Transcripts For MSNBCW Morning Joe 20200420

That does it for me on this monday morning. Im yasmin vossoughian. Mo morning joe starts right now. Many governors are doing this incredible work, and theyre working with us very closely on testing. Some governors have gone too far. Some of the things that happened are maybe not so appropriate. I want to thank Governor Cuomo. Relationship there, for this whole thing, were building hospitals. Were working well with the governors. I would say pretty much all of them. A couple of them, no matter what you do, you cant satisfy them. You could find a cure tomorrow, and theyd find a reason to complain. Wise guys. So he likes the governors when they flatten the curve, but not when they push back on lifting the lockdowns. He likes them when the hospitals stabilize, but not when they ask about longterm planning. As conservative writer windsormawindsor windsor mann describes it, trump takes credit for everything the governors do well, and blames them for everything he does poorly. Youve seen it the past several days. First, the president also, when Governor Cuomo decides, hey, if the president isnt going to lead, well get a consortium of governors to lead. You called it that moment. Oh, boy, watch how trump responds. He responded with his mussolini strategy. He said, i have total power, total authority, whatever he said that no american president has ever said before. Then, of course, he realized if he took total authority, then he would have total blame for every death that moved forward after that, in his mind. He shifted it back to the governors. Right. Then, after shifting it back to the governors, he decided the next day he was going to actually try to attack the governors with these really dangerous, liberate michigan. Liberate virginia, tweets, which, of course, fed into people taking military style assault weapons, semiautomatic military style weapons, to statehouses and carry them around. Which, boy, talk to david french about the smartness of that. So then, after that, he then responds the next day to the backlash from that by trying to praise all the governors. Just so you know, and just so everybody watching knows, that obviously are concerned by those reckless protests, where people were close together, where you did have people bringing military style weapons to statehouses, it just again, its more of the same. It is not only damaging, of course, to the health and the wellbeing of millions and millions of Senior Citizens and other people with Underlying Health conditions, and healthy americans, as well. It is also damaging to Donald Trumps political standing. Mika, were going to be looking at a poll that shows about 60 of americans fear easing the lockdown restrictions. A lot more than they do fearing having those restrictions in place to keep americans safe. As youve said, and as ive said, donald trump can blabber all he wants, and people can go around and carry around guns to state capitols all they want, with dont tread on me signs, but were not talking about the british. Were talking about american doctors. Were talking about american scientists. Were talking about the very people you mocked when they told you in january and february that a pandemic was coming. You remember you did that, right . You remember you were saying that this was all a scam . Do you remember that . Like Boris Johnson was saying, im going to live my life. That was you then. This is you now. As were finally bending the curve, because unlike you, we all, as americans, listened to those doctors. Mmhmm. Mika, 60 of americans say, you know what . Ive had moms and grandmoms, dads and granddads, and friends i know die the most hellacious, heinous death possible. Were going to keep listening to the doctors and stop listening to politicians that are freaking out because theyre diving in the polls right now. Ultimately, these numbers show theyre holding the person in charge, the president of the United States, accountable. When they look to whats happening in their lives, they look to the top person in charge, which would be President Trump. With us this morning, we have White House Reporter for the Associated Press, jonathan lemi lemire. Msnbc National Affairs analyst and cohost of showtimes the circus, and editor in chief of the recount, John Heilemann. U. S. National editor at the Financial Times, ed luce joins us. Ed luce, i want to go to you with an article i read this morning from the Financial Times. I want to get a quote out of it. Its pretty, whats the word, not chilling. That puts a deviousness on donald trump that he doesnt deserve. He is such a day trader. Ill say this, like china, like trump. As part of a Global Chinese campaign of shifting blame from beijings response to the covid19 pandemic, the Chinese Embassy published a letter, claiming french nurses abandoned their posts and left old people to die of hunger and disease. The chinese are doing just what donald trump is doing. Donald trump is doing just like the communist chinese are doing. They both screwed up monument tally. Both of them, in their own ways, are going to be blamed by historians for most of what has happened since december. The chinese at the beginning, and then donald trump with his slow response, especially in january and february. Here, you have donald trump blaming the w. H. O. Donald trump blaming the governors. Donald trump blaming china. Donald trump blaming everybody but himself, of course. The chinese are doing the same thing on the global level. I dont think its going to work for either. Its a very good point. Because in our minds, we have this binary idea, that either china is to blame or america is to blame. The chinese clearly have that idea, that it is a zerosum game. Clearly, both countries systems in different ways for Different Reasons failed spectacularly. We can, later on, go back and look at which is more to blame. Clearly, i think china is, because of the disease originated there and they suppressed information about it. Yes. For a kcritical three weeks r so. The idea that it is one or the other is absurd. There are smaller countries with fewer pretensions that have less to fall back on and are not playing a geopolitical game that have done very well, whose systems have performed very well. I would have included singapore in that group, and maybe we still should. Unfortunately, in the last 24 hours, theres been a 20 surge. Theyve had 1,500 new infections or so. Which really underlining the point, both the chinese and the americans should be looking at it, which is even the best performing systems, even after the best early action to contain this virus, distancing measures, once you start relaxing, it can come back even in those systems, in places like singapore. Neither china nor america or the leaders of china or america, i should say, are educating their people, that this isnt a magic button moment, when you suddenly press and the lockdown ends. This is a long haul, a marathon. It requires Public Education that neither President Trump nor xi jinping are even attempting to provide. Yeah. You know, jonathan lemire, the president of the United States made the terrible mistakes that he made in january. We can talk about, i think, january 22nd, him telling cnbc, and while he was in davos, it is only one person in china. Soon, itll be down to zero. Throughout the entire month of february, while his own officials were freaking out, and everybody inside the white house knew in fact, they knew, if you look at the list of the state department, the cdc, the fda, the department of hhs, the defense department, his intel agencies, they all knew in early january. Yet, donald trump wastes all of february. All of february. Even after his toothless ban went into effect at the end of january, he wastes all of february saying, it is going to go away in april. Nothing to see here. It is 15 people. Soon, itll be down to zero. End of february, he is talking about how its a hoax, that the press and the medical communitys overreaction to it is a hoax. So you have china wasting all of november and december, lying to us. We know theyre lying to us. Our medical officials know theyre lying to us. Then in january, donald trump spends all of january talking about what a great guy president xi is, and how the chinese are being so transparent and doing everything. The people of the United States would like to thank president xi and the people of china for what a great job youre doing on the virus. Nothing to worry about here. Donald trump says that in january. Then he says in february, its going away magically. In february, he said, itll go away magically in april when it warms up. Jonathan, i checked my calendar yesterday. Were in april. Guess what happened in april when he said it was going to magically go away . We just crossed the 40,000 person death toll. 40,000 americans dead. This is unspeakable. 40,000 americans dead here, our death count as we still go through april. More americans than died fighting in the korean war. Joe, theres no need for me to factcheck your math or the calendar. I think a good way to think about this and the president s response is it is pobookended b his last two foreign trips. The one in davos end of january, and the one in india a month later, which i was with him for that. In davos, he, as you said, down played this. It was only one american case of coronavirus that we knew of at that point. It was in washington state. My colleagues and i at the Associated Press last week put out a detailed account of his actions between davos and india. I think i should better say that as, his inactions. Outside of that china restriction, which you point out was not a total ban. Toothless. Tens of thousands of people were still able to travel between china from china to the United States. It wasnt only until his return from india the end of february. Thats when, importantly, the u. S. Stock market first took a real blow from the coronavirus concern. That was when the market dropped about 1,000 points or so overnight. He was in india. He was monitoring that frantically. Prior to that, aides had come to him repeatedly with warnings. He was too focused on the impeachment crime. La trial. Later, at the time, we didnt want to insult china and xi jinping, because he wanted, this year, to get a deal and make that part of his are ereelectin campaign. Something you know about, jonathan, also, is while he was flying back from india, one of his Health Care Officials, which i think was related to i forget the Justice Deputy attorney general rod rosenste rosenstein. How quickly we forget. Somebody related to him comes out and actually says that this is going to be bad. That americans need to be prepared. Donald trump becomes enraged and says that shes overreacting, just like he said how many times, at least on two different occasions, that hhs secretary azar was overreacting and being overly dramatic to this coming pandemic. He was more worried about the stock market. He was more worried about wall street than he was worried about keeping main street safe and healthy. Thats right. It was that Health Official who first previewed to reporters that the coming virus was going to be worse than people had anticipa anticipated. Her message ran contrary to what the president said the entire month of february, including at rallies when he down played it, saying itd disappear in april. He lashed out at her when he indeed land eed back at joint be andrews the end of february. It was then that there was a belated effort by this administration to try to get ahead of this. As we documented on the show nearly every day, fell so who l woefully behind on a number of fronts, most particularly testing. We had a combative president over the weekend trying to defend the administrations efforts on tests. They again pushed the governors to pick up the slack. Theres still not nearly the wide spread testing needed, most scientists agree, to have a real reopening of economy. Yesterday, he said he was going to invoke the defense production act to produce more swabs that could be part of the Testing Process. He didnt name which company he was going to compel to do that. The white house did not respond to requests afterwards for more clarification. That is something we need to keep an eye on, to see if he follows through. There is a real defensiveness that has dprogrown, in particul in the last week. The president is starting to be concerned about how this could impact his reelection chances again in november. Because it is common logic. People know, they can see, they can feel. Testing would have prevented deaths and would allow us to reopen safely. We dont have it. The americans can see it. The other number they can see and feel, 40,000 people dead. 40,000. Thats not the number of unreported. That number is higher. Much higher. People see it, they feel it, they know people, theyve had it. The majority of americans showing how people feel. 52 say they disapprove of President Trumps handling of the coronavirus pandemic. According to the latest nbc news wall street journal poll, the number is up one point from last month. 44 approve. 65 said that trump did not take the coronavirus threat seriously enough at the beginning. 32 believe that he did. 36 say they trust the president s opinion of the coronavirus. Thats compared to 66 who say they trust their states governor. 60 say they trust dr. Anthony fauci. That same poll also shows the apparent democratic nominee, joe biden, up 7 points over the president. 