Transcripts For MSNBCW MTP Daily 20200401

Largely dismissive of concerns about the coronavirus, even suggesting it was a hoax designed to undermine the presidency. Then came the massive testing blunders, local and state officials calling on the federal government for help. Front line medical workers pleading for protective equipment. Now the president is warning up to 240,000 americans will die even in a rosie scenario where everyone stays home as much as possible through the end of april. Today Vice President pence said that the United States is on the same path as italy. Thats not good news. Theyve been ravaged while this disease while being totally locked down for four weeks and counting now. The number of cases in the United States today surged past 200,000. More than 4,500 deaths have now been recorded. Even the rosier models cited by the white house are now predicting the u. S. Health care system will be overrun at least in parts of this country. 93,000 will die. More than 84,000 people will not have access to a hospital bed that they need. The boston post is reporting Homeland Security officials are warning the National Stockpile of protective gear is now nearly depleted. Governors who initially dragged their feet on responding to the threat are now caught playing catch up. Joining the list of states ordering residents to stay home is now finally in the minds of some people, florida, after governor ron desantis, a staunch trump ally, relented to pressure from state officials. In washington there seems to be a growing consensus that the 6 trillion worth of emergency relief supplied by congress and the Federal Reserve will not be enough. There are now plans being drawn up for a federal jobs program, perhaps an acknowledgment that the average worker is going to need a lot more than 1200 stimulus check to weather this financial storm for one month. That storm could last a while longer because at the epicenter of the crisis in new york Governor Cuomo said even though some models have the crisis peaking in the next two to three weeks, the death rate could remain high through july. Remember, new yorks curve is likely weeks ahead of where other states could end up. So as we await the latest updates from the white house, here is a sobering look at the situation facing this administration. Written by the New York Times peter baker, quote, mr. Trump will see more americans die from the coronavirus in the weeks and months to come than president s harry truman, dwight eisenhower, john f. Kennedy, lyndon johnson, and Richard Nixon saw die in the korean and vietnam wars combined. The lowest estimate would claim nearly as Many Americans as world war i under president Woodrow Wilson and 14 times as Many Americans as iraq and afghanistan together under president s george w. Bush and barack obama. Joining me now from the white house where we could see the Coronavirus Task force at any moment is my nbc news colleague, and digital senior White House Reporter shannon pettipiece. Vice president pence comparing us to italy. A week ago that would have drawn a rebuke from President Trump. It would have been seen as, whoa, whoa, way too pessimistic. That is quite the acknowledgment when you consider what we heard yesterday and then today where Vice President pence admitting, yes. Were like italy. Yeah. That is not the trajectory we want to be on. We want to be a south korea and that is what we were promised we would be on a trajectory like south korea where there would be testing, there would be plenty of protective equipment for health care providers. South korea where you have everyone wearing a mask not italy where the country has been on lockdown and seeing a 10 mortality rate. It is certainly something we are going to press the president on today and one of the questions we plan to ask him is that very question about the situation with italy. You know, as far as what well get out of the president today, his tone has been so back and forth in the past 48 hours going from that press briefing in the rose garden where it was almost like an informercial to yesterday when it was really the most somber i have ever seen him in the dozens of media avail ablts ive had with him in my three years here. Well see which President Trump comes out today. And the other thing i was wondering if well get clarification on today, shannon, is the fact that the Surgeon General this morning went on television and essentially said the president s 30day guidelines might as well be received as a stayathome order around the country and while he admitted he cant tell every governor what to do, that is how he is hoping they all interpret it. I mean, so are we living in a nationalized stayathome order just not in name . Reporter well, i mean, ive asked the president this. Are you planning to issue a nationwide stayathome order and he called that unlikely. I mean, he cant force people to stay in their homes although a governor or mayor could as weve seen them do essentially force people or issue some sort of fine or penalty if they leave. But the president could give a very direct nationwide stayathome order. He has resisted doing that. Just as of yesterday when he was asked again what about florida, which at that time hadnt issued a stayathome order he was not directing the Florida Governor to do that. He was saying, you know, he thought they were handling it well and doing what was appropriate and of course we see the Florida Governor come out and issue a stayathome order today. There is this line they have been walking and this balance and this shifting messaging that continues to go back and forth. Shannon pettipiece, i know you have to get in there. I learned a lot today by the way. I did my podcast today with a White House Press corps colleague of yours and mine john carl and he told me the elaborate rotation that were all in these days. Yes. Continue to practice safe reporting and safe distancing there. I will. Its not easy in that press room, shannon. Thank you. We just got some sad news. The American College of Emergency Physicians Just Announced the passing of the first e. R. Doctor from covid19. He was a doctor in new jersey. So now i turn to a couple doctors at the front line of this coronavirus fight. Joining me now is an Emergency Room Physician and associate professor of emergency medicine at Brown University and a pulmonary and Critical Care doctor at brigham and Womens Hospital in boston. Doctors, i dont think either one of you knew that news before we just reported it. This just got reported. This is the nightmare that so many of you and others in the medical community have been concerned about, which is