Transcripts For MSNBCW The 11th Hour With Brian Williams 20200515

86,676. The president present much of his time in pennsylvania talking up his administrations efforts to respond to the pandemic, particularly when it comes to that subject of testing. Weve been doing testing at a level that nobodys ever done it before. We have the best testing in the world. It could be the testing frankly overrated. Maybe it is overrated. But whenever they start yelling we want more, we want more you know, they always say we want more, we want more because they dont want to give you credit. Dont forget we have more cases than anybody in the world. But why . Because we do more testing. When you test, you have a case. When you tis, you find something is wrong with people. If we didnt do any testing, we would have very few cases. Just a point of order here, so far just over 10 million americans have been tested. Little more than 3 of the population. Though as you heard, the president has started to point out routinely the only reason we have so many cases is because we do so much testing. Just hours before trump made those remarks, dr. Rick bright, the government scientist who used to be in charge of developing vaccines for diseases like covid19 Gave Congress a damming and no holds barred assessment of the white house handling of the pandemic. Dr. Bright says we are running out of time to contain this. He is the First Federal Health Official to publicly criticize the Trump Administration on this issue. His testimony comes at a critical point for the administration, just as its trying to encourage the public to resume life as it was before the outbreak. We need a National Testing strategy. The virus is here. Its everywhere. We need to be able to find it, isolate it, and stop it. There is no master coordinated plan on how to respond to this outbreak. We dont have a strategy or plan in place that identifies each of those critical exponents, and we dont have a designated agencys that sourcing those critical components. Ill never forget the emails i received indicating that we are mask supply was completely decimated. And he said were in deep shit. The world is. And we need to act. And i push that forward to the highest levels i could in hhs and got no response. When would you bet that we would, time we would have a vaccine. A lot of optimism is swirling around a 12 to 18 month time frame if everything goes perfectly. Weve never seen everything go perfectly. Dr. Bright has filed a formal whistleblower complaint alleging he was ousted, reassigned to another government job in retaliation specifically for speaking out and refusing to buckle to political pressure. The white house had this reaction to dr. Brights testimony. Hes nothing more than a really disgruntled, unhappy person. I watched him, and he looked like an angry disgruntled employee who frankly according to some people didnt do a very good job. Everything hes complaining about was achieved. Everything he talked about was done. Oh, and by the way, whose job was it to actually lead the development of vaccines . Dr. Bright. So, while were launching operation warp speed, hes not showing up for work to be part of that. Any questions about whether or not Health Secretary azar is on board were answered with that today. As the hearing was unfolding, a little more than an hour after bright said the white house had no plan for the pandemic, we heard this from the White House Press secretary. I just wanted to outline our pandemic preparedness. The obama biden plan that has been referenced was insufficient. It wasnt going to work. So, what our administration did under the leadership of President Trump is do an entire 2018 pandemic preparedness report. Beyond that, we did a whole exercise on pandemic preparedness in august of last year. And entire afteraction report put together. Well have a full update tomorrow at the briefing line by line of how prepared we were for this pandemic. Also today the centers for disease controlled finally posted its guidance for reopening communities across the country and schools and workplaces after several ap reports surfaced about how the white house shelved an earlier draft and ordered the agency to revise it. Politico which appear to be watered down from previously leaked versions provide brief checklists meant to help key businesses and other operating in public reopen safely. There are also developments in the federal investigation into whether or not u. S. Senators who received briefings just as the coronavirus was hitting the u. S. In turn used that information to dump stocks to stem their own financial losses. North Carolina Republican senator richard burr says he will step down as Senate Intelligence Committee Chair one day after federal agents seized his cell phone as part of an inquiry into stock trades he made at the beginning of the outbreak. This afternoon, burr explained why he decided to step aside. This is a distraction to the hard work of the committee and the members and i think the security of the countrys too important to have a distraction. California democratic senator Dianne Feinstein says the fbi asked her questions about her stock trades which she says were made by her husband. Georgia republican senator Kelly Loefflers office says she has sent her information and documents to the fbi and Justice Department. And this also caught our attention. The Washington Post