49 to 42 . This is, at this point, joe, what you see here is joe biden is careful with his words. You see some of the latest ads that have been rolled out, which are really strong, which show clearly that joe biden saw this c coming. He was writing about this in usa today in january. January. He was concerned. He saw it coming like a steamroller coming in the direction of the United States. He was concerned. He called on the white house, the president , the administration, to take it seriously. They did not. This is plain and simple. This is what ive been saying, donald trump needs to stop doing these nightly press conferences. Not only for the safety and the health of the American People, but also for his own political fortunes. Because every night he goes out and damages himself by being a day trader. He shoots from the hip, says whatever he feels like saying at the top. Hes angry if anyone springs up facts that get in the way of him looking good. Right. I talked earlier about the emperors clothes falling off every time he gets up there, but it truly is like a child. Angry that things arent going his way. Its not good for him to show that to the American People. He is doing Something Else, too. It is like a guy that is being told by his lawyer, dont talk. Whatever you say is going to be used against you, whether it is a civil or criminal case. Dont talk. Make sure you measure every word. Donald trump goes out and rambles. He says stupid things. He says things that are lies. All he does is give joe bidens campaign, he gives democrats, just two and a half hours of material every night to factcheck against all the things that they already have on tape from january and february. You were right about joe biden. Joe biden in january was saying that donald trump needed to get more serious about this. In january, he was saying that donald trump needed to let scientists and doctors run this operation and do the talking. In january, he warned what was coming. Well, donald trump wasted all of february. As we could look at the recount calendar, you see that even near the end of february, a whole month went by, donald trump was still saying this was magically going to go away and that it was a hoax being drummed up by the media. You know, John Heilemann, im going to go back to one of my pet peeves. I have just a few, john. You know that. One of them is this you have several. You have selfjust a few. Donald trump as political superman. There is nothing that can stop donald trump. Theres weeping and gnashing of teeth, putting sackcloth and ashes on people who are Walking Around aimlessly saying, how can he get away with this . He gets away with nothing. There is a reason why he doesnt get to 50 . Theres a reason why he lost virginia in 17. There is a reason why all of those women in Northern Virginia were standing in the rain for hours, saying, were not going anywhere. Were voting to send a message to donald trump. In 2018, when everybody was freaking out about his stupid stories about leprosy, or whatever he said was coming in these caravans, and why were sending u. S. Troops shamefully down to the border during the holidays. Oh, how can he get away with it . He didnt. The biggest historical landslide ever in the house of representatives in 2018. Now, you look at these numbers. It seems that most americans see what we see. 65 of americans. Let me say this again, 65 of americans, almost two out of three americans saying they do not trust what donald trump is telling them. 65 saying that he wasnt ready. He was illprepared. He did not take this threat seriously enough. Less than one out of three thinks he took the threat seriously enough. Those are the really hard core, tinfoil, hat wearing, like, trumpies. Then do you trust your governor more, or do you trust the president more . As he is attacking governors, 66 say they trust their governors more. 20 say they trust trump more. Look at fauci. Fire fauci, yeah, fat chance. Thats awesome. P boy, we should all freak out about that. 8 of americans dont trust fauci. Less than one in ten americans. Again, this is where media really sends, i think, a twisted and warped view of america. They shouldnt those people should not even be there. 8 of the population. And if that, in fact people can say, well, it is less than one in ten americans who feel that way. Again, i think the way this is being covered right now suggests that donald trump somehow is getting away with all of these lies. Somehow is getting away with the shift blaming. Its just not happening if you look at these polls. Right. So, you know, joe, the president has not been on a ballot for now three and a half years. The story of the Trump Administration in those three and a half years, when Donald Trumps name has never been directly on a ballot anywhere, there have been a lot of elections. There have been congressional elections. There have been midterm elections, allyear elections. Recently in wisconsin, we had a democratic primary, and we had an election for the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Local elections, bye elections, all kinds of elections. The Republican Party in those elections the last three and a half years have gotten its clock cleaned systematically. I think everyone in politics understands that though Donald Trumps name hasnt opinibeen o ballot directly, hes on there because he is the dominant force in the country. He makes himself a part of the elections, as we saw in the Wisconsin Supreme Court seat the friday before. He said, theyre trying to cancel the election because i endorsed this man very strongly on social media, and his polls went through the roof. He was claiming the polls went up within hours of when trump had endorsed him. Right. Youve got its a lie. Three and a half years of trump paying a political price, and the Republican Party paying a political price. Look at the polling. Again, theres a lot of months between mow and november. This is an unprecedented situation, and theres a lot of politics to play. I think people should understand that this is a very dynamic situation is dynamic and in flux. Right now, on the basis of the numbers we see, it is clear that, just as the Republican Party has lost almost every ballot test the last three and a half years, donald trump is losing the battle for Public Opinion right now on the handling of this virus. You can see it not just in the direct approval numbers and his overall approval number, the approval number on how he is handling the virus, but you see the fact that, right now, its also the case that, in the most recent poll, 2 3 of the country thinks the greater risk is to reopen the economy too soon, opposed to the third of the country that thinks the greater risk is to keep the lockdown orders in place and risk the economy. Trump is in a rush to reopen. The country doesnt want to reopen. 2 3 of the country says thats the risky course. Trump is losing that argument, too. I think youre right. Again, lots to play for here, but trump is losing right now. The party has lost with him at its head a lot the last three and a half years. Whats remarkable is those very same people that, in january and february, werep parroting donald trump, saying this was a hoax, the press coverage was a hoax, they didnt need to drum it up, the same people are now pushing again to try to reopen things before the overwhelming majority of americans are ready to reopen things. What is it . Its not going to reopen. Businesses arent going to reopen. I talked to a dear friend of mine who owns selfrestaurants. Very conservative guy. He was warning dpoGovernor Desantis. Hes like, man, you cant open yet. You open restaurants in miami, one person gets sick, nobody is coming to my restaurant in the panhandle for six months. Weve got to do this the right way. Weve got to follow what the doctors say. Weve got to follow what the scientists say. This Small Business owner, like every Small Business owner ive spoken with says the same thin,. When we reopen, we have to reopen it correctly. If we dont reopen it correctly, things are going to be even worse and were going to be driven out of business. Ed luce, one person who understands that, who got a near deathbed conversion, Boris Johnson. Reported in your fine newspaper, the Financial Times. Poor Boris Johnson is saying, wait, hold on, baby. Lets not open the government quite yet, the businesses quite yet. Lets take it slowly and be smart with how we reopen london and great britain. He had to very nearly meet his maker to learn that. Thank god he didnt meet his maker. He was later to say, you know, highly professional National Health service saved his life, many of whom were immigrants, by the way. He has had a road to damascus, a very dramatic one, and hes become hypercautious and, i guess, extra studious about what is going to be needed. The key thing though here is, you know, we have this idea that this is a sort of on off process. Its not. Its a long journey. Were not on lockdown to then go back to normal. Were on lockdown to buy time. Thats essentially what this is all about. Its about buying time. Buying time to research, to be able to get a vaccine, to get better equipped, to get these swabs and reagents that trump keeps saying are coming, but governors keep telling us they cant find. To get the ventilators, to get the personnel trained, to get and this is really important and there hasnt been much attention on it to get the contact traces. This is a skilled job, and there arent many of them. If were lifting the lockdown, have testing, and monitor, we have to have traces ramped up. I didnt see any of that in the guidelines that President Trump published last week, about lifting the lockdown. This phased lifting of the lockdown. I didnt see any of the actual plans laid out by the white house as to how we were going to get from a to b to c to d. Ready to go back to c, if necessary. How we were going to have the resources and coordination that this requires. It was really a list of aspirations rather than a plan that the white house brought out. I hope Boris Johnson has a plan. So far, hes more on the aspirational side, i fear. Ed luce, thank you very much. Still ahead on morning joe, the mayor of new york city, bill de blasio, is our guest. Shake shack had 100 million cash on hand, yet walked away with a nice krchunk of chain fr the governments bailout of the Small Businesses. The chain is giving the money pack as millio back as millions of americans face the prospect of going broke. Well see the latest in washington when we come back. 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 transaction all without leaving the comfort and safety of 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. 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Weve always believed in the power of working together. Thats why, when every connection counts. You can count on us. And look, it feels like im just im sewasting time. Nfo on options trading, thats why Td Ameritrade designed a firstofitskind, personalized education center. Their awardwinning content is tailored to fit your investing goals and interests. And it learns with you, so as you become smarter, so do its recommendations. So its like my streaming service. Well except now, youre binge learning. For a limited time, get up to 800 when you open and fund an account. Call 8663009417 or visit tdameritrade. Com learn. After burning through 350 billion worth of coronavirus aid in 13 days, congress and the Trump Administration are close to reaching a deal to add an additional 400 billion worth of funding to the Paycheck Protection Program. Both democrats and treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin are hoping to reach the deal toward the beginning of this week. The senate as early as today. The Paycheck Protection Program has faced several speed pump bn getting money to its intended target, Small Businesses, as well as as welloff companies and wealthy benefitted from the program. One such example of this, shake shack, which just returned 10 Million Dollars, originally collected through ppp, after facing widespread criticism. Good thing they returned it. It was the right thing. Right thing to do. Joining us, capitol hill correspondent and host of kasie d. C. On msnbc, kasie hunt. And economic analyst steve rattner. Kasie hunt, weve heard the horror stories. Weve heard about all the money that the richest people in america have made in tax benefits, tax incentives, off of these last deals. We are now hearing the stories about how steruths steakhouse shake shack and corporations are making tons of money. I know youve heard this, too. Every Small Business owner i talk to are saying theyre not getting the help they need. It is so widespread. Ive yet to talk to one Small Business owner, and ive talked to a lot, or talked to somebody who talked to a Small Business owner who said, boy, this really helped me out. Mainly, theyre getting a lot of noes from their banks. This is a network, right, joe, that Small Businesses in, im sure, your community, here in washington, d. C. I interact with, a lot of them know each other. We have a couple small restaurants were loyal to here. We talked to the people who own them. In those conversations, people are incredibly frustrated with how this program has played out. Many of them were in line before the doors were even open. They were sending their forms and applications in as soon as they possibly could. Then it seemed to feel almost random to them. They either didnt hear anything back, or theyre still waiting. Theyve been told theyre approved but they havent seen any money yet. It feels, to them, very, very random. One Small Business owner i spoke to whoen b banked with wells fa for example, there was a feeling that wells fargo, the people keeping the most money at the bank was getting paid first. Wells fargo was making the decision. I heard from a couple folks who said they were able to access loans, who were good examples of Smaller Companies in communities this program was designed for. The commonality in those instances was they felt like they had somebody at the bank that they worked with who was really busting their butt to help them. There was somebody in there who was, you nknow, knocking at the door of the Small Business Administration Hour after hour after hour. That seems to be the difference here. If you have somebody at a bank who is on your side, it is easier to get the money. If you dont, its been harder. Thats one of the Things Congress is beginning going to in the next bill. 60 billion set aside for people specifically in underserved, minority communities. I know people who actually have been loyal to banks for decades. I actually put in a lot of deposits for their Small Businesses that said theyre leaving their bank. Theyre leaving local banks. Others are leaving their National Chain banks. It is bizarre. Youre exactly right. Ive heard the same thing, if you know somebody inside the bank that can lobby for you, youre in good shape. If you dont, youre out of luck. Kasie, let me ask you about the new deal that may be coming down the road between the white house and congress. Where do those talks stand right now between Speaker Pelosi and the treasury secretary . Reporter i was texting with some sources. Theyre telling me it is not final yet, but we are under the impression, and folks have been telling us through the weekend, this is basically imminent. They were expecting a deal late last night, perhaps at some point this morning. This is the result of nancy pelosi and Chuck Schumer drawing a line in the sand and saying, were not just sending more money to the Small Business program without some new rules. Republicans have accused them of holding up money for Small Businesses. Theres nobody that says they dont want to put more money in the program. Everybody agrees that this is something that, you know, they may not even have enough billions. They may not be able to send enough billions into this program, the way theyd like to. Right now, it sounds like theyre going back and forth on final details around testing. Like i said, there will be money set aside for these more the smaller, underserved, minority and womenowned businesses, to try to get money past just the big chains. What is left out, i think, joe, is critical, and that is the aid for state and local government. That has been a big Sticking Point throughout these negotiations. It was one of the things democrats are demanding. It sounds like theres emerging piano pa bipartisan agreement they need to send mup oney to states. It is for firefighters, police salaries, teachers, people on the front line right now. You have dpov knogovernors in b parties thiparty saying we need the help. Steve rattner, pull back. The economy is at a dead stop. Where are we headed here . The economy is at a dead stop, mika. Where were headed is into a very, very deep recession. Almost certainly going to be substantially deeper than the great financial crisis was 10, 12 years ago. Were going to have massive unemployment. Unemployment up over 15 for sure. Probably already is in the double digits. Maybe 20 or more. Its going to go on for a long time. This chart youre looking at here shows that, essentially, based on the workers who already filed for unemployment insurance, we have lost as many jobs, about 22 million, as weve created in the entire decade after the financial crisis ended. Its not going to be one some people think it is going to be one of these things where the economy immediately snaps back as soon as we come out of this. Kind of like the munchins coming out at wizard of oz after the wi house comes down. Theyre going to be slow to rehire and cutting Capital Expenditure budgets. Nobody believes Industries Like travel will come snapping back, Industries Like restaurants will come snapping back. Were looking at a prolonged period of unemployment. The chart you saw flash by was basically that economists have been gradually making unemployment projections more and more conservative, cautious, whatever you want to call it. Were almost certainly looking at double digit unemployment on election day of this year. Political implications of that will be interesting. It just almost always takes longer to get out of one of these holes than when you get into it. By the way, the programs that we are talking about, including ppp, which is a good program for all of its flaws, at least wellintentioned. Ill put it that way. We havent yet even started to talk about programs to actually restore the economy to health, like perhaps an infrastructure bill, thing s like that. Basically, ways of getting people back to work, opposed to simply trying to cover their perils. The last thing, programs put in place, ppp, designed to cover eight weeks of payroll for the Small Businesses, or like the addition to unemployment insurance, which would cover four months of additional benefits for people, these programs do cover a short period of time, eight weeks, four months, periods of time that end well before anybody thinks the unemployment in this country unemployment problem in the country will be opver. You see longterm unemployment. The gray line at top, close to we lost rattners audio there. Whoa, pretty blogloomy forecast ahead. Kasie hunt it is a gloomy forecast. What are you expecting today . Reporter well, joe, i mean, i think that what rattner just laid out there shows you the kind of pressure that everyone is understand heing here in washington. It is so hard to get your head around it. There may come a point where there isnt much left for washington to do. I mean, weve already spent 2. 