the protection of medical personnel on the front lines fighting this virus. That is exactly right. Many of us in the emergency Medicine Community knew the man who was in the intensive care unit in new jersey. He was a leader within the emergency medicine field. I didnt know it before you just said it. It breaks my heart. I hope he is the first of only a few Emergency Physicians to die. But if italy and china are any guide, unless our government steps up and gets us the protective equipment that we need, he will be the first of many of my colleagues to seccumb to covid19. Tell me what is missing right now, dr. Ranney, i am sorry to be the one to break my news to you. This is not my place to do that. I know he is a friend and colleague of yours. But tell me the equipment. Just reiterate again for folks to understand what is it that you guys need right now that the federal government has to be the one to procure . Absolutely. So let me make a very long list of things we need. We need masks. Regular procedural masks. We need n 95 masks. We need gloves. Gowns, hand sanitizer. We also are increasingly running out of durable medical equipment. Things like the disposable blades we use when we intube ate patients. Things like the spacers we use for the pumps for inhalers. Were also running out of course of ventilators and noninvasive positive pressure ventilator machines and starting to run out of critical medications. The medications we give patients to put them into a medical coma when we intubeate them are running low in many centers in new york city as well as many of the other hard hit areas across the country. Really if you name a type of equipment that is essential to Critical Care, and to emergency response, were running low on it. Doctor, besides adding to the list if there is anything dr. Ranney left out, patientint a pe of what you are seeing on the front lines there. Yes. In the icu talking about these shortages is particularly tragic because we are good if we have the medications and the protection that we need at managing respiratory failure. Even the small percentage of people who are unlucky enough to get critically ill from coronavirus, we are good at managing the ventilator. We are expert at managing some of the sequella of the virus. If we have the staff, if people flatten the curve enough that our system isnt overwhelmed. Unfortunately it is already becoming sort of overwhelmed and that is what were seeing at the front lines. Dr. Lamas, what are the chances massachusetts can flatten the curve enough thaw wont run out of beds . You know, right now i think we are in a position where we have enough beds. Were right now in a position where we have enough ventilators. To dr. Ranneys point though we see things like critical medications if the numbers are as high as they are projected to be could become shortages in our state as well. I think that we remain worried. Were planning for high numbers of patients. And i think it is perhaps excessive to say that were sort of cautiously optimistic but i think that we are Still Holding out hope that our system wont be overwhelmed while trying to make the best plans in case it does happen. I want to stick with you, dr. Lamas, in boston because i can tell you two weeks ago there was a lot of fear in the boston medical community that, you know, due to whether it was the biogen conference that boston could be where new york is. It didnt happen. Whats the data telling you . Is it possible boston is going to dodge a more lethal bullet than they thought . You know, i think people are definitely looking at sort of what happened after that biogen conference and why we havent seen more than we already have. That being said, the most recent projections in boston are still that in about a week or two weeks behind new york so a week or two from where we are now and our intensive care unit were still expecting to see a hundred or more intubated patients which is far from where we are now. I think were not able to say yet that we dodged a bullet. If that ends up being the case, i think it really will be a testament to social distancing or personal distancing but i think its right now were still on the cusp i think of being able to see where that is going. Yeah. Dr. Ranney, you were part of a joint oped today encouraging people to update their living wills. Explain why you believe this is so important right now. So looking forward and looking at whats already happening in new york and detroit and washington state, were seeing that as the number of critically ill patients gets higher we are using up the available ventilators and intensive care beds. We know in emergency medicine and in the Critical Care unit where dr. Lamass practice is that many patients when provided with the choice would prefer to pass peacefully and not be put on longterm, life maintaining ventilators and other really heroic measures. So were suggesting to people that they update their living wills or their desires for how they would want to die if that moment, that horrible moment were to present itself so that people have the choice ahead of time. We know that when people get sick with covid19 right now in most hospitals across the country were not letting family come in for more than a few minutes at a time if at all. And we want people to be able to make these decisions proactively with family around rather than in the heat of a moment in a crisis situation. Right. Dr. Ranney, i want to stay with you and talk about the situation of testing overall but particularly for front line medical personnel. Dr. Joseph fehr who is one of our contributors here, he believes until we have the capacity to do a million tests a day well never be able to knowingly lift these restrictions. We are still so far behind on medical personnel. Are we still at the point where the only people getting tests are people showing symptoms and people that may have been exposed to people showing symptoms . My own state of rhode island has extensively expanded its testing over the last few days under the direction of governor raimondo. Weve been working with commercial labs to ek panned the number of people who can get tested. But the Testing Capacity is still not where we want it to be. We are still prioritizing Health Care Workers, known contacts of people with covid19, and slowly trying to ebbs pannxpand it. I agree that in order to get control of this epidemic we know somewhere between 20 and 50 of people with covid19 dont have symptoms. So if we cant test people, and say, oh, you have it or you dont, then were going to have folks Walking Around and spreading it. We absolutely need to expand testing