, bidding against each other for equipment, waiting desperately for tests, the federal government has the ability to step in and fund all of these things through private industry. I read yesterday that the state of washington doesnt have enough swabs to administer tests. It has the tests but not the swabs. That is where the federal government can come in and Order Companies to manufacture goods required and ship them to the places theyre needed most. Jeremy, its willie geist. So glad youre on this morning. Because, as mika mentioned, there was this pandemic playbook left by the Obama White House, and you are one of the authors of that playbook. So if we can look back to something that was ignored by the trump white house, at what would have happened under your playbook, the first time, as we learned yesterday, the intelligence agencies in november suspected there was going to be an outbreak in china. December, the 31st, when wuhan reported its first case. Under your playbook, which you left for the trump white house, what would have happened at those stages . Well, you begin to focus on exactly the things that were struggling to resolve now. One of the things the playbook specifically called out was the risk of a novel respiratory virus. That was considered a tierone risk in that playbook. Specifically called out viruses like sars and other coronaviruses as potential risks. So those sort of viruses, once there is evidence that they have significant transmission potential and are transmitting efficiently from human to human, which we basically knew by the end of january, you know, that would have triggered focus on the ppe supply chain. That would have focused on diagnostic testing, getting the Hospital System ready, all of these challenges that the government is now scrambling to try to get on top of. That should have begun late january, per that guidance. Barbara, as jeremy has pointed out, that didnt mean the president had to come out in january with his hair on fire in front of the country and oval office and say, there is a pandemic coming. Everybody to your bunkers. He could have started the movement of ventilators, the movement of protective equipment into hospitals, and used the levers of the power in the federal government to get us better prepared than we were two months later when it finally began. Yeah. As jeremy said, the playbook has a whole chart of if this then that of actions that could be taken to protect the country, that the president failed to take then, and continues to drag his feet on. You know, we can look back and see all the mistakes he made back in january, which is true. The fact that he still is not acting is one of the things that is most troubling. As you mentioned, he didnt have to come out with his hair on fire. There is also a communication strategy that a president or administration is supposed to use. That strategy is be first, be right, be credible, show empathy, promote action, and show respect. The Trump Administration, i think, is ofer six or all of those things. There is a way to project a vision, a strategy, and hope. I think weve seen that from some of the governors in states who have projected that kind of calm leadership, with a decisive plan, giving people a strategy about what to do. Also hope and optimism for a way out. President trump, i think, provides the opposite when he comes out and ridicules people, disrespects people, talks only about himself and his ratings and other kinds of things. I think it leaves people bewildered about where this is all going to end. So one hopes there are people, perhaps below him in government, who are taking that kind of Decisive Action necessary to get us the aresources we need. I havent seen it yet. I havent seen it either. Barbara and jeremy, thank you, both, for being with us. On the same day, the Labor Department reported figures showing 10 of americans are out of work. Heres what National Economic council director, larry kudlow, had to say. For a whole bunch of years, you can see it in the labor numbers, people didnt want to work. I think, if i may, its cool to work. Your neighbor, your brotherinlaw, you know, the guy down the street, working has become cool again. If you looked, one of my favorites was the millenials, the youngsters. Their participation rates and job increases were phenomenal before this virus came in. You know me, i also think work is a virtue. It is a godly virtue, as well. I believe its been cool to work, and people are going to want to come back. Im absolutely speechless. Lets bring in nbc news Senior Business correspondent and msnbc anchor stephanie rhule. What the heck was he saying . Was he sober, i ask with deep hones honesty. I mean it, was he okay . Was he okay . I dont know. You know him. I dont know if he is okay. Im it is unclear to me if he is the arbiter of cool. Mika, this isnt about whether people want to go back to work or not, or if this administration when they say, were open for business. We want to get back out there, that is a sentiment. Remember, the president didnt send everyone home. The first to make these decisions were businesses. It was adam silver and the nba who put Health Experts in charge and said, this isnt safe. Whats really important to remember right now, when the president is saying, why dont people want to go back to work. Why are democrats blocking this, thats not what it is, mika. This is a health crisis. What was kudlow the president has not articulated what was larry kudlow insinuating there, that people are lazy, they dont want to work . I mean, i just no, he want to understand the context. No. What hes talking about is this pent up demand, that everybody wants to go back to work because it is cool. Its important. People used to not want to work. Thats not the case. Mika, people absolutely want to go back to work. Businesses want to send their employees back to work. Mika, this is not a snow day. Were not waiting for the president to say, the numbers are down. Its all clear. Lets go back out there. The numbers are down because were staying home. We all want to go back to work, and we will be able to go back to work safely when theres mass testing, and when Public Health officials look at all these cities and states and say, this is what we need to do to make it safe. Mika, if we suddenly rush back out to work because its cool, and the president wants us to, and theres not Safety Measures put in place, youre going to see the numbers spike again. That is going to hurt us from a Health Perspective and economically. What theyre doing is putting on a show that has no actual policy behind it. Much like this idea, lets create an Economic Task force. Let me know who is going to be on it. Is it wilbur ross . Remember, it was january when we looked at how this was affecting china. He said, this is going to create jobs in america. Last i checked, we put 17 Million People on unemployment. Gene robinson has a question. Yeah. Stephanie, youre absolutely right, that it was businesses, starting with adam silver, but also the businesses in Silicon Valley and businesses across the country, that first recognized, this is not safe. We cant have employees in and have our customers in. We have to close. Everybody work from home. Youre right that theyre not going to come back until they believe it is safe. So who is going to get that message across to the president . Who among the Business Leaders has his ear, to the point where they can sort of get it through that there has to be testing, there has to be we have to know where the virus is . We have to know its safe in order to get people back. If no one can do that, will businesses have to do their own testing . Okay. Gene, look how this is going to play out. The president is going to say, look, i told everybody, go back to business. Thats going to fall on governors. Governors and mayors, figure out, what do we need to do to make my city safe . What is new york city going to need to do to the subway system . What is the Health Department going to do when they have to put different regulations on restaurants thats going to possibly have to take tables and chairs out . You know, restaurants are under 50 occupancy, theyll have to