Universal story. I think people in america are slowly but surely waking up to the real concerns. They need to have them, especially for parents, grandparents, people of certain ages, people with Underlying Health conditions. What is concerning me right now, mika, is especially because of the dow drop yesterday, you have people running around on television saying that the coronavirus is a hoax. It is just like impeachment. That it is just like the mueller report. You have actually conservative well, not conservativ conservatives. Im sorry. You have trumpists that are running around saying that this was all concocted by the media as fake news. Remember, the president was saying that the Media Coverage of this was fake news. We heard this time and again. You know, willie, it is very interesting, the president if the president and his supporters believe that this is nothing worse than the flu, which has been suggested, im just curious, why is the president s chief of staff this morning in a quarantine . Selfquarantine. Why is ted cruz going to be in a selfquarantine for 14 days . Because if im with you in the same room, and you have the flu, and you go, i have to go home, i have the flu, i go, oh, thats too bad. I keep working. Right . But they now, because they understand, as ted cruz said, please understand how important this is, how serious this is. Follow science. Follow medical advice. They selfquarantine. Why would somebody on air force one yesterday from congress on the plane, and the second he gets a call and finds out that he had exposure, just mere exposure to the coronavirus, they immediately whisked him to a part of air force one and basically shut him off in a room. Now, hes selfquarantined, as well. Willie, they can say it is just like the flu. They can say its a hoax. Im just curious, why doesnt the president , if he really believes that, why doesnt he have his chief of staff come in and sit down and brief him today . Brandnew chief of staff. Why doesnt he call ted cruz and tell ted to come on up and come in his office today and have a talk with him . Sit down for an hour or two and maybe work through some of these things. Maybe they can be in a small, contained office. You know why . Because donald trump understands its not the flu. He understands that this is an epidemic. Some people are calling it a pandemic. Unless we take those safe precautions that some donald Trump Supporters are suggesting we dont take, then our Health Care System is going to look like the stock market looked like yesterday. A lot of Senior Citizens, be they republicans or democrats, are going to get infected. Theyre going to die. I just the recklessness, the partisanship, the false alternatives, the false realities that these people try to spin out of the white house, these Trump Supporters try to spin, lets just call it what it is. It is irresponsible, and it is deadly. Especially for our Senior Citizens. As you say, despite what the president has been tweeting for the last 24 hours, he does now know how serious it is. He is asking questions. Hes been having to answer questions about whether or not he himself has been tested for coronavirus. The white house says no. Why would he be tested . He, too, was at that republican conservative conference last week. There are no tests. Well, thats the other problem. Presumably, the president of the United States could get a test. Those congressmen you talked about, his chief of staff, selfquarantined because they were at cpac last week, the conservative conference. The president was there, too. He was on air force one with the florida congressman you talked about who, last week, was mocking coronavirus was wearing a gas mask into the well of the house. This couldnt be more serious at this point. Just look whats happening in italy. Theyve effectively shut down the entire country. The dow was down 2,000 points yesterday, as you just showed. The president has to be taking this seriously. Its a crazy thing to say, but at this point, we almost have to look past the president of the United States. We know what he is going to tweet. We know he is protecting his political hide. We know he wants to win reelection. Just listen to doctors and scientists. People who know what theyre talking about. People who give guidance, not through a political lens like the president does on twitter. If this were a Conspiracy Theory, all to take down donald trump, which i cant believe, listen started in china. I cant believe anybody in america would be stupid enough to believe that. But i know there are people on tv who are trump apologists who think americans are that stupid to believe it. Just for people that are depositing that stupid theory, ask yourself this, would italy shut down completely over a theory to defeat donald trump at the polls . No. Would china shut down . Would all these other countries take such extreme measures . Again, its not logical. It makes no sense. There are actually people out there who are ignorant enough to believe it. Listen, if you want to spin your ignorant conspiracy theories about ukraine, listen, if you like the russians and want to be a useful idiot for Vladimir Putin, go ahead. Knock yourself out. Thats up to you. I mean, i would i would question my patriotism if i did that. But if you dont mind being a useful idiot for Vladimir Putin, you can do that. Heres the problem with this Conspiracy Theory, your parents, your grand parents, seniors that you love, that you go to church with, seniors that you love that you know, have known growing up, you put them at risk unless you treat this for what it is. This is a Health Epidemic that many are already calling an international pandemic. Do you know what happens in international pandemics . Millions and millions of people die. In 1818 1819, 50 Million People died because they didnt handle it the right way. Because they didnt quarantine. Because