immensely. Dr. Lamas, tell me the situation at your hospital and in boston in general about medical personnel and how susceptible they are. So we do know that were susceptible. You know, the current numbers are that sort of over a hundred of our hospital employees, and thats not just medical personnel but hospital employees largely have tested positive and to amplify what dr. Ranney says, for us people who are Health Care Workers, first responders, who are showing symptoms are still the people who are prioritized for testing, so, clearly, that number reflects who is being prioritized to be tested. Currently, we wear masks in the hospital at all times, surge ka surgical masks unless we are wearing an n 95 respirator for some reason acknowledging the fact that any of us could be asymptomatic characters. This is obviously a work in progress and changes quickly but that is where were at in terms of testing. Do you have a strong opinion about whether all americans should be wearing some sort of Face Covering . Some people have been concerned it could deplete the surgical mask stockpile not n 95. Right. I think it would be hard not to be concerned about that knowing that our masks are short and so i think taking a view of whether all americans should wear masks has to take into account the reality. I think rather than worrying about whether people should wear surgical masks what is most important and we know this from data, hand washing, physical distancing, coronavirus is spread by droplets and by contact. And we can mitigate both of those risks by doing the things we know how to do. You know, so i would say that had we unlimited masks in the world, would it hurt for everyone to wear one . Probably not unless it made them detract from some of the things like social distancing and hand washing. But given where we are now i think we should focus on that for the general public. Dr. Ranney out of Brown University in rhode island and dr. Lamas brigham and Womens Hospital in boston, thank you both. The white house Coronavirus Task force briefing is set to begin a short time from now. It was pushed back from 5 00 to 5 30. Once it does start well bring it to you live. Also ahead are we starting to have some success in some places at flattening the curve . Why there may be a little bit of good news about our response to this crisis. I know we can all use it. Well be right back. Good mornin. Good morning, blair. [ chuckles ] whoo. Im gonna grow big and strong. Yes, you are. Im gonna get this place all clean. Ill give you a hand. And im gonna put lisa on crutches wait, what . Said shes gonna need crutches. She fell pretty hard. You might want to clean that up, girl. Excuse us. 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While new jersey is still has second highest death toll of any state in the country the city of teaneck one of the hardest hit cities could be seeing a decline in its number of new positive cases. This is what we want to highlight some green shoots to see how were doing. In a moment well check in with the mayor of teaneck who we first spoke to last week about the pandemic. First i am joined by the county executive of king county, washington in the seattle area. It feels like a year ago that i first started talking to you about coronavirus. Here we are. The east coast could look for some good news. Is there good news in your numbers . Is it fair to look at what were seeing in king county as proof that this policy works . Well, i think if youre as you said in the last segment we dont want to get too ahead of ourselves here. But there is clearly good news in these numbers. We are not seeing the exponential growth that epidemiologists expect at this point in the infection and i think that is because people heeded first our advice and then our direction to socially distance, work from home, avoid groups, to do all the things we have been saying over and over we need to do to get ahead of this thing. One of the things weve seen in particular, chuck, is the, like the time it takes for the number of cases to double has actually been getting longer. We are now at about ten days whereas in the United States and every three or four days the number of cases has doubled. That is a sign for real hope. Are you still able to test are you at the point yet of being able to test the community or are you still having to only test symptomatic, front line workers . Are we getting to the point yet where you can start to do surveillance . No. We are in the same situation as everyone else in this country. Testing is woefully inadequate. We need it for front line workers. We need it for our own employees who have to come to work to provide ordinary Services Every day. And we need it for the community. When there is an infection and a shelter or in a nursing home or in our own jail we have to be able to go in and find out how widespread it is and put a stop to it and that is what weve seen be successful in countries like germany. Our government has simply not given us the tools we need to be able to have that kind of tests. You have a makeshift hospital i believe in a soccer field. Tell me the assessment of that facility. Youre saying youll need more help from the federal government. Give me your top five things you need right now. That facility youre talking about is being stood up to accept patients who no longer have to be in the hospital, or never had to be in the hospital, but need some level of medical care. Its for assessment and recovery. We are standing up isolation and quarantine facilities, thousands of beds, various kinds across the county, to take the pressure off the hospital system. Remember, the first line of defense is prevention but the second is making sure that the limited supply of hospital beds, equipment, and personnel are available to the people who need it the most. From the federal government we need more fully equipped hospital beds and they have provided us one Field Hospital of 148 beds and were thankful for that. We need more testing. We need more ppe. We need more of all of the things that a National Government, industrialized country should be providing to make sure people can make it through a crisis like this. You say that it is an interesting way you just said that. It sounds like you just feel as if you feel let down . It feels that was an interesting way you put it. I feel, you know, were geographically remote as well but i really feel like were on our own. And we do need our National Government to come help us and to help all of the rest of the metropolitan regions around the country to be able to get through this. It is fine for those who have resources who