reporting tonight federal records show that the government has paid at least 970,000 to the Trump Organization since the president took office. That number would include payments for more than 1,600 nightly room rentals at Trumps Hotels and clubs. Here for our lead off discussion on a thursday night, peter baker, chief White House Correspondent with the new york times. Joe colvin, with the associated press. Also joining us ron klain, informally advising the biden effort. He oversaw the response to the Ebola Outbreak during the obama administration. He happens to be cohost of a new podcast about this coronavirus called appropriately epidemic. Good evening and welcome to you all. Jill colvin because you cover this beat day to day, had you heard of this pandemic plan before the press secretary held up a binder prior to departure from the south lawn today . No, this is certainly not something that we have heard this white house stress in any of its briefings. We spent how many hours with the Coronavirus Task force. Day after day the president giving those briefings, hearing from dr. Birx, hearing from dr. Fauci, and if they had mentioned it in passing, they certainly did not spend any time outlining their plan. What will be heard today was the First Administration official talking about their concern about how slowly this Administration Responded to the threat. You know, it took months for the president to use the defense production act to ramp up production of things like n95 masks that are still hospitals and doctors who say they dont have enough supplies. There are now concerns about testing supplies, states not having enough swabs to be able to complete these tests, these ongoing issues where if the administration had prepared earlier, you may be having fewer challenges now. Ron klain, you heard the press secretary, it was your plan that was insufficient. Yeah, you know, its funny thing as jill said, for a long time, the position of the Trump Administration was that no one could have seen this coming and we didnt leave a plan. And now with now apparently theyve read our plan and thought our plan was insufficient and they wrote their own plan. If what were seeing now is the product of their plan, then their plan was the worse plan in the history of the world. I cant did their plan say dont ramp up testing in january and february . Did their plan say have the president go out and say its going to go away like a miracle, shining light in the body will make it go away . So i dont really understand how what were seeing now reflects a plan unless the plan has been this from the start. As donald trump said today, if we test less, well find fewer cases. Maybe their plan has just been deny and delay all along. That would be a very thin binder if thats what the plan was. Peter baker, you also cover this beat, and while its not dispositive, it does stand to reason had there been a plan, seems to me they would have mentioned it to jills point, a time or two. Do you think whenever this thing is tomorrow is an attempt at a pivot to run on a plan . Well, its a striking conflict and messages of course as ron mentioned. The message up until now was who could have predicted this would happen, nobody saw this coming, when we opened the cover, we discovered it was empty, the obama people hadnt left us any medical equipment, the testing system they left behind was broken, we were surprised when we discovered that so were trying to catch up from square one. Todays mess saage is no we kne this was coming, we did a plan, we were ready. It seems in conflict to the message to the last two and a half months or so. The exercise we have written about, the question is of course why had they they did this plan last year to year before, i cant remember the exact date, that they were not prepared or seemingly not prepared with this happened. It took weeks for the administration to get the white house to understand and grasp the level of the threat and take the kind of steps that we have now taken in order to flatten the curve. There have been studies to show that had the administration put in place some of these lockdown restrictions even just a couple of weeks earlier that the death rate would have been 90 less than what it was. Being prepared is really important. This is a contradictory message to the one theyve been presenting up until now. Jill colvin, distinction we often make among journalists which is actually important. There are two type of president ial travel official trips and campaign trips. And it matters greatly because of who pays for that travel, taxpayers or the campaign. Todays visit to pennsylvania was billed as official business yet people couldnt help but notice joe biden was referred to in the president s remarks. People couldnt help but notice the rallystyle walk off music. You tell us what did it feel like . A mixture of both . Look, this is a president who has long intertwined campaigning and official travel. Its not unusual for him to blend the two. But its especially notable right now. We are at a period of time where the president cannot be holding rallies. He cant be doing political travel. But what he is doing is ramping up these official visits. He spent time today in allentown, pennsylvania, an area of a crucial battleground state thats going to be important to him come 2020. As we drove into that factory area and the motorcade today, there were