i don't care if a person is old. i'm old by your definition. i still think i have a value, right? my mother's old. she's the most precious person to me. so protect every life, and i'm not going to trade off public health and we'll figure out the dollars and we'll figure out the economic impact, but we'll protect people in the meantime, and we'll protect their health. >> governor, you have spoken about covid overflaw facilities -- good day, everyone, i'm andrea mitchell in washington continuing our coverage of the coronavirus pandemic. u.s. governor andrew cuomo has just been giving his update, saying there's been a fairly significant drop in hospitalizations statewide, and health care workers have tested lower for antibodies than the general population. another good sign, underlining the importance of having personal protective equipment. he also pushed back on the idea reopening the economy is more important than preventing more deaths from covid-19. and here are the other facts at this hour. today a staggering report on weekly job claims, with another 3 million americans filing for unemployment benefits, totaling more than 33 million jobless claims in just the past seven weeks. this as we await tomorrow's unemployment report on april, expected to be the nation's most monthly report ever. today the white house confirms a personal military aide to the president, who served him his meals, has tested positive for the virus. even as the president continues to high llights stays reopening. he will meet with governor abbott today, who is partially reopening texas. although that state's death toll is approaching 1,000 people. and two officials tell nbc news the white house rejected new guidelines from the cdc on how the country could safely reopen gradually, with the white house task force saying the cdc approach was, he quote, overly restrictive. joining me now on all of this, nbc white house correspondent and weekend "today" co-host kristen welker, "the washington post" white house reporter ashley parker, chris lu, former deputy secretary of labor in the obama administration, now a senior fellow at the university of virginia military center, and john berry, faculty at the tulane school of public health in tropical medicine and author of "the great influenza: the story of the greatest pandemic in history." kristen, you obtained a new white house statement about that military aide, what we would call a knanavy steward, who ser meals to the president, tested positive i guess wednesday. tell us what you know about that. >> that's right. and my colleague peter alexander just got some new reporting. let me read you some of the new information we have, andrea, and then we will get to the official white house statement. the white house official telling nbc news the member of the white house military on the white house campus who tested positive is one of the president's personal valets who works with the west wing and serves president trump his meals, among other duties. as you mentioned, andrea, the valet is a man. not confirmed what branch of the military he's from. the official said valets do not wear masks. upon learning about this, the president was not happy, according to this sourcing. now, let me read you the official statement we got from hogan gidley, at least part of it -- we were recently notified by the white house medical unit that a member of the white house military that worked at the kpous campus tested positive for coronavirus. this is the important part, andrea, the president and vice president have since tested negative for the virus and they remain in did health. now, important to point out that testing will undoubtedly need to be updated because, of course, if this person did test positive on wednesday, there is a delay potentially on when you would see signs or when you would get a positive test. but just underscoring president trump not happy upon learning about this, and it's our understanding that moving forward all of those who are within close proximity to the president and vice president will be instructed to wear masks. so this is a significant development as the president himself, the entire trump administration, continues to deal with their response to this broader crisis, andrea. >> and, ashley parker, we know that the president has said his reluctance to wear a mask, why he didn't wear a mask when he was in arizona the other day, and nancy pelosi telling me that she thought it was a vanity thing that he doesn't want to wear a mask. the vice president does not wear a mask at the mayo clinic, and then apologized for that subsequently. but what do we know about this? traditionally the military aides who serve the president and first family are from the navy. they're known as navy stewards throughout all of the years i have known the white house. i don't know if that's the case in this situation. >> well, depend, we know what the white house has told us, which is this steward did in fact test positive, was around the president. the president and vice president have tested negative. but i think this is one of these moments where we're at a pivot point at what the task force is looking to do and president is looking to do with reopening the economy. he sort of said he wants to be very focused on reopening the economy, that the american public has to be warriors. and this sort of demonstrates, microcosm in a very close-to-home way how fragile this can be when you stop taking precautions, when there are people who are not using the proper protective equipment, something like this can happen. and i think at large this is something we're hearing from the public health officials and people inside the administration as you reopen the country, how do you grapple with wanting business as usual with the