Transcripts For MSNBCW Morning Joe 20201116

I had 206 to 223 in the Electoral College. 306 to 223. Im saying to myself, wait a minute. I just won one of the greatest elections of all time in the history of this country. 306223 thats a big shellacking. Then it got bigger and bigger and wilder and wilder and then we won by a lot. Dont forget it was 306223. Thats a lot. We had a landslide, 306223. 306 electoral votes. Well, on friday, nbc news called the georgia race for president elect biden which brings his projected electoral vote to 306. Identical to trumps tremendous landslide victory over Hillary Clinton in 2016, one of the greatest elections of all time in the history of this country. Good morning and welcome to morning joe. It is monday, november 16th. With us we have White House Reporter for the Associated Press, Jonathan Lemire. Nbc news capitol hill correspondent and host of way too early kayleigh mcenasie hu. And reverend al sharpton and from the american presidency at Vanderbilt University and unofficial adviser to joe biden, jon meacham is with us. What we need to do on this monday morning is ignore all of the noise that makes no difference and dive right into the latest with the coronavirus pandemic which is making a huge difference in this country. As of yesterday, infections across the country topped 11 million. 1 million of those cases were recorded just this past week alone, including more than 156,000 on saturday. It took over two weeks for the u. S. To go from 8 million cases to 9 million. That was at the end of october and then it took only ten days to go from 9 million to 10 million. Surgeon general jerome adams warned in a tweet yesterday that record cases over the past week will mean record hospitalizations soon adding that communities and hospitals cannot sustain highlevel care at this rate of increase. Right now the death toll from coast to coast is nearing 250,000 people. In minnesotas star tribune yesterday, the obituary section took up 10 1 2 pages of the newspaper. Heres dr. Anthony fauci and his warning yesterday. University of washington model projects that the u. S. Will reach 439,000 deaths due to covid by march 1st. Is that really possible . Another 200,000 deaths in the next four months . Yeah, it is possible, jake. And the issue is the models as i have said so often are as good as the assumptions you put into the model. And we have got to change those assumptions. We have to say were going to turn it around by very, very vigorously adhering to the Public Health measures and we dont need to get to that number. All right. So several states are rolling out new restrictions and shutdowns in an effort to curb the spike. In michigan, Governor Whitmer has ordered all high schools and the colleges to halt facetoface classes for at least three weeks starting on wednesday. In washington, governor jay inslee ordered a shutdown and further restrictions for restaurants and indoor gatherings. In new mexico, there was a stay at home order going in effect today for two weeks. And will close gyms, restaurant dining and limiting social gatherings to more than six week. In virginia, governor expanded the mask mandate to children as young as 5. In puerto rico, there was a 10 00 p. M. Curfew monitored by the National Guard and limited the capacity of gyms and restaurants to 30 . And in north dakota, the governor limited the size of social gatherings until december 13th, days after he suggested asymptomatic nurses with the virus should go to work with the virus. And the city of philadelphia is planning to add more restrictions this morning as the city reached over 1,100 new cases on friday alone. This is getting really bad once again. Joining us now dr. Ben gupta, a pulmonologist and an nbc news contributor. I appreciate you being on. Well go through it. I know President Trump as of friday was talking about no lockdowns. Were not doing lockdowns but the reality is the biden team cant wait to get in there and to start doing things that might put a dent in this pandemic. Right now its happening state by state. What worries you the most . Good morning, mika. You know, what we worries me the most here is you cant have 50 different approaches here and youre seeing here in Washington State and what governor inslee did thats a framework for what makes sense if Health Systems are about to undergo complete a complete overrunning and filling up their icus. This is the type of action one must take if theyre leading a state, one to two weeks before a catastrophe is expected. We see a complete spike from where we were as the initial epicenter. You see similar trends in missouri where icus are near capacity, utah, and south dakota. The concern is 50 different approaches and some cases no approach at all. In south dakota again in the dakotas, places like iowa, no action on basic things like masks. So this is not going to get control if were going to have maybe no approach or an aggressive approach. We need a unified approach and thats why theres a delayed impact on the planning over the next two weeks. You have a delayed transition happening, dr. Gupta, and testing very much hodgepodge. If you want to test, you can maybe get one. It might take a while and then takes a while potentially, sometimes way too long to get your results as the virus is potentially being spread. I mean, this is a cluster of epic proportions. You know, make no mistake, mika, actually we have heard from colleagues in seattle that drivethrough testing which is an off ramp, make an appointment theyre booked out for the next eight days here in seattle. We had a couple that was trying to get their child tested to see whether or not they were potentially safe to go back into the child care setting. Thats where were at now. Were back to delays in testing. Were back to families not being able to plan their lives if both parents work potentially. That is the challenge right now. So thats a huge issue here. What i thought governor inslee did was interesting because with holidays approaching he said his department of health said no indoor gatherings whatsoever outside your home unless you have tested within 48 hours and that was negative. How are americans able to do that if theres not durable access to timely testing and how do you enforce it . Thats the difficult piece there. You need public cooperation. Yeah. The other problem is that this has been dragged out so long. I mean, its very hard were about to do a report, well be talking to the a. P. s Jonathan Lemire about the president s indifference. He hasnt been to the coronavirus meeting in months. So if he doesnt care, his followers, the American People seem distracted as well, having parties, going places, planning thanksgiving. Theres a sense this isnt happening when in reality, it is more than ever. Now, can we see ourselves going back to where we were at the very worst where hospitals are overrun and they have no places to put the bodies or are we in a different place . If so, what is that place and what are the basics that people should do no matter what state theyre in . Thanks, mika. Unfortunately, this is not intended to spare anybody, but i think this were in a worse situation than we were in march because of the cold, dry air, its just colder in general, the immune systems dont like cold weather. So we are in a much worse position now with 1,500 deaths on average over the last few days. 140,000 cases. Thats why i to me im predicting about 2,200 deaths a day, starting january 1st. This is no better where we were in march, could get worse. In terms of the basics now we know surface transmission of covid19, covid19 can last on places like plastic, on wood, for up to two weeks if its cold enough. So you have to make sure you wash your hands, soap and water and Hand Sanitizer and in terms of masking, you want a three ply surgical mask if you can find it. If not, a hybrid mask with a few types of fabric, a high thread count cotton. You want multiple layers of cloth mask, a three ply personal masks. No neck gators, please, i have seen too many of those. Dont travel for the holidays. I think we have enough evidence now that this is getting too bad. This is getting flights unfortunately, there could be outbreaks on flights. Dont travel if you can avoid it. All right. Ben, thank you. President trump is reportedly as i said, quote, indifferent to what the doctor is talking about here, indifferent to the coronavirus pandemic. Instead hes focused on his failed reelection campaign. Whether theres literally no options for him there but hes focused on it. Thats according to the Washington Post. Speaking to more than a dozen administration officials, trump allies, Health Advisers and others familiar to the pandemic response. Two officials told the post that many federal officials believe more needs to be done to curb the pandemic, but most are too afraid to call publicly for firmer action. Top medical experts in the Trump Administration have infrequently visited the white house in recent weeks. Heres dr. Fauci yesterday. When is the last time President Trump attended a White House Coronavirus Task Force Meeting . You know, it was months ago, but, you know, when we have our Task Force Meeting its run by Vice President pence and the Vice President then translates that to the president himself. But the last time the president was physically at a Task Force Meeting was several months ago. So i would just clarify that. I mean, its sort of President Trump keeps saying i won the election, i won the election, wanting the attention, its not worth giving him that since he didnt. But the reports hes indifferent to this coronavirus is i think not giving it enough credence. Pennsylvania is seeing a surge right now. A massive surge. Because of his super spreader events. Because of the election. There are surges in little hot spots around the country because of his super spreader show that he took on the road, not only is he indifferent, he made sure he spread it. And by the way, his own white house is a super spreader event in itself. So its hard to be shocked at this point, but it is pretty flagrant abuse of a situation that could be rectified and rather, Jonathan Lemire, this president continues to work hard to make it worse. I feel indifference is not really a fair word because that seems almost light and lackadaisical. Hes pushing this thing out there. Mika, as the president has been solely focused on his reelection, failed reelection effort, hes largely stopped his day job and that nowhere more striking than this, managing the coronavirus pandemic where dr. Fauci said he hasnt attended a meeting of the Task Force Briefing in months and according to our reporting hes not receiving regular updates anymore. Hes been largely shut off from the process and where we are now as the nation deals with this terrible wave and we are seeing states suffer Record Number of infections theres no real federal leadership at all. Theres a vacuum. When were back to where we were in march and april and the states were left to fend for themselves but now we have a president who with his refusal to cooperate with the transition is actively slowing down with the federal response could be. Not just now in the short term, but what may happen when Joe Biden Takes Office in january, as he likely takes office as this virus is surging out of control. Theres been little public rhetoric on any subject other than his reelection. Its where his focus is, both publicly and privately. We have seen of course the tweets. But were also now seeing other than his remarks friday in which he touted the development of the vaccine and assigned more credit to the federal government than deserved for the breakthroughs from pfizer and other companies, his own rhetoric on the virus has been what we heard from him in the campaign when he made the baseless claims that the nation was rounding the corner on the pandemic which of course is not the case and now democrats tell me and advisers to joe biden tell me theyre concerned that this if transition if the white house doesnt engage further on this matter, that it will hamper their efforts come january, particularly when they need to roll out safely a distribution mechanism for this vaccine. Ideally the donald trump and Biden Administrations would be working together to make that happen, as those first doses come out and instead thats not happening and the president who sits largely alone in a west wing that has been emptied out because of the coronavirus outbreak there is not lifting a finger to help. Well, joe bidens probably more prepared, jon meacham, than anybody for a transition like this which is not shocking at all that the Trump Administration is in denial and will probably be damaging to the process of transition. I mean, i can imagine trump just leaving, headed to maralago or not leaving. But its not going to be as it usually is done. And its not going to be in a productive way that has the good of the nation in the forefront of every effort. Having said that, what are some of the concerns you have historically about what is so valuable in a proper transition . Well, governance and history dont stop on a calendar, right . And so when we look back at american history, we find again and again moments where even the bitterest of rivals manage to at least cooperate enough to continue the peaceful transfer of power or the unfolding story of the republic. I have been thinking about three winters, 1800 to 1801 when jefferson and adams one friends and then rivals. They became friends again later, but that election went deep into february in the house of representatives. And in fact, adams left washington at 4 00 a. M. On Inauguration Day in 1801 because he just wanted to get out of town. And he in that interregnum appointed John Marshall chief justice of the United States which was a particularly tough political move because marshall was a cousin of jeffersons, and had been discussed as an interim president if jefferson and adams couldnt resolve it. So there was a political nature to it, but it happened. What was called the revolution of 1,800 which was the first moment where we were trying to recover the principles of 1776 was in fact a transfer however tense. The secession of winter of 1861 which of course ended in the cataclysm and yet ultimately the Union Victory of the civil war, immensely important. 