can take care of themselves who have high quality medical care but this is one of those moments when we have to be committed to getting everyone through. We are all in this together. And in our community ive made it clear that we refuse to accept any level of infection or death as inevitable. That we have to have everyones back. On social distancing and the stayathome orders due feel as if theyre the best answer youve had so far . I mean, it is pretty much the only answer we have right now. If we had testing early on we would have known that this virus was wandering through the community for what appears to have been weeks before it landed at the nursing home in kirkland, washington. What we really do need, though, is increased testing as well as the resources to care for those who have become ill. We are going to have to have this National Government, particularly the administration, step up to that responsibility. Dow constantine in king county, providing us some pathway to show that no matter how hard this all seems, there is, perhaps, some green shoots right now at the end of this tunnel. Not necessarily a light but some shoots. Thank you. With me is the mayor of teaneck, new jersey. Mr. Mayor, i said i wanted to keep checking in with you. This morning my producer was telling me after exchanging some back and forths with you that you felt like good news is maybe over hyping things but you finally had a day with not as much bad news. That there is some evidence that social distancing is working. Explain what youre seeing. Well, thank you for having me. I think that we were five days ahead of the state asking for a lockdown and what were seeing now is were seeing it slowly climb and just like the previous guest said were not seeing that exponential growth that is happening in our town. So hopefully the graph is showing that we have 15 to 25 cases every day that are going up. Not the 50 to 100, the big exponential jumps that are happening throughout the country. Signs of good news is the ceo of Holy Name Hospital who was tested positive is back to work. Our first case in, or one of the first cases in teaneck was an e. R. Doctor in patterson, new jersey. He seems to be recovering. We do have some good gnaws in regards to not only the numbers but people who are recovering. Lets talk about your i know. I wanted to talk about your supply situation. The supply situation is still day to day. Every day it seems that were fighting for more and more masks as well as everything else. The governor just ordered, in his press conference today, said that we have 800 ventilators coming to new jersey. We still dont know exactly when theyre being delivered but are grateful theyre on the way. I think people need to understand we needed to move faster. We need the federal government to move faster is what were seeing. On the 17th of march, cnbc reported there was 2,000 ventilators ready to ship. Yesterday cnn reports they dont know where to go. So again, being on the front lines is very difficult especially in a town like mine where we have had about a dozen deaths. Walk me through how you make a request. Do you feel like you go through the state . Do have you a point of contact at the federal government . Explain to me how you go about asking for some resources that you need that you think the federal government has to be the one to do it. Do you do it directly . Do you have to do it through the governor . Walk me through the bureaucracy. We have our teaneck oem that asks the county, the new jersey state oem who asks the federal government and their agencies. That is the chain of command that happens. Again, if your house is on fire youre not going to wait for the fire truck. You go out and get water and you try to figure it out. So ive been shaking every tree, everybody that knows somebody in the white house, somebody who knows somebody in the senate. I mean, im very grateful both my u. S. Senators, i have their cell phones. They take my call. They try to do the best they can. My congressman, theres never been a time where he doesnt get back to me within the hour if i ask for him and the same thing with the governor. You know, i think the plan just needs to move faster. I mean, here in new jersey, not only is there a ventilator problem but dr. Jared who is on the same program with me talked about we need icu nurses. If we know were going to have an icu nurse shortage and respiratory therapist shortages, all right. There are 11,000 nurses in the u. S. Army. We couldnt deploy 10 of them to get ready . I think that where the places arent hard hit if the manufacturing line is started, with ge, okay. Lets go to the other states that have ventilators and bring them over here. When they need them back well give them back if we can but there needs to be a sense of urgency of whats going on in the east coast because i think just like you see in florida they just started today. This is coming to a town near you. And if youre not prepared, you know, youll be caught behind and it is going to cost peoples lives. That is what i really wish that people get this out there. Social distancing does work. Thats your only way to fight this right now. You know, it is not the drugs. Its not some magic test thats going to come. We, again, like previously, need a lot more testing. So where are the added tests we talked about on tuesday . Im told we have these in Bergen County but theyre not deployed. Why havent they been deployed . There needs to be like a streamline, a czar, somebody needs to take control of this. Somebody who has army experience. If youre going to call it a war treat it like a war. If youre going to treat it like a war then have a soldier on the front line. The last administration used russell oneray who had plenty of military experience to run the recovery in the gulf coast. It does seem as if somebody with military logistics youve just made an incredible case just a logistics argument. Good luck to you, sir. Thanks for coming on and expressing your views. I appreciate it. Thank you for having me. The white house coronirus is about to begin and as we said yesterday and as were going to keep saying as we take the daily briefings, we know not everything is informative or relevant in the midst of this crisis though yesterday was a reminder that it is one of those days when we did get a lot of news and it was an important briefing to sit through. The white house itself is projecting 100,000 to 240,000 deaths in the United States for the next several months. Obviously this briefing veers into a direction that is informative we will bring you of course the doctors and the scientists as they take were