necessary public health protections? of course, the president, someone in his orbit is not the same, for instance, reopening the state of georgia but it is an example of the sorts of challenges this white house and the nation will have to grapple with. and the president now is experiencing it firsthand. >> indeed. and this in fact as ashley just to follow up quickly, we understand the cdc guidelines recommendation was rejected by the task force. i would argue it was probably -- we don't know this but i would suppose it was rejected because of the economic focus right now and the reopening focus, not because of the scientific of the task force. the cdc has traditionally been the go-to source for any administration during a health crisis. they had not briefed in weeks and weeks. it was transferred to the vice president. and now the guideline for recommendation was rejected for being too tough. >> exactly. it was rejected for being overly prescribetive. and once the document leak, first reported by the associated press, it was notable the one thing the white house said is they were pushing back on this and they asked the cdc for revisions. and it was expressing public frustration the cdc had not gotten white house sign-off on this, had not really asked for white house approval and they seemed to be almost as frustrated with that aspect as to what they said were the too strict restrictions. you're right, they're very eager to get the economy open. they don't want to do anything they think can hurt that and they and the cdc are not exactly marching in lockstep. >> and we just heard governor cuomo saying in his briefing today, chris lu, there should not be a conflict between health care, protecting your health, and the economy, that health has to come first before anything else can work. but we see these new numbers today and the projections for what we will see tomorrow, and they're devastating. >> that's exactly right. the president thinks by bullying states, he can magically cause the economy to recover. and it just doesn't work that way. this is first and foremost a public health crisis. until you get your arms around that, the economy cannot function well. because this is all about confidence. it's confidence about businesses reopening, about customers spending money. and what the president is doing in many ways is causing the worst of all outcomes, forcening a partial reopening so you will continue to have infections and deaths at unacceptably high levels. meanwhile, businesses aren't going to function at 100%. so it's going to continue to stagnate. as we've seen from these numbers just today and we're going to see really devastating numbers tomorrow, this economy is in a deep hole. but the answer to it is not a premature opening that risks further eroding confidence and ruining the did work we've already done. >> i want to also share what neel kashkari said to savannah guthrie. he's the president of the minneapolis fed. this is what he said about his projection for the recovery when it does come. >> i think it's becoming clear we're in for a long, gradual recovery, which is unfortunate. i wish we had a quick bounceback. but we're going to alert the depression scenario because policymakers are going to continue to be aggressive. >> and, chris, it's clear there's a lot of disagreement. almost red state/blue state disagreement. partisan disagreement about when it is safe, when you can reopen and whether people can go back in the ways the president seems to be forecasting. people are scared. >> right. this is a false dichotomy and false choice between red state and blue state and public health and the economy. and we're going to see tomorrow with those jobs numbers, the monthly employment numbers, numbers we have not seen since the great depression. so we should take a look not only the top-line numbers but what's below that? we know, for instance, leisure hospitality and retail have been affected. has this trickled into white collar professions like the financial industry? what are the racial disparities of people being out of work? how much have state and government started laying off police and teachers and firefighters? so that's going to really have to shape a lot of the economic relief packages but we're not out of the woods yet, notwithstanding what the president keeps saying. >> and john berry joining us. you wrote the book literally about the 1918 pandemic, the influenza pandemic. a lot of this is going to again on whether this is the first onset of this new virus or whether there's going to be a big resurgence on it or whether the second hit will be worse than the first. >> you know, we didn't really have a first wave yet. we interrupted it with some pretty aggressive closings. obviously, it's continuing to spread anyway. whether we have a huge wave depends on what we do. we're not ahead of it yet. i'm sure everybody in your audience and you all know about the need for testing, the need for contact tracing. if we do things right, we still have a chance of not controlling it. it is going to spread, but of keeping it tamped down in a way that would allow some reopenings. but if have the chaotic approach that we're having now, we're risking essentially a hurricane storm surge, not just a wave, coming back at us, which will wipe out everything that people have done and achieved so far. >> and i wanted to share also a startling graph just to show visually what it really means. if you look at the united states and trendlines in the united states versus the rest of the world, take a look at that top line. that's where we are headed. john barry, just as an example, here you have a navy steward at the white house serving meals to the president in the west wing, and he tested positive. we're not going to know for sure