2 trillion, and i think, you know, the subtext of conversations that im having with members and staffers, as they haggle over these small things, is this kind of looming, bigger question of, what if we get to a point where what were doing doesnt work anymore . I hate to be doomsday about it, but this is a crisis on an order of magnitude we could never perhaps we could argue, it could have been anticipated, but that we certainly didnt expect. One thing that i know weve were almost harping on this, but one of the last Sticking Points in the negotiation, im told this morning, is how to spend the money on testing. Whether private companies should be more involved or whether the federal government should take more responsibility. I just think that the idea that were going to go back to any form of normal, that were going to start, you know, taking the correct turn on those lines on rattners charts, if we cant test everybody immediately, quickly, and trace the contacts right away, all of this is a pipe dream. I think thats why you had lawmakers, angus king got really angry at mike pence on a phone call over the weekend, saying, what are you guys doing about this . Until we solve this piece, it is unclear and no matter how much money we give the Small Businesses, it wont make any difference. Kasie hunt, thank you so much. Great show last night. You got squeezed down because of the president , but you put it into context very well. Thank you. Coming up, the state of florida has a lot of people, but not a whole lot of testing. Were going to get an update on those numbers amid the governors new order to get the beaches back open. Morning joe is back in a moment. 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. 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. Its not insulin. It starts acting from the first dose. And it lowers risk of heart attack, stroke, or death in people with known Heart Disease or multiple risk factors. Trulicity isnt for people with type 1 diabetes or diabetic ketoacidosis. Dont take trulicity if youre allergic to it, you or your family have medullary thyroid cancer, or have multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2. Stop trulicity and call your doctor right away if you have an allergic reaction, a lump or swelling in your neck, severe stomach pain, changes in vision, or diabetic retinopathy. Serious side effects may include pancreatitis. Taking trulicity with sulfonylurea or insulin raises low blood sugar risk. Side effects include nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, belly pain, and decreased appetite, which lead to dehydration and may worsen kidney problems. I have it within me to lower my a1c. Ask your doctor about trulicity. Florida residents returned to the beaches on friday after Governor Ron Desantis gave the green light to reopen parts of the coast. People could be seen along the jacksonville coast. Some less than 6 feet apart, swimming, surfing, and tanning. On friday, floridas department of health announced more than 1,400 additional infections with an additional 516 coronavirus cases reported on saturday, bringing the state total to 25,269. The total number of fatalities reached 740. Now, desantis told local leaders friday that they were free to reopen beaches as long as social distancing guidelines were enforced. According to the guidelines, coolers, chairs, blankets, towels, and grills are not permitted. Surfing, swimming are allowed, but not sunbathing. I think that makes sense. Let me oh, lets i want to talk to John Heilemann first. John, youre a california guy. Yeah. We know that a big part of california culture, a big part of florida culture, is walking on the beach. You know, ive got no problem with beaches being open if people walk. Again, not congregate. People need to get out of their houses. It is just like the public parks. Not so sure it is the wise move to close it down. You could open up public parks, let people get out, get fresh air, exercise, walk with their families and friends, as long as they socially distance. I know that florida morons was going around this weekend when he reopened some of the beaches. If social distancing is respected, thats actually good for people to get out and walk. Good for their health. Good to build up their lungs. Good for a lot of Different Reasons. Yeah. Look, i agree with that. I think the problem for Governor Desantis, as you know, joe, is that florida is a very big state that was very, very late to the party. If you think about other big states, places like new york, places like california, that you mentioned, they were on the band wagon very early. They were leaders. I shouldnt say they were on the band wagon. They were late to understanding we needed the draconian stay at home orders. You were allowed, including in los angeles, for instance, where Eric Garcetti has been tough on the stay at home thing as any mayor in the country, youre still allowed to walk in los angeles. You can ride your bike. Theres things youre allowed to do in los angeles. I dont think anybody, in principle, has a problem with that. The problem they have is the notion that florida was so lax about it for so long. The fact that desantis is doing this right now seems to indicate that he is going to, having been late to move towards social distancing, hes now going to be early to try to open up the state. This is kind of a leading indicator that he is going to try to reopen the state, having just barely shut it down. Hell try to reopen it ahead of when would be safe. Lets bring in right now state attorney for palm beach county, dave aronberg. A lot to talk about, dave. I think the biggest problem right now in the state of florida is the fact that, obviously, weve got a lot of Senior Citizens who are dying in Nursing Homes. You can go to every county and disproportionately, areas that are hit are the seniors. We should be concerned about younger floridians going out, seeing their parents and grandparents, and their grandparents getting sick or dying. That leads to testing. Help us out. You keep me updated pretty regularly on how things are going in the state of florida. Lets talk about testing. Whats the latest there . Joe, weve had about 258,000 tests in the state. Thats not people tested. Thats the number of tests. Some people are tested multiple times. Our state is 21. 5 million people. Were not where we need to be. We have not flattened the curve, and we have not achieved what the president s own Task Force Says needs to happen before you reopen. Which is a 14day downward trajectory of cases. You have people probably waiting in line at hard rock stadium, as they do, waiting for drivethrough testing, only to get to the front of the line and be told the tests are gone. They only have 400 per day. It is a frustrating experience. After enough complaints, the state late last week increased the number of tests at the location to 700 from 400. Also, i looked at statistics statewide. The last three days, the state has increased the number of overall tests. Thats a step in the right direction. But we risk undoing our progress if you reopen our beaches and other facilities too soon. Lets talk about Governor Desantis. Again, in many ways, he just hasnt seemed to have taken this pandemic seriously, from the very beginning. Even though he has so many Senior Citizens, a lot of whom are dying in florida. Why has he designated wwe as an essential activity . I know the connections between donald trump and wwe are very close, but seriously . Making wwe a, quote, essential activity, just smacks of such partisan hackery. Im even caught off guard by it. Governor desantis ran as a disciple of President Trump. It is no surprise hes taking his cues from the white house. I have to say, in full disclosure, ive been a pro chestling f wrestling fan. I think willie geist has been one in the day. Perhaps having the shows in a closed arena, no fans, a skeleton production crew, testing amongst the performers, may not be a threat to the public. But it wreaks of politics. It makes you think it is being allowed because of politics. He allowed large religious gatherings despite the stay at home order. Mcmahon, who runs the wwe, sits on President Trumps Economic Committee to reopen the country. President trump is in the wwe hall of fame. Linda mcmahon, the wife of vince, served in President Trumps cap nbinet, and head ofe Small Business administration, until she left to run President Trumps super pac. The timing of Governor Desantis decision seems suspect. His announcement that Pro Wrestling was an essential activity came on the day the super pac announced it was spending 18. 5 million in florida. Is it a coincidence or politics . A lot of us think its the latter. Of course, there were reports, mika, that gyms, donald trump announced gyms should reopen the day after he spoke to the owner of equinox. This is a guy that, again, he may think that he is being shrewd by talking to these Business Owners and then talking about reopening these areas, but he is being too clever by half. All their money, all the political contributions theyre going to throw his way will be worthless if people start going back into gyms and get sick. For sure. I dont think theyll go back to the gyms. I dont think theyll go to wrestling matches. I dont think any of this is going to work. Beaches and parks are a bigger conversation, which we can have. Sta state attorney for palm beach county, dave aronberg, thank you very much. Remember this line from the president in the middle of a briefing last month on the deadly pandemic . One thing secretary of state pompeo is extremely busy. If you have any question, can you do that . Id like him to go back to the state department, or as they call it, the deep state department. Were going to talk to pulitzer prizewinning journalist david rhode about his new book, in deep. Plus, Governor Andrew Cuomo says the state may be finally passed the plateau. Mayor de blasio joins us at the top of the hour. Thats ahead on morning joe. Things on your mind. Staying connected shouldnt be one of them. Thats why were offering contactless delivery and setup on all devices. And for those experiencing Financial Hardship due to this crisis, well work with you to keep your service up and running. Hi because at at t, were always committed to keeping you connected. The whole situation is the testing has been amazing, actually, what theyve been able to produce in such a short period of time. You had mentioned 4 million tests before. By the end of the week, hopefully. Next week. The following week. What number will it be . Up to 4 million tests available in the United States by the end of next week. A million tests are in the field. By the end of the week, another 4 million tests will be distributed. I was watching. They have a million tests out now. Over the next few days, theyll have 4 million tests out. Frankly, the testing has been going very smooth. A month ago, we had done 80,000 coronavirus tests in america. This weekend, we cleared more than 4 million. Hard to watch. 45 days, for 4 million tests. Thats for 320 million americans. This is not a milestone. Again this is not something to be proud of. What they dont understand is video of them lying about testing is forever. Forever. That video, jonathan lemire, they have lied about testing time and again. I know youve talked to white house officials all the time. Ive spoken with white house officials a lot, for t. For the first time in three and a half years, once the pandemic hit. My message is the same, testing, testing, testing. This is a health care crisis. Testing, testing, testing. Im always guaranteed that next week, youll love whats announced on tuesday. Youll love whats announced on wednesday. Youre going to love what were saying about testing. All those clips were all guarantees, and all of those guarantees ended up being lies. Now, we can talk about how the white house, and especially donald trump, lies to us, seemingly every day about testing. But can you give us some insight into why theyre lying, why this is so difficult for them . Im sure if they can wave a magic wand, theyd test. Why have they failed so fi miserably on testing, when everybody across the world has said, if you want to reopen the economy, testing, testing, testing. Everybody thats come on our show said that. Testing isnt the be all, end all. People are still going to die, even with testing. But we can test. We can trace. We can treat. We can reopen segments of the society. Instead of just flying blind and risking the lives of Senior Citizens and people with underlying and also, of course, our health care workers. Why has it been so hard . Why have they lied so much . Why cant they still get it right as we move through the second half of april . There are still so many unfulfilled promises on testing, joe. You played a bunch of them. There are a few things at play. First, the initial cdc test developed back in january. While cdc was working on that, they did not allow the private sector to make their own tests. Cdc thought they could handle it on their own. Not only was it a mistake, but that test failed. The u. S. Was behind other countries in terms of testing capabilities. Once the test came online, the production was slow to ramp up. They have not put the resources necessary to do it. Now, what were seeing, and theres a lot of reporting over the weekend about this from the New York Times and other places, about the development of these