193233, as the depression took hold and roosevelt was not interested in cooperating with hoover because he wanted total freedom of action. But thats a different thing than what were seeing here. Herbert hoover was not questioning the legitimacy of roosevelts election. So this is a difference not simply of degree but of kind. Yeah. It is. And theres the ongoing question of what republicans in the senate are doing about all of this. Kasie hunt is reporting on that ahead. Plus, mike pompeo is on another world trip right now. One that a british newspaper describes as the most surreal world tour by a secretary of state in modern times. Nbcs keir simmons joins us to explain why. And why obama fears for our democracy. The Atlantics Jeffrey Goldberg will join us for his new exclusive interview with barack obama and talk to reverend al sharpton about what the former president is warning. Youre watching morning joe. Well be right back. K. How about no no uh uh, no way come on, no no nnnnono only discover has no annual fee on any card. Pizza. Tacos. Pizza what about subway . Its a good call and everyone loves it. We raised our kids on it. So it stopped the bickering . mocking tone mom, jjs copying me grow up. Mom knock it off try the new subway buffalo chicken or bbq chicken. Oh my gosh you made it oh shoes i thought yall got lost or something. Did you put some ah, kale in the greens . Oh thank you we didnt forget about you welcome to the family. Thank you. Wooooow. I love it laughter thank you dad children laughing music swells music fades exhales experience the power of sanctuary at the lincoln wish list sales event. Sign and drive off in a new lincoln with zero down, zero due at signing, and a complimentary first months payment. We use 11. Eleven. Why do an expense report from your phone when you can do it from a machine that jams . I just emailed my wifes Social Security number to the entire company instead of hr, so. Please come back. How hard is your Business Software working for you . With paycom, employees enter and manage their own hr data in one easytouse software. Visit paycom. Com for a free demo. Hon . First off, we love each other. What is your advice in this moment for President Trump . Well, a president is a public servant. They are temporary occupants of the office, by design. And when your time is up, then it is your job to put the Country First and think beyond your own ego and your own interests and your own disappointments. You write in the book, our democracy seems to be teetering on the brink of a crisis. What do you mean . We have gone through a presidency that disregarded a whole host of basic institutional norms, expectations we had for a president that had been observed by republicans and democrats previously. And maybe most importantly, and most disconcertingly what we have seen is what some people called truth decay. Something thats been accelerated by outgoing President Trump. This sense that not only do we not have to tell the truth, but the truth doesnt even matter. Actually, i think thats at the bottom of the root of all of this. Former president obama in an interview with 60 minutes as his new book comes out tomorrow. Editorinchief at the the atlantic magazine is joining us with his new piece why obama fears for the democracy. Why dont we start right there. Truth decay. I see that happening on a number of levels. Right now, if you turn on different news organizations, theyre not delivering news, theyre delivering disinformation, depending on who youre watching. And thats really growing, spreading and then just land flatly on facebook where i feel a growing number of americans get their information there and thats truth. And it seems to me to be very dangerous. You know, it is. It is very dangerous and, you know, he has president obama has very specific words for social Media Companies. He said theyre not to blame entirely for this truth decay as he calls it. Theyre not to blame for every ailment in our political system, but he says that the time is past due for them to start acknowledging that theyre not as they often argue theyre not just the phone company, right . That theyre not just carrying messages back and forth between people, that embedded in the algorithms are editorial choices, which is a good way to put it. That facebook and other companies are sorting information and pushing certain kinds of information and repressing other kinds of information. So they play a civic role theyre not playing now. But threes an accelerant as he says or something that exasperates a deeper problem which is cultural norms, right . And in his book, i mean, one of the interesting things about his book is that he traces his gradual awakening that Something Different is occurring in this country and he puts you know, he says sarah palin is the first indicator of this in 2008. Right. He looked at mccains crowd size not to harp on the crowd size, he saw mccains crowd side and her crowd side and saw she was appealing to the different impulse. Nativism and he said something is going on here. Left unchecked, and accelerated by social media, and by another media ecosystem, you know, this needs to this leads to some serious problems. Yeah. I still end up on facebook, any time i have a conversation with anybody. Reverend al sharpton, it seems to me the social Media Companies especially facebook where a lot of people are getting their information and the information is dead wrong, i guess what seems different to me is its not some of the sort of tribal behaviors that perhaps seem to be brought out by this presidency or this time right now. But its actual disinformation, actual things that are not true. Things that will hurt ones health if you believe. There is a real push to not believe the truth that i havent seen before and i just dont see facebook as, you know, as a part of it or as a slight excellent. It see it as the focus, as the place where this information festers. You know, i think that, mika, the central thing that disturbs me is what you just said and what jeffrey alluded to president obama saying, is are we getting to where truth doesnt matter anymore and its a matter of who could mock it or sell whatever it is theyre saying and lets forget about whether its true or not. Thats a dangerous place. I think, jeffrey, i want to ask you because in my talking, the president obama former president obama, real fear is were moving to where the very base of what the society is built on this, this is right, this is wrong, these are our values no longer are going to matter. Its whoever has the mic and whoever has the marketing skills and whoever can scream the lewdest. Theyre in charge and there is no right or wrong. There is no moral compass. There is no structure which really becomes tyranny. You know, i have been thinking a lot about this. And i think were in the middle of it already, actually. I mean, i think, you know, we always worry about the moment in era that is coming and here we are in a situation, a deadly pandemic, in which one media ecosystem is telling people that masks are a sign that the government is trying to repress you, rather than a simple Public Health measure. You know, were living in a situation right now in which scientists are actually apolitical scientists are being excoriated for sharing their views about how to control the pandemic. And you know, there obviously is a hope that with joe bidens ascension to the presidency, especially come january 20th, that the accelerant in chief which is what we have right now, is somebody who calms the waters, but the problem that biden will have is with credibility with 40 , 45 of the country. You will see this a lot on facebook and a lot in other corners of the media, but people are going to question his very legitimacy as president and therefore question every commonsense measure he proposes to fight the pandemic. Yeah. Kasie hunt, i mean, these republicans who cant pick up the phone and congratulate joe biden for the election he won just about says it all at this point. Heres what president obama said in jeffreys interview. Two issues that run deeper for obama than trumps personal deficiencies, concern the changes he has seen in the Republican Party and the broader conservative movement. I did not believe how easily the republican establishment, people who had been in washington for a long time and professed a belief in certain institutional values and norms would just cave to trumpian populism. Ill say it differently. I have never seen a weaker, more obsequious bunch of people. They dont want to lose the majorities and who cares at this point, were going to lose our country. I dont want to talk about donald trump, hes lost the election, hes over with and its just a matter of time how long he flails on the dock like a fish and gives up. Do they care about anything but trump and what is the hold that even obama didnt predict that he has on them . Well, mika, this is a decision they made i would argue before donald trump even showed up on the scene, back when sarah palin was first out and about and you saw john mccain be one of the few who was willing to stand up and take a leadership role and push back against people in his crowds who came up with assertions that president obama was a muslim, you know, push and made those negative aspersions about him and he pushed back and said no, this is not true. Hes a good man. This that moment that we all remember, but he was in many ways as we think about this era we may remember it as the end of something. What up folded in the aftermath was an embrace by republicans of the tendencies and the populism in their base that touched on things that are we have documented all of the darker undertones very well over the course of the last four years. And the reality is every republican that has tried to stand up and be that kind of a leader since then has essentially gotten run out of town and many of them turned in to joe biden supporters. Look at jeff flake out in arizona. They are not people who have not survived politically. This is a central challenge and a big part of it is driven by this conservative media ecosystem that jeffrey was just talking about so much about. It started with a handful of outlets like breitbart and if breitbart wrote the wrong headline about you and you were a conservative it would make your day very bad. There were a lot of members of the house who decided to find their fan bases there and that has really snowballed and accelerated in the course of the last four years and now theres an entire i mean, fox news alternative conservative ecosystem that is i dont want to say that its farther to the right because that doesnt describe it correctly. Its further out into the fringe, right, with the conspiracy theories and that is where the people that support these politicians are getting their information. That is how they are learning about the world and they essentially said theyre powerless in the face of that. So thats the challenge thats confronting them and, you know, trump has been the leader so far it seems like hes on his way out. But he may try to stick around and continue to be the leader or we may see Something Else rise in its place. But its still defined by the ecosystem. And back to the truth decay that president obama was talking about. Jon meacham . Jeffrey, you have covered the president for a long time, the former president. Im wondering in reading the book and in talking to him now how you think hes changed . Its a really good question because the answer a little bit to my surprise not as much as you would have thought given all thats happened over the past four years. I mean, i spent a lot of time with him just trying to push him off the longterm optimism. Just to pressure test it. Hes always argued that the moral arc is long and he Still Believes that to be true. You know, its funny, at one point we were talking about some of the political shenanigans of the era and sort of different problems that our democracy is facing and he started to talk about ghengis khan and how he ruled central asia 800 years ago and he said its better now than it was then. So he does believe in the long view. If you just take the extreme long view everything works out. But right now, id say that, you know, his level of concern is very high. I just dont think hes ever going to publicly say well, theres it then for democracy. You know, so long. He understands the role that he plays in our society, in our political system as well. So he doesnt want to ever show that hes giving up. But i would say that, you know, he obviously has cause for discouragement and concern, but he is sticking with his basic view that somehow americans and humans will muddle through these challenges, challenges to technology and populism pose to us. All right, jeffrey goldberg, thank you so much. I appreciate your interview and joining us this morning. Earlier we told you about the new measures that many governors are implementing in their states to contain the coronavirus. Ones was from michigans Governor Gretchen Whitmer, including all high schools and colleges in the state to halt facetoface classes for at least three weeks starting on wednesday. In response, dr. Scott atlas tweeted yesterday, the only way this stops is in people rise up. You get what you accept. Freedom matters, step up. Huh . The Trump Administration coronavirus adviser tried to backpedal in a tweet saying i was never talking about violence. People vote, people peacefully protest. Never would i endorse violence. A reminder that michigan Governor Whitmer was the target of an alleged domestic terrorism kidnapping plot a few months ago. Joining us now, democratic governor of michigan, gretchen whitmer. Thank you very much for being on. This has been a difficult time for you personally, but obviously for your state and this tweet certainly did not help. It actually we are in the midst of the worst weeks of this pandemic. We have been going through this for nine months and right now the numbers are as bad as they have been been at any given time so we have to take aggressive leaderships. Its on the states governors to do what we can save lives and theyre telling us not to gather indoors. We know we have to take action now to save lives. The modeling, mika, shows well lose another 20,000 people just here in michigan between now and the middle of february if we dont take aggressive action now. For three weeks we are going to tight things up. Batten down the hatches and try to get everyone to rise to the challenge in front of us. Jonathan lemire from the Associated Press has the next question. Jonathan . Governor, of course the surge comes right before the holidays when people in your state and elsewhere would like to gather for thanksgiving and christmas, so on. So id like you to deliver a message as to how you see that unfold in the next couple of weeks but more than that it also feels like were back in march in some ways. I would like to ask you the questions we were asking you in march. How does your state fare now in terms of ventilators, in terms of respirators, in terms of icu capacity and in terms of hospital beds . So, first and foremost, as we think about the holiday season, i know everyone just wants to get out of we have multiple generations of family that come together. We in michigan cheer on the lions and we have our celebrations. But you know its just too dangerous. Right now we know if you have more than one house hold in the house for one time its more dangerous. We have the Community Spread of covid so any gatherings indoors are inherently dangerous. Thats what were imploring people to celebrate christmas at home with your on household. If you go to more than one more house hold, keep it small, keep it well ventilated and make sure everyone is quarantining between now and thanksgiving so it can be safe. Just because you can do something doesnt mean you should. We know that we want to celebrate thanksgiving next year with all of our loved ones doing not doing it right now makes it a much more likely that we can do that. And with regard to where we were in march, you know, the novel nature of this virus is that in march we didnt know how critical a mask was. We didnt know how much dangerous more dangerous