Its a false choice to make, sayinge1 that you either open t economy or everythingt goes to hell. But then, mr. Trump floats declaring a kwaunt. E quarantine because its such a hot area ofe1 new york, new jersey, and connecticut. Good before backing down. My guest this morning, dr. Deborah birx of the White House Coronavirus task force. Governor John Bell Edwards of louisiana, and Governor Gretchen Whitmer of michigan. Also, first time unemployment i rn we may be in a recession. And Congress Passes the biggest rescue package ever. How many more bailouts will we need . Ill have an interview with joe biden. Joining me for insight ande1 analysis are andrea e1mitchell. Eugene robinson, carollpe1 lee, hugh hewitt. Welcome to sunday and a special edition of meet the press. Announcer from nbc news in washington, thew3 longest runni show in telephone history, this is a special edition of meet the press with chuck z]todd. Good sunday morning. As you can see, once again, wee look a little different this week. This morning, and for thexd foreseeable future, ill be anchorbi] mp from my home offic as we here at nbc news practice social distancing. Two images illustrate the week we have just been fathrough. These all nurses in hardhit new york city wearing, yes, garbage bags, because personalni protective gear is unavailable. And this graph illustrates the almost incomprehensible rise in first time unemployment claims to a record 3. 3 million. On a week when the United States passed 120,000 cases of covid19 and q2,000 deaths, when we apper to pass china and then italy for thesufau cases in the world, President Trump offered americans mixed messages. Early in the week, the president said he would like america to be open againe1 for business by easter. That the cure, he said, shutting down the economy could be worse than the disease. Mr. Trump seemed eager to play the role of optimist in chief leaving it to scientists and governors to own the hard news about shutdownsq and forced lifestyle changes. By th mr. Trumps tone had changed. Yesterday, he floated the idea of quarantined the new york city region before backing down. Tuesday marks the end of President Trumps 15day coronavirus will he tighten them, loosen them, extend them . We shall dsee. Its helpful to keep innr mind what dr. Anthony fauci said. You dont make the timeline, the virus makes the timeline. Its like a war zone. Were in a war with veryni limid resources. A nation in crisis. All the patients in this room, all that you see, they all have covid. Doctors, nourishes, and firs1 responders are pleading for protective equipment. Feels like im fighting anb kt pumps, ventilators. Im worried my patients will diexd alone, withoutt the peop they love next to them. On friday, President Trump signed a 2 trillion Economic Relief package and aftere1 week of mixed messages, used his power undere1 the defense production act to compel General Motors to manufacture ventilators. But just 24xd hours earlier i dont believe you need 40,000 or 30,000 ventilators. You know, you go into major hospitals sometimes, theyll have two nijfventia im9÷ now, all of a eyre saying cane1 we order 30,000 ventilators. With all due respect to him, hes not looking at the qfacts. Mr. Trump has attacked many of the governors who are pleading fornhm administrations help. I say mike, dont call the governor of washington. You are wasting your time with him. Dont call the woman in michigan. It doesnt make any difference what happens. More than 220 Million People in 27 states under shelter in place t orders. But earlier this week, the president floated a rosy timeline. I think Easter Sunday and youll havei] packed churchesok over our country. I think it would be a beautiful time. Before governors of both parties pushed back. Of course, i want the economy back. But you know whatlpni i want mo lester . I want them alive. I do not think south dakota will be back to normal for many months. Willz be listening to docto, physicians, lpscientists. And the president backed off his timeline onxd saturday, he floated a threestate quarantine. Some people would like to see new york quarantined because its a hote1 spot. Before retreating again hours later. E1 continues to spread, the president is already declaring victory. The federal government has done a hell of a job. And arguing this was something nobody has ever thought could happen to thiav country. But many experts did. And told the president so. In a National SecurityCouncil Pandemic playbook, which the administration was briefedi] onn 2017, in a series of hhs simulation exercises called crimson contagion, conducted in 2019, which found the administration was not readye1 r the outbreak of a respiratory virus, and an Intelligence Agency warnin y in january and february, while President Trump and aides played down the threat, failing to ramp up testing until the virus had spread. Did the cdc screw up or did you screwni up . We did not screw up. Where did thisk go wrong . I dont think cdc screws up either. Nobody ever expected a thing like this. Joining me now ist the response kwouaunonse kwoirdinat Coronavirus Task force. Welcome to meet the press. Lets start with the first question this way. It took from february 29th to march 17th to get to 100 deaths. It took another nine dck to gt to q1,000 fadeaths. Sadly, it took 72 hoursnr to ge to q2,000 lpdeaths. Dr. Birx, where are we today . And where is this headed ine1 t next fewe1 weeks . T well, this is the way pandemics work, and thats why we all are deeply concerned and why we have been raising the alert in all metrolp areasq and all states. No state, now3ni metro area wil spared. And the sooner we react and the sooner the states and the metro areas react and insure that they have putxd in full mitigation a the same time understanding exactly what their hospitals Forward Together and protect the most americans. Theres a new website up. It comes from chrisni murray ou in washington state. Its on the ime website, imhes