antibody tests, which also will, of course, be important for the nation to safely begin to reopen. Now, theyre taking the opposite approach. Instead of limiting it to the cdc, theyre letting everyone do it. Opening the market to do it. According to the reporting, a lot of the tests that have come online are faulty. Theyre not working. Theyre not reliable. Thats not going to instill the confidence needed in workers and employers to go back out there and reenter society. The president , as weve discussed, is so anxious to begin this process. He was pushed off easter, now targeting may 1st to open parts of the country. He said some states might slowly start doing that this week. A lot is, as we wrote this weekend for the Associated Press, is him and his campaign growing increasingly worried about how the battleground states map looks this november. Unemployment rates are so high in states like michigan, theyre growing in states like florida. Internal polling on the Trump Campaign has him down nearly double digits in michigan, a state that, as two trump advisers say, the white house isnt ready to writeoff, is growing pessimistic about the president s chances of keeping florida because of his close ties to Governor Desantis. We discussed last block that hes taken criticism here. Florida is put in play. Theyre less confident than they were. Of course, there was the worrisome result for republicans in the Supreme Court race last week in wisconsin. Theres growing signs here. Though the campaign is saying to the president , hey, slow down, tap the brakes. A loss in american lives wont be forgiven by voters in november. The president is still trying to push open the economy. Were at a matter of life and death. Mika, again, there are people in the media, in trumps media, the apologists for trump, the propagandists for trump, who are pushing to reopen the economy. Let me just say, im usually talking to donald because i know he watches the show. Hi, donald. How you doing . The press conferences, donald, really bad for you. Look at your numbers and ratings and make it go down. You should stay at home and watch old boxing matches. I watched ali and frazier i this past weekend with jack, to show him the fight of the century. He loved it. Time better spent. Let your scientists do stuff. Mika, the thing is, as he was saying, this is like, its bad for donald trump to keep going out there talking. Its bad for donald trump to attack swing state governors. Look at this poll. Who do you think is working . Who do you trust . 66 of americans say their governors. Only 36 say donald trump. When donald trump says, for instance, quote, liberate michigan, well, you know, that is to piss off people in the media. Thats just to piss off liberals. Predictably, it is so easy to get them angry, and he loves that. What he doesnt realize is that 8 , that 8 that wants to fire fauci, a lot will put dpguns around their neck, go to the statehouses and protest like they did in michigan. It drives down his numbers even more. Okay. Were going to own the libs, and were going to own the media, but while doing that, were going to hurt donald trump n, t person were trying to help political politically. This is the definition to cut off your nose to spite your face. This doesnt work, donald. A lot of other people let yourself are worried about dying. Do what joe biden said. You dont have to admit it was joe biden who said it. Do what he said the end of january. Let your scientists and doctors speak, and you stay off stage. Youll get the benefit of that. If they do whats right, youll get the benefit of that. Well, yeah, the governors have spoken. Both democrat and republican governors have some of the hardest hit areas in the country. Yesterday, they pushed back against the administrations claims that states have the adequate supplies and Testing Capacity to reopen. Thats a lie. People know its a lie. I think this is probably the number one problem in america, and has been from the beginning of this crisis, the lack of testing. Ive repeatedly made this argument to the leaders in washington on behalf of the rest of the governors in america. I can tell ya, ive talked to governors on both sides of the aisle nearly every single day. The administration, i think, is trying to ramp up testing. They are doing some things with respect to private labs. To try to push this off, to say the governors have plenty of testing, and they should just get to work on testing, somehow, we arent doing our job, is absolutely false. The president and Vice President have been saying over the past few days that the u. S. Has enough Testing Capacity for states to begin opening back up, if you feel youre ready to go into phase one. Is that the case in virginia . Do you have enough tests to do the tests you need to do . Jake, thats just delusional, to be making statements like that. We have been fighting every day for ppe, and we have got some supplies now coming in. We have been fighting for testing. Its not a straight forward test. We dont even have enough swabs, believe it or not. Our big problem today i could probably double, maybe triple testing in ohio virtually overnight, if the fda would prioritize companies that are putting a slightly different formula together for the extraction reagent kit. If the fda would do that, we have a shortage, worldwide shortage of the materials that go into this. So we really need help. Anybody in the fda is watching, this would really take our capacity up. Literally, chuck, overnight. Thats what we need to get moving in ohio. Similar to ohio, i think part of the story in michigan is we have the capacity to double or triple the number of tests we are doing, but we need some of these supplies. The reagents and the swabs are absolutely essential. You cant process all these tests if you cant take the sample and protect it. And move forward through testing. While our capabilities are there, these important supplies are not. All right. Joining the conversation, we have washington anchor for bbc world news america katty kay. And Donny Deutsche is with us, as well. Donny, lets follow up on what ive been talking about today. You have sorry. Im distracted. Let me see donny again. No, dont. I want to see. Its not. Were not there yet. Having fun with his bad outfits. If you cant make fun of how donny looks, what is that . I belief that is donny on the cover of a magazine. I dont know. Okay. What . Donny, ive been talking about, again, its part of this bigger theme, like liberals freak out and say, oh, donald trump is getting away with everything. What are we going to do . Like weve been hearing it for three years. He gets away with nothing. The voters pummel him. They pummelled him in 2017 in virginia. They pummelled him in kentucky in 2019. They pummelled him in historic manner in 2018, in a landslide of historic literally historic proportions. He gets away with nothing. Now, hes going out lying for two, two and a half hours a day. Ill just say it again, ive said it enough, that those rallies shouldnt be held on tv. All these doing if i were a supporter of his, i would say, those rallies shouldnt be held on tv. They are damaging his brand. You look at the numbers. Donald trump doesnt take the threat serious or did donald trump take the threat seriously enough . 65 of americans, almost 2 out of 3 americans say he did not. Only 32 , less than 1 3, say he did. Who do you trust, the governors or donald trump . We showed two republican governors and two democratic governors. Theyre all doing a great job in their state. They all have huge Approval Ratings in their state. Donald trump is lying about them. Lying about the fwgovernors. 66 of americans say they trust their governors. 36 say they trust donald trump. Heres an example of, like, what this guy is doing. Of course, yes, it is enraging the liberals. It is enraging the media. People say thats the same thing. Even while hes, quote, owning the libs, quote, owning the press, its just like hes just handing one vote after another vote after another vote to joe biden. Hes doing it in the swing states. Like he insults the michigan governor, wont even call her by her name. Talks about that lady. Her numbers skyrocket. In wisconsin, republicans force people to decide between their health and democracy. We had a shocking result in wisconsin. Voted for a liberal judge. Thats like the last thing. Like, if you had a chain of things that swing voters would do, the last thing theyd do is vote for a liberal judge. They did, even in kenosha. Like florida, the swing state of florida, think about the Senior Citizens whose votes he is losing every day. Isnt this a great example of donald trump not being the political genius that people on the left are afraid that he is . I think hes just hurting himself right now. Hes behaving like a political moron. It is interesting. 11 swing states right now. Hes trailing 4942. Its not just national. It is interesting, you can lie to people 10,000 times maybe about a phone call, a trial, about this. You cant lie to people about their own health, about their grandmothers health, brothers health, daughters health. Thats catching up to him. The gallup poll, hes dropped from 49 to 43 . Thats his biggest, sharp drop in an entire presidency, 6 points. Other world leaders, Angela Merkel is at 49 . Just about every world leader, and every leader throughout history go back to george w. Bush and his 89 during 9 11. During these times, you get an extra 10 , 20 extra bump, on the, hey, we have to be together and work as one. He is going the opposite direction because people arent stupid. It is interesting, you know. If i got hired, somebody said, hey, work on bidens campaign, i go, you dont need me. All you need to do is joe, youve run it 20 times on the show the calendar. Guy cecil came on last week and showed a great ad from priorities usa. Just tell the truth. That donald trump lied to you when it came to your health. That donald trump cared more about his reelection and opening the economy and put his head in the sand. I dont know how donald trump recovers. On the flip side, what do you have with joe biden, as you said earlier in the show . Go back to usa today in january. You have comfort. You have an empathetic person who says, i care about you. The most simple, primal stance this man stands for. Donald trump will not recover from this. Every presidency is one thing. Its obamacare. Its Ronald Reagan ending the cold war. Donald trump, in this one thing, is how he rmishandled the coronavirus. Its lives, 40,000 right now. I believe this will be his waterloo in spades. The thing is, it didnt have to be this way. I even said on this show, mika, a month ago or so, maybe even more, lets not talk about the past. Lets talk about the future. We can sort out the past in november. Lets talk about getting the testing right. Lets talk about getting the ppes right. Lets talk about getting care to the hospitals and the states right. Yet, hes just still refusing to do that. Were paying that price. Its those press conferences every day that, just every day, he buries himself a bit more every afternoon that he holds one of the press conferences. People see they are paying a price for his incompetence. In a moment, well talk to katty kay about her piece on the daunting reality of getting the United States back to normal, and how tough that will be. First, new york state appears to have passed its coronavirus peak. Governor andrew cuomo announced yesterday that hospitalizations continue to fall, as he reported the lowest death toll in more than two weeks, at just over 500. The states total now towers at more than 13,000 dead. Roughly the same size as entire towns upstate. Cuomo cautioned that the downward trend continues to be a big if, as long as new yorkers stick to the guidelines. Joining us, the mayor of new york city, mr. Bill de blasio. Thank you, mr. Mayor, for joining us. Lets start there, with sticking to the guidelines. If you could, please, talk about the challenges of asking new yorkers, people who live in new york city, to stick to the guidelines for months to come. Yeah. Mika, its amazing that new yorkers have done what theyve done. We really have to stop and sort of take stock of this. Look, heres the most densely populated place in the country. This is the last place youd think that social distancing and shelter in place would work. Yet, new yorkers have taken to it. Theyve listened. Theyve followed through. Theyve helped each other through it. With the fact were seeing some improvement is directly related to what everyday people have done. They really need to be recognized. The president , of course, loves to credit himself. I would like to credit Everyday Americans and everyday new yorkers who are doing this hard work of figuring out a new way of life, with no warning. They had to do it. That theyre doing it. We see real progress. Now, i caution the numbers you just went over. Were still losing way too many people every day. There are far too many people in the icus. Were far from out of the woods. Any discussion of a quote, unquote, restart, has to take into account we may have to make sure our people are healthy and weve beaten this disease, which is far from certain. New yorkers are doing their job. We should be very careful at all levels of government, and the federal government especially needs to get the memo, this thing aint over. If you pretend it is over, itll boomerang back and make it worse, actually. Mr. Mayor, katty kay has a question for you. Mayor, thank you for joining us. You had hard words for the president over the weekend, asking if the white house just wanted new york to drop dead. Do you get the sense from washington, a little bit like weve had throughout the history of this virus, that, somehow, it is somebody elses problem . For a while, it was chinas problem. Then it was a problem in italy but not in my backyard. Do you think new york is almost being ring fenced, as well . New york has this big problem. They can deal with it. Its not our problem. Yeah, i think thats exactly what youre seeing. First of all, we all know, it is not just a new york problem. This is a problem all over our country. If it is not handled right, it will get worse in all kinds of states. This is a red state and blue state problem. Its bigger cities, but it is not just bigger cities. We see, obviously, in small towns of america, this problem, too. I think youre right. In the mind of donald trump, it becomes easier to say, let me compartmentalize this away. Heres the truth, first of all, 8. 6 million americans living here who have walked through hell and are still fighting an extraordinary battle. They need their federal government to stand with them. That analogy i made the other day, reminiscent of the 1970s, where gerald ford turned his back on new york city. I dont think donald trump wants to be in the company in history of gerald ford. Or another great example, herbert hoover, who he acts like a lot. Hoover literally ignored the totality of the Great Depression and let people suffer. You see too much of that with trump. Right now, here is the nations largest city. One of the great engines of the american economy. Im asking for help to get back on her feet. Right now, i want to give you a sobering figure. We are going to spend this year 3. 