whether the president has been infected or anyone around him for at least two weeks, given the incubation period. >> that's correct. but as your report said at the beginning, that sort of exemplifies what's happening around the country. the reopenings i think, in most cases, are premature. and cdc is always in every past administration, when there's been a health threat, cdc has always taken the lead. to shunt them aside in the biggest crisis, the biggest health threat in more than 100 years, it's very dangerous. >> absolutely. thank you so much, john barry, ashley parker, kristen welker, and, of course, chris lu. thank you all. coming up -- shortages and surpluses. coronavirus complications are really testing the food supply chain. next we're live at a farm with 12 million -- that's million -- pounds of surplus potatoes. plus, later in the show as states start to reopen and people go back to work, who's going to watch the kids? wild childcare is key to getting the economy back on track. stay with us, you're watching "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc. for small prices, you can build big dreams. spend less, get way more. shop everything home at wayfair today. for adults with moderately to severely active crohn's disease, stelara® works differently. studies showed relief and remission, with dosing every 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pretty darn small next to this pile. i mean, just take a look at how tall this pile really is. if you look up there, there's a red mark near the ceiling there, that's the 20-foot mark. that's how high it is. this extends beyond the length of a football field. 12 million pounds. it's hard to wrap your head around. this is just one warehouse of many across the state right now that look just like this and a farp a farmer who has to figure out what to do with this massive pile. i spent time with the father/son duo who run this farm. these potatoes, i will pick one up here, this is a russert potato. these are ideal for french fries. you see how long they are. they make the nice, delicious crispy things we love to eat and i'm getting a little hungry talking about it here. but the majority of washington state's potatoes get turned into french fries. they go to restaurants both here in the u.s. but mostly overseas. the majority of restaurants around the world right now are closed so that puts these farmers in a really challenging position, andrea. they have to figure out what to do. it's hard to wrap your head around the fact right now we are seeing incredibly long lines at food banks and i'm standing next to a surplus of food here. you think you can just put two and two together but it is not exactly that easy. there's a lot of cost and challenge that comes with getting this to people, but the farmers here definitely are trying. there's actually a truck outside here that is going to be loading up a good amount of this. but it's still not quite putting a dent in this. there's a gofundme page right now in washington state to get a million pounds of potatoes to people in need. but that just is a tiny crack here, andrea. if this doesn't tell you the problems with the food supply chains in america right now, i don't know what will. >> now, it's absolutely the most graphic example -- and you can understand how the farmers can't just load everything up and pay the transportation and we've got to get somehow find these surpluses and get them to the people who need them. dasha burns, thank you very much. we will talk about the food supply on the east coast, as all of those restaurants that are not serving french fries or other kinds of potatoes are struggling to survive. msnbc anchor and correspondent katy tur is in beacon, new york. still closed, the beacon street cafe. it's a great spot where you are. people there i'm sure eager to reopen. new york, of course, has been a hot spot throughout new york state. katy? >> they're just waiting, andrea, on the word from governor cuomo to reopen. let me pick up on something dascha was talki dasha was talking about. they rely on restaurants being open. just take new york city, tens of thousands of restaurants are shuttered in new york city. which means the supply chain for all of that food being kbrogrow the forms, especially here in duchess county, were completely turned off when the restaurants were turned off. so they had to find ways to get the farm to the market. they pivoted to direct home delivery and pivoted to food banks as well. but now a lot of farm openers have to make a tough decision about what they plant or don't plant in the fall for the harvest -- or, excuse me, the next growing season. what they buy or don't buy has a ripple effect across the entire economy. let's focus here on this town beacon. there are 15,000 people that live in this town. it's one of the smaller cities and smaller towns across america. and up and down this street, this main street, all of the businesses are owned by mom and pops. and they're basically all shut right now. they're waiting on the word from governor cuomo to reopen, but every day that goes by that they are not open, they're losing money and they're in more danger of shutting down for good. i was talking to a local council member here who told me that he's worried that 40% of the businesses here will not survive this. the margins were thin to begin with. they're even thinner right now. when you look at sba loans, things that are supposed to be bridge loans for these businesses in order to survive, a lot of them say they just don't make sense. the ppp loans don't make sense because they can't rehire anybody because they're not open and the forgiveness aspect of it is just too short. although i just spoke one moment ago with a business owner who says that they think