crowds, thousands, at least hundreds of people lining the treats chanting four more years. The president did a brief tour of the Distribution Center and as we walked into the area where he delivered remarks, they were playing his Campaign Rally list. We heard elton john. They were playing macho man over the sound track. He walked in to his song he walks in to when he does his rallies. He talked about the coronavirus response. He talked about what that Distribution Center is producing. He had workers come up and speak. So, there was a strong element of response and official government action, but it had all of the trappings of the Campaign Rallies that trump cannot be holding right now. Peter baker, for a young man youve covered a number of president s and youve seen a thing or two over the years. You saw how Something Like Oklahoma City changed bill clinton. You obviously saw how 9 11 and going to war left 43 a different man. Newtown and barack obama. The question is has this crisis changed this man in your view . Well, each of those examples that you just reasonable caused were moments when president s reached out and surpassed partisan politics in order to be national leaders. George w. Bush wasnt up there on that wrecked fire truck at ground zero talking only to republicans. Barack obama wasnt talking to democrats when he was tearing up in the Briefing Room over those children who were killed at sandy hook elementary school. They recognize those moments were where you put politics aside and try to reach out beyond that and try to channel the nations grief. You try to channel the emotions that the public is feeling and try to rally them to a larger unified cause. This is a president who hasnt chosen that path. He prefers to be in a fight. A fight is where hes most comfortable and most confident as a political actor on the stage. Its hard to be in a fight with a virus. Its not an ideology. Its not a Political Party and it doesnt respond to twitter messages. He has been struggling to communicate to the public his sense of direction for the country veering back and forth between reading words that have been written for him talking about unity and mourning the deaths and then moments later riffing off on sleepy joe and so forth. Thats hard for any president six months before an election facing a crisis to be both a candidate and a president at the same time. He faces this challenge that at president would at this particular point in the cycle. Its really hard i think to draw that line at a moment when the country is suffering so many fatalities every day still, 33 Million People now have put in for unemployment. Series of crises we havent seen in our lifetime all at the same time, finding balance between politics and National Leadership is a challenge. Finally ron klain, all those of us in the chief seats have to go on is reading the scorecards. And over time we read secretary azar is out of favor, hes back in favor. Secretary azar shaved his beard. Well today it was very clear that dr. Bright was a triggering element to this white house to hear the president open up on him and to hear secretary azar open up on him the way he did. You know and have worked with dr. Bright. For people who are trying to look at his testimony and interpret it because its scary stuff in your view, what should they know . Well, rick bright is a career official in the federal government. He served in both democratic and republican administrations. I have no idea who he voted for president for in 2012 or 2016 or who hell vote for in 2020. I know he cares about vaccines and protecting the American People. That was his job. He says he was removed from his job because he raised objections to the administrations slow response. Whats interesting is the white house used its usual kind of running array of excuses. First President Trump said he made no sense at all that dr. Bright sounded like a disgruntled and angry man. And secretary azar says everything he says we should do we did. Im not sure which of the defenses the white house is running, either dr. Bright is wrong in his attack or that in fact dr. Brights criticisms were met. The bottom line is the American People can see that we werent prepared for this. The American People can see we didnt have the equipment we needed when we went on these crazy detours, a month of talking about hydroxy as the solution and now the white house has forgotten about. Dr. Bright is a scientist. You heard his scientific opinion before the house today. It should be weighed with all the scientific experts. Were hearing less from dr. Fauci no longer at the white house podium, dr. Birx not at the white house podium near as much. Obviously science is being silenced here. Much obliged to our big three on a thursday night, peter baker, jill colvin, ron klain, our thanks for starting us off. A doctor who has treated covid19 patients reacting to todays more startling moments of testimony. And later its the president s new favorite topic. He calls it the greatest hoax in history. But if you have no idea what any of it means or what hes talking about, youre not alone. We have someone who can explain it all as best he can. The 11th hour just getting underway on this thursday night. G underway on this thursday night. Across america, Business Owners are figuring things out. Finding new ways to serve customers. Connect employees. And work with partners. Comcast