it is to be indoors for a prolonged period of time. We didnt have the ppe or the therapeutics available now, so its different although the numbers are spreading so fast that its still light march, requires aggressive action to save lives. Reverend al sharpton, you have the next question. Governor, there are many governors that have also taken the position that you have, and then Governor Cuomo here in new york has stated yesterday, joined us on politicsnation last night, saying even when we get to the vaccine, when we get there, his concern was the present way that they have laid it out from this administration, does not get to a lot of communities that do not have the hospitals that do not have the Health Care Facilities and have been disproportionately impacted, mainly black and minority communities. Do you share that concern and will you put things in place and advise the Biden Administration to make sure when and if we get to the vaccine that we in fact make sure that the people that need it the most and that have been disproportionately impacted are the ones that also can equally get the vaccine . Yeah, absolutely, rev. I think its really important and im really proud that we in michigan were one of the first states to share our demographic data. We saw the dispar it impact that the coronavirus was having on the people of color. And we have an africanamerican er doc, she was one of the first to see the difference and to read into it so we could do the aggressive outreach. We are ensuring that there are the kind of supports necessary because of this impact and as we head into the first or Second Quarter of next year and the vaccine becomes more available, clearly the cdc will have a heavy hand in how that is distributed but well be weighing in and precisely the way that you have acknowledged. We have got to get this vaccine to people that are on the front lines right now protecting us all, to communities that are more vulnerable and thats part of the work that were doing with the incoming Biden Administration, although i have got great confidence that they have the smartest minds around the table. So the only question i have is if you close colleges for a couple of weeks, governor, i mean, theres im looking at this sort of threeweek order which includes a lot of just really trying to get people to stay in place and not to and to stop the spread. But kids coming home, like its going to be chaos. Arent they going to be bringing it i mean, isnt that the worst super spreader situation you could ever imagine . A College Campus and now all of these kids go home . Well, kids are going to go home regardless, mika. I think thats something that parents like me who has a freshman in college have to be really smart about. My daughter got a covid test yesterday and shell get another one before she comes home and then im going to quarantine her and then shell get another one after five or six days. We have a responsibility to keep our family members safe and most colleges are stopping at the thanksgiving break and going to Virtual Learning and many until the end of the calendar year. We needed to reinforce that for High Schoolers who have more spread that we are getting them out of class for this short term and hopefully, three weeks will show us that we are up to this challenge and we crush our curve like we did in the spring. Thats what were shooting for, but were going to measure it every step of the way. Gosh, its hard on the young people. Governor gretchen whitmer, thank you very much and appreciate everything youre doing. Coming up well be joined by andrew cuomo and bill de blasio and well get down to the big question raging over whether new york city Public Schools will remain open. Plus, new Jersey Governor Phil Murphy on their efforts to mitigate the coronavirus. Morning joe is coming right back. Among my patients, i often see them have teeth sensitivity as well as gum issues. Does it worry me . Absolutely. Sensodyne sensitivity gum gives us the dual action effect that really takes care of both our teeth sensitivity as well as our gum issues. Theres no question its something that i would recommend. Theres no question its something to customizes yourcan gocar insurancetual. Com so you only pay for what you need . Really . I didnt aah ok. Im on vibrate. Aaah only pay for what you need. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Americans from both parties. Turned out to vote in numbers like we havent seen in a hundred years. And Election Officials counted those votes carefully, transparently and in accordance with the law. So, no matter who you voted for, if you cast a ballot, or counted them. Thank you for showing the world that even in times like these, america is still going strong. Here . Nah. Introducing the all new chevy trailblazer. Here . Nope. Here. When the middle of nowhere, is somewhere. The all new chevy trailblazer. Making lifes journey, just better. There will be a smooth transition to a second Trump Administration. Right. Were ready. The world is watching whats taking place here. Yes, the world certainly is watching donald trump refuse to concede that he lost an election that he lost. Many World Leaders have already called and congratulated president elect biden for his win which might make things a bit awkward when the secretary of state meets with french president Emmanuel Macron later today. Joining us from london, Senior International correspondent keir simmons. Keir . Hi, mika. Well, the secretary of state is perfectly entitled to travel with his wife on this taxpayer funded tour but its looking uncomfortable already. Talking about a lame duck tour, a british newspaper saying this is the most surreal trip by a secretary of state in modern times. You can see the reason why. I mean, hes meeting with the french president , president macron, who has already congratulated president elect biden. Its so uncomfortable that there will be no news conference, that the French Foreign ministry pains to make clear they have been fully transparent with the Biden Transition Team while saying they will urge the secretary of state not to withdraw troops u. S. Troops from afghanistan. When the secretary of state gets towards the middle east in turkey, things get perhaps even more difficult. He will not meet any turkish government leaders and hell meet with the leaders of the Christian Orthodox Church there which presumably will play well with evangelical voters and play well for mike pompeos political ambitions. When he gets to israel things get easier of course. He will met with Prime Minister netanyahu and hell go to the israeli settlement in the palestinian territories. So look, how do you put this, secretary of state pompeo mixing things up domestically, but also on the foreign stage even at this late stage. All right, nbcs keir simmons, super awkward. Thank you very much. I mean, mike pompeo never ceases to amaze. This trip is probably probably detrimental on many levels. Would you agree with that . Well, it seems surrealistic, of course. And i think that the map you showed shows that the reality is the world is doing what seems to me many citizens of the United States in what has long been a stress test for our democratic lower case d citizenship. Theyre practicing it abroad and we need to practice it at home. You know, the two the two consuming themes of the rest of the year and heading in to 2021 is going to be legitimate power, transfer of power and the pandemic. And, you know, if i were a foreign leader, the first thing i would be asking secretary of state is why are your pandemic numbers so scary . And the good news about that in so far as there is is that we can begin to take steps ourselves. You know, wear the mask. Do what the governor was talking about. Because i think were at the very beginning of understanding what role this pandemic is going to play in structural employment, in culture, in life, and we have a little bit of power. A little bit of control here to help stop that spread. Jon meacham, thank you. Coronavirus spreading faster than ever with a million new cases reported in less than a week. Well discuss efforts to get the pandemic under control, plus well talk to dr. Celine gounder, a member of president elect bidens task force. Morning joe will be coming right back. Ming right back ah sugar, ah honey honey you are my candy girl and youve got me wanting you applebees 2 for 20. Its date night in the neighborhood. No uh uh, no way come on, no no nnnnono only discover has no annual fee on any card. To fight wrinkles . Its neutrogena®. Rapid wrinkle repair® visibly smooths fine lines in 1 week. Deep wrinkles in 4. So you can kiss wrinkles goodbye neutrogena®. Introducing the iphone 12 pro with 5g. Now at tmobile, unleash the 5g power of the epic iphone 12 pro in more places. Get 2 iphone 12 pro max 2 lines of unlimited 5g for just 100. Only at tmobile. Keeping your oysters growing while keeping your business growing has you swamped. you need to hire i need indeed indeed you do. The moment you sponsor a job on indeed you get a shortlist of quality candidates from a resume data base so you can start hiring right away. Claim your seventyfivedollar credit when you post your first job at indeed. Com promo its very clear that that transition process that we go through, that time that period is measured in several weeks to months is really important in a smooth handing over of the information, as well as its like passing a baton in a race. You dont want to stop and then give it to somebody. You want to just essentially keep going. Thats what transition is. So it certainly would make things more smoothly if we could do that. Dr. Fauci, a man who has served six, soon to be seven president s, on why his team needs to be working with the president elect now. Welcome back to morning joe. It is monday, november 16th. Jonathan lemire, kasie hunt and reverend al sharpton are still with us. Lets get to do latest with the coronavirus pandemic. As of yesterday infections across the country topped 11 million. 1 million of those cases were recorded just this past week alone, including more than 156 on saturday. It took over two weeks for the u. S. To go from 8 million cases to 9 million. That was at the end of october. And then it only took ten days to go from 9 million to 10 million. Surgeon general jerome adams warned in a tweet yesterday that record cases over the past week will mean record hospitalizations soon, adding that communities and hospitals cannot sustain highlevel care at this rate of increase. We could have overfilled hospitals again. Right now, the National Death toll is nearly 250,000. Were million there. In minnesota star tribune to give you some context, the obituary section took up 10 1 2 pages of the newspaper. Joining us now clinical assistant professor at New York University Grossman School of medicine, dr. Celine gounder, a member of the president elects Coronavirus Task force. Also with us, chief medical correspondent dr. Dave campbell. Good to have you both. Dr. Gounder, give us a sense of what the task force is doing to prepare to take over running this pandemic, working with possibly and probably dr. Fauci. Are you getting any headway with the Trump Administration . Well, in the absence of ascertainment by the gsa which would be essentially the handing over of the keys, letting us into the building, starting to have these conversations, in the absence of that ascertainment we cant move ahead. We have a deep bench of scientists and doctors, as well as a team thats very seasoned thats spent time, many decades, in the administration in the white house and in federal government. So theyre very familiar with how these institutions function. But were not being given access to really critical information. But dr. Gounder, there are some basics that could be executed on a national level. Is there a plan to do that as soon as the possibility arises . Well, there are a couple of things we are planning on doing starting day one. One of which is the president elect plans to invoke the defense production act to dramatically scale up production of personal protective equipment so that includes masks, face shields and the like. And we know that these items have been in shortage and scarcity i have seen it myself on the front lines caring for patients at Bellevue Hospital in new york thats one of the very first actions that the president elect takes. Thats big news and dr. Dave campbell, i bet thats music to your ears because the dpa is something President Trump just refused to enact and it left everything to the states and there were ppe shortages. There were hospitalization, hospital room shortages. Even testing shortages. I would think this would have a huge impact on testing which is horrid right now. Getting a test is tough. Getting a result is tough. Getting the correct result is tough. You know, were all seeing that in real time now. All across the country, whether were going through drive through testing or finding that the delay built in to the testing returns, the results that come back is longer than anybody would ever hope for. And just simply having the availability of testing. Let alone that theres still some hesitancy in certain groups to be tested because if you test positive, its important and individuals know that there are rules and guidelines that need to be followed. So the workaround is unfortunately some may not be getting tested when they should, mika. Dr. Gounder, the first thing in office is enacting the defense production act. Thats going to have a pretty resounding difference, it will impact the entire country instead of the spotty response here and there, and politically different than the responses are in certain states. Will you use it as well to help increase nationalized and uniform testing . We certainly will employ it to increase the supply of other critical items like ventilators, like testing. Youre going to see a major shift in the discussion around testing. The Current Administration has been actively discouraging testing. The problem is that in order to control the coronavirus, you really need to know whos getting infected, where and why this is happening and many of these infections are asymptomatic so that these people do not have symptoms. Were only seeing the tip of the iceberg with all of the people getting sick and ending up in the hospital and dying. So we need to scale up testing in order to get our handle on the situation. Kasie hunt has a question. Kasie, jump in. Yeah, doctor, as we look toward the possibility that there will be vaccines introduced here and i know you were talking about the dpa, what is the plan to make sure that these vaccines are available to people who need them, especially those who are worried about not being able to afford them and then also whats the plan for convincing people to do that, to get the vaccine that it is safe, that it is effective. We have seen public trust in this possibility kind of plummet. Well, its a high priority for the president elect that this vaccine what made available for free to anybody who wants it and not just the vaccine itself, but the doctors visit and anything else that, you know, the cost might be associated with the vaccination. We had under the Current Administration that people ended up with the surprise