go out of business. What the president is doing is saying, im your business guy. Get out there and get back to work. But he doesnt have to do the heavy lift. Hes not going to be giving the money, or he hasnt yet, to those states to enable them to. Right . Look whats happening with the ppp loan, the Small Business loan. The spirit of this loan is to help employers stay in business, keep everyone on payroll. Moments ago, youve got the president complaining that its democrats who dont want to put Small Business back no worto wo. Yesterday, the democrats said, hold on a second. Before we put more money in the program, take a look at what happens we need what else we do. And youve talked about the rollout, and its been difficult. People arent getting the money. It is sbomewhat understandable. We have 30 million Small Businesses in this country. What they havent done is said, how do we figure out how to get this money to the people and businesses that need it most . You know Small Business. You know what it is like for restaurants. Any business that is shut down right now, they have zero income. Yet, the way this loan program works, theres no prioritization for them. Theyre not getting money first. The way this works, you have to have 100 payroll. You have to have everybody employed. Do you know how hard that is when you have no idea when youre going to reopen . Instead, anybody with less than 500 people gets to apply. Lets say im a famous person with a staff. Im a writer. Suddenly, im not going to be able to do speaking gigs because theres no public events. I can apply for this. So can hedgefunds, law firms, or any Small Business. For those businesses, i promise you, theyve got accountants and tax lawyers who are getting them first in line to get the loans. Instead, what were not doing yet, is figuring out, how do we get this money to people who are literally at zero revenue and shut down . Those are the businesses, the heart and soul of this country, were going to lose, that wont come back. Steph, its willie. Youve been all over this ppp program and doing such a good job of tracking who is getting it, who is not getting it, who should be getting it, who should not be getting it. Is the money getting into the hands it needs to be into . A week ago, i had Midsized Bank guys telling me, we dont know the rules of this thing. We want to give out the loans and help all our customers, but we dont know how were supposed to do it. There are no guidelines from the feds. They want to get the money into the hands of customers, but they hadnt been able to do it. Is that little restaurant in new jersey, is that little diner, dry klein cleaner, all the plact desperately need it to stay in business, are they getting the money . Not yet. Just think about this, the blame is getting put on the banks right now. Those Midsized Bankers that youre talking about, that are saying, man, i want to help. I dont know the rules. The banks are somewhat holding this up because they dont want to be left holding the bag. Theyre the ones extending the loans, and they need to make sure that, months from now, the Treasury Department pays them back. Regulators, two years from now, dont say, hold on a second. Theres fraud here. Remember, this is free money. These are forgivable loans. They need to be sure every possible person out there applying is legit. The banks are saying to me privately, they dont get to just give a loan to a Small Business that doesnt already bank with them. The way the rules are working, they have to know the customers. The very sad truth is, many of our smallest businesses are minorityowned businesses in the south that dont have accounts with chase or bank america. Cant get in there yet. It is one of the reasons that kro Congress Wants to expand this to be for more businesses. Its not done yet, willie. For those businesses, for those restaurants and gyms, every single day counts. Stephanie ruhle, thank you very much. Well be handing off coverage to you at 9 00 here on msnbc. Lets hone in on something playing out in florida. Hundreds of people line up in packed crowds for unemployment assistance. Want to bring in state attorney for Palm Beach County, dave aronberg. Youve been looking into this. This is just a mess. First of all, it appears to be a danger, to have these people lining up. Yeah. Very true, mika. You know, the governor was criticized during spring break for keeping the beaches open. He was likened to the mayor in the movie jaws for refusing to close the beaches. This is the latest florida debacle. You have an unemployment system that is the worst in the country, that has the most meager benefits, that continually crashes when people try to apply. People wake up in the middle of the night to apply, and itll still crash. Whats why you have lines of people. Theyre told to snail mail things in to tallahassee, in the year 2020 in a pandemic. The governor is saying that the real problem is the legislature created the system, and the previous governor did, as as well, but make no mistake, this system was designed to fail. It was designed to lower the number of benefits and lower the number of applicants so florida could brag about lowered Unemployment Rate after the Great Recession and lower the unemployment taxes. Hence the long lines and national embarrassment. Hearing stephanie talking about people not getting checks, sma sma that Small Businesses, a lot are locked out when the checks do come. I want to jump to voting by mail, dave. President trump said it was ripe for fraud even to the military does it and he does it himself. Have you seen cases of absentee ballot fraud . Is this a big issue that the president is right on the money on . You know, mika, the issue of voting fraud is a red herring. It is rare. Thefortable enough to vote by mail because he obviously trusted the system in Palm Beach County. You know what is not a red herring . It is voter suppression. Thats what you saw in milwaukee this week. Thats what you see in gerrymandering. In florida the voters passed around four which allowed most ex felons to be able to regain Voting Rights but they thos it would help democrats so they passed a statute to undermine it. Know the measure is in the courts and 1. 4 million floridian it are waiting because their Voting Rights are at stake. So voting fraud as we saw with the president s own commission on voter fraud, which found no widespread voter fraud and had to be disbanded, voter fraud is rare. Voter suppression is preel and is real and it takes many forms. Thank you very much. Willie. Joining us dnc chairman, tom perez. Thank you for being with us. Lets pick up on the conversation about voting by mail. The president of the United States has several times now voiced concern there is corruption in voter mail, that there is fraud in mailin voting. Obviously he vote it himself last month. Do you have any concerns that if we have to go to larger scale mail voting in the fall that there might be corruption . I have no concerns whatsoever, willie. And your previous person was absolutely right, correct. Here is the deal. You look at washington state, you look at oregon, you look at california, theres all sorts of votebymail states. Thats been challenged and reviewed. It has shown that there is no real issue of voter fraud, period, end of story. The reality, willie, is this. This president has only two pathways to success this november. Number one, he has to get an evernarrowing base, every vote out of that evernarrowing base. Number two, he has to suppress the vote. What we saw this week in wisconsin was beyond unconscionable, putting peoples lives at risk so they could have an election. There were five Voting Centers in the city of milwaukee, which is why you had twohour delays, people putting themselves in harms way. We need in the next stimulus bill to make sure that theres Additional Resources for states so that there is a choice for voters this november. They can vote by mail. There are some really important principles, willie, making sure that as long as it is postmarked by election day it is okay. Number two, making sure that there is a stamp with it so it doesnt cost the voter anything. Making sure that we dont