business is right there with you. With a network that helps give you speed, reliability and security. And enough bandwidth to handle all your connected devices. Voice Solutions Like remote Call Forwarding and readable voicemail. And safe, convenient installation. When every connection counts, you can count on us. Get the connectivity your business needs. Call today. Comcast business. Initially our nation was not as prepared as we should have been, as we could have been. Some scientists raised Early Warning signals that were overlooked. And pages from our pandemic playbook were ignored by some in leadership. A bit more there from the whistleblower, dr. Rick bright, during his testimony on the hill today. Dr. Bright who is a vaccine specialist warned lawmakers theres currently no National Strategy to manufacture and distribute a vaccine. You can imagine the scenario this fall or winter, maybe even early next spring, when vaccine becomes available. Theres no one company that can produce enough for our country or the world. Its going to be limited supplies. We need to have a strategy and plan in place now to make sure we can not only fill that vaccine, mauk it, distribute it, but administer it in a fair and equitable plan. And thats not the case. We dont have that dwret and its a significant concern. Lets get the report from the trenches. Dr. Van gupta is with us. Also an affiliate assistant professor with the university of Washington Department of health and sciences. Dr. Gupta, how does it leave you feeling when you hear that testimony, when you hear those warnings and rather dire potential predictions about our near future . It makes me feel angry, angry for my colleagues and Public Health on the front lines when i hear dr. Bright talking about ppe being perhaps 30 effective because we didnt have Quality Control measures in place. And by the way, we had to source it from china and other overseas countries. And who knows if they were actually effective in protecting my nurses, respiratory therapists, other docs on the front line. That was angry. That made me angry. The vaccine piece should make every american angry because basically what dr. Bright was saying was we didnt even have the ability to test samples, those initial samples of the w. H. O. And other countries were providing data that could have driven Early Vaccine design and subsequently phase one studies. We were two to three months behind from his telling. Theres no reason for that. The thing also that was striking was what the gop congressmen were doing. Every single time they were given time to ask a question, they talked about hydroxychloroquine. They didnt talk about testing. They didnt talk about anything else. They talked about hydroxychloroquine. It was embarrassing to the intelligence of all of us that they talked about a drug that has been debunked, is known to potentially cause more side effects than any benefit, and thats what they were talking about, trying to score points, i dont know with whom, perhaps the president , but it was embarrassing for the intelligence of all of us. The president continues to push it after his notable quote from the white house Briefing Room, i say take it. He said weeks ago. I thought of you today because youre the one i always ask about efficacy and accuracy of testing. And i note that the fda did something very unusual late today. They issued an advisory about possible accuracy concerns with the abbott test. N now, we know the abbott test by name because the president has pushed the abbott test. Hes had it there as a problem in the rose garden almost like telemarketing. Its the test they use at the white house for press core, staff, president , vice president. This has got to be concerning to you as you and i have talked about false positive and false negative rates. Deeply concerning, brian. This is the fact that the president keeps going to this test he promoted it just two days ago at his White House Press briefer. Literally two days ago. First he needs to get new aides to brief him because hes not getting the best available science and data making him look bad for no reason. This test is effectively useful. New York University did a test and said they would not put it in their hospital because its producing so many false negatives. The abbott id now test came to great fanfare two months ago. It is effectively not usable anymore per these studies. The president should stop messaging on it. This comes to a larger question of the fda. They said we made a mistake guys. We put 100 tests out on the market. Now were having to do a rereview and see what works, what doesnt. Same thing with the abbott id now. We have to credit them. Theyve been trying to be active. But now the price of speed is quality, and thats whats happening here. Looked at one way, your job is so basic, to save human lives. Looked at another way, you couldnt be in a more complex line of work. We appreciate having your experience and viewpoint with us. Thank you. The president s latest Conspiracy Theory explained and fact checked as best our guests can when we come back. What crime exactly are you accusing president obama of committing, and do you believe the Justice Department should prosecute him . Obamagate. Its been going on for a long time. Its been going on from before i even elected, and its a disgrace it happened. And if you look at whats gone on and all the information thats