5 billion to save lives and protect the health of new yorkers that we were never going to have to spend in a normal year. This crisis is so bad, we have to save lives. Theres no other choice but to protect people. Federal government is not saying, were going to make you whole for that extraordinary effort. My budget, i just announced, weve lost over 7 billion in revenue. Right now, donald trump is not doing anything to help my city back on its feet. How am i going to pay for basic services . How am i going to pay for First Responders . How will i have a restart of my economy if my city is going broke . I know it is happening all over the country. Youre hearing mayors, republican and democrat, ive talked to them, saying, were not going to be able to make it if we dont get help from the federal government, because weve just seen a hit on our budgets, a hit on our cities, a hit on our peopleune unestimable. Senator cassidy said yesterday there needs to be aid for city and states, to get them back into the economy. Anything short, you wont have the recovery. Donald trump is silent, not seeming to care. We have new yorks own Donny Deutsch with us. He has a question for you. Mayor, keep up the good work. Here is what im still not getting, and this is the Million Dollar question that nobody seems to have an answer to. Times square, there is a clip, and nobody is there. I walked on fifth avenue yesterday. Theres nobody there. I still dont understand what the moderate step is, what the first step is, without testing, without a kwax sevaccine. I dont see how we get from a to b, whether a week from now or five weeks. June 1st, july 15th, what is the first step back for new york or anybody else . I cant see what it looks like. Right. Donny, thats because youre exactly right. The absence of testing from day one never allowed us to fight this war the right way. If we had testing in the beginning, we could have done an intensive containment strategy and may have been able to beat back this virus in many places. First, we have to drive down these numbers. When youre still losing hundreds of people a day, hundreds are dying a day, when your icus are still full, its not turning the corner. We have to keep driving that down with the social distancing, the shelter in place, all the things weir doi s were doing. To be able to come back, you need testing to be, in our city, probably hundreds of thousands of tests a day. You need temperature checks going into workplaces. Thats right. You need all sorts of things to make sure anyone who is sick is immediately isolated and quarantined. We can get there, but we cant do it without widespread testing. The federal government cant get a handle on that. Youre right. Weeks, months until we have the tools to start back to normal. Donny deutsch, of course, wants to make sure everybodys temperature is taken before they go into tanning salons across the Greater New York area. No. We have now joe, i feel blessed. I still can get you to come out and attack me, even in these times. Thats when i know everything will be okay. This is true. You still have that ability to just bust my chops. That makes me warm and fuzzy. In the words of immortal words of the reverend al green, everything is gonna be all right. Lets go to jonathan lemire. Mr. Mayor, your favorite former New York Daily News reporter who, im sure, is going to ask a question about your brooklyn gym. Go ahead, jonathan. Not today, mr. Mayor. But it is about your home borough of brooklyn. A nursing home in cobble hill, brooklyn. It was reported over the weekend theyve lost 55 residents. 55 residents at this nursing home have died to the coronavirus. That nursing home is just down the block from my familys apartment. My children had done some volunteer work there, have gotten to know some of the residents. My questions to you are this, how could this happen . Is the city investigating it . More broadly, what steps are the city, and perhaps the state, doing to prevent Something Like this from happening again . Its horrifying, jonathan. It just shows you how intense, how horrible this experience has been, how much this virus overtook us, particularly in the worst weeks. Theres two different responsibilities here. The state of new york regulates, monitors Nursing Homes. They set the policies and the approach. The city of new york has been providing a lot of the supplies, the personal protective equipment, and whatever support we can, to help people there. Our hospital system, obviously, is the thats been the line of defense. Folks in the Nursing Homes who needed help, wed get to the hospitals, that weve been trying to keep alive through this crisis, to get them help. Something really has not worked out the right way, obviously. People in Nursing Homes have been so vulnerable and, somehow, have not gotten to the hospital when they needed to. Theres something wrong. Well have we have to figure it out now, and we have to figure it out afterwards, what were going to do going forward. It is horrible. It is horrifying. It kind of reminds you that this crisis has taken us places you could not have imagined in modern america. So many people have been vulnerable. It is also a warning of you cannot pretend that this ferocious disease is simply going to walk away at one point, or you flick a switch and its gone. You have to recognize how dangerous it is. Thats why that way back that donny was talking about, it has to be done the right way, or the disease can reassert and youll see more tragedies like that. All right. Mayor bill de blasio, thank you very much. Donny deutsch, thank you, as well, on many levels. Donny, thank you. Youre great. We love you. Tistill ahead tellall t all the people yo zooming with, and i dont want to give names, that were very good friends and we love having you on. Love you, buddy. Still ahead by the way, mika, do you really want to know what zoom chats donny is going into right now . I dont. Seriously. Hes fine. Good to have him on. Spraying the okay. Laptop. Europe hit a grim, new milestone over the weekend, surpassing 100,000 deaths from the coronavirus. Well get an inside look at italys ongoing battle to fla l flatten the curve. Hey allergy muddlers. Achoo . Do your sneezes turn heads . Try zyrtec. It starts working hard at hour one. And works twice as hard when you take it again the next day. 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Were just inside the biggest hospital, the epicenter of thisan extremely wealthy, sophisticated hospital, and they say theyre overwhelmed. Doctors and nurses are working 8, 10hour shifts. They cant leave this room because their ppes, protective clothing, has been contaminated. They cant waste that protective gear, which is precious around here. Have you ever seen anything like this before . No. And i hope i never see it again. That was footage from a recent Vice News Tonight episode on vice tv, with a rare look inside italys fight to control covid19. Jo joining us is the emmyaward winning vice news correspondent, who embedded with the medical teams in italys Lombardy Region for the report. Also joining us is the council of Foreign Relations and author of the world, a brief introduction. Richard haass. Well get to that in a minute, richard. Weve been talking the first hour and a half of this show about how donald trump, and all the things that hes saying at the press conferences, and all the things he said from the beginning of this crisis, are going to cause him damage in a way he cant recover from. Ive had a lot of people asking me, well, give us an example. Heres something joe biden put out this past weekend. Just look, theres a great this is exhibit number one on how the lies are just hurting him. He needs to stop and just let his medical officials do the talking. Here is the clip. He failed to act. Now, trump and his allies are launching negative attacks against joe biden, to hide the truth. Here are the facts. Joe biden warned the nation in january that trump had left us unprepared for a pandemic. Then biden told trump he should insist on having American Health experts on the ground in china. I would be on the phone with china and making it clear, we are going to need to be in your country. You have to be open. You have to be clear. We have to know whats going on. But trump rolled over for the chinese. He took their word for it. The president tweeted, china has been working very hard to contain the coronavirus. The United States greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency. China, i spoke with president xi, and theyre working very, very hard. I think its going to all work out fine. Trump praised the chinese 15 times in january and february, as the Coronavirus Spread across the world. Its a tough situation. I think theyre doing a very good job. Are you concerned about the potential impact on the Global Economy . I think that china will do a very good job. Trump never got a cdc team on the ground in china. The travel ban he brags about, trump let in 40,000 travelers from china into america after he signed it. Not exactly airtight. Look around. 22 million americans are out of work, and we have more officially reported cases and deaths than any other country. Donald trump left this country unprepared and unprotected for the worst Public Health and economic crisis in our lifetime. Now, were paying the price. All the negative ads in the world cant change the truth. Of course, you have to do a factcheck on that, richard. It was put out a couple days ago. Over 30,000 dead then. Now, over 40,000 americans dead. Thats an example. The more donald trump talks, the more he hurts himself. He should be quiet, let his scientists do the work on the coronavirus, and manage it the best he can. Facts are stubborn things. The facts not only for donald trump, but especially china, are ugly. In both cases, china and donald trump chose to not be transparent. In both cases, it blew up in both of their faces, especially, ill just say, with china in november and december. Whats interesting, joe, is it is quite possible both countries and both leaderships will come out of the crisis worse for ware. Neither has performed in any way the way he or she should. Whats also interesting about this, china is an authoritarian system. Were a democratic system. Both of us performed terribly. When you look around the world, you say, germany has done okay. South korea did okay. What this tells me is that whats critical here is not the nature of the system, its the nature of the leadership. Angela merkel has clearly done well. President moon in south korea clearly has done well. People who took this seriously early, who have squared with their own people, who insisted on social distancing, who got testing squared away right. Those steps taken early and taken with great discipline, those are the leaderships that have done well. Again, the critical factor turns out to be much more the individual rather than the nature of the system. Neither china nor america has done well for itself. Richard, we talked about an article in your publication several months ago, well before this happened, about how president xi was becoming more autocratic. How he was becoming the singular figure in china, in a way that nobody really had since chairman mao. There were concerns then that it could cause a real problem. Well, it has caused a real problem. They covered up. They wouldnt share information with scientists in the west. They even made an example of the first doctor who tried to warn the world about it. He ended up dying. Now, if you read the Financial Times this morning, like donald trump, theyre trying to blame other people. They have up on their Embassy Website that french doctors and nurses are abandoning old and sick people in france. Its despicable. And it wont work. Chinas image is going to take a hit. I think xi jinping has put a lot of his credibility, a lot of his political future on the line. Chinas mimage around the world the region and the world, are clearly going to suffer. Look, when youre in power, you get benefit for things, even if youre not responsible for them, and you get blame. In this case, the blame or the responsibility are war reranted. I think china will get their share. The markets shouldnt have been open. China was slow to respond. It covered things up. It allowed millions to have people to leave wuhan who should have been locked down. China bears enormous responsibility. They cant be blamed for our own lack of preparations here. They cant be blame ding the world health organization. No leader and no organization at the center of the crisis has covered himself with credit. China, the world health organization, donald trump, all failed miserably. You look at china. You can find those places. You look at donald trump. Mika, saying at the end of january saying china was doing a great job. Saying this would magically go away. It was only 15 people and soon to be down to zero. Boy, its been a colossal failure, all the way from pay ji beijing to washington, d. C. Now isabel, your look inside an Italian Hospital where you embedded yourself for this vice special. Tell us what you found and, also, what warnings you see that could apply to the u. S. If the u. S. Isnt able to flatten the curve. Yes. I mean, italy was the First Western country to see this massive coronavirus outbreak. Weve seen 23,000 people die of coronavirus in italy. That is the official number. We expect the unofficial number is a lot higher because italy doesnt count people dying in Nursing Homes and at home, sadly. What we saw on the ground is a country that is still in severe suffering and tragedy. We went inside the icus were seeing now. We saw first responder. We saw first on the front lines, people dealing with the sheer amount of funerals and bodies that are coming up from all this. You know, several weeks oh, she froze. Katty kay, this is, again, you know, we can learn so much from what we see in a lot of the other countries. Specifically, italy. Isobels look inside the hospital with profound suffering that she was able to see firsthand. For me, it seems to be such a disconnect, when President Trump talks about reopening america, which everybody wants, everybody wants, everybody needs, but, again, without the proper facilities and testing in place, were going to end up in a very bad place again. Thats not me. Thats scientists. Yeah. The example we have, right, of other countries. In some ways, the United States is fortunate to be able to look at the experiences of other countries and hopefully learn and say what worked and what didnt work. I remember at the beginning of all of this, we thought we would never be like italy. Now, we have doctors in some places having to make the same choices. Isobel, is it your understanding that italy, which is now starting to think about easing restrictions, is seeing things easier in hospitals . I know you were at the accept t epicenter of this. Is it just as bad today in the hospitals . Are they having to make those awful decisions . It is horrific. I was surprised at how horrific it was. As you said, things have gotten better. The daily death toll has decreased. But across the board, this is coming with a warning that, you know, if they do release the lockdown measures, all of a sudden, then they will see a massive second, if not third wave. Really what theyre trying toandahato navigate is how to go about doing that. Isobel of vice news, thank you so much. You can see isobels full report on vice news youtube page. Thank you so much. Great work. Richard, lets take several steps back and talk about our relationship with china. Obviously, im just going to say it, the pain, the suffering, the death, the economic chaos that china has let loose on the world is going to shape the