there's some movement in congress on potentially expanding or extending that time period for that forgiveness, which would enable a lot of the restaurant industry in particular, bar, hospitality, to extend the amount of time they have that lo loan and keep them potentially in business for longer if this pandemic keeps them closed into the summer season. >> katy tur, thank you so much. katy, of course, will have a lot more from beacon, new york, when she and chalk todd pick up our coverage at 1:00 eastern right here on msnbc. and coming up next -- growing uproar over the fatal shooting of an unarmed black man in georgia. two months later, why hasn't there been an arrest in this case? and unanimous decision in the supreme court today on the convictions of two aides to former governor chris christie in that bridgegate scandal. you will want to hear about that. stay with us. you're watching "andrea mitchell reports." when i get my teeth cleaned, my hygienist doesn't use something like this. she cleans with something like this. it's got a round head. and it's got power. go pro with oral-b. power one on for oral-b's best clean ever. inspired by dentists. oral-b's round brush head surrounds each tooth to remove more plaque along the gum line. for cleaner teeth and healthier gums. i'll only use the one that's round. oral-b. brush like a pro. i know that every time that i suit up, there is a chance that that's the last time. 300 miles an hour, thats where i feel normal. i might be crazy but i'm not stupid. having an annuity tells me that i'm protected. during turbulent times, consider protected lifetime income from an annuity as part of your retirement plan. this can help you cover your essential monthly expenses. learn more at protectedincome.org . over the leaked cell phone video that shows that the fatal shooting in february of ahmaud arbery, a 25-year-old black man, was apparently jogging through brunswick, florida, when two armed white men, former police officer gregory michael and his ton travis, confronted arbery in a pickup truck. they shot and kid him. arbery's family and their attorney say he was not armed. the former officer said arbery first attacked his son. we want to warn you, this video is very disturbing. >> gregory mcmichael said in a police report there had been, quote, several break-ins in the neighborhood and he thought arbery resembled the suspect, but arbery's mother said he was just jogging, jogged every day. no arrests have been made though in the shooting. it's been two months. ahmaud arbery would have turned 26 tomorrow. nbc's blayne alexander joins us now from atlanta. the d.a. called for a grand jury with a new d.a. appointed and the other was taken out of the case. but because of the coronavirus closures, grand juries are not sitting. is that the reason for the big delay? >> yes, we likely will see a grand jury convene some time in june, andrea. and you mentioned it's because of the delays coming from the coronavirus. but attorneys for the arbery family say they don't need -- there doesn't need to be a grand jury coming into session before an arrest can be made. that's why they're calling for an arrest to happen now. keep in mind that this happened, andrea, back in february. what you're seeing now are these growing calls, these growing protests, not just here in georgia but around the country wanting, one, attention to the drawn to this case. two, for there to be arrests in this case. now in the midst of all of this, there's a growing call for those -- not just the father and the son. the father and son duo, but what the family attorney is calling a third suspect, somebody else they're naming as being involved in this. they're calling for a deeper investigation and for arrests to be made. we do know ahmaud's mother spoke with our kate snow yesterday about all of this. here's a little bit about what she had to say. >> since it happened i try to just sit and think about what he was thinking about the other side. he didn't know. he was unaware of what was going on. he was just jogging. he didn't know he was in harm's way. he had no idea. >> so, andrea, let's talk about where the investigation stands right now. we know the gbi has come in and they're investigating. that's new as of this week. we know the gbi has about three investigators working on it and it's going to be handled out of the gbi headquarters outside of atlanta. they're looking into a number of components, of course, the shooting itself and also that video, who released that video. as you know, that's one of the key components in the entire investigation and one of the biggest questions around this. again, the attorney for the arbery family says that he believes that video was recorded by somebody who he considers a suspect. now, i will say again, the gbi is investigating that. nbc has not verified who shot that video, who recorded that video, but certainly that's going to be one of the biggest focuses of this investigation, andrea. >> indeed. it's very, very troubling case. thank you very much, blayne alexander. and a unanimous decision from the supreme court today. issued as one of the nine justices is released from the hospital. nbc news correspondent pete williams, our justice correspondent's been watching it all. pete, tell us about the decision first. >> this goes back to the bridgegate controversy in 2013 when the couple of lanes from traffic from ft. lee, new jersey, into washington, across the george washington bridge, were shut down. it later turned out that two people were involved in this and were charged by federal prosecutors. one was an aide to governor christie. the other worked for the port authority. they were charged with federal fraud. but today the supreme court threw out their convictions. the supreme court in