they didnt take the steps were just now beginning to take, which we should have started a month ago. Joe, you have countries doing driveby testing. What are we doing . Nothing. People are walking into ers. People are trying to figure out whether they should go to the hospital. Because its dangerous to do so. I mean, lets talk about that, willie. It is unbelievable. St. Johns hospital in the rock away rockaways, one person walks in thats affected. Because we dont have anything set up like italy or south korea, where they have driveby tests, one person walks into an er room and basically shuts it down. 40 doctors, nurses, Health Care Providers have to selfquarantine because theyre exposed to this one person with a coronavirus that walks in. Do you think we have any planning like that, the greatest country on the face of the earth . No. We are so far behind on this. Because we have a president who has been denying for a month that this was anything serious. Thought he could say, ive been tough. I shut down the borders, blah, blah, blah. The virus doesnt lie. What are you doing insoid ide borders . Thats the question that his staff is still wrestling with with him. Because it is the president above all else in the white house that still is not taking this seriously. Im worried about seniors. Im worried about people who have diabetes. Im worried about people who are frail with underlying conditions who are likely to die if theyre exposed to this. You know, the reason the president can go out and say, well, we dont have that many cases, is because we dont have the tests to show how many cases we have. We shouldnt even use that number. Yeah. Yeah, i mean, isnt that amazing, willie . Yesterday, he said, well, the flu, you only have like so and so many cases every year. Right. We only have 500 in this country. Well, because we havent had the tests. Because he botched it up. So we arent getting the tests. We dont even know how many people are infected, how many people are in Senior Communities who are infected, who are visiting Senior Communities that are infected, what kids have it who may be going the see their grandparents at a senior facility. It is so dangerous. Those numbers dont begin to tell the story. That number of states probably doesnt begin to tell the story. There is reporting from politico and others this morning that two months ago, the World Health Organization was distributing a test, and the United States was one of the few developing countries that refused to accept that test. We could have been ahead of this. Many mistakes made along the way. We are where we are. We have to get tests to these municipalities, these states. Well have mayor bill de blasio on this morning. I suspect hell please, like he did last week, for more tests, so they can get a real sense of how serious this is, how many people actually have it. We dont know right now. We know it is more than is being reported, but we dont know what the real number is at this point. Today is also another big primary day as voters in six states head to the polls this morning. There are 352 delegates up for grabs, and michigan is the biggest prize with 125 delegates. Senator Bernie Sanders narrowly won the state in 2016. A surprise win that kept his campaign going. Right now, biden has 664 total delegates to sanders 573. Well get to all of that in a moment. First, lets get the fastpaced developments with the coronavirus. As the number of cases continues to balloon across the u. S. Ten days ago, there were at least 89 confirmed cases across six states. This morning, there are at least 725 cases across 36 states. Thats because there was testing in those places, and also d. C. The death toll is 26. More than half of those cases are in just three states, washington, new york, and california. More than a dozen local School Districts have canceled classes. More colleges are moving to online only classes, including stanford, ohio, ohio state, princeton, and nyu. A nasa Research Center in california issued a mandatory policy for employees to work from home after a worker tested positive for a virus. Multiple sources tell variety that coachella and the stagecoach Music Festivals will likely be moved to october. Billboard reports coachellas organizers will make a decision in the next day or so. Pearl jam, madonna, and miley cyrus have canceled shows. Jeopardy and wheel of fortune will begin taping without a studio audience. Meanwhile, boston has canceled its st. Patricks day parade. Which is just what a huge cancellation that is. Usually brings out more than a Million People every year. Then theres the impact on congress. More republican lawmakers are in selfquarantine after interacting with someone who tested positive for the virus at cpac. Including congressman matt gaitz, who flew on air force one with the president before going into selfquarantine. And chief of staff mark my dmea. And collins, seen shaking the president s hand. And another decided he will not selfquarantine and is back on the hill. Willie, take it away. Its locked down the country in italy, being described as the countrys greatest crisis since world war ii. Yesterday, the Prime Minister announced the country would be restricting its 60 Million People from traveling freely, encouraging them to stay home. Italian citizens who would like to travel must now request permission and would need a valid work or family reason. The new restriction measures also forbid anyone from ba gathering in public, also suspending all sporting events. Last week, the country closed all schools, which remain closed until at least april 3rd. He contributed the lockdown to securing the safety of the health system, saying we all must give something up for the sake of italy. Italy has seen a wider spread of the outbreak outside of any country other than china. Yesterday, the death toll jumped by nearly 100 people, bringing the new total in italy, mika, to 463. Meanwhile, a perfect storm hit wall street yesterday, as fears of the coronavirus collided with a plunge in oil prices. The dow sank more than 2,000 points, losing nearly 7. 