allow states to use the socalled signature matching requirements to say that a number of ballots will not be allowed. We can do vote by mail. We are already doing it across the country, and to state otherwise is just absolutely a load of you know what. And you can add in the state of utah which typically votes republican which has been voting by mail for sometime now as well. Mr. Chairman, let me ask you about the developments this week. Bernie sanders, of course, suspending his president ial campaign, saying he did not see a path forward to the nomination. What is your message to some of his supporters, his faithful supporters, people who voted for him in necessary primaries who say joe biden does not share my values, hes not progressive enough. I cant show up at the polls to vote for him. We heard some of that bubbling up. I suspect senator sanders will come out and say it is too important, we cant afford to let donald trump stay in the white house four more years, you should get behind the nominee. What is your message to those supporters of Bernie Sanders . Were going to work hard to earn your vote. Senator sanders, what he has stood for and what he has fought for throughout his career is an america that works for irch, making sure nobody is left behind. Thats why i have so much respect for him and i know the Vice President does as well. I will tell you and i will tell every voter this, what unites us as a party far exceeds what our differences are. Six weeks ago we had eight candidates in the race and now we have a presumptive nominee. You know what . We are coming together as a party as never seen before. We are coming together because we have an existential threat in donald trump. Look at your show. Look at the utter incompetence of this president. He is putting lives at risk. He is putting livelihoods at risk. This is why i am confident. We will work for every vote, the Vice President will work for every vote. We are building a Broad Coalition across this country, and we will take that coalition so that we can elect joe biden and restore confidence, dignity, character and accomplishment to this white house and restore our stature in the world. Quickly before i et ylet you mr. Chairman, are you expecting there to be a Democratic National convention come august . You postponed it a month but as you look at the reality of where we are and what doctors are saying, can you have thousands of people congregating at one place in august . We are looking forward to being in milwaukee in august. We will put on the most exciting convention, the most muscular convention as possible. At the same time we will make sure it is safe and sound. We will not put our Public Health heads in the sand, unlike this president every single day. We will make sure it is safe for everyone. Having five extra weeks enables us to prepare better and to make sure that we can allow the Vice President to put his best foot forward, to put our values forward. We will also put safety first. Thats job one. We can all hope as a country it is safe enough by august for everyone, whatever their party, to get together. Dnc chairman tom perez. Thank you for your time. We appreciate it. Mika. Still ahead, Governor Andrew Cuomo will be our guest as new yorks daily death toll from the coronavirus reaches a Third Straight record high. You are watching morning joe. We are back in 90 seconds. What we were predicting with the increase and the real adherence to the physical separation, the guidelines that the Vice President talks about, the physical separation, at the same time as were seeing the increase in deaths were seeing rather dramatic decrease in the need for hospitalization. Like i think yesterday it was Something Like 200 new hospitalizations, and it has been as high as 1,400 at any given time. So that is going in the right direction. I say that and i always remind myself when i say that, that means that what we are doing is working. Therefore, we need to continue to do it. I get questions a lot, dr. Birx and i, about these numbers, the projections that went from 100,000, 200,000, now down to 60,000. Thats a sign that when, as i keep saying, when you take the data you have and you reinsert it into the model, the model modified. Data is real. Model is hypothesis. Okay. Thats what you have to do. Thats what i think we are seeing. Dr. Anthony fauci at yesterdays White House Briefing explaining a revised projection for deaths in the u. S. From the coronavirus that is dramatically lower than the previous estimate. Joe. It really is. The doctors, as the wall street journal editorialized, as a lot of republicans are now starting to talk about, the doctors should be allowed to speak to the American People. The doctors should be allowed to speak to americans who are concerned, Senior Citizens who know theyre not getting good information when the president blusters, who understands he has gotten this wrong from the very beginning, who understand that scientists, doctors, those are the people that not that need to speak, not donald trump who has been wrong from the very beginning, not his hench men in the media. You have hench men in the media attacking dr. Fauci, claiming he is some Hillary Clinton plant. Oh, my gosh. It is outrageous. Actually, it is stupid. It is stupid and also there are deadly consequences to that kind of talk. We should know already because weve been there before. These liars in the trump media who have been down playing this from the very beginning, who made sure that americans were illprepared, who made sure that the president s lies were bolstered, you know, i was looking, willie i saw a headline a headline thats hard to read from the l. A. Times this morning that the u. S. Death toll topped 16,000 from the coronavirus. Thats incredible. This is, again, more people that died 9 11 plus a 20year war in savings plus the tragedy in iraq. Add it all up, more americans have died from this than all of those wars, and this is what donald trump said back february 26 february 26th. When you have 15 people and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be close to zero, thats a pretty good job that weve done. 15 people, pretty soon it will be close to zero. Weve done a pretty good job. Throughout february he kept talking about how in april we were going to have warm weather and it was all going to magically go away. Well, now we are in april and almost 1,800 died yesterday of coronavirus, of a pandemic that he said would magically go away in april. And yet as the wall street journal and actually other conservatives are starting to say, the president is hurting his cause because, well, almost 1,800 americans are dying in a day. Hes talking about his tv ratings. Talk about being ill equipped, not just to be president , not just to be a leader in the middle of a pandemic, but ill equipped to be a leader of anything. You are talking about your ratings when more people, 1,800 people are dying in a single day. It is actually it has gotten too much even for republicans and even for the wall street journal editorial page to handle anymore, willie. Yeah, and to put it in terms he might actually listen to and might draw his attention, his Approval Rating has dropped again. Remember, it surged in materially stages of this, got him above 50 . He is back down to where he was as people watch this show every single day. You are right, we see that contrast again yesterday where dr. Fauci gets up in real talk, describes the numbers, describes what is happening and says, the death toll may be lower, that is great news and we have gotten there because of social distancing, because of these difficult policies we have put in place we all have lived by and adhered to, and the president according to the Washington Post is talking about opening the economy because he heard the death toll would be lower than in the original reports that said between 100,000 and 240,000. He is saying by the end of this month or by may 1st it is time to open large parts of the economy again, not making the connection that the doctors and the scientists and the Public Health officials make between the number being lowered and these policies working. If you take the policies