a unanimous decision written by native new yorker elena kagan, who's undoubtedly been on that bridge many times herself, said the trouble was that the prosecutors used fraud statutes that could only be used when somebody actually gets property or money. the federal prosecutors had said these two commandeered the lanes and incurred the expenses of people who had to make sure everything worked smoothly when this all happened under the pretext they were conducting a study of traffic. but the court today said no, that was just incidental. you can't use these laws unless somebody actually took money or property. it was deceitful. it was wrong. it was bad behavior. but the supreme court said if federal prosecutors could go around using federal statutes to criminalize bad behavior, the courts would be very busy. >> indeed. and rbg is out of the hospital. >> right. justice ginsburg earlier this week went up to johns hopkins hospital in baltimore for treatment with antibiotics of a gallbladder infection, a gallstone. she was released from the hospital last night. she's back home, glad to be home, the supreme court says. she will be making some outpatient visits back up to that hospital in baltimore for further treatment to get the ba gallstone completely out. but she will be back on the phone when the supreme court resumes hearing oral argument next week including two big cases, andrea. the one on tuesday about access to trump's financial documents and his taxes by congress and a new york prosecutor. and another case on wednesday about whether the electors, the people who actually choose the president in december, are free agents or whether they have to vote according to the popular vote in the states that they come from. >> again, it will be a telephone conference call. there's a little mishap yesterday. on a conference call. >> yesterday someone -- we think we know but we're not saying, someone forgot to mute their phone and you could hear for the first time in supreme court history during oral argument the sound of a flushing toilet. >> called flushgate instead of bridgegate. thank you very much, pete williams, for everything today. coming up, can national service programs like americorps be expanded to help states in covid-19 contact tracing? and i will talk to senator chris coons, who's proposed exactly that. stay with us on "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc. changing data. more and more sensitive, personal data. and it doesn't just drag hr down. it drags the entire business down -- with inefficiency, errors and waste. it's ridiculous. so ridiculous. with paycom, employees enter and manage their own data in a single, easy to use software. visit paycom.com, and schedule your demo today. neutrogena® 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see you, senator. thank you very much. >> great to see you. >> first i want to ask you about what we just learned today, a military aide from the navy, we believe, a navy steward who works in the white house and serves meals to the president, has tested positive. these who are not masked and we know the president did not wear a mask even in public when he went to arizona. what does this say about a white house which has resisted cdc recommendations, downplayed the cdc throughout this and has actually rejected the cdc health care recommendations for reopening and seems to be focusing on the economy and not on health care? >> well, andrea, that reflects one of the concerns i had about our coming back here to the senate this week. we're putting at risk the capitol police officers, the folks who work here in food service, who clean and maintain the buildings in the senate. i pray for and hope for a positive outcome for this steward at the white house. the president needs to follow the directions of public health officials in terms of social distancing. and practices like handwashing and cleaning, but also, frankly, as he directs federal responses to this pandemic, he should be listening to public health experts, not trying to race to reopen parts of our economy but we have enough testing and tracing and personal protective equipment so folks can go back to work safely. >> i you know and bill kristol have jointly written an op ed on the dangers of opening too quickly. what would you suggest doing? is there a way to april into americorps and these other groups of people who may be not engaged in their volunteerism right now to try to do the contact tracing? >> yes, andrea. earlier this week 35 members of the house of representatives, a bipartisan group, introduced a bill that i also helped lead and write an introduce here in the senate with two dozen senators. and it essentially says that we've got a generation eager to serve our country, just as the 9/11 generation stood up and served in the war against terror. we've got young people who have had their work or their service interrupted and would like to be a part of the solution. our bill would double the size of americorps and give an opportunity to earn a college education through service to our communities by participating in locally driven, locally connected community-led pandemic response corps. if you wait and think about it for a second, contact tracing is a hard thing to do. you're calling someone to tell them they've been infected and ask them to share with you confidential information about where they live, where they work, where they've traveled, where they've shopped and then information about how to contact the people they've been around. this requires skill and it requires someone who is really connected to those communities that have been most heavily impacted by the pandemic. so that's often communities of color and communities where bilingual skills will be necessary. what we know about