world we live in for the next decade at least. It is fundamentallyaltered history. You can make the same case about Donald Trumps failures in january, february, and march. Even his socalled ban let 40,000 people in from china. After the socalled ban. Were going to share the global stage with china for the next 40, 50 years. We just are. Were going to be the indispensable powers. How do we move beyond this . How do we build a constructive relationship with china, when people in congress, and working class americans, obviously, have a reason to be enraged at chinese leadership. Joe, you raised what might be the fundamental question facing u. S. Foreign policy for the next couple of decades. As you suggest, this will be the defining relationship of this era of history. If it goes well, well be able to tackle regional and global challenges. If it goes poorly, the yieunite states, china, and the world will suffer. It is hard to remember how hard this will be to get this right. This crisis will make it that much more difficult. All sorts of people on the hill now want to sanction china for what its done. The challenge is going to be, how do we deal with global challenges like the pandemic, like Climate Change, proliferation in places like north korea that hasnt gone away, though were not focusing on it iran, how do we set rules for cyberspace . Essentially every big issue, we need to figure out a way to get china to work with us. At the same time, we understand. Look how fundamental differences are over taiwan, the South China Sea . If there was a test for foreign policy, how do you push back where you have to, and how do you preserve areas for some cooperation where you want to . Thats the way to think about it. I think the next secretary of state, because mike pompeo is clearly not doing it, the next secretary of state is going to have to make this relationship his or her priority. Of course, china is a communist dictatorship. We understand that. That does not change the reality that the United States and china are going to be sharing the world stage together. We can only pray that the chinese government, president xi, have learned that a lack of transparency actually ends up not just damaging his country, but ends up damaging the Global Economy. We have got to figure out a way forward with this relationship. First, you know what, after this is over, everybody is going to have to come to the table and be a hell of a lot more transparent, whether were talking about china, the world health organization, or, yes, the Trump Administration. All right. Richard haass, thank you so much. Still ahead, is it possible that skepticism about a deep state slowed President Trumps Coronavirus Response . Our next guest is investigating the spread of conspiracy theories in the trump era. Thats next on morning joe. 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 transaction all without leaving the comfort and safety of 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. Some Companies Still have hr stuck between employeesentering data. A. Changing data. More and more sensitive, personal data. And it doesnt just drag hr down. It drags the entire business down with inefficiency, errors and waste. Its ridiculous. So ridiculous. With paycom, employees enter and manage their own data in a single, easy to use software. Visit paycom. Com, and schedule your demo today. Now, the tables have turned. Investigate the investigators, i guess. These were crooked people. These are bad people. These are very dangerous people. You know what they are though . Theyre scr theyre scum, human scum. This is that is this is actually talk about a window into someones soul. Filthy. The president , of course, is defending, in this clip, americans who lied to the fbi. Yeah. Public servants who were caught lying to the and with one or two of them they admitted they lied to the fbi and they pled but in President Trumps eyes, its the criminals who were the ones that were being picked on and its our Law Enforcement officers, its the fbi agents. Its the people that protect you and your family, not only from crooked politicians but also from gangs, from islamic terrorism, from home grown terrorism, alt right terrorism. Theyre heros. They go out every day and they risk their lives on the front line and a lot of the people that donald trump was calling human scum, they have spent their entire lives on the front line protecting your family and my family. How revealing that even during the middle of the pandemic he calls our men and women in uniform, he calls the men and women, our Law Enforcement officers that try to protect this country day in and day out, quote, human scum because his lackeys decided on their own to abuse the trust that the American People gave them and instead lie to fbi agents. That sums it up. If you want a window into Donald Trumps soul, once again, he gave us a window into his soul and its break. Poll numbers are showing a response to this. Joining us now is twotime pulitzer winning prize journalist. He is out now with a new book entitled in deep, the fbi, the cia and the truth about americas deep state. Thank you for being with us. Talk about what has been unleashed over the past 3. 5 years which of course has been out there. I mean, you can go all the way back to Timothy Mcvey and go back to the socalled malitia movements. What has been unleashed. Youre right. This has been around a long time and to be fair i started this book because there was a poll that came out in 2018 and it showed that 70 of americans believed there was a secret group of government officials and military officials manipulating policy in washington. And there is a long history of abuse by the fbi and the cia but it has been compaexasperated in area. So i wrote this book. And how do we control president s . How powerful should a president be. Jonathan is with us and has a question. John thab. So its documented. And a number of other attempts to, he believe, undermine him. Talk to us if you will about how that distrust may have played a role in the governments response to this pandemic. Were there positions not filled that should have been . Information that was presented to him that he did not believe . Talk to us about how that may have played out and it may have cost some americans their lives. President trump, throughout his career has been disdainful on Expert Opinion and this played out in the coronavirus, theres been great reporting about him down playing warnings he was getting from medical experts. The most famous one would be dr. Anthony fauci. There was a famous one where he referred to the state department as the deep state department and was immediately attacked online. And then, you know, in some of the protests over the last few days theres been a fire fauci chant. So i dont know exactly i cant prove the number of cases or infections or how this happened but theres a dangerous dynamic of the president being very skeptical of the government officials around him. It may have very likely slowed his response to coronavirus and its this price of conspiracy theories and brutal winner take all politics were engaged in at this moment in american history. We heard about the fire fauci tweets. The president retweets it. You would think this is really catching on and then you see a poll that 60 of Americans Trust what he says. Only 8 do not. It is a small percentage but sadly its a small percentage of people off the mainstream political grid that this president actually listens to. It seems like the vast majority of people in Fairfax County are actually listening to the authorities and to the civil servants, but, david, do you think that going forward, is there almost a broader skepticism of government generally and Government Departments that going to make it hard for us to come out of this . If you look at the countries that handled the success for you and you look at germany and iceland and south korea, there doesnt seem to be the same expertise. How do we get out of this if the cdc isnt fully empowered and the nih isnt fully empowered. If theyre not fully empowered and believed in by the white house and the exec you tiff is it going to make it harder for us to get out of this . It is. This is a broad problem. Theres people on the left that fear the government as well. They use the term the military Industrial Complex and fear generals and defense contractors putting us in endless wars on. On the right this will continue after donald trump is no longer in office. Its creating and exacerbating our fear of government and its a very clear political tactic he uses from the moment that he entered politics. Was Barrack Obama born in the United States . And at the same time he hides information about himself and thats what concerns me the most is theres a growing lack of tra transparency by the Trump Administration and we dont know whats happening in the white house and thats fuelling public distrust and facts matter. Basic facts. What do we do . Coronavirus shows how important that is. All right. The new book is in deep. The fbi, the cia and the truth about americas deep state. David rhode, thank you for coming on this morning. Still ahead, President Trump is pushing to reopen the u. S. Economy next month but a group of experts in economics, Public Health, and Technology Say theres a lot to be done before that safely happens. Well take a look at that new road map. Those experts are laying it out. Plus new questions this morning about how the coronavirus originated after a lab in wuhan denies any link to the first outbreak. Nbcs kier simmons joins us with the new reporting. Were back in two minutes. So strong. You power through chronic migraine, 15 or more headache or migraine days a month. One tough mother. Youre bad enough for botox®. Botox® has been preventing headaches and migraines before they even start for almost 10 years, and is the 1 prescribed branded chronic migraine treatment. Botox® is for adults with chronic migraine, 15 or more headache days a month, each lasting 4 hours or more. Effects of botox® may spread hours to weeks after injection causing serious symptoms. 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Many governors are doing this incredible work and theyre working with us closely on testing. Some governors have gone too far. Some of the things that happened are maybe not so appropriate. I want to thank Governor Cuomo, the relationship there for the whole thing. Were building hospitals. Were working very well with the governors. Pretty much almost all of them. A couple of them no matter what you do youll never satisfy them. You could find the cure tomorrow and theyll never be satisfied. Theyll find a reason to complain. Wise guys. So he likes the governors when they flatten the curve but not when they push back on lifting the lock downs. He likes them when the president s stabilize but not when they ask about longterm planning. As conservative writer windsor mann describes it, trumps plan is to take credit for what the governors do well and to blame them for everything that he does poorly. You can see that and you have seen it over the past several days when first, the president also, when Governor Cuomo decides hey if the president isnt going to lead were going to get governors to leave you really called it that moment and said oh, boy, now watch how donald truch trump responds. He came out and said i have total power and total authority. Whatever he said that no other president ever said before and then he realized if he took total authority then he would have total blame for every death that moved forward after that. In his mind. So he shifted it back to the governors. Right. And then after shifting it back to the governors, he decided the next day he was going to actually try to attack the governors. These lib rat michigan and lead to people taking military style weapons to state houses and carrying them around and boy, talk to david french about the smartness of that and then after that he then responds by trying to praise all the governors but just so you know and just so everybody watching knows that obviously youre concerned by the reckless protests where people were close together and you had people bringing military style weapons to state houses, its more of the same. Its damaging to the health and wellbeing of millions and millions of Senior Citizens and other people with Underlying Health conditions and healthy americans as well. Its also damaging to his standings. They fear easing lock down restrictions a lot more than they do fearing having those restrictions in place to keep americans safe because as you have said and as i have said, donald trump can blather all he wants and people can go around and carry around guns at state capitals all they want, but were not talking about the british. Were talking about american doctors. And american scientists. Were talking about the very people that you mocked when they told you in january and february that the pandemic was coming. You remember you did that, right . You were saying this was all a scam. Do you remember that . Boris johnson was saying i have to go on and live my life. That was you then. And this is you now. As were finally bending the curve because unlike you we all as americans listen to those doctors and 60 of americans say, you know what, ive had moms and grand moms and dads and grandads and friends that i know die the most heinous death imaginable. I tell you what were going to do is keep listening to the doctors and stop listening to politicians freaking out because theyre diving in the polls right now. Theyre holding the person in charge, the president of the United States accountable and when they look to whats happening in their lives, they look to the top person in charge which would be President Trump. With us this morning we have White House Reporter for the Associated Press. Msnbc National Affairs analyst and cohost of show times the circus and editor in chief of the recount and u. S. National editor at the Financial Times join us. So ed, i want to go to you quickly with an article that i read from your publication this morning. And im just going to get a quote out of it because its pretty oh, whats the word . Not chilling. That puts a deviousness on donald trump that he doesnt deserve because he is such a day trader. Ill just say this. Like china, like trump, as part of a Global Chinese campaign of shifting blame from beijings response to the covid19 pandemic, the Chinese Embassy published a letter claiming that french nurses abandoned their posts and left old people to die of hunger and disease. The chinese are doing just what donald trump is doing. Donald trump is doing like the chinese are doing. They both screwed up monumentally. Both are going to be blamed by historians for most of what has happened since december. The chinese that are beginning and then donald trump with his slow response especially in january and february. But here you have donald trump blaming the who and donald trump blaming the governors and donald trump blaming china and donald trump blaming everybody but himself of course and the chinese are doing the same thing on the global level. I dont think its going to work for either. Thats a very good point. In our mind we have this binary idea and the chinese have that idea that its a zero sum game. Clearly, both countries systems in different ways for Different Reasons have failed spectacularly. We can later on go back and look. They suppressed information about it for a critical three weeks