friend. great to see you. still ahead, some positive news out of california as the state s governor signals social distancing measures there appear to be working in the effort to stem the spread of the coronavirus. your first look at morning joe is back in a moment. your first is back in a moment. you try to stay ahead of the mess. but scrubbing still takes time. now there s new powerwash dish spray. it s the faster way to clean as you go. just spray, wipe and rinse. it cleans grease five times faster. new dawn powerwash. spray, wipe, rinse.
welcome back. we begin this half hour with new questions as to how the white house arrived at its projection that over 240,000 americans will die due to the coronavirus. while leading forecasters said they don t challenge the number s validity, white house officials have refused to explain how they generated this figure and they have not provided the underlying data so others can assess its reliability or provide long-term strategies to lower that death count. three white house officials are telling the post that some of president trump s top advisers have expressed doubts themselves about this estimate. and there have been fierce defends inside the white house about its accuracy. the post reported that at a task
force meeting this week, dr. fauci told others there are too many variables at play in the pandemic to make these models reliable saying i spent a lot of time with the models. they don t tell you anything. you can t really rely upon models and the cdc directeder and the vice president s office have reportedly voiced doubts about the projection s accuracy. while a columbia university epidemiologist whose models are cited by the white house tells the post that his own work on the pandemic does not go far enough into the future to make predictions akin to the white house fatality forecast. and americans feeling the economic pinch of the coronavirus, they might receive some relief sooner than expected. as the government stimulus checks will now go out in april, not in may. a treasury department official telling nbc news they expect that 50 to 70 million americans will receive economic impact payments through direct deposit by april 15th. the overwhelming majority of eligible americans wi
welcome back. joining us from washington with a look at axios am, editor in chief for axios, nicholas johnston. good morning to you. good morning. talk about axios one big thing today. it s the rich pull up the drawbridge. as quarantines and stay at home orders have increased, we re almost seeing a tale of two pandemics. as f. scott fitzgerald would say, the ultra rich are a little different from you and me. we re seeing how they re reacting to the pandemic in different ways and exposing someone s differences in socio-economic classes, and how it deals with the fallout from the coronavirus. when talking to real estate agents in vacation spots, we re seeing a flood of wealthy people moving to vacation homes. folks with second and third homes are moving there quickly in the hamptons, west palm beach, martha s vineyard, cape cod. real estate agents are saying folks are offering six-figure sums to lock down vacation homes so they can stay in to ride out the pandemic. other headlines