still looking to see whether well get answers. First of all the mayor of teaneck, it is an interesting argument. Do we need a go to czar, supervisor, whatever you want to call them . Supposed to be the fema coordinator. Maybe it is mr. Gaynor. Does he need to take a more active approach, a more front line approach . How soon are we going to have more widely available testing . Dr. Fehr says we need a million tests a day before we know if we can lift the restrictions. Obviously the situation on ventilators and ppe and are all people supposed to be Wearing Masks . Kristen welker is with me now on this question. I know youve been working our sources over the last 48 hours. There is no doubt the president s tone has changed dramatically in 48 hours. Theres been plenty of reporting as to what has moved him here. What should we expect from him Going Forward then now that he realizes this is going to be a brutal month in this country. Chuck, i think he was essentially bracing the country for what he described as a very, very painful next few weeks ahead and of course that is informed by those stark figures that we all saw yesterday, the fact that the best Case Scenario would be a hundred thousand to 240,000 americans dying from this virus, really stark figures there laid out by the president of course by his top doctors. So we know his shift in tone was in part because of those numbers. Were also told, chuck, based on conversations with those in the administration and familiar with the president s thinking that they were also based on polling numbers that showed that americans would rather continue with these social distancing guidelines than see the death rate increase. By and large they feel as though the administration has been moving in the right direction in terms of its responses of course coming in the election year, the president aware of that with all of these decisions. All of that played a role in the shift in tone and i think you can expect to hear more of that. Were going to find out right now because the briefing is begun. You see how terrible it is especially when you look at the numbers from yesterday. And we explained why were extending our nationwide guidelines to slow the spread by 30 days. Together we have the power to save countless lives. We are attacking the virus on every front with social distancing, economic support for our workers, rapid medical intervention. And very serious innovation. And banning dangerous foreign travel that threatens the health of our people. We did that early, far earlier than anyone would have thought and way ahead of anybody else. In this time of need i know that every american will do their patriotic duty and help us to achieve a total victory. As governments and nations focus on the coronavirus, there is a growing threat that cartels, criminals, terrorists, and other malign actors will try to exploit the situation for their own gain. And we must not let that happen. We will never let that happen. Today the United States is launching enhanced counter narcotics operations in the western hemisphere to protect the American People from the deadly scourge of illegal narcotics. We must not let the drug cartels exploit the pandemic to threaten american lives. In cooperation with the 22 partner nations, u. S. Southern command will increase surveillance disruption and seizures of drug shipments and provide Additional Support for irr irradication efforts going on at a record pace. We are deploying coast guard cutters, ships, air force surveillance aircraft, doubling our capabilities in the region. Very importantly our forces are fully equipped with personnel, protective equipment, and weve taken additional Safety Measures to ensure our troops remain healthy. Secretary mark esper, attorney general bill barr, National Security adviser Robert Obrien will provide more details. In addition, i am going to have general millie who has done an incredible job in so many ways say a pfau words and also with us our chief of Naval Operations, who you know. I think you know. And commandant of the coast guard, so ill ask mark to start and then we can go and after that well take questions as it pertains to this and then well go on to phase 2 which is the virus itself. Thank you. Mark . Thank you, mr. President. And good afternoon, everyone. I appreciate the opportunity to be here. Today as we make this very important announcement, at a time when the nation and the department of defense are focused on protecting the American People, from the spread of the coronavirus, we also remain vigilant to the many other threats our country faces. Today at the president s direction, the department of defense in close cooperation with our interagency partners began enhanced counternarcotics operations in the eastern Pacific Ocean and the caribbean sea. This initiative is part of the administrations whole of government approach to combatting the flow of illicit drugs into the United States and protecting the American People from their scourge. I want to thank all of our partners in this effort to include the United States coast guard, the department of Homeland Security, the Drug Enforcement agency, the department of justice, and members of the Intelligence Community for their tremendous support and cooperation. To conduct these enhanced operations the president has directed the deployment of additional ships, aircraft, and Security Forces to the United States Southern Command area of responsibility. Included in this force package are Navy Destroyers and combat ships, coast guard cutters, p8 patrol aircraft and elements of an Army Security force assistance brigade. These Additional Forces will nearly double our capacity to conduct counternarcotics operations in the region. Additionally 22 partner nations have joined us in this fight bringing with them a variety of intelligence and operations capabilities needed to defeat these criminal organizations. Last year alone the United States Southern Commands operations resulted in the seizure of over 280 metric tons of drugs, much of which was designated for shipment to america. While this was an incredible achievement there is much more work to be done. Trans National Criminal organizations continue to threaten our security by smuggling cocaine, fentanyl, methamphetamine, and other narcotics across our borders. These drug traffickers put our communities at risk and destroy lives. Every year, tens of thousands of americans die from Drug Overdose and thousands more suffer the harmful effects of addiction. Furthermore, corrupt actors like the illegitimate regime in venezuela rely on the profits derived from the sale of narcotics