website. It predicts, it looks at this, billed as an infectious dirk se model. I would love to take a look that. What part of this model, what is it telling you, and whatfa does and so that is still going on, and we do have enough tests ford that. The ofhgr piece of this is surveillance. So were looking across the United States for counties that do have lower case numbers right now. To see what we can do right now in order to really put into place full surveillance, full contact tracing, anu full diagnostic capacity to insure that cases are fou. Ep and we contact en n while its not enough for us to get materials to warehouses. We have tonr be working with th state and local governments comprehensively to insure that equipment and supplies are getting to each hospital. Hospitals are so busy taking care of the people who are ill, they cant beh nending time doingi] inventory. We need to help and support that. Well, that appears to actually be a problem, and look, im curious, what role do you play in, deciding where spare ventilators go versus the role fema e1plays . And the reason i ask that is there seems to be some confusion, governorse1 are complaining they find themselves either bidding against other states or the federal government. Uhen it comes to different equipment issues. So is the federal governmentq going to take over all procurement and dispersement of medical equipment or f1not . I think at this moment, were asking every single governor and every single mayor tol like new york isnr preparing no. Know where every hospital is, public, private. Know where every one of your Surgical Centers are. Know how to change the anesthesia ventilators to take care of people. Know where every pieceq of equipment in thenrni state is, how to move the equipmeso. The one thing we can do as americans is we know howoki] to inovatd. Its noti just what you have each city will have its own epidemic curve, and so weni can mnae between states. We can move within states to me meet the needs of everyone. You sort of overlooked the question, puuy about is the federal government going to take over at least the procuj]q and the distribution of things Going Forward . Well, i think the federal government right now is working very hard on looking at where all the ventilators are ande1 where production can be. But we need states at the same time toe1 look where all of the ventilators are. E1 including e1outpatient surgical center, which is a . ; really important place to be doeking, because you get staff plus ventilator. they have also th cardiac monitoring, being able to monitor oxygen levels. All of that can come into the hospitals to care for patients. Both of thosefa pieces need to come togethers. The government looking to increase procurement and states looking for every single option they have. New york city, if you could quarantine the tristate area, and theres a lot of legal hurdles to that, if you facould do you think it would be the best wayfa to slow this virus fa when we looked at what nevd31 york state and what the mayor and governor did over the last ten days, when those alerts went out of thee1 increased number o infections, a lot ofjf people w could leave new york left new york. And so we immediately saw cases rising out on long island and cases rising in southern florida. What were trying to say toi]ni everyone is when this virus comes to your metro area, please stay in your metro area wheree1 your care can be provided, because its spreading virus more quickly around the United States. Should we be shutting down domestic air travel . I understand you need to move airplanes forni supplies, for peoplexde1 q environments, but should there be some domestic air travel shut down . It doesnr seem odd that new yor city airports are wide open for people to leave. The amazing thing to me, and what has been so heartening to me,nd when ixd work on epidemics around the globe, its seeing communities come together. And communities have selfquarantined and selfisolated themselves. The ymamount of air travel in out of new york we believe isok down by 90 . Metro down by more than 90 . So people are using common sense to protect others. We also havee1 to be able to mo doctors and nurses around the United States. Theyre part of our surge tpcap. You can see many have come forward as volunteers, and we need to be able ao get them places. Aretau going to announce the new guidelines given everything you have just said, given no metro area is going to be spared at this point right now, thats your concern, should we assume these 15day guidelines are going to get extended another 15 days, through thexd end of april . Whats realistic,e1 dr. Birx . What i wanted to be very clear on is everye1 metro area should assume that they could have an outbreak equivalent to new york, and do everything right now to prevent it. If they mitigate now, before they start seeing casesxd inw3 emergency room and in the hospital, once you see those, the virus has been spreading for days toxd weeks. So this is really my call on every mayor tonrni prepare now. Soq it sounds like thesei] w extended at least another couple weeks. Is that fair . As americansq are watching, should they be prepared to be c 0unkering down for the reste1 april . My job today is to put all the data together,i] then integrated data ofe1 testing, ce reporting, the global situation, for the pr president so they have all the . Data took makeq the decision ths best for theni American People. So are you what is your recommendation . What recommendation are you going to be giving to them or are you not sharing that with us . Im going to share it withlp the president and Vice President first. All right. Dr. Birx, i will leave it there. Stay safe. Stay healthy. And were all wanting to defeat this as soon as possible. Thanks for your i]kufrbs. Thank you. And joining me now arexi lc governors of two states thatt have seen an alarming rise in covid19 cases. Governor Gretchen Whitmer of michigan and