americorps is right now there's 75,000 americorps members, most of whom have had their service programs interrupted. there's 7,000 peace corps volunteers who were made to return to our country halfway through their peace corps service. and every year there's five times as many young people who try to join a national service program like youth build or cityier as there is funded slots. so we would make those slots available and fund them. and in a flexible and locally driven response, encourage governors, mayors and the state's commission that oversee americorps to devise quickly pandemic response plans and use americorps members as a key part of that response. >> i was going to suggest the peace corps as well but just did. so it's such a smart idea. thank you for that. i want to ask you, you are, of course, one of the two senators from delaware. and the issue of university of delaware is front and center in efforts by the vice president to clear his name from this allegation from a former aide, 27-year-old allegation. the senate has rejected his request that the senate search its files for any archives that might exist of an alleged complaint that tara reade said she filed. the vice president had said that the university of delaware's records with biden's legacy in the senate would not include anything. why not just lift the seal and have some independent body go through them and see if there's anything there? >> well, andrea, i certainly think that joe biden's response to this is a model of how you respect someone who's come forward with an accusation. he hasn't questioned her motives or challenged or criticized her as other elected national leaders have when they've been accused. he's instead urged the media to investigate thoroughly. given that she now claimed she filed some sort of a report with a senate body, the right place for that document to be is either the national archives or with the secretary of the senate. and so former vice president biden has directed by letter the secretary of the senate to release that file. i will remind you, that's someone who works for majority leader mcconnell. so i'm frankly puzzled at their refusal so far to do that. i agree with and am confident in the vice president's assertion that when his records were transferred from the senate to the university of delaware, those were only his personal notes and records, not personnel files for the office. those would have gone to another place, either the national archives or secretary of the senate. >> right now the secretary of the senate has said that it's not legally possible. so we are at a stalemate. we will have to leave it there. but thank you very much. thank you for being with us today, senator. now we do want to take a moment to remember some of the lives well lived. the big easy is mourning the loss of a community leader, officer mark hall sr. he served as a member of the new orleans police department for 30 years, mostly working in the french quarter. he has diagnosed with covid-19 at the beginning of april and he died on thursday last week. mark hall sr. leaves behind a wife, two children and extended family and he's only 53 years old. darin adams turned his life around stints in prison. he got a job as a janitor that led him to enroll in classes and pursue a degree in sociology. he achieved a 3.4 gpa and 20 points shy of graduating when he died april 3rd. wayne state university's president said he was one of us. darrin since received his posthumous bachelor of arts degree. he was 54. and linda hopkins and glenda johnson were as close as a mother and daughter could be. they lived together, shopped together, worshipped together, loved life together. it was late march when they both fell in and tested positive for covid-19. they ended up in the same detroit hospital room where on april 13th, sadly, linda died holding her daughter's hand. her daughter, glenda johnson, since recovered from the disease. she said in a recent interview, my mother is all i had in the world. my heart is now broken. get real-time insights in your customized view of the market. it's smarter trading technology for smarter trading decisions. fidelity. here's the thing about managing for your business.s when you've got public clouds, and private clouds, and hybrid clouds- things can get a bit cloudy for you. but now, there's the dell technologies cloud, powered by vmware. a single hub for a consistent operating experience across all your clouds. that should clear things up. around here, nobody ever does it. i didn't do it. so when i heard they added ultra oxi to the cleaning power of tide, it was just what we needed. dad? i didn't do it. #1 stain and odor fighter, #1 trusted. it's got to be tide. as states try to get people back to work, a major hurdle for parents is, who is going to watch the kids. many schools are not resuming classes this academic year and many day care providers are also closed. they are also struggling financially. this an issue frontline workers have been dealing with throughout the shutdowns. joining me is the president of save the children action network and lynette froga, childcare aware of america. thank you, mark. what is save the children doing to try to deal with this challenge of day care for people as they go back to work? >> it's a huge issue all across america, andrea. it was a big issue before the coronavirus pandemic hit and it's obviously a critical issue now. it's over 6.5 million kids rely on child care every day. so as parents start to go back to work, the federal government has not invested enough money in making sure child care centers are safe and reliable for kids. so we're calling on the federal government to make a bigger investment. save the children action network and save the children just issued, in