bills and we wanted to make sure that the entire process of vaccination is free to anybody who wants to get a vaccine. The entire process has been politicized and we have seen the likely acceptance of vaccine expressed by the public, those rates have plummeted over the last several months. So we have a lot of work ahead to convince the public that this is a safe and effective vaccine. We have been very insistent the entire time, many of us on the Advisory Board that the fda not approve this vaccine until we have collected enough safety and efficacy data. So i hope that return to science will give people more confidence in this vaccine. That would be nice. Return to science. Dr. David campbell, on a practical matter, the cdc has found that people who wear masks, it usually was to wear a mask to protect others from your droplets. Youd wear it to protect others from you, but the cdc is now finding that you can protect yourself by wearing a mask. That seems almost like a game changer in terms of mask wearing and its impact. It is. Remember for months we were relying on people to feel for the health and safety of those around them. And now we know that wearing a face mask can indeed help to prevent infection from the wearer and it is important to wear multilayered masks. They dont have to be surgical masks but they have to have lots of layers. High thread count and have perhaps polypropylene and cotton. The one thing that is to be avoided still are the very thin gators, the things that you pull up over your face when youre out fishing or trying to keep bugs out off your mouth but they dont keep viral particles from leaving or coming through. So a face mask is very important. We have always known that but the safety of the wearer and the safety of the people around the wearer is also important. So thats those gators, young people like to wear those. Thats important. Its the type of mask and its got to be the n95 triple layer mask. Jonathan lemire has the next question. Jonathan . Dr. Gounder, to pick up the thread from kasie about the vaccines, theres news this morning that moderna has 95 almost 95 efficacy rate with their trials on the heels of what we have seen from pfizer as well. Thats good, encouraging news but of course the vaccine is still many, many months away. Largely cant be fully distributed until well after Vice President biden becomes president biden. So in the first months in january and february, when the pandemic is still raging, can you walk us through some of the options on the table that the Incoming Administration may consider including whether it would be indeed National Mask mandates or a national lockdown, akin to what we saw in march or april as the virus returns with a vengeance there. I do want to be very clear that were not entertaining national or regional lockdowns. We have learned a lot since the spring and we can be much more targeted and finetuned in what we do. I think a great example of this is whats done in new york and more recently just yesterday. Governor whitmer announced in michigan, you know, more targeted, for example, in new york based on zip codes. Here we massively scaled up tracing and testing in the surges in the last couple of months and Governor Whitmer announced restrictions. And for example, closing high school and college and keeping schools for younger kids open. Closing Group Exercise classes at gyms but keeping individual exercise open. Indoor restaurants closed, but outdoor restaurants and takeout open. So really adjusting based on what we have learned over the last several months as to what is really truly risky for transmission. Reverend al sharpton has the next question. Rev . Yeah. So doctor, let me go back to where you were talking about people getting the vaccine and getting tested in areas that have been neglected. What is going to be the difference in the Biden Administration than the present administration in dealing with the fact that you have had communities of color, black communities specifically, that have been the ones disproportionately suffering in terms of being found to be tested positive and in terms of fatalities and then getting them the vaccine distributed fairly because theyre talking about distribution in this administration. When and if a vaccine happens, through hospitals and Health Care Centers which are many of the communities, our communities do not have the facilities and then how are you going to counter the fact that many of us are very skeptical about vaccines because of the history and the tuskegee experiment comes to mind, that the vaccines were not workable or in some cases detrimental. What is the strategies on distribution and on validating to people that this is something that you do not have any reason to fear . No, i think thats a great question, reverend sharpton. I think this is a concern that is top of mind for all of us with all of our planning. Communities of color have been hit by far harder than any other community. We have seen testing sites have not been located as prevalently among these communities. The lines for testing are much longer. And so this is something were really going to have to be creative about. It makes me think of what former Surgeon General David Satcher did in trying to improve the vaccination rates of children of color and working with the black churches to instill trust and to provide this in the country where people can access it easily. All right. Dr. Celine gounder, thank you very much and dr. Dave campbell, thank you as well. And now to the new reporting from the Washington Post, more than 130 secret Service Officers who helped protect the white house and the president and his family when he travels have been ordered to isolate or quarantine after testing positive for the coronavirus or coming in close contact with infected coworkers according to three people familiar with the agency staffing. The secret service would not confirm to nbc news how many employees have been affected. The agency released a statement saying the secret service maintains well established protocols, inclusive of testing. Conducting Contact Tracing related to confirmed and suspected exposure and immediately isolating of any employee who tests positive for covid19. This program ensures that every precaution is taken to keep our protectees, families and the general Public Healthy for privacy and for operational reasons, the secret service is not releasing how many of the employees have tested positive for coronavirus nor how many of the employees were or currently are employed. The duties of uniform Division Officers in the secret service take them across the country and brought them in to contact with many people at rallies for the Trump Campaign as well as biden and harris events. Uniformed Division Officers conduct most of the check point and entrance screenings and searches and direct contact with crowds, agents work closer to the protectees and are exposed to crowds that can involve large numbers of people. That includes this weekend where they had this 20,000 man march in washington where Trump Supporters were all over the streets of d. C. And the president decided to go golfing and drove right through the crowd and unmasked secret Service Officers were lining the president s motorcade to of course protect him. Lets bring in the political reporter for the Washington Post and msnbc political reporter, robert costa. The secret service is the front line for the president and i would take that these coronavirus cases among the secret service even though they cant release specifics is pretty real. Its very real and its causing unease and alarm inside of the secret service and this has been building for months. My colleagues at the Washington Post detail about all of the apprehension, going into the white house every day, to be part of the protective unit of the president and theyre highly aware because they have to guard it that the white house is becoming an area of super spread, where agents among agents have had to isolate or quarantine or have contracted the virus themselves. This is part of an administration that has already caused many Government Experts to wonder if theyre operating in a functional way, to keep government moving during this transition period. With enough security personnel. So theres that along with the fact that this administration is not focused on the coronavirus. So they have got people out on the front lines and theyre not making it appears any legitimate effort to mitigate the numbers in a national level. Well put that there. And then look at the fact that the president is focused is focussed on his nonreelection. Theres no way he can win the presidency. He does not have the numbers. And yet, these lawsuits go on and when you read the results of and these different judges, the lawsuits that are taken to judges, its quite embarrassing for the Trump Administration yet they continue. Tell us about it. Mika, in making phone calls over the weekend, it was clear that all you just explained was the action on the political scene. But the real story for both Top Democrats and republicans in this country was the lack of action. They know the president s protesting the result and they see even in republican circles there is no path to him to contest this election in any way. Legally, politically, its just about charging up that base. But they see a lack of action on the transition to help the Incoming Administration prepare to deal with the coronavirus. Republican governors and democratic governors starving for state and local aid as they face a bleak winter ahead. No coronavirus stimulus on the horizon at this moment. The president disengaged from his own task force, disengaged from his own stimulus negotiations and headed into january with no coherent plan on testing or how to confront the virus. Jonathan lemire, jump in. Bob, i want to focus in on Senate Majority leader Mitch Mcconnell who said he had stopped going to the white house because he didnt feel like their covid protocols, safety measures, were significant and stringent enough. He has urged people, americans, to wear masks. He is seeing what is happening here. He is seeing the virus surge out of control across the country. Obviously, his eyes are also on georgia and the Senate Runoffs and trying to keep control. But at what moment do you see in your reporting have you heard talked to people around them, that he will urge President Trump to concede or help with the transition or help with the nation fight with the pandemic as opposed to simply focusing on that base and that Senate Runoff . Is there no one urging him to take this more responsible course of action . You did not see Senate Majority leader mcconnell or other members of the Senate Republican leadership or house leadership marching in washington over the weekend along with these Trump Supporters but they are politically still aligned with President Trump. Even if they dont echo him at every turn. The consensus view among Top Republicans is that President Trump remains too powerful, even if they dont agree with his position on the election to have a public fight with him. And so they want to wait until the Electoral College certifies this election and hold on unill theyre on a political roller coaster until december and january and just try to wait it out. Even as the country deals with the pandemic, the mentality within the top ranks of the Republican Party is wait it out. Dont have the public fight. Just try to pick up the pieces come january and february. The Washington Post robert costa, thank you. That is just thats just pitiful. Still ahead on morning joe what is your message to the people who apparently are tired of wearing the mask over their nose as well as their mouth . They think its uncomfortable and annoying and just too much for them to handle so theyre just not doing it. Thank you. Thank you. You know whats really uncomfortable and annoying when you die. Thats my answer. Governor phil murphy of new jersey joins us. Thats his take on masks. But first his counterpart, Governor Andrew Cuomo will be our guest. Youre watching morning joe. Well be right back. Youre watching morning joe. Well be right back. Artin. An air force veteran made of doing whats right, not whats easy. So when a hailstorm hit, usaa reached out before he could even inspect the damage. Thats how you do it right. Usaa insurance is made just the way martins family needs it with hasslefree claims, he got paid before his neighbor even got started. Because doing right by our members, thats whats right. Usaa. 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Get started with a powerful internet and voice solution for just 64. 90 a month. Plus, for a limited time, ask how to get a 500 prepaid card when you upgrade. Switch today. As soon as april, the vaccine will be available to the entire population with the exception of places like new york state where for political reasons the governor decided to say and, you know, i dont think its good politically, i think its bad from a health standpoint. But he wants to take his time with the vaccine. He doesnt trust where the vaccine is coming from. Oh, my, President Trump with those comments on friday about withholding a Coronavirus Vaccine from new york state. It comes after Governor Cuomo said he planned to have a panel of experts review a vaccine rather than taking the word of the Trump Administration. And democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo of new york joins us now. I guess at some point you would even have legal action if necessary to get what you need, governor . Oh, mika, thats just trump talking. Hes going to be gone. I think we spend too much time trying to delve into the bizarre world of trump. He doesnt like that i criticize him, hes a typical bully. And it bothers me. Its not me who doubts the fda. Its 50 of the American People. Kaiser poll, pew poll, cnn poll, they all say 50 of the people dont trust the vaccine, they believe he politicized the process. New york and six other states have put together an independent review panel to build that trust. So when the fda says heres our process, we have an independent panel, with a Nobel Laureate that can say it was a fair process, because if people dont trust the vaccine theyre not going to take the vaccine. Its all for naught. What do you think about the fact that i mean, the first thing a member of bidens Coronavirus Task force said to us on the show just moments ago is that the first thing theyll do is the president will enact the defense production act and he will make sure that testing and ppe and everything that is needed to be nationalized and distributed uniformly is going to happen. It just boggles the mind as to why that hasnt happened so far. Does it push the envelope of actual malpractice . The whole four years has been malpractice. This is a person who never said he understood government or wanted to govern. There is no governance. It was all public relations. My fear is hes making every mistake he made when covid first started. This is a redux. Were going to do vaccines and because pfizer and moderna have a vaccine. Thats like covid testing if youll remember back then. Well do covid19 testing. I direct the states to do covid testing and then how are the states supposed to do the testing . On vaccines they have no idea what theyre talking about with vaccinations. We have to do 330 million. This nation with doing everything we did over the past eight months only did 120 million covid tests. 