Governor John Bel Edwards of louisiana. Governors, welcome to both of you. Governor edwards, i solemnly want to start with you. Sadly, you had to report that you had a staffer die from coronavirus last fanight. I just figured i would let you say a quick word about that. Well,e1 2 april was a tremendous asset to louisiana. She was 8y valuable member of or team, someone that i was actually personally friendse1 wh and had gone to church with. And she diedt last evening abo 6 00. Andq this should be a reminder o everyone just how serious, howe deadly covid19 is. Andeo uz need to do everything that we canr sprd,nd save lives. And you know, thats my message to the people of louisiana today. Governor whitmer, let me start with you, tell me the situation in detroit specifically right now and where michigan is today. Our numbers are climbing we took aggressive measures. We have been on the front end of aggressive measures that states have been taking, but weni see thislp astronomical rise. We have hospitals that are already at capacity. Were running out of ppe as well. Im grateful we got a shipment from fema yesterday for 112,000 n95 masz , but you know, 7c going to be in dire straits again in a matter of days so were keeping up the pressure and working 24 7 at the state level, and grateful that there are people who are doing that at the federal level as well, but this is not something that we on. It should be everyone fighting covid19. Everyonexd versus covid19. Governor edwards, give me th1 orn particular, i think a lot of folks are concerned about some of the rural communitiesco of louisiana. How quickly do you fear that your system could amy overwhelmed . Well, we have the coronavirus now and cases in 56 of our 64 parishes. So while the hott spot is down around new orleans, it is statewide. We know that if we dont flatten the curve, weree1 on a trajecty currently to exceed our capacity in the new orleans area for ventilators by about april 4th. K we have been doing thatt for my days here in qlouisiana. Were in wztorying all of our Health Care Clinics in various settings to find any breathing device that can be used as a ventilator. Perhaps it has to be retrofitted or modified in some way. We have emt type ventilatou that really arent designed to be used in hospitals but they can be if necessary. Were alsooom trying to see if there are certain ventdilators that could service more than once patient atjfp time dependig on their acuity oklevel. Were doing everything we can, but we have only been able to procure 192 ventilators over the last several weeks when we had about 12,000 on e1order. Governor whitmer, you seem to imply late in the week that you thought the federal government or perhapsco President Trump wa punishing michigan in your attempts to procure differente1 medical items. Do you have any do you still believe that iseqdhappening . Or do you believe that you were mistaken . No, you know, heresfaq what said. What we are doing is placing all of these orders. We are contracting, were trying to procure this, in addition to the help we needxd from thet federal government. And like massachusea[s, like new york, like california, like places all across the country, were bidding against one another. Jp pritzk[2÷ of illinois aboveod i÷ at same thin p then we get a notice its being directed to the federal government. I think thats a frustration theres not enough ventilators. We need thousands of ventilators in michigan. Theres not enough n95 masks. We have got nurses who are you know, weve got to slow the spread, and thats why, you know, the stayathome orders asking people to do their part, people need to understand the seriousness of this issue. Its a novel virus with no cure, no vaccine, highly contagious and deadly. co no one is immune from this o 9 thats why staying at home and keeping the virus from being transmitted from person to person is really the best tool we have. But weve got to keep workingto get all of these other pieces of equipment, and when were bidding against one another, its creating a lot ognxd frustration and concern. And thats exactly what i was trying to 5aconvey. And same thing thats been conveyed by others on both sides of the aisle. Governor whitmer, im just curious. The president seemed to direct Vice President pence to not call you, not talk to you. But Vice President pence is talking to you. Is yourx you r the federal level and the state level, the states across the country, are working xd24 7. E1 this is a challenge. This is a moment where the enemy is covid19. E1 its not one another, and thats why im grateful for the c c1 partnership weve gotten. I have talked the Vice President a number of times, were working everyone from the white house on down through fema, dhs, the army corps ofc engineers, because its got to be all hands on deck. We are not one anothers enemies. Thenu enemy is the virus. And it is spreading, and it is taking american lives. Thats precisely why we governors are banding together where we cant to try to make se that we are organized, we are learning best practices from one another, sharing information, and were protecting the people of our states. Governor whitmer of michigan, governor edwards of louisiana, again, our condolences for your staffer,q april dunn, there, governor edwards. Good luck,ni stay safe, stay healthy. And as you guys said, were all and as you guys said, were all in this togt er. To be most successful, connectivity is vital. Verizon, really for us, has been a partner for years. Allows us to stay connected to our 80 plus locations across the country. We use verizon throughout our entire day. Its an integral part of how our practice runs. We need our project managers and our superintendents to be able to communicate. We dont have to be together to work together. vo at verizon, were here, an to help your business stay connected doprevagen is the number oneild mempharmacistrecommendeding . Memory support brand. You can find it in the vitamin aisle in st