or so but the idea that its one or another is observed. There are smaller countries with fewer pretensions that have less to fall back on and not playing a geopolitical game that have done well and whose systems have done well. I would have included singapore in that group and maybe we still should wut unfortuna but unfo its been a 20 surge. They have had 1,500 new infections or so which really underlines the point both the chinese and the americans should be looking at. Which is even the best performing systems even after the best early action to contain this virus and distancing measures, once you start relaxing it can come back even in the systems in places like singapore and Neither China or america or the leaders of china or america are educating their people. This isnt a magic number and its a long haul and a marathon and it requires Public Information that neither President Trump or xi jingping are even attempting to provide. You know, the president of the United States made the terrible mistakes that he made in january. We could argue about i think january 22nd him telling cnbc and while he was in davos its only one person from china and soon its going to be down to zero. Throughout the entire month of february while his own officials were freaking out and everybody inside the white house knew, in fact, they knew if you look at the list of the state department , the cdc, they all new in early january, and donald trump wastes all of february, all of february, even after his ban went into effect at the end of january, wastes all of february saying its going to go away in april, nothing to see here, its 15 people, soon its going to be down to zero and the end of february hes talking about how its a hoax. That the medical communities overreaction to it is a hoax. And so you have china wasting november and december lying to us and we know that theyre lying to us. Our medical officials know theyre lying to us and then in january donald trump spends all of january talking about what a great guy president xi is and how the chinese are being so transparent and doing everything. The people of the United States would like to thank president xi and the people of china for what a great job that youre doing on the virus. Nothing to worry about here and donald trump says that in january. And then he says in february, its going away magically and he said it will go away magically when it warms up. I checked my calendar yesterday. Were in april. And guess what happened in april when he said it was going to magically go away . We just crossed the 40,000 person death total. 40,000 americans dead. I think a good way to think about this is that its a bookended by his last two foreign trips. The one that you mentioned in davos near the end of january and then one he took to india a month later which i was with him for that in davos, he as you said, down played this. There was only one american case of coronavirus that we knew of at that point and my colleagues and i last week got a detailed account of his actions between davos and india and i think i should better say that as his inactions because outside of that china restriction that you point out was not a total ban. Tens of thousands of people were still able to travel between china from china to the United States. And it wasnt only until his return from india at the end of february and thats when, importantly thats when the u. S. Stock market first took a real blow from the coronavirus concern. He was in india and he was monitoring that frantically. Prior to that aids had come to him repeatedly with warnings and he was too focused on impeachment trial and then later as we reported at the time didnt want to indeed insult china and xi jing ping because he wanted this year to make a china trade deal part of what could get that done and make it part of his reelection pitch. And jonathan, really quickly also, something that you know about johnen thnathan, while he flying back from india one of his Health Care Officials that i think was related to i forget the Justice Department general name rod rosenstein. How quickly we forget. Somebody related to him comes out and says this is going to be bad. Americans need to be prepared. And donald trump becomes enraged and says that xi is overreacting just like he said how many times, at least on two different occasions that hhs secretary azar was overreactling. And he was more worried about wall street than keeping main street safe and healthy. Thats right. He first previewed to reporters that the coming virus was going to be worse than people anticipated. Her message ran contrary to what the president said the entire month of february including in a number of rallies where he down played it and said it would disappear at some point during april and he lashed out at her when he indeed landed back at joint base andrews at the end of february and it was only then that there was a belated effort by this administration to try to get ahead of this and as we documented every day on the show fell so woefully behind on a number of fronts, most particularly testing. We had a very combative president trying to defend the administrations efforts on tests. Trying to again push the governors to pick up the slack. He was going to produce more swabs that could be part of the Testing Process and he didnt name which company he was going to compel to do that and the white house didnt respond for more clarification. Thats something that we need to keep an eye on to see if he follows through but theres a real defensiveness thats grown in particular in the last week as the president is starting to really be concerned about how this could impact his reelection chances again in november. Coming up, a tale of two washingtons. Washington state and washington d. C. A new documentary explores the stark contrast on how the proplaces responded to the outbreak in very different ways. Its a fascinating book and its straight ahead on morning joe. Did you know prilosec otc can stop frequent heartburn before it begins . Heartburn happens when stomach acid refluxes into the esophagus. Prilosec otc uses a unique delayedrelease formula that helps it pass through the tough stomach acid. It then works to turn down acid production, blocking heartburn at the source. With just one pill a day, you get 24hour heartburn protection. Prilosec otc. One pill a day, 24 hours, zero heartburn. Lets be honest. 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According to the latest nbc news wall street journal poll the number is up one point since last month. 44 say they approve. 65 said that trump did not take the coronavirus threat serious enough in the beginning. 36 say they post his opinion of the coronavirus compared to 66 that say they trust the states governor. You see the latest adds that are strong that show clearly that joe biden say this coming. He was writing about this in usa today in january. In january. He saw it coming in the direction of the United States. He called on the white house, the president , the administration to take it seriously. They did not. Donald trump needs to stop doing these nightly press conferences. Not only for the safety and the health of the American People but also for his own political fortunes because every night he goes out and damaging himself by his being a day trader and just shoots from the hip and says whatever. You see him get angry if anyone brings up facts that get in the way of him looking good and its i talked earlier about the emperors clothes falling off. Its not good for him to show that to the American People. Hes doing Something Else too. Its like a guy being told by his lawyer, dont talk. Whatever you say its going to be used against you. So just dont talk. Make sure that you measure every word because what happens is donald trump goes out and he rambles. He says stupid things. He says things that are lies and all he does is he gives joe bidens campaign, he gives democrats just 2. 5 hours of material every night so fact check against all the things that they already have from january and february and you were right about joe biden. Joe biden was saying in january you need to get more serious about this. In january he was saying that donald trump needed to let scientists and doctors do the operation and do the talking. In january he warned what was coming. Well, donald trump wasted all of february and as we can look at the recount calendar you see that even near the end of february, a whole month went by, donald trump was still saying that this was magically going to go away and that it was a hoax being drummed up by the media. Coming up, three key issues missing from President Trumps guidance on reopening the country. Dr. Lena winn explains next on morning joe. There will be parties again soon, 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. Some because ourstop. Communities need you. Which is why were working to keep you working. And ready to dig in. To help you keep your properties and towns maintained. Your farm running. And construction moving. Your work is essential. Kubotas 1,100 dealers are behind you. Together we will get through this. Call or email your kubota dealer about 0 financing. No payments for 90 days offer expires 5 31. Together we do more. At the moment if the choice is not having ppe or having ppe were all going to have it. That was a look at the front line documentary coronavirus pandemic. Joining us is the correspondent for that. And also joining us is the Public Health professor at George Washington university. Its good to have you both. Great to have both of you on. Were so excited to have you on. Like three plane crashes over the past 20 years. Id love the ask you about but well skip that for now and instead, lets talk about just fascinating, youre fascinating look at a tale of two washingtons. Tell us about it. Well, when the pandemic first arrived on our shores, of course it happened here. Im sitting in seattle this morning. The state of washington. Its the midpart of january. It was one case. And theres usually a thousand. They find this person and how do they contain the story and how do they do the Contract Tracing . What lied ahead. What was beneath the surface . The response was very good and the reparations were good and were it not for a little better testing and capeability at the out dp outset they might have been able to contain it sooner. A lot of why it began here in washington is because folks here in washington were really looking. They knew this was on its way and they were prepared. Lets go. She has a question for you. Miles, what youre talking about there is that Contract Tracing which seems to have been so critical in the countries that have managed this well. Are you getting an indication that during this basically this time we are buying with lock down the armies of contract traces that america will be needed right around the country are being built up . I have seen some examples of doing some of it. Massachusetts is doing. They ramped up testing as quickly as they could despite obstacles that made it difficult at the outset. Today they could do 3,000 tests a day. But that still pales by comparison to consider the demand and the need and its not so much the capability of the labs and the people that process the tests but its the materials. The reagents and the supplies. And thats where the National Need comes in. This is where if you mobilize american industry and start producing the supplies to make these tests we can begin to start to really identify the full scope of the problem and try to put a wing around these cases. All right. You have a piece in the washington post. Its basically on the three key issues missing from trumps guidance on reopening the country. Number one, clearly as testing most people understand that without testing you dont have a road map. Especially for the asymptomatic carriers. Number two, you talk about securing the governments role for federal assistance to secure tests. Ventilators and ppe. Right now the state establish a the states are doing it. Why is the federal coordination, i guess, using the dpa, why is that the only way forward . It doesnt make sense for there to be 50 different strategies when there needs to be a nationally coordinated effort. We heard about how theyre bidding against each other for swabs and reagents to process these tests or how masks are in such short supply that theres a competition between the federal government and individual localities and then theres the issue too of establishing a Public Health infrastructure. What she was saying earlier, we need potentially hundreds of thousands of new Public Health workers who can identify individuals who test positive, find the contacts and quarantine and isolate those individuals. I mean, were talking about hiring maybe up to 300,000 new people within a matter of weeks and we cant have 50 different states each with their own protocols, each trying to recruit their own employees and then training them and deploying them. That makes no sense. And were going to see more deaths as a result. From a Public Health perspective is the failure to revoke the defense production act and do this on a National Level making it harder to reopen . Less safe . Its making it harder to reopen and extending the time line. We have to stop looking at the number of cases as a Weather Forecast because everything happening now is not inevitable. Its not like oh theres a hurricane thats going to hit us at a certain time. Actually our actions right now make a big difference on the trajectory of the disease and when we can reopen. The longer it takes to build the capabilities the longer its going to take to reopen the economy and when that occurs i hope that were not going to see a second surge of deaths which could occur if we end up reopening too soon before these capabilities are all set up. You were the first to explain to people that these social distancing guidelines are real. This is not a snow day. This is not where kids go on spring break and hang out and this was serious and if you dont take it seriously people will die and that was proved to be correct. So i want to ask you now how should families be looking at this . They cant really depend on President Trump to understand what the temperature is of the problem. Should families be back and really staying in completely and how long should they be considering their life being like this . From your estimate . What you think from a science perspective. Youre right. We have to follow the data and the science here and what we know is that social distancing is working. That the only way at this point for us to reduce the rate of traps mission is to stop the person to person contact and that is what has been working and flattening the curve. Thats what has been working to reduce the burden on our Health Care System and thats what has been working to save lives. Families should continue to stay as their unit. Their household unit and try to stay away from others as much as possible. Theres people that have to go get groceries but as much as we can we should honor the sacrifices of all of the individuals that have already done so much to miss school and miss work and continue to hunker down and this is extremely hard but again we are saving lives and protecting our own communities. Miles, we have covered your career closely for a long time. Were big fans. We have seen you follow the airline industry. Its an industry that hasnt had a fatal crash in 11 years. We have seen you follow nasa and we have been ahead in that race ever since. Science, something you have reported on so much. When it comes to nobel prizes theres not a close second to the United States so how did we fail so miserably in the greatest scientific and medical challenge of our time . Its an important question, isnt it, joe . The intersection of science and politics is a pretty ugly place these days and its been that way for decades. And they move on for political gains. Looking at science through a political prism has great consequences. People concerned about Climate Change for a long time have been saying this for a long time but thats a crisis thats a little harder for people to see the consequences of although thats changing. But in this case, in the case of a pandemic, injecting politics in the middle of it and discounting the data and what science are saying has real consequences, lives are lost and its time to put the politics aside and truly look at the at what the experts are telling us. Theyre not lying. Theyre not lying to us. You also look at the friction between science and economics. That seems to be his achilles heel when it comes to reopening the economy. Hes listening to people like larry kudlow at times instead of dr. Fauci. Of course, ultimately he seems to get to the right decision on some of his Health Care Decisions but still, that friction has been underlying so much chaos in the white houses delivery of their message. It isnt time to be playing small political game when youre dealing with a global pandemic. And we do that at great pearl. What i have seen is a political infrastructure listening to the science and the data and has done the best they can. Other states have done that as well. But until we have a cohesive National Approach to what is after all every person on the planet were not going to get out of this. It premieres tomorrow night on pbss front line. Thank you so much and dr. Lena wen thank you as well. Great to see you. Up next, keir simmons has new reporting and new questions about the source of the coronavirus pandemic as a laboratory in china finally breaks its science. But first, we want to put some faces to the tragic numbers of coronavirus deaths and tell you their stories. One was a World Champion track and field star at the top of her game and were not talking about a 20yearold. 