120 million covid tests are a lot easier than 330 million vaccines and hes giving the states no money and no resources. And he thinks hes going to have drugstores deliver it and hospitals deliver it. Ill tell you what thats going to do. Thats going to leave out the black and Brown Community which the death rate among blacks is twice what it was among whites. So its were headed for another operational disaster with his plan. Jonathan lemire, jump in. Governor, as you know, new York City Schools are teetering on closing. The city set a 3 Positivity Rate, if the city passes that theyll close. Theyre open today, but city officials have said they could shut down at any time. I wanted to ask you two things about that. First, you expressed over the weekend your hope that schools would stay open and that city officials, meaning new york the city mayor bill de blasio would find a way to keep most of the schools open even if that 3 threshold is breached. My two questions for you are this. One, why not step in here as governor, you have not been shy in the past, wading into city matters. Why not keep schools open to come up with the different plan and secondly, why have you not ordered Indoor Dining to cease in new york city . That was a 2 threshold when that was supposed to happen and the city has surpassed that yet Indoor Dining is still open. Yeah, jonathan, im shy but i camouflage it well. Its not fair to say that mayor de blasio set 3 . We have 78 hundred School Districts. It was very important to us that the parents and the teachers be part of the dialogue and have confidence. So new york city which is one of the School Districts, obviously one of the largest, had a whole conversation we had webinars, we had dialogues, and the parents and the teaches felt comfortable at 3 . And we set 3 through that dialogue and collective. Thats where the 3 came from. It also came at a much earlier time when we were at about 1 and 3 sounded outrageously high. So at 3 , the teachers, the parents, expect and agreed that the schools would close. What im saying is we have learned a lot since then. And schools are actually the safe place. The infection rate in the schools is much lower than the rest of the city and the rest of the community. Why not leave the children in the schools rather than have them around run around the streets where the infection rate is five times as high. So if the schools hit the 3 what im suggesting to the parents and the teachers and the mayor lets take a second calculus which is the infection rate in the school. We know that new york city is at 3 . Lets add an element of the infection rate in the school. And if the school is below a certain threshold, let that school reopen. But the parents and the teachers have to agree. There is no fiat here. If the parents dont agree they dont send their child, school doesnt matter. If the teachers dont agree they dont come into the school, you dont have a classroom. So thats the discussion thats going on right now. I think its a good discussion. On Indoor Dining, there are 25 , they were supposed to go to 50 . I stopped that and i just closed them at 10 00 p. M. And if the numbers continue to go up, were going to clamp down even more. Jonathan lemire, i know you have a follow. Jump in. Governor, i wanted to go back again to the schools. I know you said you wanted to put it together as part of a process here. But as you note, School Transition schools is very low. The parents have wanted the children to remain in the schools. At what point if the schools cant come to an agreement on their own, would you as governor just unilaterally step in . I have never stepped in unilaterally on a School District because, jonathan, it doesnt matter. Its not something that you can do by declaration. If the parents are uncomfortable and they dont send the school children, then you will accomplish nothing. If the teachers dont show up and theyre capable of not showing up, then you will accomplish nothing. So we have made sure that it was a collective dialogue and what im trying to say to the parents and to the teachers now is i know its at 3 . I know that was the rule. But we did that months ago. And we have learned more since then. And were more sophisticated and we have more testing. Now we know that schools are actually safer than the surrounding community and we should rethink that 3 . But you have to get them there, jonathan. You know, through this whole process government, its not government art form today is not im declaring this, im declaring that. Its you build a consensus because this is all voluntary. People have to agree and you have to bring them along. I think theres a very good case to say add a new element for the infection rate in this school. And then well have two elements. We have that now under a state program where we do override the locality if we have a high infection rate in a neighborhood. We call it microcluster hot spots. Well come in at 4 and we close everything down. But we let the schools test out of that. So if you hit 4 , youre in a red zone. But the school does its own test and if the school is below a certain number, we allow the school to open. I think that makes sense. But the parents and the teachers have to come because they are much more reluctant than you are suggesting. Its not that everybody gets it. You have to educate them. All right. Lets go to reverend al sharpton. Reverend al. Governor, lets go back to where the president accused you of dealing with this question of distribution of vaccine politically and you said that you wanted to make sure experts have analyzed the vaccine. Last night, you and i talked on my show about how many of the communities of color, blacks in particular, were skeptical of any vaccine because of a history with tuskegee experiment and others. How are you going to recommend to the Biden Administration because youre the only National Figure that has raised this that even with the best vaccine there is reason for some people to have concerns and then how do we distribute it to the communities that have been most impacted that dont have the pharmacies and dont have the hospital facilities that you have raised because everyone is acting like theres an even Playing Field in this country when it comes to health services. Amen, as i would say in my office. Reverend, youre exactly right. This vaccination process has not been thought through at all. Its just what trump did with the testing and the ppe and the masks. He has no idea how to govern and his government is frankly incompetent. He has said well do Vaccine Distribution. You start off with a very high level of skepticism among the general population. Thats 50 that dont trust the vaccine. That well do in panel and once you get past that you have a scale that you havent even imagined. I have only done 12 million covid tests in new york to date. And i have done more tests than any other state. I now to have to 20 million vaccines . Theyre talking about distributing it through walgreens and doctors offices. Thats nice, but there are no walgreens and National Drug chains in communities of color and poorer communities. 67 of the communities of color are health care deserts. And you have the distrust. Tuskegee, et cetera. You need a Massive Public campaign that will build trust in the vaccine. You need black people standing up and saying trust it. Ill take it. Ill be the first to take the vaccine but you need a Distribution Network that you get into the lowincome communities. It is a massive undertaking. The cdc said it would cost about 6. 6 billion. Right now, the Trump Administration has allocated 140 million and said to the states, figure it out. You know, jesus couldnt figure this out with loaves and fishes, you know . Were broke. We havent gotten any stimulus. And now we have a 6 billion Vaccine Distribution plan that no one has an idea about, but it would be the largest government operation undertaken since world war ii. It would go back to the old polio distribution days. So that the mechanism, the public trust, the reaching out to the communities, using the faithbased communities to actually build trust within their communities, its a massive, expensive undertaking that nobodys even contemplating right now. Well, well be headed into it, but not with trump. Governor andrew cuomo, thank you for being on the show and next hour well be joined by new york city mayor bill de blasio. Up next, phil murphy from neighboring new jersey will be our guest. Youre still the one that i love to touch still the one and i cant get enough were still having fun, and youre still the one. Applebees 2 for 20. Its date night in the neighborhood. Americans from both parties. Turned out to vote in numbers like we havent seen in a hundred years. And Election Officials counted those votes carefully, transparently and in accordance with the law. So, no matter who you voted for, if you cast a ballot, or counted them. Thank you for showing the world that even in times like these, america is still going strong. Thank you for showing the world that even in times like these, beautiful. But when i started cobra kai, the lack of control over my business made me a little intense. But now i practice a different philosophy. Quickbooks helps me get paid, manage cash flow, and run payroll. And now im back on top. With koala kai. Hey more mercy. Save over 30 hours a month with intuit quickbooks. The easy way to a happier business. Myim 70 and i live in mill valley, california. My biggest passion is gardening. I love to be outdoors. I have jaybirds that come when i call. I know how important it is to feed your body good nutrition. I heard about prevagen and i heard about the Research Behind it. Taking prevagen, i have noticed that i can think clearly. My memory is better. I can say that prevagen is one of the most outstanding supplements ive ever taken. Prevagen. Healthier brain. Better life. Back to the breaking news we told you about a bit earlier that the Company Moderna now says early data shows the vaccine Clinical Trials have proven to be 94. 4 effective in preventing the virus. This comes a week after pfizer announced that its vaccine was 90 effective. More than 30,000 people were involved in the study and it involved two doses of experimental vaccine. The Biotech Company says it tends to apply for emergency use authorization. Here is dr. Anthony fauci reacting to the news earlier on today. You have got to be pleased about these early results from moderna showing their vaccine candidate to be 94. 5 effective. Do you anticipate that it will get emergency use approval from the fda and how soon . Well, we all anticipate it will. I dont want to get ahead of the fda but the data are striking, savannah. Now we have two vaccines that are really quite effective. I think this is a really strong step forward to where we want to be about getting control of this outbreak. And i wont hold you to it because i recognize that its the fda that determines emergency use approval but the general time line, you and i have been talking about time lines going back to march. What do you think the time line is for these vaccine candidates to be available . Shots in the arms. Yeah. What i think is going to happen, savannah, all hands on deck. Everybody is going to do it correctly. They wont cut it in corners, but theyll do it quickly. We project by the end of december, in will be doses of Vaccines Available for individuals in the higher risk category from both companies, we hope. All right. Joining us now, new jerseys mayor, phil murphy. New jersey shattered the record high of coronavirus cases with nearly 9,000 over the weekend. Governor, kasie hunt has the first question for you. Kasie . Governor, good morning to you. With this vaccine news that we just saw there and our conversation with Governor Cuomo, i want to ask you do you and will the state of new jersey trust the fdas emergency use authorization if it comes through quickly . Do you share the concerns that Governor Cuomo articulated and does whether or not you trust the fda depend on whether donald trump is still president or whether joe biden has taken office . First of all, good to be with you. Secondly, this is good news from moderna. Were in close touch with them as we have been with pfizer and others who are developing vaccines. The simple answer, kasie, we wont let our folks take it unless were convinced and i believe that we will be able to get there. I share Governor Cuomos very specific concern about funding and the complexity of distributing a vaccine particularly a twojab, subzero reality which is pfizer and i think this is good news. We wont let our people get near it unless were convinced at both the federal level as well as the new Jersey Health level that we have kicked all the tires that we need to kick. So what does that mean for you . I mean, what kind of additional scrutiny or screening would you would want to apply before allowing new jersey residents to take this vaccine . We have our own set of experts who will be advising us and they are advising us, both on the efficacy and safety of the vaccine, on the one hand, as well as the equitable distribution of the vaccine. Even if these are successful and they come soon, they wont come in the quantities at least at first that were going to need for the broad population. So its incumbent upon us as governors, i know in new jersey this is job number one not only is it safe and it works but we have a plan of distribution that addresses the most vulnerable communities, Front Line Health Care workers and we wont let it get to the general population unless we have gone through the hoops. Governor, your state is seeing some records being broken or some rising numbers to say the least. What do you attribute that to . Yeah, its a lot its a little bit of this and a little bit of that, unfortunately. Theres no one magic wand. Theres a lot of private setting transmission. We are going today to lower indoor and outdoor limits from 25 indoors down to ten, from 500 down to 150 outdoors. We think those are steps coupled with some of the other steps we have taken which will hopefully begin to shave these numbers down. But this is a lot of fatigue. Its a lot of private setting transmission. Particularly with the holidays coming up, we have to their hai vigilant, social distance, face coverings, all the basic stuff that we know works. All right. Jonathan lamire, jump in. Governor, as you just mentioned, the holidays are indeed upon us. I know you are urging those in your state to be careful. But we are already seeing, of course, a surge throughout the nation, including in new jersey. There is reason to believe that we will have another even more so that will come out of the thanksgiving holidays as we head into the darkness of winter into mid late december. Can you talk to us about, if your state will be ready for that . Could you please give us an update where you are in terms of icu and Hospital Capacity and what you are doing to get ready for perhaps more cases in the weeks ahead. Good question. First of all, its gotten worse and its going to get worse. So