Thats something to behold. Its hadding the lowest level since march of 1999. Right now well take a quick look at my board, which is current. I can see it down 4. 13 i say that because ive been practicing waiting 12 seconds to get a quote on something that im trying to give you instantaneously. Now im back on the nasdaq and i can actually see it. The coronavirus pandemic has sapped demand for oil and global storage is rapidly proefing capacity the world is running out of room on ships anchored at sea the may futures contract for wti expires tomorrow looking out to june, the situation isnt quite as dire. Its back to more of what were used to, kind of, at least in the last couple of weeks as you can see there, june delivery under 23 a share meantime, an update now on the pandemic as we bring you the numbers as we do every single morning. Here are the latest numbers. Global cases topping 2. 4 million now with 165,000 deaths. Now, the u. S. Cases nearing 760,000 with more than 40,000 deaths new york state has 248,000 cases with more than 14,000 deaths and we are now averaging over the past couple of days over 4,000, close to 5,000 deaths, which is literally the equivalent, if you can believe it, guys, of the number of people troops that were killed in the iraq war on a daily basis. Its a remarkable and terrible tragedy were all living through. Over the weekend a number of protests, though, spurring springing up, shd say, across the country. I want to tell you a little bit about some of those protests taking place in florida, north carolina, virginia, michigan, maryland, new hampshire, texas, california, and others all of them are demanding that their States Reopen for business pressure, of course, has been building on governors in recent week to begin the reopening process as total initial jobless claims have surged past 22 million since the outbreak began. Meantime, an nbc news wall street journal poll saying americans are worried about lifting stay at home orders too quickly. 58 of respondents said they were concerned that the country would move too fast. About 32 said the greater worry was the Economic Impact of waiting too long you see that debate playing out across the country right now becky . Andrew, thank you in washington right now, the Trump Administration and Democratic Leaders are moving closer to a plan to replenish that Small Business fund, the relief fund out there for them eamon javers has been looking into that. What do you know this morning . Good morning. We know you la makers have been told to come back to washington. Theyve been back in their home districts. Theyre expected by wednesday. Thats a pretty good indication theyre getting close to a deal on capitol hill. Heres how we think the contours will work out. It will be about 310 billion of additional funding for the ppe, thats that Small BusinessPaycheck Protection Program thats so popular that it ran out of money late last week. 60 billion of that is going to be dig natured specifically for rural and minority businesses. On top of that, 75 billion for hospitals, 25 billion for testing and then 60 billion for an additional Small Business program. This one is a Disaster Relief program so thats 60 billion on top of the 310 billion. Theres a lot in there for Small Businesses the president yesterday gave us this analysis of where we stand in negotiations. Lets see what happens, but we want to put we want to take care of our workers we want to take care of our Small Businesses theyre really the engine of this country i can tell you were negotiating with the democrats you know, they negotiate the things we cant do that we dont think are in the best interest of the people of this country. We are very close to a deal. It does feel like were close to a deal here, becky. Theres a real sense of fear and frustration on the part of Small Business owners who heard those reports at the end of last week that the Small Business fund had run out of money i think lawmakers are going to step up quickly here in order to make sure theres an additional amount of money going out the door in that direction the question is whether an additional 310 billion is enough when youre talking about all of americas Small Businesses facing severe strain here right now the total amount needed to deal with that problem is an unnrn amount well see how that lands as we go through the day today ive been wondering what andrew was just talking about, about those protests taking place, where people want to go back to work in a number of these states where at the same time you have that nbc poll that shows most americans dont want things to open too quickly how does that play out is there any sense of that in washington, what people are hearing back from their districts, back from their constituenci constituencies the president has been linking himself to that protest movement you saw the tweets over the weekend where he was tweeting out in all caps, liberate minnesota, liberate this state, liberate that state. In virginia tweeting liberate virginia with a reference to the second amendment, that is guns the president linking himself to those farright protesters who have been out demanding various States Reopen. Politically that could be dangerous for the president. As you say, were seeing this overwhelming support now for the lockdown effort and for health and safety generally if the president links himself too closely to a movement that is seen by too many as fringe, that could hurt him in november. The American Public here very much focused on health and safety, at least for now now, this is an unprecedented situation and the dynamic could change as we go forward here fascinating to watch the president link himself to something that is an Opposition Movement to what his own administration