away, they say the numbers will go up again. As you say, the president yesterday in the middle of this, in a day where 800 new yorkers died in the city where he was born and lived for most of his life, saying his ratings at these news briefings are through the roof, citing a New York Times article that compared his ratings to those of the bachelor finale. Thats what he was tweeting about yesterday. All of the trump talking heads that are saying we should reopen the economy now, that fauci that it is all a hoax. Hey, rush limbaugh, why dont you go to your local publix and bag groceries. If you think it is such a great idea help out. If you think it is such great idea to reopen the economy, you can lead by example by going to a Grocery Store and bagging groceries. You can do it today. Sure. You can do it today. And there are other people at other news outlets that say one thing on the air and yet do something completely different off the air regarding the economy. Saying, oh wait, you know what . If you think the economy should be opened up, then why dont you go out and go out unprotected without a mask, do whatever you think we should do, and you go out and bag groceries or go out and pump gas. You know, i know and you know youre not going to do that. You are just purposefully trying to amp your ratings by attacking doctors like dr. Fauci, by attacking science, and you think it will help with your ratings and youre telling americans to go out and do things that will kill them, that will kill their loved ones, that will kill Senior Citizens, and you are doing it for ratings. But you wont do it yourself. So if you are not willing to go out and work in an office with hundreds of people around you, dont tell other people to do that because it is just it is not only hypocrisy, it is also deadly advice. By the way, after all that you have said from the beginning like being a booster for the president , lying about this pandemic when he said we only have one person, it is from china, nothing to worry about on februa february 22nd. When he said, oh, we only have 11 people, soon it will be down to zero. It is going to go away magically in april. Oh, you know, other than that cruise ship we are doing great, we only have a few people, im not worried at all. You were going along with the president during that time, giving Senior Citizens bad advice. Giving the children deadly advice. Of Senior Citizens bad advice. Giving the grandchildren of Senior Citizens bad advice. Giving false security that ended up, yes, we can say this, that ended up killing thousands of people who didnt get the message soon enough. So maybe you should just shut up right now and let the doctors and let the scientists and let the medical experts do everything they can do to save the lives of Senior Citizens. This is i am talking about republican Senior Citizens. I am talking about saving the lives of democratic Senior Citizens. I am talking about saving the lives of conservative Senior Citizens. I am actually talking about saving the lives of the very people who make up the heart of your audience. You need to shut up and stop talking about rushing straight into the economy because you are going to kill more people. Still ahead on morning joe, new york Governor Andrew Cuomo joins the discuss. Plus, from connecticut senator chris murphy, he is pushing new legislation to protect government watchdogs from the kind of purge just carried ourt by the president. He will explain that just ahead on morning joe. I just love hitting the open road and telling people that Liberty Mutual customizes your insurance, so you only pay for what you need [squawks] only pay for what you need. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. But when allergies and congestion strike, take allegrad. 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You heard dr. Fauci say that what were doing is working. We, the americans. And that we need to continue to do it. But at the same time the Trump Administration is now reportedly pushing to reopen much of the country by next month, which is raising concerns among both medical experts and economists. People familiar with the discussions tell the Washington Post that behind closed doors President Trump has been looking for a strategy to resume Business Activity by may 1st. You can see it in the tweets of some folks on fox news who parrot what he says. According to the post, in phone calls with outside advisers trump has even floated trying to reopen much of the country before the end of this month when the current federal recommendations to avoid social gatherings and work from home expire. Here is what the president said during yesterdays briefing. Well, i think we can say we have to be on the down side of that slope and heading to a very strong direction that this thing is gone. We can do it in phases. We can go to some areas which you know, some areas are much less infected than others, but it would be nice to be able to open with a big bang and open up our country, or certainly most of our country, and i think we will do that soon. You look at what is happening. I would say were ahead of schedule. Now, you hate to say it too loudly because all of a sudden things dont happen. But i think we will be sooner rather than later. Reporter how could the administration discuss the possibility of reopening the country when the nation doesnt have an adequate nationwide testing system for the virus. Dont you need a nationwide testing system for the virus before you no. We have a great testing system. We have right now the best testing system in the world. But there are certain sections in the country that are in phenomenal shape already. Other sections are coming on line. Other sections are going down. Reporter dont you need that, mr. President , to make sure people are safe going back to work . You dont want to send people back to the workplace we want to have it and were going to see if we have it. Do we need it . No. Is it a nice thing to do . Yes. We are talking about 325 Million People and thats not going to happen, as you can imagine. It would never happen with anyone else either. Other countries do it but theyre doing it in limited form. We probably will be the leader of the pack. I mean theres so much thats just wrong in what the president said, so much lying there. Were not doing better than anybody else. If you look at per person, per senior, per patient, we are doing worse than so many countries, willie, in the world. This is something that the Trump Administrations botched from the very beginning and people have been saying, medical experts have been saying, everybody that really knows what is going on has been saying you need to have extensive testing. You know, the hypocrisy of donald trump trying to push everybody back into the workforce without having adequate testing, i talked about his home county of Palm Beach County. You still really cant maybe 1,000, 2,000 tests now a day in a county of 1. 4 Million People. Senior citizens who need to know whether they have covid19 in Palm Beach County and across the state of florida, in wisconsin, in pennsylvania. They cant really get the tests the way they need them. Here you have the president who is the biggest germophobe. He who gets a stack, and as has, a stack of hand sanitizers and wipes down before he even either in his own restaurants, trying to push people back into the workforce early without even knowing whether theyre going to be working with people who are infected or not. Again, if he gets the testing, then we can know with certainly who has covid19 and who doesnt, and those who dont have covid19 can go in to work. But he wont do that. Weve been begging him to do that on this show for a long time. The scientists have been begging him to do it. He just wont get the testing necessary to allow the economy to open back up safely. Yeah, and he talks about it like a luxury. He said, would it be nice . Yeah, but he doesnt think it is necessary. There isnt a Public Health official weve had on the last two months who hasnt led with testing. We cant get our arms around this unless we know who has it. We cant send people back to work unless we know who has it. Youre