we have to be honest with folks, particularly with the cold weather, as you point out, with the holidays, this is going to get worse. Please god it doesnt get to the levels that we saw in the spring. I think our peak hospitalization in the spring was 8,300. We are now at about 1,900, 2,000. So thank god we are not at those levels, but its going to get worse. So we are pleading with people to remember their personal responsibilities, especially when they are in private settings. We are shaving our parameters at the emgs. We closed restaurants on the inside as of 10 00 last week, as i mentioned. The steps were taking today. By the way, schools continue to be, knock on wood, schools continue to be a bright spot for us. There is transmission, but its much less than any of us could have feared and well within our well within any expectations. We are in for a rough ride. There is no question about it. We spoke to a member of joe bidens Coronavirus Task force earlier in the show and she said the first thing that the president elect will do once in office is deploy the dpa to get nationalized ppe, testing across the board nationalized efforts against this virus. Do you think you will see a difference . Well, that will help. No question about it. Again, we have found Common Ground consistently with the Trump Administration in our darkest hours. But what we have not this is a consistent clear National Strategy against this virus. And whether its Vaccine Distribution, which we talked about a minute ago, whether its the dpa and ppe and everything that goes with that, we desperately need that. We need a mandate on face coverings. Its basic stuff, but i would guess that that goes a long way even at this point in the development of this virus. That will be welcome news. Yes. New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy, thank you so much for being on the show this morning. Still ahead, the president s controversial covid advisor urges the people of michigan to, quote, rise up against the new covid restrictions. That, plus new york city mayor bill de blasio will be our guest. Morning joe is back in just a moment. Ok, just keep coloring there. And sweetie can you just be. Gentle with the pens. Okey. Okey. I know. Gentle. Gentle new projects means new project managers. You need to hire. I need indeed. Indeed you do. The moment you sponsor a job on indeed you get a short list of quality candidates from our resume database so you can start hiring right away. Claim your seventy five dollar credit, when you post your first job at indeed. Com home. If your gums bleed when you brush, the answer is yes. The clock may be ticking towards worse. Parodontax is 3x more effective at removing plaque, the main cause of bleeding gums parodontax here . Nah. Introducing the all new chevy trailblazer. Here . Nope. Here. When the middle of nowhere, is somewhere. The all new chevy trailblazer. Making lifes journey, just better. The all new chevy trailblazer. I feel like were forglet me check. Ing. Xfinity home gives you peace of mind from anywhere with professionally monitored Home Security built around you. No, i think were good. Good. So when youre away, you dont have to worry. The tent. We forgot. The tent. Except about that. Xfinity home. Simple. Easy. Awesome. Hey look, i found the tent get xfinity home with no Term Contract required. Click or call today. Ignition, liftoff. One story before the top of the hour, spacex made history last night successfully launching four astronauts into space as the first fullfledged taxi flight for nasa by a private company. The spacecraft took off from Kennedy Space center in florida at 7 27 p. M. Eastern time yesterday. The three men, one woman crew that consists of three americans and one japanese will be spending six months aboard the International Space station conducting science research. Its exciting. Still ahead, we are going to talk to two doctors serving at the forefront of the covid pandemic. Both fear this winter outbreak will be more severe than the spring. Morning joe is coming right back. Parodontax toothpaste . If your gums bleed when you brush, the answer is yes. The clock may be ticking towards worse. Parodontax is 3x more effective at removing plaque, the main cause of bleeding gums parodontax we made usaa insurance for veterans like martin. When a hailstorm hit, he needed his insurance to get it done right, right away. Usaa. What youre made of, were made for. Usaa i got 3 06 electoral votes against 233. I had 206 to 223 in the Electoral College. 306 to 223. I am saying to myself, wait a minute, i just won one of the greatest elections of all time in the history of the country. 306 to 223. Thats a good shellacking. Then it got bigger and bigger and wilder and wilder and then we won by a lot. Dont forget, it was 306 to 223. Thats a lot. We had a landslide. 306 to 223. We had a landslide. 306 electoral votes. Well, on friday nbc news called the georgia race for president elect biden, which brings his projected electoral vote to 306. Identical to trumps tremendous landslide victory over Hillary Clinton in 2016. One of the greatest elections of all time in the history of this country. Good morning, and welcome to morning joe. It is monday, november 16th. With us we have White House Reporter for the Associated Press Jonathan Lemire. Nbc news capitol hill correspondent and host of way too early kasie hunt and host of msnbc politicsnation and president of reverend al sharpton and rogers chair and the american presidency at Vanderbilt University and unofficial advisor to president elect Biden Joe Biden jon meacham is with us. What we need to do on this monday morning is ignore all of the noise that makes no difference and dive right into the latest with the coronavirus pandemic, which is making a huge difference in this country. As of yesterday, infections across the country topped 11 million. 1 million of those cases were reported just this past week alone, including more than 156,000 on saturday. It took just over two weeks for the u. S. To go from 8 million cases to 9 million. That was at the end of october, and then it took only ten days to go from 9 million to 10 million. Surgeon general jerome adams warned in a tweet yesterday that record cases over the past week will mean record hospitalizations soon, adding that communities and hospitals cannot sustain highlevel care at this rate of increase. Right now the death toll from coast to coast is nearing 250,000 people. In minnesotas star tribune yesterday the obituary section took up 10 1 2 pages of the newspaper. Heres dr. Anthony fauci and his warning yesterday. A university of washington model projects that the u. S. Will reach 439,000 deaths due to covid by march 1st. Is that really possible . Another 200,000 deaths in the next four months . It is possible, jake, and the issue is the models, as i have said so often, as good as the assumptions you put into the model. We have to change the assumptions, say we are going to turn it around by very, very vigorously adhering to the Public Health measures w he dont need to get to that number. All right. So several states are rolling out new restrictions and shutdowns in an effort to curb the spike. In michigan, Governor Gretchen Whitmer has ordered all high schools and colleges in the state to halt facetoface classes for at least three weeks starting on wednesday. In washington, governor jay inslee ordered a shutdown and further restrictions for all restaurants, theaters, gyms and indoor gatherings. In new mexico, Michelle Grisham issued a stayathome order going into effect today for two weeks. In oregon, Governor Kate Brown ordered a partial lockdown for two weeks starting on wednesday which will close gyms, restaurant dining and limiting social gatherings it no more than six people. In virginia, Governor Northam limited social gatherings to 25 people and put a 10 00 p. M. Curfew on onsite alcohol and expanded the mask mandate to include children as young as 5. In puerto rico, governor Wanda Vasquez issued a 10 00 p. M. Curfew which will be enforced by the National Guard. And also limited the capacity of restaurants, church and gyms to 30 . In north dakota, republican governor dougberg up issued a mask mandate and limited the size of social gatherings until december 13th. Days after he suggested asymptomatic nurses with the virus should go to work with the virus. And the city of philadelphia is planning to add more restrictions this morning as the city reached over 1,100 new cases on friday alone. This is getting really bad once again. Joining us now, dr. Vin gupta, a pulmonologist and msnbc news medical contributor. We will go through it. I know President Trump as of friday was talking about no lockdowns, we are not doing lockdowns and all sorts of bravado, but the reality is that the biden team cant wait to get in there and to start doing things that might put a dent in this pandemic. Right now its happening state by state. What worries you the most . Good morning, mika. What worries the most is that you cant have 50 different approaches here. What you are seeing here are in Washington State, what governor inslee did, that is unfortunately a framework for what makes sense if Health Systems are about to undergo complete a complete overrunning and filling up of their icus. So this is the type of action one must take if they are leading a state one to two weeks before a catastrophe is expected. And thats what we are seeing in Washington State. 4,000 new cases. Complete spike. You are seeing similar trend in missouri where icus are near capacity. Utah, south dakota. Mika, the concern here is 50 different approaches here. Some cases no approach at all. In south dakota, again, in the dakotas, places like iowa, into action on basic things like masks. This is not going to get control if we are going to have maybe no approach or an aggressive approach. We need a unified approach which is the reason why there is a deep concern about the delayed transition and the impact thats having on planning the next two months. Also testing very much hodgepodge. I mean, if you want to test, you can maybe get one. It might take a while. And then it takes a while potentially sometimes way too long to get your results as the virus is potentially being spread. I mean, this is a cluster of epic proportions. You know, mika, make no mistake. We heard from colleagues in seattle that drivethrough testing which is viewed as the offramp, make an appointment. They are booked out for the next eight days here in seattle. We had a couple of those trying to get their child tested to see if they were potentially safe to go back into a child care setting. Thats where we are at now. We are back to delays in testing, families not able to access basic test to go plan their lives if both parents work potentially. That is the challenge right now. So thats a huge issue here. I thought what governor inslee did was interesting. With the holidays approaching he said, his department of health said no indoor gatherings whatsoever with people outside your home unless you have tested, you have quarantined at least seven days and tested within 48 hours and that test was negative. How are americans going to be able to do that if there is not durable access to finally testing and how do you enforce it . You need public cooperation. The other problem is this has been dragged out so long. I mean, its very hard, we are about to do a report, we will be talking to the aps Jonathan Lemire about the president s indifference himself. Like he hasnt been to a coronavirus meeting in months. So if he doesnt care, you know, his followers or the American People, they seem to be distracted as well having parties, going places, planning thanksgiving. There is a sense that this isnt happening when, in reality, it is more than ever. Now, can we see ourselves going back to where we were at the very worst where hospitals are overrun and they have no places to put the bodies, or are we in a different place . If so, what is that place . And what are the basics that people should do no matter what state they are in . Unfortunately, and this is not intended to scare anybody, but i think this is we are in a worst situation now than we were in march because of environmental considerations. Cold, dry air, its colder in general, immune systems dont like cold weather. So we are in a much worse position now with 1,500 deaths on average over the last few days, 140,000 cases. Thats why i, to me, predicting 222 deaths a day starting january 1st. This is no better than where we were in march, potentially could get worse. In terms of the basics, we know surface transmission of covid19 covid19 can last on places like wood for up to would weeks if its cold enough. You need to wash your hands, soap and water, Hand Sanitizer on your body at all times. I have a lot of questions on quality of mask. You want a three ply surgical mask if you can find it. If not, a hybrid mask with a few types of fabric, a high thread count cotton with a pollest irtype fabric next to it. Multiple players of cloth mask, three ply surgical mask. No neck gators, please. I have seen way too many of those. No one ply masks and dont travel for the holidays. I think we have enough evidence that is getting too bad. Flights, unfortunately, it looks like there can be outbreaks on flight based on some data out of europe. Dont travel if you can avoid it. Dr. Vin gupta, thank you for being on this morning. And still ahead the Washington Post is reporting this morning that the president has not attended a Coronavirus Task force meeting in at least five months. Is that raaccurate . Thats true, but the Vice President does chair the coronavirus atask force. President trump tunes out a surging pandemic to focus on an election that he already lost and cant win. Thats next on morning joe. I knew about the tremors. But when i started seeing things, i didnt know what was happening. So i kept it in. He started believing things that werent true. I knew something was wrong. But i didnt say a word. During the course of their disease around 50 of people with parkinsons may experience hallucinations or delusions. But now, doctors are prescribing nuplazid. The only fda approved medicine. Proven to significantly reduce hallucinations and delusions related to parkinsons. Dont take nuplazid if you are allergic to its ingredients. Nuplazid can increase the risk of death in elderly people with dementiarelated psychosis and is not for treating symptoms unrelated to parkinsons disease. 