being released and from what i understand thats only the beginning. Some terrible things happened and it should never be allowed to happen in our country again. And youll be seeing whats going on over the coming weeks, and i wish you would write honestly about it. But unfortunately you choose not to do so. What is the crime exactly that youre accusing him of. You know what the crime is. The crime is very obvious to everybody. As he said youll be seeing whats going on, the president is going big on a new Conspiracy Theory ahead of the election, something he calls obamagate which rick wilson branded a slogan in search of a scandal. Susan glasser writes in the new yorker if you dont get it, youre not supposed to. Its a slogan, a rallying cry. Details are all but irrelevant. Trump has accused the former president of a crime but hasnt explained what the crime is. Today on social media, he demanded Lindsey Graham launch a Senate Investigation and call obama to testify. Wasnt exactly well received. Graham told politico, quote, i dont think nows the time for me to do that. I dont know if thats even possible. I understand President Trumps frustration, but be careful what you wish for. So, to this end we welcome to the broadcast tim miller, contributor to the bull work, former director for jeb bush and top adviser to the antitrump pac, our principles. In lay terms, what is this . What is the president talking about . Hey brian. Thanks for having me. I hope your viewers have a nice scotch with them because this is kind of complicated to understand. Obviously, the president as he showed doesnt even understand what it is. The thing is the theres a conservative media ecosystem that is very dedicated to trying to explain this quote unquote scandal and more damningly, the department of justice is looking into this scandal. So, our tax dollars are being payed to look into this Conspiracy Theory. So, in short, there are two parts to it. One is pre2016 election. This is the really wac coe part, trying to convince americans that actually the russians did not interfere in the election on behalf of donald trump but there was an International Deep state coup and instate by president obama and others to frame russia and frame donald trump in an attempt to hurt trump in the election. The problem with that part of the Conspiracy Theory is, you know, donald trump won the election and they didnt do anything or release anything about, you know, the russian interference before the election in a way that could have damaged him. So, that part is so far out there that even many in the conservative media wont buy on with it. So, the second part of the scandal, quote unsquo unquote s is what happened after the election. And that is this claim that the deep state basically tried to undermine President Trump. You know, judge jeanine has gone so far as to call it a coup by creating a lot of false investigations about the russian interference into the election in an attempt to get President Trump impeached and removed. And thats based on some very, very dodgey information indeed. But the most alarming part of it is this little drip, drip, drip of information thats coming out is coming from the trump director of national intelligence, Richard Grenell who has had no experience for this job, was a twitter troll mostly before this. And now, you know, he is hes releasing little nuggets of information to give the right wing media enough to make it seem like theres a scandal here when theres not. And i think thats why we need to look at this seriously even though the claims are ridiculous. So, that last part is otherwise known by the no, im sitting here without a scotch and listening and hanging on every word. The latter half of your explanation has to do with this word nonlone ranger related, unmasking. And on that part, regarding general flynn and the entire issue, how far from procedure was the way flynn was handled . How far from procedure is the dni trickling this stuff out from the files . Yeah, i mean, look, i think that there is you know, in any good Conspiracy Theory, theres always an element of truth, brian. And i think that there is probably some fair criticisms of how the fbi in particular handled the flynn case. That being said, what the president and what his enables are trying to do is extrapolate that into something much, much larger that the president himself said was larger than a scandal thats larger than watergate. What it really was was an overaggressive of fbi dealing with flynn. The problem with this is flynn could have avoided this trap or this coup attempt by simply telling the truth to federal official when is they asked him about his conversations with the Russian Ambassador. While the fbi might have acted a little bit out of what is appropriate and i defer to experts on just how far the unmasking was totally standard. If you are a department of you have to put yourself in the Obama National security shoes. The russians had just interfered in our election in overwhelming and historic way. And then, you know, they get this report that someone is calling the Russian Ambassador and telling them to chill out, to not overreact, everything is going to be okay once we get in there. Its extremely relevant to find out who is having that conversation with the Russian Ambassador right after this attack on our country. So, you know, this unmasking is just a totally phony