And, social distancing guidelines set to expire at midnight tonight, the president will not extend those guidelines because states have put in their policies. Just ahead, governor jay inslee, fromater mike leavitt utah. Phone lines are open. Join in the conversation. 2027488000 in the east. 2027488001, mountain or pacific time zone. State,ington 2027488002. Good thursday evening. The numbers from john hopkins university. Cases inon confirmed 100 87 countries and regions around the world. 232,000. Toll 62,000 in this country. Joining us from washington is governor jay inslee. Gov. Inslee thank you for naming a show after Washington State. With let me begin unemployment workers. One in five workers now out of work, one point 5 billion in unemployment benefits. How are you dealing with the volume . We have received claims seven to eight times higher on a daily basis. Are doing everything to get checks to people with expanded compensation. I was one of the first governors to expand that. New technology to expedite that process. I know people around the country have had frustrations. We are doing everything we can. We know how painful this. We are making decisions to make sure we only go through this once, continuing our social distancing here in the state of washington. Host what advice are you giving that other governors . Disciplinedve been as a state, a huge compliance with my order. We have been early in our decisions to declare an emergency and close schools and have our stay home, Stay Healthy Initiative, but we still have a long way to go in my state. Its not like we have some panacea. We are learning from each other, sharing experiences. The one thing we have learned is how committed we have to be to our longterm care facilities. These can explode, so we have put strike teams in our state to earlyo facilities to be in that regard. You saw that in kirkland, washington, at a nursing home facility. Why was that such a hotspot so early . Continuese research to figure that out. It was early. , theure these lessons thing that is unusual from our observation, it was not the worst facility, and yet it ran rampant. I think people have learned lessons from that experience, Nursing Homes have. This, rapidly limiting visitors into longterm care facilities, that is one lesson we took in our state and other states as well to keep the virus out of these longterm care facilities. That is the first line of defense. Strong testing on staff so that staff is tested and temperatures are taken. Then topnotch, worldclass Infection Control particles. We have training in our Nursing Homes to prevent that right now. There is another thing desperately needed which we have not had, and that is adequate testing capability to test people and protect our staff. We have not had the test kits to sample everyone. Adamantwhy i have been we needed to start a National Program to manufacture these supplies. We built our analytical capability in our state and can probably analyze 20,000 tests 4000ay, but we only test for lack of swabs. Im glad the president has come around and is helping us. We got news today the federal thesement would deliver swabs, which we need, helping testing. Host lets look at the numbers. State,9 in washington just over 14,000, 801 deaths. We will get to your phone calls in a moment. We have aligned in Washington State at 2027488002. Governor, your point about what someone compared to a game of thrones, one state competing with another for testing, ventilators. Why was that system in place . , there was a fromrsal cry for help governors to come up with a National Procurement strategy. That,ason is that absent we were bidding against each other for where in the world we could find supplies. Why didnt that start out of the gate . This is not a partisan statement. It is an accurate one. The president said he did not he was a shipping clerk. We thought that was one of the most exalted positions in america, to come up with the National Plan for procurement. He refused to do that for weeks. That was disappointing to republican and democratic governors, and particularly a problem with testing supplies. Ppe,w have some help with the federal government getting some ppe, but the first time we got help from the federal government on the swabs was a couple of days ago when we were told we had some coming to Washington State. Game,d to get in this because it puts us in a better position. We need a mobilization of the manufacturing capacity so the u. S. Can actually make this equipment. I cant order a company to make swabs. The president of the United States can under the defense production act. I think they have come around and there are people who have helped us. The Vice President has been good , talking to me and others. Various secretaries are pitching into more starting to seal that well crank. Crank whl eee facebook. Com\cspan cranl im wondering when the ne xt guest i missed the second part of that second question. Instarted things construction, hunting and fishing. We had a more progressive position on that than other states. Now we get the virus to come down a bit. I will announce tomorrow a phased in approach where we will phase in the return of our businesses. We are attending my stay home stay healthy order after may 4. That will continue. Yesterday, we went through the , over athat we look at dozen metrics we look at, and once those metrics get to that low enough level we are confident we can contain this virus, we will start an approach in detail. Two conditions need to exist to start that process. Number one, get the numbers low enough so we are confident we can contain them with the smart weapons of testing and contract tasting tracing in isolation. It is a oneto punch, get the numbers down, then bring in an army of Contact Tracing folks. People to contact trace, to go out when a person is infected and look at everybody they contact with and get them tested and isolated if necessary. We are using 700 members of the Washington National guard, and that will be a critical effort. I