to maintain their oppressive hold on power. The venezuelan people continue to suffer tremendously due to the criminal control over the country. Drug traffickers are seizing on this lawlessness by increasing illicit activities. We must do more to prevent these drugs from arriving at our shores. These enhanced counternarcotics operations now under way will further disrupt the flow of illicit drugs to america, deny our adversaries the Financial Resources they depend and build the capacity of our partner nations throughout the regime. I want to thank President Trump for his leadership and support to this critical mission. This is a particularly important time for this operation to begin as nations around the world shift their focus inward to deal with the coronavirus pandemic many criminal organizations are attempting to capitalize on this crisis. The enhanced operations we announce today will keep the pressure on these criminal groups and protect the American People from the devastation caused by the flow of Illegal Drugs into our country. Mr. President , thank you for your leadership as we begin this important operation. While the men and women of the United States military work hard, here at home to fight the coronavirus, we continue to take action around the world to defend our great country. Thank you. Thank you, secretary, for those words and thank you, mr. President , for your leadership. I want to publicly thank admiral craig fowler the commander of u. S. Southern command out of miami for leading this operation, which is under way effective today. And also the chief and Naval Operations admiral schultz for their service. There are thousands of sailors, coast guardsmen, airmen, marines involved in this operation. We came upon some intelligence sometime ago that the drug cartels as a result of covid19 were going to try to take advantage of the situation and try to infiltrate additional drugs into our country. As we know the 70,000 americans die on an average annual basis to drugs. That is unacceptable. Were at war with covid19. Were at war with terrorists. We are at war with the drug cartels as well. This is the United States military. You will not penetrate this country. You will not get past jump street. Youre not going to come in here and kill additional americans. We will gather whatever assets are required to prevent your entry into this country to kill americans. Right now the navy has marshalled additional ships and for the naval fleet at norfolk. And they are setting sail already and are in the caribbean right now. In addition to that there are ten coast guard cutters and special Operations Forces and Security Force Assistance Brigades along with air force reconnaissance aircraft. The bottom line is youre not going to get through. Now is not the time to try to penetrate the United States with Illegal Drugs to kill americans. With the United States military, we will defend our country regardless of the cost. Thank you, mr. President. Thank you, secretary. Thank you. Thank you, mr. President. Thanks for your decisive leadership as we confront this unprecedented challenge posed by coronavirus. Id like to thank you for your support for this Important Initiative and thank all of the secretary of defense and all of the services for taking on this Important Initiative. Obviously during this crisis were all focused above all else on covid19 but at the same time were going to stay listening in obviously to this task force and as soon as we get an update on the pandemic itself we will of course come back. It is still an interesting decision by the president to lead the task force with this. Kristen welker, we heard the secretary of defense and we know our pentagon correspondent will be joining us in a moment and can give us more on that. Im most interested on what is going on with the u. S. S. Teddy roosevelt right now which is docked in guam with its own coronavirus outbreak and hopefully well get some information on that. Kristen, i hate to put it this way but does this tell me that the president had important coronavirus news to tell us, i dont know, i would assume it must not trump this in his mind. Reporter that would need to be at the top of the briefing you would presume, chuck. Yesterday was of course this very robust briefing when it came to laying out all of the numbers and the potential figures that we could see the data behind this. Today clearly the focus is on this counternarcotics effort as you heard the defense secretary lay out. They believe that people are trying to take advantage of this situation and so this is an attempt to counter that. But i think taking a step back youre right. Its significant. Look, ive been talking to allies of the president who say he really kneads to have an announcement every time he comes to the Briefing Room to justify his presence there. And so, clearly, this is something that in his mind as you said, chuck, trumps any news from the coronavirus. But its a way of him signaling, look. This is an all hands on deck approach. Youve seen mae o youve seen me out here with my top doctors, with the Vice President. Today of course you have the defense secretary. You have a. G. William barr out there with him. So this is a way of bringing out some of the people who are working on this crisis, chuck, who arent necessarily the people out there every day with him. And again, sort of underscoring i think what he wants to project, which is that everyone in his administration is working on this. I guess what might strike some as odd about this, kristen, is where is the sense of urgency there is no doubt this issue of drug cartels and how they can overrun governments and certainly are a scourge to us in this country, it doesnt feel like that is the front line concern of every american right now. There is a more i just had the mayor of teaneck on and he is openly asking, can you call up a just give me there are 11,000 nurse ness the military. Can you give me a hundred here in teaneck . Were running out of Health Care Workers. It just felt like a disconnect from what were facing in this moment. Reporter and i think youre right that when it comes to the questions that youre going to hear from my colleagues in that Briefing Room and in your conversation with shannon she previewed this, while they may have some followup questions about this announcement, it is not top of mind for the Health Care Workers who are on the front lines of this, chuck, and for so Many Americans. I think the questions that theyre going to want answered today, what has the determination been if there has been one about Wearing Masks or some type of protective facial gear, for