84yearold mary roman of connecticut spent her golden years constantly breaking records at the National Senior games. Also known as the senior olympics earning over 300 medals throughout the past two decades. She was still hoaning her technique when she contracted the coronavirus. Overcame polio as a child and died on march 23rd. Arnold obey enjoyed running marathons. In fact he ran 38 of them in a row starting in 1980. He even ran a marathon after suffering a stroke. He was on vacation with his family in san juan puerto rico when he started feeling ill. Four days later he died from complications of the coronavirus. Hes survived by his wife and three daughters and four grandchildren. Steve ravitz said throughout life were called upon to make a difference. He was 73 and the president of the supermarkets of cherry hill. A company that operates many Grocery Store chains in south jersey. They started out as small family bisby his father ravitz transformed them into a power house with the help of his son and he always remembered to give back. He champions better training, pay and Career Development for his employees. Sent meals to war torn cosivo and started the foundation that donated 5 million to charities throughout south jersey. He died on april 7th from the coronavirus. Well be right back. 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Tools to manage your business from any device, anywhere. And a team of experts here for you 24 7. Weve always believed in the power of working together. Thats why, when every connection counts. You can count on us. Inc. The confusion and controversy surrounding the origins. Just today accusing the Trump Administration of politcizi politcizing coronavirus but just to put the politics aside at the moment and it isnt easy to do in the current climate. We have been trying to look at exactly where the virus might have come from and the allegations that it could have escaped from a lab in wuhan china. One of the things that we discovered are pages of informational reports and these are just a few of them that have been removed from the internet since the coronavirus emerged. This morning, new questions about the source of the coronavirus pandemic as a laboratory finally breaks its science. The institute telling Chinese State television the facility was not the source of the outbreak. I can tell you for sure that none of our students, retirees or any of our staff has been infected. For weeks the Trump Administration has been raising questions about whether the virus accidentally emerged from a laboratory and not a food market as they claimed. Were doing investigations also. The secretary of defense telling savannah i find it hard to trust much of what comes out of the Chinese Communist party. Wuhan is home to a number of organizations studying coronavirus which can be found in bats. This video posted by Chinese State media last year showing a wuhan cdc scientist collecting samples from bats from experiments. That laboratory less than 400 yards from the market where the coronavirus began. In february a Chinese University study reported incidents of a wuhan cdc scientist exposed to viral infection from bats. That study has been removed from the university website. The author claiming he lacked evidence. Close by the Wuhan Institute of urology among the first to receive Patient Samples of the cyrus last december and worked with other chinese labs to map the genetic sequence but multiple pages from its website have also been deleted including one that describes the work of a world renowned scientist known to many as bat woman studying cross species infection such as sars coronavirus. I swear on my life it has nothing to do with our laboratory she told Chinese Media in february. A respected scientist from texas that visited wuhan many times telling us i can say with certainty that there are world class scientists working at the Wuhan Institute and theyre on par with labs globally. Most agree it wasnt manufactured in a lab. But theres a possibility that it resulted from safety lapses at a lab. Id like to see a more interNational Approach and a more international investigation. And current and former u. S. Intelligence officials tell nbc news that the u. S. Intelligence community is investigating, guys, whether some kind of a virus did escape from a lab in wuhan. In the end, we may never know the answer. We did ask, by the way, the Chinese Ambassador to washington and the Wuhan Institute to give us a statement even about the missing pages but we havent heard back. Well, of course, the suspicions that are raised by them actually stripping those pages out of studies and especially the one that talk about a lab facility thats only 400 yards away from the wuhan market where its believed this entire virus started . Yeah. Some of the confusion about this is there are actually multiple labs in wuhan so the cdc is that close to the market. And it is raising eyebrows around the world that this would emerge where so much work is being done looking at coronavirus. What theyre trying to do is help the world deal with the potential for coronaviruss and now the accusations are around. One of the questions i think is whether china is going to be open. Whether theyre going to be transparent and even if we dont know the answer to some of these questions, i think that will be one of the lingering issues is once again, has china really been full and frank with the international community. Thank you so much for being with us. We greatly appreciate it. An important report and mika, they havent been transparent up to now and we all know they havent been transparent up to now. They lied to the United States. They lied lied to the united st. They lied to donald trump. Donald trump was gullible enough to believe and repeat those lies because he wanted a trade deal with china more than he wanted to take care of this virus, obviously, and, of course, he was still defending them into february. But again, for china itself, their role in the world depends on whether theyre going to turn the page and be transparent on how this began. Were going to figure it out anyway. So what good does it do for china to keep lying . To keep destroying documents . To keep being, you know, secretive about this pandemic thats forever changed the course of history. Not just in america, not just in china. For the world. Across the globe. Were going to find out anyway, so hopefully they will be more cooperative. Hopefully we can move Forward Together and figure out how this began and how we avoid the next pandemic from breaking out. But right now, china is not doing what it needs to do to move forward in a positive way. Up next, a road map to reopening the country. What experts are saying must be done before the u. S. Can safely get the economy going again. Keep it right here on morning joe. Youre in this alone. Were automatically refunding our customers a portion of their personal auto premiums. Were also offering flexible Payment Options for those whove been financially affected by the crisis. 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Because being linked to the land means the work never stops. Nothing runs like a deer. Heres the thing about managing mefor your business. Sstops. When youve got public clouds, and private clouds, and hybrid clouds things can get a bit cloudy for you. But now, theres the Dell Technologies cloud, powered by vmware. A single hub for a consistent operating experience across all your clouds. That should clear things up. As President Trump pushes to have stayathome orders lifted and open up parts of the country, more than 45 economists, social scientists and lawyers and ethicists say theres one factor thats a major step necessary to put americans back to work. One that weve been talking about for some time now, and that is dramatically upscaling testing. Joining us now, professor at Harvard University and director of Harvard Center for ethics, danielle allen. She is one of the authors of the newly released report entitled road map to pandemic resilience. Its the nations First Comprehensive operational guide for mobilizing and reopening the u. S. Economy amid the crisis. So we all agree about the testing. Do you have any idea, given what youve looked at, how long it would take to get there at the pace that the u. S. Is going now, which is sort of state by state as opposed to a National Mobilization to get testing under way . Mass testing . Sure. The goal is to reopen and stay open. And to do that, we have to have a target of 5 million tests by june. Were currently on a pace of about a million tests a week. We have 5 million tests a day. So the fact is that states are working hard to ramp up testing but its hard to get the level we need without some kind of centralized coordination. So at the end of the day, we really need the federal government. Either white house or congress. Either could do it to step up the pandemic testing board and activate that supply chain and scale up. So that nationalized that government coordination is the only way to ramp up the testing . Theres no way because i only ask this because the president appears to refuse to do that. He says it must be done locally, that he cant stand on a Street Corner or do testing in parking lots at walmarts, that its important. Its handled by the local governments. Is there any way to get to the number we need so we can safely reopen without having to shut down again . Its absolutely the case tests can and should be administered locally. We need to activate all three levels. The local level, state level and federal government specifically to activate the supply chain. All we need the federal government to do is to coordinate across different elements of the supply chain as well as to invest in innovation pathway. Commerce can do those, too. It doesnt have to be the white house. I hope the white house would. Congress can do it. So we have lots of resources within our federal system to make this happen. And its really important that every part plays its role. And at the end of the day, yes, we do want local, municipal leaders and county public Health Officials figuring out how to build out testing, tracing and isolated programs in their communities. It will have a different shape everywhere as they should. Its important the people who are administering that are really trusted by the communities in which theyre working. That really does require local administration. So what we really need the government to help with is the innovation pathway for the testing. Excellent. Katty kay has been writing about the difficulty of reopening and she has a question. Danielle, i read the report and i read the aei report and center for American Progress report. They have some differences but they all have certain similarities as well. They have the testing, but beyond the testing, there are other steps, arent there . Theres the Contact Tracing and more testing and the whole issue of quarantine and how you do that. How much progress is being made on those latest steps . Theres rightly a lot of focus on ramping up the testing but also these other steps that have to take place, arent there . And how much progress are we making on those . Thats terrific. We are making good progress. So on tracing specifically, you see in massachusetts, in washington, both take the lead by really trying to develop significant personnel rampups. Australia set a good example. Theyve been ramping up in that regard. Johns hopkins has recommended adding 100,000 Contract Tracing personnel to National Structure centers for deployment to hot spots around the country. And congress is working on the legislation, i believe, to the domestic tracers in that way. So we can really build out manual Contact Tracing personnel. Theres a terrific example in eastern texas where the city and public Health Officials have come together and redeployed firemen and police and restaurant inspectors and so forth to achieve the Contact Tracing personnel they need for their region. The truth is we have the people to do this. We have incredible unemployment. So were making progress. Supported isolation is key. Quarantine is for when you dont know if you have it and isolation for people who are covid positive. Many are asymptomatic. Thats where we really need isolation and supported isolation. People have to be able to stay off of work for a few weeks. They cant lose their job by taking themselves out to keep the rest of us safe. So thats going to work on support. All right. Danielle allen, thank you so much. We greatly appreciate it. We talked about polls and how the president s polling has dropped since he started these daily press conferences. We talked about him losing 49 to 42 in the overall poll. But if you dig down deeper into that nbc news wall street journal poll, even in the key swing states of arizona, colorado, florida, maine, michigan, minnesota, nevada, new hampshire, north carolina, pennsylvania and wisconsin, hes losing 49 to 43 . For the president publicly, less is more. And that does it for us this morning. Stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now. Hi there. Im stephanie ruhle. Its monday, april 20th. Here are the facts this hour. This morning. Parts of