scandal where theyre looking for something that sounds bad in order to create trouble for the democrats. And just to your last point, it is totally inappropriate what Richard Grenell is doing right now by releasing these names and trying to mislead the public about what has happened, trying to basically fabricate a crime against the last president. Its something that should be wall to wall news, what President Trump and what grenell are doing here. Tim, will you come back on as we need to expand our conspiracy glossary . Yeah, we might need to do a whole show on it, brian. But ill do my best. Your lips to our Senior Vice President s ears. Tim miller our guest tonight. Thank you so very much for coming on and explaining all that you do in usable english. Coming up for us, topeka, kansas. The treats are about to get a little busier. The mayor of that great midwestern city is joining us tonight talking about the coming but careful steps toward reopening when we come right back. Reopening when we come right back we are back at our story time, and i have found yet again one of the other books that i used to read to my kids that i absolutely adore. And its called you are special. The thing that matters the most is to remember that youre absolutely loved every day and that you matter. And if you havent heard this today, i want you to hear that you matter to me. That is the kansas version of new york mayor laguardia reading the funny papers over the radio during a newspaper strike. Thats the mayor of topeka, kansas. Hes been going online to read to city kids while the schools are closed. Her state was expected to move into phase two of the gradual reopening plan, opening bars and night clubs at maybe 50 capacity. This coming monday coming up after this weekend. But the governor has decided to pull back, move slower while the virus continues to spread. For more, we are so happy to welcome to the broadcast michelle de la isla, mayor of topeka, kansas. Mayor, thank you for coming on. How hard hit was topeka . How did folks take to shutting down . And how are they reacting to gradual reopening . Well, as you can imagine, nobody in the community was excited to hear that we were going to just pause our economy and have people stay at home. It was but i think that when we made the decision initially, people were expecting that it was going to happen. We didnt have any cases, but one of my mentors, mayor garcetti, was telling me if it feels good, its too late. They all agreed it was time for us to shut down. I think as time has passed people are growing restless. Its expected. People are tired of being home. And people are just ready to be out. Right now were starting to feel the push pull of individuals understanding theres a virus but at the same time wanting to go to work and feel like they have Something Else to do rather than just being home. Mayor, i know youve gone big on drive through testing and indeed for folks across the country its been the most available, most convenient form of testing. The president has long said if you need a test you can get one, wasnt true months ago. Its not true sadly in our country tonight. Is it more true if i lived in topeka . You know, when this whole situation started in kansas, we had a hard time. And if you look at the number of testings that weve been doing, for a while there our governor had to get very creative to allow us an opportunity to get testing. Starting next week in Shawnee County, you will start seeing an additional drive through testing facility happening in one of our local high schools. And our hospitals also are working on getting the reagents. So, in topeka and Shawnee County, you will see a little bit more ability to get testing. What data will you go on . How will you know if when we get more into this relaxation and youve got a tavern on a friday night with 25 or 50 people in it, how will you know it was too much too soon, we need to pull back, and do you dread that moment should it ever have to come . So, the conversations that were having with our incident command team, Incident Commander nicoles and linda oaks, we were all having the conversation of we dont want to have to pull back. Were being very measured in our approach. Were following data. The governor has three basic benchmarks. Those are making sure for 14 days we dont see increase in disease spread, that our hospital bed availability is not really taxed, and most importantly that were seeing a decline in mortality as we try to consider moving from one phase to the other. And Shawnee County were extremely fortunate because were part of the Bloomberg Harvard cohort so were getting information from Johns Hopkins and harvard university. And were also adding what is our capacity for Public Health. Are we going to be able to do as much Contact Tracing as we need . Are we communicating with people . So, our markers are a little bit more than those three that the governor has imposed. We have decided to stick with right now following the governors. We were going to we were going to go into phase two, but we were not looking at increasing the number from 10. So, hopefully we wont have to say that was too much. We care about our citizens and we want to make sure that everything we other decide is based on data. Its a point i try to make here every night. Our governors and mayors are being forced into life and death decisions that they could not have