8 , its worst day since the 2008 financial crisis. S p lost 7. 6 . The nasdaq, almost 7. 3 . The selloff was so bad that a Circuit Breaker was triggered minutes after the opening bell, which halted trading for 15 minutes. The plunge in oil prices comes as saudi arabia and russia battle over market share. The demand for oil declined because fewer people are traveling due to the coronavirus. This morning, Global Markets are trying to bounce. Dow futures are pointing to a more than 800 point surge after the president floated the possibility of a payroll tax cut. Steve rattner, you have charts, but before we get to your charts, lets talk a little bit about what happened yesterday. I dont usually watch cnbc, only because i mean, it is a great network, but i usually dont watch it because, as you know, willie and i believe in offtrack betting. See rattner there . Im here. I was talking to a wall here. Yeah, we do offtrack betting, so willie and i dont listen to cnbc. It is cotb. You have to have a certain Cable Provider to get that one. I was watching cnbc all day yesterday. It seemed while the oil sort of the oil wars between russia and the saudis caused a lot of the unrest. By the end of the day, when they were trying to figure out how long this route would go, people were moving back to the coronavirus and talking about the fact that theres just so much uncertainty. The markets dont know whats going to happen. They dont know what the bottom is going to be. They dont i mean, they have a supply problem. They have a demand problem. They dont know what consumers are going to be doing. I mean, there were so many questions. Theyve sort of priced this oil war into it. Now, it seems, all the analysts are worried about the coronavirus and trying to figure out where the bottom is going to be. Nobody thinks it is going to be a deep recession that lasts a year and a half, but they think it could be a pretty severe recession. Could happen quickly and be more ushaped. From the analysts you spoke with yesterday on the street and in your business, what caused yesterday . Was that perfect storm mika was talking about . If there is a recession, how long do they think it will last . Well, of course, the stock market is just another version of otb, but we try to do it with a few more numbers. Probably get to about the same probability of success in predicting it. Look, i think yesterday was a perfect storm of things that came together, and they were all related, of course. Started with the coronavirus, which led, as mika said, to a drop in oil demand, which led to a fight within opec between the russians and the asaudis. Effectively a collapse of opec, so now everyone is pumping as much oil as they can, leading to oil prices collapsing. You also have the fact that the market hates uncertainty. The market is not used to Public Health crises and doesnt fancy itself an expert on Public Health. You have the fact that, frankly, there was an absence of leadership from washington for a good while. Markets hate that. They want leadership. They want the president to stand up and Say Something. The president spent the weekend playing golf and spent monday at a fundraise r r in orlando. Ill show you the charts and what happened. As mika said, you had this enormous selloff yesterday, but that brought the total selloff since the beginning of this event back in february, it brought the total selloff in the s p to 19 . Thats 1 short of a bear market. 20 is considered a bear market. What is interesting about this selloff is if you compare it to what happened in 2007, when the market began to selloff in anticipation of the financial crisis, and you can see this small gray dotted line up here, the selloff is steeper than it was in 2007. It has been a record drop in terms of the amount of drop over the period of time it occurred. Also not surprisingly, it has been concentrated in a few industries that have been most affected by all this. That includes banks. Banks get hurt when Interest Rates go down. They cant make as much money on their loans. Includes airlines. Not surprising. People dont fly as much. And it includes energy, which has been absolutely decimated by this. If you look at a few of the stocks, for example, United Airlines is down 40 since the peak. Citi group is down by 34 . Accidental petroleum, to pick leaders, is down by a stunning 71 . Lets turn then to what this means for Economic Growth. Already, economists are slashing the forecast for Economic Growth. This happens to be citi groups forecast. You can use anybody you want. See that back here, for the second quarter, citi group was projecting a excuse me projecting a much stronger quarter, and now only 1 . In the third quarter, citi group was projecting over 3 . It is now projecting zero. Fourth quarter also cut its projections and so on. So you can see for the year as a whole, citi group is projecting 1 group this year compared to 2. 4 growth it was projecting months ago. Steve, can i interrupt you here . Of course. We look at the projections, but these really, and i respect the economists who are trying to figure out whats going to happen, but we have no idea what this epidemic or what this pandemic is going to be. If it is like italy, then, of course, those numbers will likely be far worse. If it lasts six months, the numbers will be far worse. Were still sort of whistling in the dark, arent we . Because we dont know the extent of this coronavirus. Weve all heard, this is not the deadly virus, you know, this ultimate virus that everybody feared. The survival rate is still fairly high. Its far, far worse than the flu, but it is not what the deadliest of pandemics that a lot of people have