partnership with child care aware, and lynette will talk to it, it showed a poll. almost 90% of people in america believe that targeted relief for child care centers is critically important. and that's republicans and democrats. so this cuts across all political parties and persuasions. and we're calling on the government to make a bigger investment in child care. it's a critical backbone industry with over 6.5 million kids relying on it every day. 1.5 million people working on it in child care every day, and we need to make a bigger investment in our kids and not just talk the talk. >> and lynette, what kind of investment would be required by the federal government to try to close this enormous gap? >> the child care programs are small businesses. and as small businesses, they are struggling. and they need the support and the resources necessary to make themselves whole. and we actually are looking at $50 billion of investment and ensure the child care system is actually alive and functioning post pandemic. in order for child care providers to be able to provide safe, healthy, nurturing supportive care for children and for parents, we need to have a system that will support that. and that means a real investment. >> mark, there's a lot of support for this as well from melinda gates who has written an op-ed about this need, writing that to safely reopen the country, linda gates has written, healthy people need to be able to go to work. sick people need to be able to stay home. it will require scaling up care-giving solutions. a country in 1 in 4 lacks even a single paid sick day, it's hard to get back to work when you're responsible for children or older adults. >> it's incredible, right? >> we have nowhere to turn for safe, affordable solutions. i just wanted to finish that quote. what do we do about this? >> thank you. sorry. i thought the quote was over. we're losing as a country before this pandemic $57 billion a year because we don't invest, as lynette said, in high quality, safe child care. and this is something that the country has got to take seriously. there was an investme menment t federal government made in the first c.a.r.e.s. act, about 3.5 in the child development block grants. and that is not enough. people can't go back to work. we at save the children saw this after hurricane katrina hit and ravaged louisiana and mississippi. people wanted to go back to work, but they had no resources for their kids. so as a country, we have to stop talking about it and make the investment. i hope kid goes to save the children action network, get involved. the website save the children network.org/coronavirus. make your voices heard. politicians oftentimes follow. and they need to follow the will of the people on this one to make investments and make a bigger investment in child care. >> mark, do you have any concerns that the government and states are going to be too eager to reopen schools, classrooms, especially as we're now hearing about this new offshoot of covid-19 which is affecting children in really serious ways. >> yes, we've been closely analyzing that. those reports. i think, you know, the cdc called for an investment in child care to make sure that child care centers, as lynette knows, better than i, are safe and that the staff are safe and that the kids are safe because, obviously, what we thought two or three months ago that kids were almost immune to coronavirus is not true. including little kids. and as a country, again, we talk about investing in children, but the dollars don't follow the rhetoric. and, you know, poor kids, poor families, they don't have a voice at the table. that's why we're proud to partner with child care aware and other child care organizations to raise visibility of this issue and put some pressure on our political leaders to put -- to support those that don't vote, don't give big campaign contributions. that's what save the children action network was created on six years ago. >> thank you so much for what you're doing. thank you, lynette. we'll follow up as well. and that does it for "andrea mitchell reports." chuck todd and katy tur pick up our coverage after a short break. we want to bring you this bit of fun from "the late show with stephen colbert." one of his producers allowed his 10-year-old to try his hand at a haircut. >> what tools are you going to use? >> scissors. >> let me see those scissors again. >> that's great if you're going to segment a chicken. >> just grab some and do not hesitate. get some of that weight out of there. >> these things are so dull. >> like you just removed a muskrat from his head. none of the head is bleeding, is it? >> might be time to give the electric clippers a whirl. right down the middle. let's pause for a second and see our progress. >> does it look good? >> have you been able to see yourself at all yet? >> no. >> is it going well? >> it is very thorough. i honestly love what i'm seeing. these days staying connected is more important than ever. so we're working 24/7 to maintain a reliable network, to meet your growing internet needs. we're helping customers who are experiencing financial difficulties stay connected. we're increasing internet speeds for low income families in our internet essentials program. and delivering self-install kits to your door. nos comprometemos a mantenerte conectado. we're committed to keeping you connected. for more information on how you can stay connected, visit xfinity.com/prepare. good afternoon. i'm chuck todd. here are the facts as we know them this hour. one of president trump's personal valets has tested positive for the coronavirus. deputy press secretary hogan gidley tells nbc use the president has once again tested negative. this hour

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