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Season, after season. Ace your immune support, with centrum. Welcome back. President trump is reportedly, quote, indifferent to the coronavirus pandemic and is instead focused on his failed reelection campaign. That is according to the Washington Post, speaking to more than a dozen administration officials, trump allies, Health Advisors and others familiar with the president s pandemic response. Two officials familiar with the White House Coronavirus task force told the post that many federal officials believe more needs to be done to curb the pandemic, but most are too afraid to call publicly for firmer action. As the post reports, several top medical experts in the Trump Administration have infrequently visited the white house in recent weeks. Here is dr. Fauci yesterday. When is the last time President Trump attended a White House Coronavirus Task Force Meeting . You know, it was months ago, but, you know, when we have our Task Force Meeting its run by Vice President pence, and the Vice President then translates that to the president himself. But the last time the president was physically at a Task Force Meeting was several months ago. I would just clarify that its sort of President Trump keeps waving, saying i won the election, i won the election, wanting the attention. Its not worth giving him that, since he didnt. But the reports that he is indifferent to this coronavirus, i think its not giving it enough credence. Pennsylvania is seeing a surge right now, a massive surge, because of his superspreader events, because of the election. There are surges and little hot spots around the country because of his superspreader show that he took on the road. Not only is he indifferent. He made sure he spread it. And by the way, his own white house is a superspreader event in itself. So its hard to be shocked at this point, but it is pretty flagrant abuse of a situation that could be rectified and rather, Jonathan Lemire, this president continues to work hard to make it worse. I feel indifference is not really a fair word because that seems almost light and lackadaisical. He is pushing this thing out there. Mika, as the president has been solely focused on his reelection, failed reelection effort, he is largely stopped his day job and no more striking than this managing the coronavirus pandemic. He has not attended a Task Force Briefing in months. According to our reporting he is not receiving updates anymore. He has been shut off from the process. And where we are now as the nation deals with this terrible wave and we are seeing states suffer Record Numbers of infections, there is no real federal leadership at all. There is a vacuum. We are back to where we were in march and april where the states were largely left to fend for themselves. More than that, with we now ha president who actively slowing down what the federal response could be. Not just now in the short term, but what may happen when Joe Biden Takes Office in january. When he likely takes office as this pandemic is still surging out of control in this nation. There has been little public rhetoric from the president on any subject other than his failed election. Even as his legal challenges seem to disappear by the day, that is where his focus is publicly and privately. We have seen the tweets. But we are also now seeing, other than his remarks friday in which he touted the development of the vaccine and assigned more credit to the federal government than deserved for the breakthroughs from pfizer and other companies, he has his only rhetoric on the virus is in the campaign when he made baseless claims that nation was rounding the corner on the pandemic, which of course is not the case. Now democrats tell me and advisors to joe biden tell me they are concerned if this transition continues to slow down, if the white house doesnt engage further on this matter it will hamper their efforts come january with they need to roll out safely a distribution mechanism for the vaccine. Ideally, the trump and Biden Administrations would be working to make that happen together. Instead, thats not happening. The president who sits alone in a west wing that has been emptied out because of a coronavirus outbreak there is not lifting a finger to help. Coming up, could President Trump head to maralago one weekend and just stay there . We will talk about past transitions of power with historian jon meacham straight ahead. Welcome to a better way to live. Is that your home . Dun, dun ,dun. Hold on, stop you accessorize with a sloth . This is belt. [ chuckling ] great sash. Oola la [announcer] meet the make familysized meals fast. And because its a ninja foodi, it can do things no other oven can, like flip away. The ninja foodi air fry oven, the oven that crisps and flips away. Its still warm. Thanks, alice says hi. For some of us, our daily journey is a short one. Save 50 when you pay per mile with allstate. Pay less, when you drive less. Youve never been in better hands. Allstate. Click or call for a quote today. Here . Nah. Introducing the all new chevy trailblazer. Here . Nope. Here. When the middle of nowhere, is somewhere. The all new chevy trailblazer. Making lifes journey, just better. It turns out i have tardive dyskinesia, a condition that may be related to important medications i take for my bipolar disorder. Tardive dyskinesia can affect different parts of the body. It may also affect people who take medication for depression and schizophrenia. [narrator] in todays trying times, were here to help you manage td. Visit talkabouttd. Com for a doctor discussion guide to prep for your next appointment in person, over the phone, or online. Its a relief to know there are treatments for td. The president of the United States in the midst of an ongoing crisis. That has to be a seamless transition. We have the possibility of a vaccine starting perhaps in december january. There are people at hhs making plans to implement the vaccine. Our experts need to talk to those people as soon as possible so Nothing Drops in the change of power we will have on january 20th. Its clear that that transition process that we go through, that time, period measured in several weeks to months is really important in a smooth handing over of the information as well as its almost like pass ago baton in a race. You dont want to stop and give it to somebody. You want to essentially keep going. Thats what transition is. So its certainly, it would make it more smooth if we could do that. Joe bidens probably more prepared, jon meacham, than anybody for a transition like this, which is not talking at all, that the Trump Administration is in denial and will probably be damaging to the process of transition. I mean, i can imagine trump just leaving, headed to maralago or not leaving. But its not going to be as it usually is done, and its not going to be in a productive way that has the good of the nation in the forefront of every effort. Having said that, what are some of the concerns you have historically about what is so valuable in a proper transition . Well, governance and history dont stop on a calendar, right . And so when we look back at american history, we find again and again moments where even though the bitter exiest of riv managed to cooperate enough to continue the peaceful transfer of power, the unfolding story of the republic. I have been thinking about three winters. 1800 to 1801 when jefferson and adams, once friends, then rivals, they became friends again later, but that election went into deep into february in the house of representatives. And, in fact, adams left washington at 4 00 a. M. On Inauguration Day in 1801 because he just wanted to get out of town. And he, in that time, appointed John Marshall, chief justice of the United States, which was a particularly tough political move because marshall was a cousin of jeffersons, but had also been discussed as an interim president if jefferson and adams couldnt resolve it. And so there was a political nature to that. But it happened. And what was called the revolution of 1800, which was the first moment where we were trying to recover the principles of 1776, was, in fact, a transfer, however tense. The succession winter of 186061, which ended in the cataclysm and ultimately the Union Victory of the civil war immensely important. And 193233 as the depression took hold and roosevelt was not interested in cooperating with hoover because he wanted total freedom of action. But thats a different thing than what we are seeing here. Herbert hoover was not questions the legitimacy of Franklin Roosevelts election. So this is a difference not simply of degree, but of kind. Coming up, more on the pandemics impact on american schools. New york city mayor bill de blasio joins us straight ahead on morning joe. Morning joe. Ah sugar, ah honey honey you are my candy girl and youve got me wanting you applebees 2 for 20. Its date night in the neighborhood. We made usaa insurance for veterans like martin. When a hailstorm hit, he needed his insurance to get it done right, right away. Usaa. What youre made of, were made for. Usaa americans from both parties. Turned out to vote in numbers like we havent seen in a hundred years. And Election Officials counted those votes carefully, transparently and in accordance with the law. So, no matter who you voted for, if you cast a ballot, or counted them. Thank you for showing the world that even in times like these, america is still going strong. Thank you for showing the world that even in times like these, businesses today are looking to tomorrsetting the course. Ating. But new ways of working demand a new type of network. One thats more than just fast. You need flexibility to work from anywhere and manage from everywhere. Advanced technology. With serious security. And reliable coverage, nationwide. Forwardthinking enterprises deserve forwardthinking solutions. And thats what we deliver. So bounce forward, with comcast business. The infection rate in the schools is much lower than the rest of the city and the rest of the community. Why not leave the children in the schools rather than have them run around the streets where the infection rate is five times as high . So if the schools hit the 3 , what im suggesting to the parents and the teachers and the mayor is lets take a second calculus, which is the infection rate in the school. We know new york city is at 3 . Lets add an element of the infection rate in the school. And if the school is below a certain threshold, let that school reopen. But the parents and the teachers have to agree. There is no fiat here. If the parents dont agree, they dont send their child, school doesnt matter. If the teachers dont agree, they dont come into the school, you dont have a classroom. So thats the discussion thats going on right now. And i think its a good discussion. All right. New yorks Governor Andrew Cuomo earlier this morning on morning joe with his reason why new york citys Public Schools should remain open despite the increase in the positive rate. Right now the mayor of new york city, mayor bill de blasio. What is the positivity right now . We are fighting back a second wave in new york city. Its amazing what new yorkers are doing. On friday alone, 75,000 people came out to get tested, and thats really helping us to manage the situation. The latest information we just got now our sevenday average positivity is 2. 77 . We just got that information now. New york city Public Schools are open today. They will be open tomorrow. And if people keep doing what they are doing, coming out for the testing, wearing those face coverings, there is a real chance here we can fight back this second wave. And where are you on keeping schools open . Are you and the governor aligned . Yeah, weve had some really good conversations about this. What you played there in that clip, mika, i think reflects the conversation. Look, we set a standard of 3 to keep faith with our families and with our educators and our staff. We said, look, after everything this city went through shall the epicenter of the coronavirus back in the spring, we would bring schools back unlike almost any other major city in america. We would bring schools back but do it very, very safely. We have been able to prove that. We have had extraordinarily low Positivity Rates in the schools we have a Gold Standard we put in place for safety measures, Health Measures to keep everyone safe. Everyone wears a mask, kids and adults alike. It works. If we reach the 3 level we are going to have to do some reset. Its not a matter of saying, oh, lets just forget we had that. No. That was a rule we made to keep faith with people and show our commitment to safety. We are going to live by that rule. The question is how to come back as quickly as possible. I agree with the governor. A different approach to testing could be a really crucial part of fast comeback. Sure. Especially if biden gets that dpa going. Kasie hunt is with us, and she has the next question. Mr. Mayor, good morning. You guys sent a note over the weekend to new york city parents saying be prepared for schools to close on monday. And obviously that sent a lot of people into a bit of a tailspin. Its pretty hard if you have two parents possibly working from home, possibly, you know, people who cant work from home, having to go out, have child care problems, and yet you are still letting people dine inside. I understand there is an Economic Impact from shutting restaurants, but the ripple effects of closing the schools before you close the Indoor Dining are pretty significant. Why make the decision that way . Kasie, its a very fair question. I was a Public School parent in new york city Public Schools. I certainly understand how much parents are grappling with and how difficult it has been. And thats part of why i wanted to give them a warning we were getting close to that number and have a plan b ready. What i am trying to do is stop us from getting to that 3 . And new yorkers are responding. So my hope is that we can Keep School Going for quite a while while we fight back this second wave. On the question of the restaurants, look, ultimately the state has to make that decision. Id say we are concerned about Indoor Dining. Its only 25 . There is a lot of safety and Health Standards that are a part of Indoor Dining to make it a safe experience. But obviously we are concerned about things like Indoor Dining if the numbers continue to go up. The challenge with schools, remember again how much the city went through. We needed to convince parents and teachers and staff that they would be in a safe environment by saying we would take that 3 rule. That was part of how we gained the trust and were able to reopen the School System and why there is 300,000 kids that will be going to school this week in new york city. We cant simply turn that off and say, hey, we didnt mean it. We meant it. We meant the highest possible health and safety standards. But again if we ever have to shut down, i think there is a way we can turn around and come back quickly. Jonathan lemire. Mr. Mayor, i wanted to pick up on that thread. Previously, Indoor Dining was to be closed completely if the city Positivity Rate crossed 2 . The city has done that, but yet Indoor Dining, though limited, remains open. If that decision is made, why not have a similar flexibility when it comes to the School System . If it does cross 3 , why not be able to keep them open . What message is it sending Indoor Dining is open yet schools would not be. How much of a role is the Teachers Union playing in this sir . Jonathan, i hate to have to correct you, but that first statement isnt true. The 2 was my statement to the state that when it got to 2 i urged them to reevaluate Indoor Dining. That was not a rule. The state makes the rules and they did not put that rule into effect. I do think we have to reevaluate Indoor Dining. Its been very successful. It saved a lot of Small Businesses and i care deeply about the mom and pop businesses. It has been safe. Of course it needs to be reevaluated. That