right to point out, yes, as a raw number, about 2 million tests weve done more than anybody else, but were in a country of 325 Million People. Per capita were not even close. The reality is that it is a long road to testing everybody that needs to be tested. Thats a difficult thing to tell the American People this will go on longer. As he sees his Approval Ratings slip, as he sees the unemployment numbers come in again, he knows it is in a bad direction and heading to get worse. He believes starting the economy again it will turn it around when a Public Health official might tell you the opposite. Coming up on morning joe, a start willing statistic. As of today new york has more confirmed cases of the coronavirus than the next eight highest states combined. We will talk to congressman tom swazi from hard hit long island. Morning joe is back in a moment. At papa johns, we want you to know that from our 450degree oven, to box, to you, its our policy that your pizza is never touched once it comes out of the oven. And were taking extra steps, like no contact delivery, to ensure it. No. Uh uh, no way. Come on. No. No. N. Ni ni, no no only discover has no annual fee on any card. Hold on one second. Sure. Okay. Okay safe drivers save 40 guys guys check it out. Safe drivers save 40 safe drivers save 40 safe drivers save 40 thats safe drivers save 40 . It is, thats safe drivers save 40 . Hes right there. Its him hes here. Hes right here. Hi hi. Hey thats totally him. Its him thats totally the guy. Safe drivers do save 40 . Click or call for a quote today. Amid all of the sickness and death there have been scores of stories of people extending a hand to help others, and well try not to forget those as well. 16yearold pilotintraining t. J. Kim may not have a drivers lies ebbs but it hasnt stopped him from helping frontline workers. Kim is using his training flights to deliver critically needed masks, gloves and gowns to rural virginia hospitals, a plan he calls operation sos. In cincinnati another teen was inspired to do something to help during this crisis. Tripp wright developed a free grocery and Prescription Delivery Service for Senior Citizens. In the two weeks since its launch, wright has recruited 70 volunteers and fulfilled 30 orders and those numbers are expected to grow. Residents of a Senior Living facility in texas had an extra special guest at their virtual bingo. We got an i24. I24. I24. Oh richard waving the hammer up high. We got charles king with the i pad up high. We have two winners. Look at this, look at the board. Actor mathew mcconaughey, a texas native, surprised the residents by hosting a round of bingo with a little help from his family. Super cute. Willie. We needed some mcconaughey right now. Thats great. The latest jobless claims report, which we talked about yesterday, puts 10 of the total American Workforce out of work. Here is the real life impact of those numbers. 10,000 people showed up to the San Antonio Food Bank just yesterday. This marked the largest single day distribution ever for the food bank. Its ceo eric cooper telling the san Antonio Expressnews quote, we have never executed on as large a demand as we are now and that scene is playing out across the country. Cars began filing into the parking lot as early as 6 00 p. M. The day before in preparation for the 10 00 a. M. Opening. The food bank had 6,000 people register online, but at least 4,000 people more showed up. Thursdays event was the fourth distribution put on by the food bank since march 31st where they have fed more than 15,000 households. Lets bring in the ceo of the robin hood foundation, bestselling author and United States Army Combat Veteran wes moore. Great to see you. Great to see you, too. We are seeing the scenes where you do the great work with robin hood, we are seeing the viral video of cars lined up for miles outside of a pittsburgh food bank. What are the scenes look like from where you are sitting because are poor people because the focus is elsewhere, are poor people getting the food and support they need in this time . We are watching an extraordinary kind of human kindness and human generosity that is showing themselves. Some of the examples you are talking about here, people are stepping up in remarkable ways. We are also watching a need that was there and present before that has now been completely exacerbated. You know, when you are watching the fact that we, you know, are potentially going to have by the end of april over 20 Million People who are unemployed inside of this area, when you are looking at the fact that in the Restaurant Industry alone, many of whom are composed by people who are low wage, low income workers, that 3 million alone already find themselves unemployed, the need has absolutely exploded. When you are watching that exploding need, thats then taking place with now a pullback of many of the social services and resources that are taking place. Over half of the food pantries alone in new york city are now shutdown and shuttered. We are watching a situation where people who are already in an incredibly vulnerable situation find theses in even more vulnerable situations. Wes, i asked about poor people because you all at robin hood, your mission is to fight poverty and you have done it so well over the years. In new york city, theyre serving at Public Schools three meals a day to new York City School kids and theyve expanded that, actually adults can come. So the government there, the municipal government doing what it can. But, wes, what more can be done from the federal level, from the state level and in the city of new york and cities across the country to get food and support into the hands of poor people . Well, i think one thing that the government needs to do is not ignore the data. You know, what were seeing right now in the data when we are watching the fact that, you know, when you look at things like closing schools, closing schools doesnt just have an impact because it is about the kids cant learn in schools, theyre not learning, the new York City Public School system, the Public School system around the country, thats also the largest food supplier for children inside the country. It is also the largest Child Care Provider inside the country. Youre watching into a decision like that, it will have cascading impacts. The most important thing the government can do is look at the data and wrestle with it. Look at the fact even if you look at things like the c. A. R. E. S. Act which was an important first step, how many people were left out of the c. A. R. E. S. Act . How many people were left out when you look at the fact all of the Unemployment Insurance that was extended, it does not go to people who are undocumented . Also, when you think about things like the individual emergency cash assistance, it doesnt go to people who are undocumented. It doesnt go to people who arent paying taxes because, you know, that extension to them only essentially goes into essentially advance of a federal tax cut. These are things that the government has to be able to look at the data, the disaggregation and know where the need is most and target that need. Wes, stay with us. In a moment we will speak live with new york Governor Andrew Cuomo as new york remains the epicenter of this pandemic in the entire country. Out on long island, new york, the death toll numbers continue to climb. We are very much in the thick of this, said one local official. As the number of confirmed cases there approach 35,000. Joining us now, vice chair of the congressional problem solvers caulkes, he represents new yorks third Congressional District covering most of long islands north shore. Also with us, emergency medicine chair at Huntington Hospital on long island, dr. Leonardo ju juartes. Can you tell us what youre seeing in the emergency room . Basically the same thing as in the last three weeks, sick patients coming in, respiratory diseases, fever, not able to manage at home any longer and coming in, needing more definitive care at this point. There are certain communities that have been hard hit here. The Africanamerican Community and Latino Community especially over the last several days have been coming