supports. Eamon, just so were clear, the states he targeted are states that had democratic governors he is hoping will effectively get removed, correct . He interestingly didnt go after ohio, for example. Right, yeah mike dewine in ohio is a republican go ahead, eamon i was going to say, mike dewine in ohio is a republican, the president not targeting him. The president is in a position now of encouraging and fueling a protest movement that is protesting what his own administration officially supports its a delicate political dance hes trying to do here and the payoff might be not good for him in november if hes not careful about it stay where you are, if you could. I want you to comment on this next story going a little out of order but the next story is really actually about the morality to some degree of taking the money, or at least maybe how the public thinks about this money. Shake shack, as you may know, says its going to return its entire 10 million loan from the u. S. Government amid who got access at that fund that was initially aimed at saving Small Businesses more than a dozen publicly traded companies received funds before the program ran out of money. Shake shack executives said they had no idea the fund would dry up so uickly after they secured separate funding they said they would return the entire 10 million. The reason i wanted to raise this story with you, theres a real question about who has gotten this money, theres a bit of a naming and shaming Campaign Going on just over the weekend, Harvard University announced they had taken 9 million of course they have a 41 billion endowment. You can make some interesting arguments on all sides of what this money was for, but how do you think washington is going to see this look, that was a nimble move by shake shack i read the post they put up. Their stepping to the side and dodging any blowback by doing the right thing and giving that money back and saying, this is for smaller and independent restaurants. Were fine and well make sure that some of this money is available for other restaurants. Were all in this together that messaging is probably going to resonate and they avoid any backlash from this problem one of the difficulties here, andrew, is that were not going to have nearly as much transparency in this program as we had, say, in the 2008 bailout era where there was an aggressive effort to target where all the money was going. In this case there may not be any public database where you can easily go and look up who got this funding and who didnt get this funding you may see this in ones and twos as Different Companies are outed, quote unquote i thought it was interesting in the shake shack writeup what they said about this they said there was so much confusion in the early days of this, they didnt know how this program would be structured, who it was for and how best to take advantage of it so they decided to just go for it and see what happened i think a lot of people were in the same boat, but over time, as the Politics Around it and public impression solidifies, Companies May find themselves on the wrong side of it so you may see more companies deciding to do what shake shack did here. Thats what i was going to ask. Do you think well see more Companies Give back . Do you think well see universities, as i mentioned the harvard example is a unique one given the large endowment they have by the way, lots of Ivy League Schools and others took money. Should they yeah. In large part you could argue there are going to be lost revenues here as a result and maybe they would have had to scale back employment if this whole project effectively is employment for all project youd almost want everybody to get the money. Given that not everybody could get the money, it becomes more complicated. Right there are these unsympathetic actors if you have billions of dollars in cash sitting around, the public is not going to be sympathetic to you getting a bailout with taxpayer money. The other big question here is, how practical is this Program Going to be for a lot of these companies . The deal is, you take the loan, its forgiven if you have your employees all on the payroll eight weeks from now but if some of these Companies Getting this money are in states where the lockdown orders are still in effect at the end of that time period, its just not going to tb practical for them to have everybody back on the payroll because theres no business coming in the doors for a lot of companies, theyre making a decision to take a loan in the hope it will be forgiven entirely but putting themselves in a risky position where they be taking on Additional Debt if the lockdown order is still in place in their region when the clock expires on the loan. Its a very stressful and challenging thing for Small Business owners to navigate. Its really causing a lot of fear and a lot of pain out there. Eamon, its not just that some of these loans arent even making it to the people who need it most. The program calls for minimum loan of 1 million the independent Community Bankers over the weekend called for 100,000 lower limit and then there was another group, the american backers association, says it should be as low as 50,000. You would think those are the businesses that need that money the most that dont have anything to fall back on, especially with some of these universities with their massive endowments, claiming they need it thats nuts. The Politics Around this this was put together very, very quickly. All of these unintensed consequences were talking about maybe they just didnt have time to think all of that true. Now the question is, can they go back and change the terms of this when they go back and do this new bill . If you go back and change the terms of it, youll havesquawk from people who took the