could not understand the second question. Host we wont move on. Mike is on the phone. Mike . , your i was wondering have allowed us to play golf in tucson, and im wondering if you hole, anding four per the logic of just two . Guest if youre in the same household, you can be in a foursome. The logic is we need to reduce the physical interactions of epidemiologists will tell you that any increase in physical interaction increases transmission, so it is just scale and scope. We are starting with two sons wosomes and get back to three later in the process. Switch, turning a light we are turning a dial. First there will be two people, than for people so we can be safe. Host if you were to write a headline for your new agenda for Washington State, what would you say tomorrow . Are heading off, we in the right direction. Curve more than any other state. We do think we are on a downhill slope, but tomorrow i will say back, thel bring industries we can first bring back, and what are the general protocols about how to do so, to get people a sense of what the backncing we are to bring the economy of the state of washington. We will talk about that tomorrow , but it is largely dependent on the course of the virus. It is a complex equation and we are fortunate in washington because we have some of the best geneticist and modelers in the world. Host sophia up next from the bronx. Thank you for accepting my call. Cuomo has beenr handling the job in new york has been great, especially in the bronx. Five blocks down from the, it is another world. , theyople they die estimate it is about 1000 people. Everyone works. Gloves, they wear the masks. They are taking care of themselves the way it has been described to us, so for you, my daughter is in alexandria, virginia, an architect, and my son is in maryland. He is a computer engineering. It to the way Governor Cuomo and mayor de people break the law, the people would ask be asked not to do. Charge him. We can put them in jail. You there. L leave thank you for your call. Are you finding people are adhering to your guidelines, face coverings and the rest . Guest we have brought complaints with our order. Seeas been gratifying to him respond to this. It is the reason we have been able to bend our curve, because have done so by such percentages. I have hardly seen them united as much as this. It is something to be proud of. Action we have had to take about people not complying was a landlord trying ourvict people, violating moratorium on evictions, so it has been very successful. It will be tough. We are not done with this. We will have to buckle down and help each other remain disciplined. Share to tell you that i with the lady was going through, feeling the pain in new york. Tragedy. S is a i just learned of a friend losing an uncle this afternoon, and we are all in this together. Governor cuomo has been a good voice for governors across United States in so many ways. Host our next call. Caller i have a couple of questions for you. One, im curious based on our numbers throughout the state and are death rates, and being that on the level of 50 states in death and infections, when do you anticipate opening portions, or how do you anticipate opening portions of our state, county wise, so these counties can have revenue, so they can generate the revenue and those people out of work can start work . I am a contractor myself and i am curious to know what your timeline is for opening our state backup. Host thank you. Guest i know you had a hiatus in your construction work. Im glad we have gotten ongoing work starting up again. My son is in construction, a carpenter, and the industry has been helpful in permitting the protocols. We hope that will be a template for other industries as we bring them back. We will talk more about the timing tomorrow, but basically what we want to do is get the numbers down of infections per day, percentages of new hospitalizations, percentages of positive deaths, daily for counties. They have to be high enough so we can really test and get those numbers in the position that this will not rebound. I really believe the best thing we can do to make sure businesses permanently reopen is to make sure we do this right once instead of having to do it twice. I do not want to shut him businesses in july and august because we let off too soon in may, so we will make some tough. Ecisions i hope they will be successful so we dont have to go through this again. My son was laid off. We know how tough it is in construction and everything else, so i hope we will be successful in this. Without Health Insurance, what are the options . Guest i am glad we have obama care available, in addition to medicaid, and we encourage people that if they lose their Health Insurance to look at those options on the exchange and are medicaid program. I am glad my state has been vigorous in expanding coverage availability, and we are now standing at the first public option in the United States. We believe health care is a right, and i encourage people to look at all those options, but the best thing to do is to get people back to work and make sure they stay at work. That is why we are dedicated to making sure we are successful this time and dont have to go through this trauma again. Host you were the first curve in or to declare state of emergency. First governor to declare a state of emergency. When was that . March guest march 11, or it mightve been earlier than that. Host they all seem to run together. Guest this has been an intense period of all our lives. When you are governor, you are hopping pretty quickly. Host jane and iowa, good evening. Caller thank you for your honesty and telling the facts to the American People. I appreciate it. Thought aboutyou the meatpacking plants in iowa, the terrible conditions and making people work . Guest i have a lot of strong feelings for the people who work there. These folks really work hard. They put food on the table and they have to work in very difficult situations in the best of days. We all need to buckle