in. Younger patients, sicker patients needing more medical care. I want to ask you more about the younger patients in just a moment, but tom swazzi, tell us what your district needs. How is it doing . What does it need . We need people to keep on doing what theyre doing. We need people to continue to stay at home and recognize even though we hear about a possible plateau in this region, that will only happen if people keep on with their social distancing. We need people to keep on doing what theyre doing as far as giving the moral support to the people out there every day, our Health Care Workers as well as people working in supermarkets and postal workers and delivery workers. We need people to continue everything theyve been doing to this point and we need to keep on fighting every single day to make sure we have the proper supplies whether it is masks or grounds or other ppe. Right now i think were in good shape. I speak to hospital administrators on a regular basis. I get requests from can you help us get more beds from the state or the federal government. I had a gruesome request a couple of days ago, can you help us get more body bags. So it is a lot of people just working together to address what we all share in common. I mean you will hear the governor talk about the fact that new york is the epicenter of this problem in the country. One of the things im working on with my colleagues in new york, is we need to bring more money to new york from the federal government, not only for the state but for hospitals as well. It cant be formulated based on population. New york state faces a large majority of the problems, the cases, diagnosed cases in america. 40 of the cases in america are here in new york state. So we need to have that kind of funding from the federal government in the next round of funding that we do as well as making sure the money thats been authorized already for our hospitals is distributed to the hospitals where they lower the number facing the most crisis. It cant be based upon population. It cant be based upon 2018 or 2019 medicare data. It has to be based upon the number of diagnosed cases. Im sure the governor will make a better case than i wi will. But we need our fellow americans throughout the country going through this difficult time, and we will do everything we can to help you, but right now new york state is the epicenter and we need your help as much as possible. Dr. Huertes, it is willie geist. We appreciate your time this morning. I know your staff has been impacted directly, a registered nurse died last week. We extend our condolences of coronavirus to you and your team there. Im interested in the kind of patients as well that you are seeing. When this all began, the conventional wisdom was you were okay with coronavirus unless you were older, had an underlying condition. It was viewed as almost a problem for seniors, but as weve gone along in the last couple of weeks we have come to realize younger people are getting sick, younger people are in fact dying. What kind of patients are you seeing at your hospital . Well, the shift initially was the elderly population, but as the disease has progressed, especially in certain communities, we had a 31yearold gentleman who died in our er last week. We had a 19yearold admitted on monday who actually who previously had no medical conditions at all. So these communities, especially nose who have socioeconomic disadvantages, more people at home, more people working on the frontline whether it be Grocery Stores or pharmacies or taking care of children, these people have more risk factors and theyre coming in sicker. A lot of these people dont have access to medical care. Some people are afraid when it comes to immigration status and coming into the hospital. So all of these patients lead to sicker all of these conditions lead to sicker patients presenting to our emergency departments. Dr. Leonardo huertas, thank you very much. Thomasman tom suozzi, thank you as well. Joining us now we have Governor Andrew Cuomo of new york. Governor cuomo, thank you very much for being on this morning. We see some of the challenges through the pictures that are coming out of bodies and trying to figure out how to accommodate them, the request for body bags that we are hearing from all over the place. What would you say as were looking straight down the barrel of the height of this is the biggest challenge right now . Good morning. Good to be with you, mika. Look, this is a horrendous situation, right. I lived through 9 11 in new york. The country lived through 9 11. I thought that would be the tragedy of my lifetime. Right, me too. And this turns out, weve lost multiple of people here. So it is horrendous. What people have to understand is, yes, you will see a, quote, unquote, flattening of the curve, right. Fewer new hospitalizations, which is a function of what we are doing, mika. None of this is preordained. I will tell you the infection rate in two days if you tell me what the behavior of people is today. So our compliance has worked. Our closedown has worked. That has dropped the number of new hospitalizations and we hope that continues, and our behavior will determine that. The horrendous news is the number of deaths goes up because these are people who were hospitalized two weeks ago, who werent treated successfully, who wound up on a ventilator. The longer you are on a ventilator the worse it is, and theyre now passing. So you will see the death toll going up at the same time the hospitalization rate of new people is going down. So, Governor Cuomo, i will say it so you dont have to. When we listen to the president s Daily Briefing we have to work really hard to separate fact from fiction. One thing he often talks about is opening up the country. Theres this may 1st date being tossed around, i will say it so you dont have to. Not possible. Not scientifically possible. There will be a resurgence. Theres not Testing Available widespread enough to contain this and most scientists will claim you are looking down the barrel of 18 months. I ask you, how with what americans are being asked to do, with what new yorkers are being asked to do, how can this country sustain this economically and emotionally . Well, thats a good question. Thats the question. You do what you have to do, mika, right. We are all living this, we are all trying to rationalize it. The good news is i have two of my daughters who are with me and we talk about this every night. I try to put it in an historic perspective. Yes, this is going to be the challenge of, i hope, their lifetime. I hope my lifetime. I dont want to go through this again. But generations have gone through worse, right . You look at passed world wars, you look at vietnam, world war ii, what people endured, but this is going to be a horrendous transformational period for us. In terms of when we get back, i dont think we ever get back to normal. I think this is one yeah. Of the new normals now in Public Health, like we go through the environment, like weve gone through the economy. It is a new normal. It is going to depend on what we do. This is why it is such an important period for government and a political discussion. Nothing is precharted here. It is all a function of what we do. How good are we at getting this testing up . Are we better than weve been in the passed . Is it going to take us months to come to scale on Rapid Testing . Thats the only way to start to get people back to work. You have to have millions and millions of tests frankly faster and better than we have done to date. Yes. How will we prepare in the future if were not expecting a second wave or a mutation of this virus, then we have learn nothing. As congressman suozzi said, what does the federal government do and what do they pass . If they pass another piece of legislation through that senate that is politically biassed, that is trying to help republican states when and not taking into consideration where the impact really is like in new york and california and michigan, then shame on all of them. So it is purely a function of what we do and how womell we do it. Governor cuomo, it is willie geist. Good to have you on this morning. Hi, willie. As you mentioned, the 2. 