was never a hard and fast rule. What they have done is limited the hours for all dining, indoor, outdoor. Its up to them what the next step is going to be. Let me toll up there, mr. Mayor. The point about the School System, that why, if there can be flexibility at the state or otherwise about Indoor Dining, why not the same with the schools . As kasie just outlined, the burden on working parents in new york city, one you are familiar with, of course, why not be able to perhaps more targeted enforcement rather than a systemwide shut down . If the schools are to shut town, how long would they be shut down . A very important question. I am the guy who wanted to reopen the schools. A lot of people said its impossible to reopen Public Schools in new york city and its not safe. I said we are reopening. We owe it to the kids and family and we will make it safe. We have proven it can be safe with stringent standards. One of the promises i made to parents and teachers and staff, if we start to see a major uptick, we defined as 3 or more on a regular basis, i am not going to keep schools open until we have a different approach to make them even safer. I think thats the reality right now, jonathan. If we get to 3 , with we will shut down for a period of time. Quickly to me means within a matter of weeks. As the governor said, and i agree with him, with some additional measures in place to guarantee peoples safety. Our students, parents, educators, staff, they need to know that they are going to be safe. And so we can add additional testing standards, additional measures and my hope is, if we even have to close down, and thats not a foregone conclusion, if we have to close down, we can turn it around quickly with an even tighter system that can give people that confidence. Mayor bill de blasio, thank you very much for coming on the show this morning. Thank you, mika. Coming up next, stayathome advisories go in effect today in chicago amid record high coronavirus cases in cook county. We will talk to two illinois physicians about what they are seeing in hospitals right now. And just a note that joes new book saving freedom truman, the cold war and the fight for western civilization is out on november 24th. Its coming. Thats a week from tomorrow. But you can preorder now. Youre watching morning joe. Well be right back. L be right. soft chimes [announcer] forget about vacuuming for up to a month. 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Department you can crush ice, make nismoothies, and do even more. Chop salsas, spoon thick smoothie bowls, even power through dough, and never stall. The ninja foodi power pitcher. Rethink what a blender can do. We are moving ahead with what we know with the publicly available data. We have a very deep bench of scientists and doctors and Public Health and policy experts as well as a team thats very seasoned that has spent time, many decades in the administration in the white house and in federal government. So they are very familiar with how these institutions function. But were not being given access to really critical information. Doctor, there are some basics that could be executed on a national level. Is there a plan to do that as soon as the possibility arises . Well, there are a couple of things we are planning on doing starting day one. One of which is the president elect plans to invoke the defense production act to dramatically scale up production of personal protective equipment. That includes masks, face shields, and the like. And we know that these items have been in shortage and scarcity. I have seen it on the front lines caring for patients at Bellevue Hospital in new york. Thats going to be one of the very first actions that the president elect takes. And that, by the way, is what most governors and scientists and mayors, they have all been waiting for some sort of uniform response that gives them uniform guidance so the country can be in sync with itself, but also mass produced things that are needed like ppe, like masks, and like testing, which all is still spotty and unbelievably poorly run given how long we have been in this situation like this. That was dr. Gounder, the member of president elect bidens Coronavirus Task force explaining what the Transition Team can do now to fight covid and what their first steps will be when they take office. And that is to finally deploy the dpa. We were talking about restaurants with mayor de blasio, and as Congress Struggles to put to the a stimulus package to help out the untold number of americans affected economically by the coronavirus, the Restaurant Industry may be suffering more than most. In new york city alone, it is projected that up to one half of the citys restaurants may close permanently in the next six months to a year. This as restaurants nationwide are facing mounting financial pressures and everyone from superstar chefs to the local independent eatery is affected. Restaurants is 27 years old. We have been in this location on 65th and park for 23 years. We have been managing this place together for ten years now working as a husband and wife team. Having been in the neighborhood for 38 years now has really established us as a community restaurant. When the decision was to close down all the restaurants in new york city, i couldnt imagine what else to do besides waiting and bring back the staff as soon as possible. When covid hit a scramble ensued to figure out how to turn our restaurant into a giant takeout window. The togo business was very, very welcome, and we kept the menu of daniel kitchen on the sidewalk. And i never 23 years that i would be putting tables out of daniel and as the winter is coming, its going to be very challenging for our industry. We have a night where we thought, hey, we can do this. And then a night where it would pour rain and nobody would come out and wed be concerned about whether wed survive the week. As time went on, we figured out theres not enough money. Of course, the business is not sustainable the way it is but at least it keeps a lot of jobs active. And it helps us to support our suppliers, support our community. It really took us actually telling our customers that were closing and putting a sign on the door that we were closing to get the landlord to reach out to us and make us an offer. And currently right now were in negotiations. Its something that has farreaching effects you cant really see when someone just turns the key and closes the door. It looks like one business is gone but, in fact, so many businesses. We want new yorkers to wear their mask at all time like me right now. So out of our 750 people we had in new york, we may have rehired 220 by now. Thats great. But were not there yet. Is santa fe coming back . We wish we could say for sure. Restaurants are being quarantined or closed because theres an uptick in a specific neighborhood and we dont know how thats going to play out for the entire city over the coming months, and that makes us all unsure. You can imagine those are like entrenched restaurants in a community that have had years to grow. And they are teetering on the edge. Imagine people just starting out or smaller restaurants. They go paycheck to paycheck. Theyre shut down. Theyre not coming back. And kasie hunt, it just seems that the relief should be there for them and yet, the wait contin continues. The wait does continue, mika. And i know certainly here in washington, weve seen a number of especially the smaller restaurants that are just trying to get by. Small businesses with a couple of employees that rely on the restaurant just havent been able to survive. Were seeing more and more permanent closures. The reality is the politics of this seem to be still at a stalemate. We know theres been some pressure on democrats to try and move something through congress in the period between now and when joe biden is set to take office in january, but so far, the House Speaker nancy pelosi has stayed pretty set in saying she wants a very high number, and, you know, they have a lot of justifications for saying they want that high number. They want a lot of support for state and local governments but the reality is that republicans in the senate have said we cant do anything. So the result is that nothing is moving forward. And the question is, its all coming down, i think, in part to these runoff elections in georgia which, again, every time we have these political conversations, im trying to explain it for people so they can understand why this is happening. But the bottom line is that it just keeps getting pushed further and further and further out into the future and that doesnt help the people who are now facing people have been, as they were just describing in that piece, they have been scraping along. They have been surviving week to week or even daytoday trying to make ends meet. They got a lot of help in march from the government. Thats why they came this far. But thats done, and these closures now are potentially permanent. I wish i had better news in terms of what a deal may look like, but we just dont have it now. Without that, people dont its translating down to people dont work anymore. It continues. And they dont eat. And theyre this is beyond serious in terms of people losing their homes. Losing everything they thought they had. Things changing completely for americans because they cant get the relief they need. And covid19 cases in illinois have surged. Health Officials Say yesterday marked the tenth consecutive day in which the state has seen more than 10,000 new coronavirus cases. The data comes as chicago mayor lorilightfoot issued a stayathome order that goes into effect today. Joining us now, medical director of Infection Control and Infectious Disease physician at the university of illinois hospital and Health Sciences system, dr. Bleesdale and from Northwestern Memorial Hospital in illinois, dr. Michelle prickett. Shes treated hundreds of Covid Patients since the pandemic started. Doctor, in terms of hospitalizations, are hospitals full to capacity or is it the concern that they will become full to capacity . Well, i think theres a difference right now in that were seeing a dramatic increase in the number of Covid Patients but were also maintaining our care for nonCovid Patients. So we are at critical capacity and will be quickly overwhelmed if we see an ongoing doubling of the rate of covid cases that need hospitalization here. So if it continues as these numbers are going, youre going to run into some trouble . Yes. Were definitely seeing an increase in our beds. Okay. Doctor prickett, i think its worth understanding where covid stands right now in terms of people who do go into the hospital. Are more people going into the hospital and leaving and surviving covid . Is there any hopeful news . And also, what about the vulnerability for those who end up on ventilators . What are the possibility for people who are vented . Is there more hope that they could get off the ventilator . Sure. Great question. The answer is, yes, there is hope. We are very hopeful. We know our experience with the hundreds of patients weve treated at northwestern memorial that we can get the vast majority of our patients through this condition if they get ventilated. 4 out of 5 of our patients who are ventilated come off but its a very long course and takes a lot of providers with a lot of expertise and a lot of years of training. So the one concern we have is we can make as many beds as we want. We cant clone our providers to provide care to help patients through this. And so dr. Bleasdale, as we speak to doctors like Michelle Prickett on the front lines, what are your abilities to keep doctors healthy and keep them in place . I remember early on in the pandemic, the state of massachusetts graduated some young doctors earlier just to get them on the front lines. Where are you in terms of having enough doctors, nurses and front line workers . Well, were seeing challenges because not only are we seeing increases in our patients but also increases within the community thats putting our staff at risk for having covid as well. And with the increased need for staff, were being short staffed overall throughout the city. Its really important that we need to have people take precautions at home, even outside of the hospital. We do know that we have effective measures to keep people safe within the hospital that are helping to care for these patients. But we need people to follow those measures in their home life as well so that we can prevent transition that will decrease hospitalizations and will keep our staffing available to care for our patients. So its a doubleedged sword. Its in the community. Its here at the hospital but we have measures when youre here in the hospital to keep you safe and keep our Health Care Workers safe. But its that time when youre with others, with your mask down, when theres transmission. Its really, really critical with the current sheltering in place thats sort of being recommended. Its being advised to minimize your time outside the hospital and really what that means is you need to minimize your time around people outside of your household without a mask. When youre within six feet, especially inside. So that we dont have ongoing transmission. All right. Great point to go back to dr. Michelle prickett on. If you could give us the hard truth. Young people are getting so numb to this. Theyre tired of this. Theyre beginning to have baby showers and going to parties and interacting, even going out to restaurants and exposing themselves, thinking its not going to happen. And yet the numbers the numbers are telling us something very different. So when it hits, what can it be like for anybody . I think were all getting numb. Were all tired. Weve been running this race since march and we continue to run it. What weve learned is a lot. We have a lot of great therapeutics but were still seeing young people come into our icu. The one thing i dont think any Health Care Provider should forget is seeing a patient that cant breathe. And the tragedy of this disease is people do pretty well until they dont. And the end result is shortness of breath, feeling like they are suffocating to the point where we need to race against the clock to get them Critical Care needs. And so, again, we can help, but we need resources. We need the manpower. We need to be able to respond at a moments notice. And no one is immune to this condition. All right, doctors Susan Bleasdale and michelle pickett, thanks for being on today. Weve spent the entire morning discussing this surging virus and its impact on hospitals and schools, rural towns and big cities. The president of the United States has spent the morning tweeting baseless conspiracy theories including just a few minutes ago, i won the election, which, of course, he did not. And now theres a vacuum atop this country during this pandemic. Yeah. I think honestly, its time to turn the page on reading his tweets. That does it for us this morning. Stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now. Were ready to turn that page. Hi there. Im stephanie ruhle. Its monday, november 16th. Lets get smarter. If you or someone you love has not been touched by coronavirus at this point, you are one of a very lucky few. The number of cases i