example . Does the president need to have a more robust message at the National Level to say, look. All governors should be imposing these guidelines. Here is our plan for making sure that were ramping up testing and getting ppe to the hospitals that need it most. I think those front line questions are still going to be there. But youre right. This is certainly an interesting choice to lead with this announcement but, again, chuck, in order to justify his being there every single day in the Briefing Room and that is a clear decision he has made, a strategy that he is carrying out, potentially the thinking is there needs to be some type of announcement at the top of these briefings. Let me bring in Courtney Kube here our pentagon correspondent. We wanted an update on the u. S. S. Teddy roosevelt that is the, i think right now docked in guam but cant has gotten some of these coronavirus soldiers who have tested positive for the coronavirus, has gotten some of them off the ship. I guess the question i have for you is this announcement by the secretary of defense, the chairman of the joint chiefs, is this their front line focus right now . Reporter no. You know, were getting briefing after briefing and phone call, Conference Call after Conference Call all day long. They are literally stacked up one after the other from the military and the pentagon trying to get information out. I mean, i give them credit because theyre really overloading us with opportunities to talk to military leaders right now to try and get information but it is all about coronavirus and, in fact, if you try to ask a question about another topic they say, look. Were here to talk about the response to coronavirus. So i can also tell you this announcement about sending some more navy ships and coast guard cutters down to south com for Drug Enforcement is something weve been hearing for several weeks. When, about two weeks ago i actually specifically asked about it. Precoronavirus . Absolutely. One of the reasons it just yeah. Absolutely. Well, i guess if you think back to coronavirus really being back from january its not from preprecoronavirus but the lockdown, the social distancing the last three weeks or so where coronavirus has been the all encompassing issue in this country and in the world, it was from before that ive been hearing about this announcement so it is not the kind of thing that we would really expect to hear secretary esper or the general in the Briefing Room, the pentagon Briefing Room talk about let alone the White House Briefing to have a stand alone briefing about Something Like this. Its significant whenever they deploy military assets its significant whenever they deploy military assets anywhere, but not at a time like this to make an announcement in the white house. Its surprising. Since you had a lot of conversations with your sources in the pentagon, first of all, give me an update on the Teddy Roosevelt. So we know about a thousand of the sailors, at least a thousand have been taken off the ship. The Navy Secretary and the chief of Naval Operations who we just saw standing in the Briefing Room actually at the white house, theyve told us they tested about 1300 of those sailers. Theyve only gotten about half, a little more than those tests back, and 93 have come back positive. More than 500 have come back negative, but theyre still awaiting results on a lot of the sailers. Theyre going to test all 4800 of them to see how many may test positive for coronavirus. But its still an enormous problem. One of the things that the navy really is going to have to theyre fighting through this issue right now, getting the sailors off the ship, getting as many into isolation and quarantine as possible. But the reality is as they continue to test these sailors, their numbers are going to go up. Okay. And one thing striking throughout the past several days is please, go ahead. No, no, no. I got to cut you off because the president is now taking questions and i expect the Teddy Roosevelt to be one of these questions. Stick around with me, but lets listen back in. Its an incredible thing, especially as youre at this position. You would never believe it. I see things that nobody would believe. I see reports that nobody would believe. So i met with the group behind me, all of them. And we said what do you think we can do, and they think they can interdict. They think we can stop it before it gets to the shores. And theyre coming from all over the place. And we have incredibly talented people. So i think im going let mark just give him a little bit of an answer to that. We want to see if we can stop a good percentage of the drugs coming into our country. Sure thing. Thanks, mr. President. Its a matter of prioritization. The president has given us very clear guidance on whats important to him and protecting the American People. As some of you know, i began a review months ago looking at our different geographic combatant commands and looking where we can free up time, money and resources to put into other endeavors. In this case, we had scrutinized our inventory fairly closely. Chairman milley did a great deal of work on this and we felt there was no risk to the fleet, to our operations to free up in this case naval ships. We also freed up aircraft and other assets to apply them to this president ial priority. And of course the coast guard did the same. So it was a very good operation. We feel this is very important to the American People, and completely in line with the president s direction. And how long will you be able to keep up this operational tempo . Well, it depends. Were going run it for some matter of time. Im not going to disclose how long that will be. And then well assess it and adjust it. We may increase. We may see de crease. We may sustain as is. Well report back to the president , and well take further guidance from there. And didnt do it for this reason, but it will also have an impact on the virus because we have people trying to get in. So not only drugs, but now we have a new phenomenon. And thats at least for the next hopefully short period of time, the virus. So well be able to have an impact on that too. Please . Yeah, mr. President , could you expand on that a little bit . You tie to it covid19, saying thats that these drug cartels were taking advantage of the situation, of this pandemic. How exactly well, because were focused on so many other parts of the country and even parts of the world. And all of the sudden areas where we had it clamped down pretty tight. The wall is up to about 160 miles already. Any areas where we have that wall, for the most part contiguous. We have