anticipated. And i imagine that includes you. Our thanks to michelle de la isla, the mayor of the great town topeka, kansas for joining us tonight. Good luck to you in the future stages of this, mayor. Coming up for us encouraging news about a coronavirus treatment that comes from coronavirus survivors, when we continue. Navirus survivors, whee continue need your attention here for a moment. We have an inside look tonight at a comprehensive new study on the use of this convalescent plasma to treat coronavirus. Plasma from those people who have had the virus and lived to tell about it. Researchers found that using the plasma appears to be safe. One patient tells nbc news she thinks the treatment changed the course of her illness for the better. We get our report on this tonight from nbc news correspondent cynthia mcfadden. Reporter tonight a first look at a promising new report drawn from a nationwide team of more than 5,000 doctors from over 2,000 hospitals and labs looking at an experimental therapy called convalescent plasma. Transfusing the antibody rich blood from someone who recovered into a current patient. How encouraged are you by this, dr. Joiner . Were very encouraged that the treatment is safe. That was really the first hurdle for us. Dr. Michael joiner is one of the heads of that research consortium, racing to provide data about the safety and effectiveness of the treatment looking at half of the 10,000 patients nationwide who have now received it. Claudia garsinno was one of them. Im the chief officer. A chest xray revealed pneumonia in both lungs. Diagnosed with covid19, she went home to wait it out. But she kept getting sicker. Her daughter drove her to mount sinai in manhattan, the goodbye painful. Looking at her and thinking to myself is this the last time im going to see her. Three days later, she was worse. Her son called with the experimental treatment option. Mom, great news, they think you can have the plasma. I was like do you think i should do that . Its like a transfusion. Im not sure. But worried she would be put on a ventilator, she agreed. I really wasnt a nurse at that moment. I was really a frightened, sick patient who was worrying about surviving. Dr. Joiner says the hard data about the effectiveness of the treatment is yet to come. How soon will they have it . As fast as we can. Our data mining and Analytics Team is working on the data that we have currently. But claudia says theres no doubt in her mind. Just over 24 hours after she received the plasma i remember taking that first deep breath. I felt like i had oxygen. I felt like i had won the lottery. It really sounds like almost a miracle. Exactly. Of course immediately i called my son and i said to him i think that plasma did it. Promising results for a nation in need. Cynthia mcfadden, nbc news. Look, well take the good news these days. Coming up, today this country lost one of its very best. Im going to tell you his life story when we come back. Story w. Last thing before we go here tonight. Our country lost a genuine hero today, a recipient of the medal of honor, and i would like you to hear his story. He was a young man who on his worst day performed at his very best, and because of ronald surer, there are men who are alive today who are home tonight in fact with their families. Ron surer was born in alaska to parents stationed there in the air force. He joined the army, became a Green Beret Special forces medic, and was deployed to afghanistan where on april 6th of 08 he entered into a fire fight, under fire from sniper rifles, machine guns, and rpgs. He withstoold and survived hours of withering fire. He took a round to the helmet and one to the arm, and he killed several enemy himself. Then his men started to get hit. While exposed to enemy fire, he made his way to four separate men, treated their wounds, some of them life threatening. Then when it came time to get the wounded men off the mountain, to quote from his medal of honor citation, Staff Sergeant surer began to evacuate the wounded, carrying them and lowering them down the sheer mountainside. While moving down the mountain, he used his own body to shield the wounded from enemy fire. And when they were haloed out, he rejoined the fight. As a result of his actions, he was awarded the medal of honor at the white house october of 2018. Upon leaving the u. S. Army, ron surer joined the u. S. Secret service. I guess they figured he was a better than average marxman. He was assigned to the heavily armed Counter Assault team out of d. C. His death leaves behind a wife and two sons. Ron surer was just 41 years old when he died today after a long battle with lung cancer. His death leaves 69 living medal of honor recipients in our country. That is our broadcast for this thursday night. We thank you for being here with us. On behalf of all my behalf of a at the networks of nbc news, good night from our temporary field headquarters. Tonight on all in under cover of the crisis hes made worse, new signs the president is abusing his power to attack political enemies and benefit corrupt associates. Ill be joined by Richard Blumenthal and david plouffe. Plus, america hears from the coronavirus whistleblower that the white house tried to silence about speaking the truth of a lack of a plan and warns of americas darkest winter possibly ahead. The congresswoman who ran todays hearing, anna eshoo of cavil, will join me