down to get him ppe that they need, and this is one of the reasons i have said we need the federal government to start making ppe so everyone can have it. Our nurses havent had access for ppe for some period of time, so we need to ramp up and nationalize the manufacturing capacity so those workers can have the protection they deserve. They also have to have testing capabilities. We ought to be able to test everyone in the circumstances. You have to work close together. To do that, we need swabs, medium, and reagents, and this is why i have tried to get the president to active that activate that. This is important for those of us who like to eat, which is a High Percentage of washingtonian s and americans, so keeping that food supply is necessary. Issues inme packing our state, but also orchards and fields, to try to get farmworkers with decent housing so they dont have to live too closely in trouble in buses that are dangerous, so we are working on a rule that will essentially require farmworkers to have safe housing and transportation. These are some of the hardest working people in america and deserve a safe place to work. Host we welcome our listeners on cspan radio. We are talking with governor jay inslee from olympia, Washington State. By mitchnts recently mcconnell that states should declare bankruptcy, if they need to. Can you declare bankruptcy . Guest we shouldnt have to think about that. That a u. S. Senator think that is the solution to the problem is outstanding. We have heard a lot of outstanding things out of washington, d. C. In the last couple of years. This is the top. You look at the services, states are some hypothetical group, it is the groups getting kids in schools, providing police protection, prisons to deal with criminality. Those servicesde as a bankrupt facility. What he is saying is that he wants to take away the pension and Retirement Benefits from people who dedicated their working lives to public service. I think that is an amazing slap in the face against teachers and state troopers and Public Health workers who dedicated their lives. Youre basically saying we dont care about those people. That is what Mitch Mcconnell is saying, and i find that more than aggravating. I dont believe it is going to happen. Im glad people are standing up. Host lisa from seattle, good evening. Caller hello, governor. I am a Small Business owner and provide housing inside seattle. I have two questions. One, do you have plans to help out smallbusiness landlords who are not receiving rent from their tenants . , with theically seattle city council, there are members who supported a rent strike. What is your opinion about the city of Seattle Councilmembers telling people to not pay the rent . Have not propose such an article as governor of washington. The best thing i can do is get people back to work, and when they get back to work, then people can pay rent. We are dedicated to that. That is something i will talk to about tomorrow and our rebuilding program to get people back to work. I am eager to do that. I know this sounds like a longterm issue, but by making stay home, Stay Healthy Initiative one time and get through this, we want have to take people off the work in august and september and again being in the situation of not having rent paid to you. That is what we are focusing on now so everyone can be economically healthy. , and this is an interesting question about your eligibility for federal funds, i think you would be eligible for that. I will check to make sure. If that is a possible eligibility, we would like to make sure you can take advantage of it. Host mark from lynnwood, washington. Good evening. Caller good evening. Question thatar the last color had. Had. St caller i own the duplex and the tenant is not paying rent. I depend on that rent to pay my mortgage and the property taxes and insurance and all that. I am at risk of losing my house because he is not paying rent. He filed for unemployment when he got laid off and got denied unemployment because he cheated the last time he had an opponent and over claimed, so he has no income, and i have no rent. I want to understand is the state of washington going to assume any liability if they say renters dont have to pay rent . Guest well, we are not saying that. We have not eliminated the rental obligation. We have simply said people cannot be evicted right now. Uring this temporary emergency that would create more homelessness. That moratorium has not eliminated the contractual obligation to openly make payment. For your mortgage, we have been accessful obtaining moratorium on mortgage foreclosures as well, so from your description, your renter and yourself will not be homeless because of this. Both of you will have some obligation. He will have obligation to pay rent, ultimately, and you will ultimately pay your mortgage, but we make sure neither one of you become homeless right now, and that is something we ought not to accept in this emergency situation, so i hope that works out for both of you, and that is with the state is doing right now. Host tampa florida, you are on the air with governor jay inslee. Caller thank you to cspan for putting me in touch with the governor. I have a daughter with who goes to the university of washington, getting her masters in communications, and also working for a particular department in the city of seattle. She sings your praises for the job you have been doing. One, becauseirst of the way this situation hit your particular state first. So you are kind of leading, and i have been following her lead on what she gets from you and what the state is doing here in florida. I thank you for that, and thank you as she does for the job you have been doing in leading washington down this very tough road. The question is, how does the state work in cooperation with ,he metro cities in your state in preparing a budget, so as you open the cities to the different citiesthe citys need need to be prepared for, how does the state work with the major city like seattle and being able