fillins. But were up to 161 miles exactly. Any place where you have that wall, other than Walking Around it on the edges, its stopping everybody cold. Were stopping nobody has seen anything like it. Thats how good it works. And the other side knew it would work that well, everybody. Because everybody was for it five years ago. All of the sudden they changed. Its having a tremendous impact. But we are now focused on so many Different Things because of whats happened because of this horrible i say its a horrible phenomenon that now weve got to focus on drugs. And the drugs come in from different methods. And we have the best people at sea anywhere in the world. Well have a tremendous impact on drugs. But one of the other things, well also have an impact we think on the virus. Yeah, please . Ambassador obrien, did china underreport both the number of cases and the death toll from the coronavirus . And if thats the case, mr. President , what does that mean for our relationship with china and your relationship with president xi . Well, number one, i think the president has a great relationship with president xi, and wed like to have a great relationship with china. Unfortunately, were not in a position to confirm any of the numbers coming out of china. There is no way to confirm any of those numbers. There is lots of public reporting on whether the numbers are too low. Youve got access to those reports that are coming out on chinese social media and some of the few reporters left in china. We just have no way to confirm any of those numbers. Thank you. We really dont know. How do we know if they underreported or reported however they report. But we had a great call the other night. Were working together in a lot of Different Things, including trade. Theyre buying a lot. Theyre spending a lot of money. Theyre giving it to our farmers. Theyre paying our farmers for the product. So were going to continue that. John . You tweeted earlier today that there was you have uncovered intelligence that there was a sneak attack being planned against american troops, American Assets in iraq. Are we talking about hezbollah again . We just have information that they were planning something, and its very good information. It was led by iran. Not necessarily iran, but by groups supported by iran. But that to me is iran. And were just saying dont do it. Dont do it. It would be a very bad thing for them if they did it. The last time they did it in early march at camp, hezbollah alone. That was a very powerful response, by the way. That response knocked out five different places, but it also took out a lot of very bad people. Seem to suggest if it happens again, it may go up the food chain . Well, that was a very big response. We knocked out a lot. They had one site. We hit five big ones and ammunition sites. You saw what happened. I wont say how many people were killed, but some bad people were killed, and a lot of them. That was a big response. But this response will be bigger, if they do something. Yeah, you had one, please. Yes, thank you, mr. President. Just going back to your conversation with president xi, wondering if you received an Intelligence Report that talked about the discrepancy in the numbers . And if you addressed that we have not received that. But their numbers seem to be a little bit on the light side, and im being nice when i say that, relative to what we witnessed and what was reported. But we discussed that with him. Not so much the numbers as what they did and how theyre doing. And were in constant communication with i mean i would say the biggest communication is myself and president xi. The relationship is very good. We have look, theyre spending, they will be spending when things even out, this is obviously a little bit of a hurdle whats happened over the last month, but theyll be spending 250 billion buying our product. 50 billion to the farmers alone. 200 billion to other things. They never did that before. So we have a great trade deal. And wed like to keep it. Theyd like to keep it. And the relationship is good. As to whether or not their numbers are accurate, im not an accountant from china. Finding things at all in terms of the trade deal . , no because people dont know. People dont know where it comes from. I think we all understand where it comes from and president xi understands that. We dont have to make a wig deal out of it. We didnt like the fact that they said it came from our soldiers, and they havent pursued that. And that was a mid level person said that. That was not a highlevel person. So i assume i will always assume the best. Ill assume the highlevel people didnt know about it. It was foolish statement. So, look, the relationship with china is a good one, and my relationship with him is really good. Please . Can i follow up on that point, chinese propaganda that you mentioned as well as ambassador obrien. So in the past several weeks, china has been shipping ppes, masks, either been selling or donating everywhere, africa, europe, italy, russia, and really pushing this narrative that theyre taking on a Global Leadership role in the crisis. So what are your thoughts on that . And there is there any time for the administration to take on that role . I view that as a positive if theyre helping other countries. We have 151 countries right now that are under siege by the virus. Under siege. Some are doing really badly, you know. They dont know about social distancing. These are countries that arent highly sophisticated. They dont have Great Communications with the rest of the world. They dont know the things that were doing and that some others are able to do. And if china can help them, im all for it. Im for all of us helping everybody. Were soon going to have more ventilators than we need. Were building thousands of ventilators right now. Now it takes a period of time to build them. And again, nobody could have known a thing like this could happen. Were building thousands. We will fairly soon be at a point where we have far more than we can use, even after we stockpile for some future catastrophe, which we hope doesnt happen. Were going to be distributing them, the extras around the world. Well go to italy. Well go to france. Well go to spain which is very hard hit. On that note, there any truth on reporting that your administration is stopping shipment of usaid stockpiles abroad . No, no truth whatsoever. Id love china and other countries if they have additional supplies, medical supplies to give to other countries. 151 151 why would i stop that . Is the u. S. Stopping shipment of our own stockpile through usaid to other countries . Whatever we committed to, we