2 trillion stimulus package passed through congress presumably to help places like new york city and new york state, the center of the crisis. You seemed to suggest that republicans in the senate are more interested in helping red states than blue states. What did you mean by that . When you look at the package and you look at the distribution, the senate almost treats it like a pork barrel bill. I get the number of politics that representatives want to take care of thai district, their state, i get it. Thats not what this is. You know where you know the states and the cities where youve had a higher level of distress. You can look at the map. You see where the cases are. You see the infection rate. This was not supposed to be grab bag politics, everybody take care of their home state. This was posed to be help the places that had the greatest pain, where you have the most cases, where you have the most cost. The bill that theyve passed shorted new york state, which on any analysis has more cases, more costs, more infection, more devastation and more loss, and the only discussion is, well, politically on the senate this is what we needed to do. Im tired of that, and so are the American People by the way. This is no place to play politics. The country is done with it. Not at this time, not in this place. That what federal government does through legislation, through executitesting and star rules, that will make all of the difference for us long term. So, governor, youve said a couple of weeks ago you dont like playing catchup, and unfortunately thats what you and other governors across the country had to do to try to rebound from a slow start here. Dr. Thomas fredun who ran the cdc under the Obama Administration, he said if new york state started the measures we have now a couple of weeks earlier the cases would have been between 50 and 80 lower than were seeing right now. I know you didnt have the information that you have today two months ago, but in hindsight do you wish you had started earlier in basically shutting down the state . Yeah, look, what that leaves out is would people have followed the policies, right. All of the projection models were wrong here, willie. All of them. We had a projection model from mackenzie that said 110,000 beds we would need. We had Columbia University saying 170,000 beds. All of the production models were wrong because at the variable was do you do closedown and do people listen to the closedown. Thats the question. I can say, okay, everything is closed down and people say, thats nice, youre being over dramatic, youre political, i dont believe it, it is not necessary, im not going to comply with it. It is not as easy as saying from a scientists point of view, well, you just declare it and it will be so, right. You left it to the states. Were not dictators. You need the body politic to believe you are correct. Also, when we start to play the if i have few oh, lost Governor Cuomo there. A lot of important points to keep in mind here. Testing, testing, testing. The experts that weve had on the show today and hearing from leaders like cuomo and suozzi, the testing is months and months away. A vaccine is 18 months away. Without testing or a vaccine, america cannot reopen. It is not possible. The science will tell you that the virus will come back and you will have to shut down. Governor cuomo, i wanted to ask you about that. I mean from your estimate and everything that youve learned during this crisis, without mass testing or a vaccine, does america reopen . It might be able to reopen in smaller ways, but does it really reopen . I dont see it happening, mika. I think you are going to need have not the math hasnt yeah. Lost his connection again. But the answer was no, it doesnt. So just be mindful when you are listening to the president. If you cant get testing in your community, then testing is not available no matter what he says. Willie. Yeah, mika. Our apologies to the governor. Were having trouble with our satellite uplink there. The governor along with governor murphy and other governors in the tristate and beyond, in pennsylvania also, theyre having to look passed in many ways the federal government because they havent gotten the support he was talking about there and theyre finding their own ways to get testing done. They have to. Because theyre sitting and waiting and nothing is coming. Theyre finding their own ways to get ventilators and theyre counting on the dangerousness of donating masks in new york city. Governors are being chief executives and getting it done anyway they can. But theyre forced to scramble against each other and to scrounge. Yes. Quite frankly, as it pertains to testing and as it pertains to america reopening, factually you need masks, uniform testing, national coordination. Theres not one person that will tell you that things would go slower if the president intended to enforce the dpa, to get National Uniform coordinated testing. It would go faster. He is choosing not to get testing to the men citizens as fast as possible. The president himself is the only person who can make that choice, who can make that decision. He has decided not to. Hes not using the dpa to try and streamline the creation of testing and getting it to the mmm. Are you telling me we have cuomo back, alex . Governor cuomo, do you believe the president should use the defense production act to try to streamline testing to get to the American People . Yes, i do, mika. I said that weeks ago. Ive been it is nice to ri n risen i have been listening and i agree with everything you have said. It is not going to happen otherwise. Now do we live with the fact that this could happen and the only person who could make this choice is the president . What can be said to him to compel him to do everything he can to save the lives of the American People . Well, theyve taken a posture, mika, which is this is a state responsibility, which is but the states bizarre to me. Governor cuomo, the states cannot use the dpa. The states cannot thats my point. Control that and make that decision. So the only person who can make that decision is President Trump. Is it the quickest, cleanest and most uniformed way to get testing to the American People. No. No, it is not. Leaving it to the states is a slower, less uniform, less effective process. It always is. This is a federal emergency. He did a federal emergency declaration. Thats why i think the premise of willies question, well, lets look at what each state and each city did, is a false question. This was a National Crisis to be department with nationally. All right. Governor como, thank you very much. Sorry about the technical problems. Thats okay. We are looking forward to your briefings every day. We get some facts out of them and honesty. Thank you. Joining us a member of the Foreign Relations committee, senator chris murphy of connecticut. Tell us first how connecticut is faring. I then want to talk to you as well about testing but tell me how the state of connecticut is doing. I know theyve had some very young victims. We have. Weve had amongst the youngest in the country. We are thankful every day for governor lamont, Governor Cuomo and governor murphy, theyre working together to make decisions about closures and procedures, that helps to coordinate across state lines but we are ham strung by the complete lack of federal initiative from the president. We had to pull back testing. We are doing less of it in our drive lu testers and we dont have enough personal protective equipment. I was on the phone with one of the counties in fairfield that is almost bordering on new york, and with everything i have put out with Health Care Workers she has gotten through her own supply chain. I agree with Governor Cuomo that the president needs to use the powers given to him to make more tests, to make more personal protective equipment and congress can require him to do th get back into legislative settle we are going to demand that Congress Take up that legislation. Gist to just to be clear you Testing Centers or facilities that had to shut down . So we have to make decisions in connecticut. We dont have enough personal