original deal who say, wait a second, this isnt fair if youre changing whats available out there right now. Its a very fluid situation. Nobody involved in this has ever seen anything like this before so everybody is throwing ideas out there and trying to see what works. The thing that concerns me, becky, just this question of pure scale youre talking about something approaching the size of the total t. A. R. P. Bailout of 700 billion by the time you add up these two funds of ppp thats an enormous program and it may not come anywhere near far enough in order to back up all of americas Small Businesses if youre trying to bail out the entire Small Business sec, to you might need more money than that at some Point Congress will be tapped out and not every Small Business will be able to get a loan eamon, just two clarifications one, my understanding of the disclosure process and all of this is that there was going to be a sixmonth window, meaning you wouldnt be able to find out this information for six months. But after six months, through freedom of information acts and other things, there would be closure or at least the opportunity for disclosure is that not right . Im not sure andrew, im not sure ill have to go back and check the text of the bill whether theres every going to be any one central database where any american i think youre right about the one central database. Right and then the other quick question, this is for Small Businesses out there, if, as you said, eight weeks later you cant keep everybody employed, my understanding was had you kept everybody employed for the last eight weeks that the grant or that the loan would turn into a grant and be forgiven regardless of whether you have to lay them off in the future because your business is still challenged. Right as long as you as long as you get to that point and have the people on the payroll, it will be forgiven. A lot of ive talked to a lot of Small Business owners who say, you know what, we dont have any revenue at all coming in right now it doesnt make sense for me to have people on the payroll i just cant afford to take the risk of not bunkering down and just battening down the hatches on my business as low as i can go going into what is a totally uncertain period of time i think theres a a lot of people who say, we just might not be able to come back at the end of the time period so, therefore, we have to lay all those people off. Ill throw one more wrinkle into this. You have the states and municipalities that need help with this, and that makes sense. I was reading over the weekend how in illinois, i believe its the president of the senate there, is asking for 41 billion, 10 billion to bail out their pension fund, which everybody has known has been under pressure and underfunded forever. Thats where it will get messy and tricky what is something you should shd deserve bailout money for because the government said to shut down and what is something youre trying to lump everything, every problem youveer had, everything you havent prepared for and lump that in to say the federal government should pick that up, meaning the taxpayers should pick that up eamon . Thats a great question, becky. At this point well see all these states and localities coming with their hands out to the federal government so far the Trump Administration and rendz on the hill have thanh the position that its really notal role of the federal government to bail out every state budget everywhere across the country. The president has said, you know, well look at that in the next bill, but they dont want to do it in this bill that is likely to move this week and the question is, if youre new york state, if youve seen Governor Cuomo hold these press briefings day in and day out, suddenly you see revenues go to zero the states cant justprint money the way the federal government can theyre in a situation where they have to play with real money and they have huge budgetary holes to fill. How are they going to solve that problem . It is a massive and unprecedented problem. Theyre looking to the federal government you have a lot of people in the federal government saying, look, thats not our problem, thats not our role eamon, thank you. Well check in with you a little later. Its good to see you on this monday morning. Coming up, Retail Stocks have been battered by the pandemic lockdown. Well i take a look at how the landscape could change bit end of the summer. Todays big number 15. 51 thats how much the s p 500 gained in the last two weeks ekf inonstigexs secd raht we ogas. Number of retailers are taking drastic steps after be, hit hard by the coronavirus. Neiman marcus missed a bond payment and is preparing for bankruptcy protection. Nordstrom suspended orders and macys is exploring options to shore up its finances. Joining us to talk about the longterm industry impact, steven sedov, former chairman and ceo of sachs and National Retail federation. What do you expect neiman to do . How would that look . What will stay open and what are you expecting . I think the neiman situation is an example of whats really going on in retail right now where these Companies First were facing major liquidity issues. Now theyre facing the question of whats it going to look like to open. And then what are sales going to be like . Neimans has a situation where they had highly leveraged, much too much debt. It was a company on the edge with its debt before the coronavirus hit and now thaur going to i think that bankruptcy will allow them to wipe out part of their debt. Maybe theyll end up closing some stores. I dont know if theyll liquidate or not thats a possibility there are a lot of possibilities other people might come in richard saks has been talking about wanting to open neiman a lot of that story still to b