protective equipment and so we have to prior size the inpatient units at the hospital. We have to prioritize the Health Care Works inside the hospitals so we had to scale back at times our drivethrough Testing Centers in connecticut because we just dont have enough ppe to go around. That is why the president s decision to side with the chamber of commerce that doesnt want to federalize the manufacture of this equipment because they want to keep their Profit Center is so unconscionable. The decision is costing lives in places like connecticut and new york. Good lord. You are introducing multiple pieces of legislation, one from firings, something thats been happening, and another with mitt romney to protect the American Public from inadequate government response to National Health crises. I guess that would be useful. At what point does irresponsibility or lack of action turn into malpractice . So senator romney and i have gotten together to introduce legislation to try to reestablish the directorate that had been stripped away by President Trump. Our initiative is a little different but what we need to do is have a coordinating center in the federal government and its bringing together all agencies to take a look at possible pandemics before they reach the United States. And what we can do to prevent that. And the problem is we cant wait because the next virus is not going to operate on a schedule convenient to us. In the middle of this epidemic, we have to be planning to prevent the next one. On the inspectors general, we worry about the president has 2 trillion that he can move to reward his friends and to hurt his enemies and so we need to have these inspectors general protected because the president s campaign to get rid of them, i think, is in part an effort by him to try to be able to use the tools at his disposal in the oval office to try to benefit his reelection and we cant allow that to happen. Senator murphy, its willie geist. You anticipated my question which was why exactly the Inspector General over the pandemic money was pushed aside. Glen fine is his name. He served under republican and democratic administrations. You can understand why the president didnt want Michael Atkinson still around because his doing his job led to the impeachment of the president of the United States. But what is it about glen fine, do you suspect, offended the president . Its hard to understand. These inspectors general are public servants. They dont align themselves with one political party. I said a week or so ago that michigan is the new ukraine. What i meant is Governor Whitmer said that she believed the president was not sending equipment to michigan because she had been critical of him. And that is exactly what happened in ukraine. The president wanted that new president to do his political bidding to help the president s Reelection Campaign and, unless he did that, he wouldnt get foreign aid. I think the president wants to be able to do what he did to ukraine to states here in america. He wants to be able to say, if you support my Reelection Campaign, you will get personal protective equipment. If you dont, ill hold it back. An Inspector General overseeing that would be the first to call out that kind of abuse with an Inspector General in the president s pocket, we may never know until after the election as to how the president has directed this equipment and whether his goal is not to protect the American People but to protect his reelection prospects. Senator, on the question of inspectors general, in an interview on fox news last night, attorney general william barr defend President Trumps decision to fire Intel Community Inspector General michael at atkinson who flagged the whistleblower on ukraine that led to the president s impeachment. I think the president did the right thing in removing atkinson. From the Vantage Point of the department of justice, he interpreted his statute which gave him jurisdiction over wrongdoing by intelligence people. And tried to turn it into a commission to explore anything in the government and immediately report it to Congress Without letting the executive branch look at it and determine whether there was any problem. He was told this in a letter from the department of justice and he is obliged to follow the interpretation of the department of justice and he ignored it. So, i think the president was correct in firing him. Senator murphy, your reaction there . Thats just not true. The Inspector General had an obligation to forward any whistleblower complaints to congress. This was clearly a whistleblower complaint that was connected to the intelligence services. And so theres just no question that he had a statutory obligation, atkinson did, to forward that complaint to the United States congress. And when the administration prevented him from doing so, it was important that he spoke up. He got fired for political reasons. He got fired because the president believes that a deep state exists. A group of Civil Servants out to get him. That is not true. And attorney general barrs contentions are not true either. All right, thank you so much, senator chris murphy. Really praying for everybody during this time. Wes moore, some final thoughts this morning. This virus is vicious at attacking our greatest health vulnerabilities. It shouldnt be lost on anybody the fact that you take new york city alone. The five zip codes that had the highest rates of transmission having average income of about 26,000. Thats poverty. Those are people in poverty or right on the cusp. If you look at the data, the impact this is having on black and latino communities specifically with the death rate, double in new york city. In the state of maryland, 54 of all deaths have been africanamericans. We have to not only dig into the data and see what the data is showing about these great vulnerabilities but also why we have these vulnerabilities in the first place and levels of asthma and Heart Disease and diabetes and things that can attack that so that when these crises happen, that it does not always end up hitting on the same communities over and over. Wes moore, thank you very much. And i urge people i dont think youll get much out of the president s briefings, but Governor Cuomo, murphy of new jersey, gacvin newsom, california. They give you real information and give a sense of whats going on. Before we wrap things up. At know your value. Com weve been highlighting the doctors and nurses and first responders. We asked you to email us pictures and stories of people in your lives. And what you sent us, its incredible. Keep it coming. We also want to hear about all the other essential workers. The ones stocking the shelves at stores. Driving delivery trucks and, yes, even producing the news. Whatever it is that youre doing out there to keep this country functioning to keep people safe, to get them what they need, we thank you. We want to honor you. Email us at knowyourvalue. Nbcuni. Com. That does it for us this morning. Stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage after a short break. More than ever, your home is your sanctuary. Thats why lincoln offers you the ability to purchase a new vehicle remotely with participating dealers. An effortless transactionall without leaving the comfort and safetyof your home. Thats the power of sanctuary. And for a little extra help, receive 0 apr financing and defer your first payment up to 120 days on the purchase of a new lincoln. And defer your first payment up to 120 days i have the power to lower my blood sugar and a1c. Because i can still make my own insulin. And trulicity activates my body to release it like its supposed to. Once weekly trulicity is for type 2 diabetes. 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Usaa has been standing with them for nearly a hundred years. And well be here to serve you for a hundred more. Hi there. Im stephanie ruhle. Its friday, april 10th. Heres whats happening. President trump is pushing to get the economy reopened fast. Maybe as early as the beginning of may. But is it too fast . What is he going to do . What does it actually look like . As we speak, americans are still dying from the coronavirus at