Pandemic is crippling the u. S. Economy. Retail sales plunged in march, the biggest monthovermonth decline since they started keeping records in 1992. There is widespread pushback today to the president s decision to halt funding to the World Health Organization during a pandemic, pushback from democrats, from the u. N. , even the founder of microsoft bill gates tweeted the world needs the w. H. O. Now more than ever. A day before the governor of california talked about a plan to reopen the state, l. A. County reported its largest death toll so far, 48 souls. Some americans woke up to desperately needed Economic Relief as the first electronic stimulus payments went out this morning. Those waiting for paper checks will get an added bonus in the memo section, even if it has held up some of those checks. The president s signature added at his suggestion. Hell put his name on everything except for the delayed response. The president made it abundantly clear, he wants to restart the economy as soon as possible. According to new reporting in politico, he is not alone. Congressional republicans are mostly giving him the green light, and in some cases leaning on him to speed things up. That is despite warnings from the president s health experts. In a radio interview indiana congressman trey collingsworth said reopening the economy in spite of the risk was the lesser of two evils. There is no zero harm choice here. We are going to have to look americans in the eye and say we are making the best decisions for the most americans possible, and the answer to that is unequivocally to get americans back to work, get americans back to their businesses. It is always the american governments position to say, in the choice between the loss of our way of life as americans and the loss of life of american lives, we have to always choose the latter. Weve got a team of correspondents following the latest on the push to reopen the economy. Joining us first from the white house is nbc news correspondent hans nichols. Good to see you. How set is the president on reopening on may 1st . Well, we know what hes been saying publicly. Thats that he wants some states to go beforehand. Were learning privately that there is some pushback from some of these Business Leaders that the president was on a phone call with earlier this morning. This is according to two people familiar with the matter. Nbc news confirmed that some of the top ceos, from banks, from industries across the country, are pushing back on the idea of opening up the economy before you have widespread testing. Remember, this has always been a contentious point. The president seems to think you can do it with a combination of diagnostic testing and what they call surveillance testing. The wall street journal was the first to report this, and what theyre saying is that the bankers on this call wanted to make sure that the public had the confidence to return to the workforce. Nbc news has confirmed that the journal also reporting there are no followup calls for this task force, council or group, however you want to refer to it, and no firm date on this call, at least the first one, was mentioned. The president has four of these calls today. Well try to get readouts throughout. The white house is not officially confirming this information were imparting right now. Guys. Hans nichols, than. We continue to watch you every day at your assigned seat at these briefings. Lets bring in our Business Correspondent stephanie ruhle. Stephanie, this is your world were talking about. If we all agree that the necessary predicate to go back to work is testing, we cant say this enough, we have to do a million tests a day for a year before we had a handle on how Many Americans are Walking Around with this virus. Without that, now the American BusinessCommunity Gets this very tough choice. There are members of it who are talking to the president , pressuring him. There are members of it who are scared to death about the notion of employees flooding back into their facilities only to have a falsz start and a second curve. Brian, you can see geographically who the president is speaking to, when where, how and why. First lets talk about the laundry list of ceos that the president talked about giving his presentation. That was not an official Economic Task force. Ive spent the last 18 hours calling almost every person i can think of on that list. For the most part, some people said, well, we received a call that maybe there would be a call today and an email. The majority didnt know that the president would be sharing their name. No one i spoke to across the bank ceos said any of them signed on to be part of any sort of Economic Task force. However, they do speak to secretary mnuchin almost every day. In the last 24 hours, you have jamie dimon from jpmorgan who says he doesnt see the country opening up until june, july, august. That would be the administration in conjunction with city and state leaders and official clearance guidance from the cdc. Today david solomon, the ceo of Goldman Sachs jamie dimon was also not on the call said to invest, we need to get confidence back. You need to get the american peoples confidence up. Were not going to snap back if people dont know what the truth is. Right now he said businesses should hope for the best and be prepared for the worst. As much as the president is selling it, its working in certain areas. Youve seen whats happened in florida, where there hasnt been wide scale shutdown. Governor desantis named the World Wrestling federation as an essential business. So one ceo said to me he doesnt see major ceos signing on to any official advisory kpatity for the president mostly because the president cant speak for the entire country when it comes to the Business Community because they need to take care of their customers, their employees as well as their shareholders. Until there is, as you said, not just widespread testing, you also need case tracking. The president hasnt even addressed that. Always good to have a reporter on staff who can call their ceos on their personal phones and get them to answer the phone and answer your questions. Thank you very much. Joining us now is congressman tim ryan of ohio. Congressman, thank you very much for joining us. 2,000 per month for the duration of the coronavirus pandemic to every american age 16 years or older who makes less than 130,000 annually. Married couples with children will get even more than that. You say a onetime 1200 check is not going to cut it. Ive been saying this from the very beginning. If you live in new york city, 1200 wont pay for a studio apartment for a per monthly rent. Its not enough for people to survive. What is the likelihood youll be able to convince your fellow democrats and your republican colleagues to vote on Something Like this . Well, you know, we didnt have a whole lot of hope. We were pleasantly surprised when congressman ro khanna and i started talking about this four or five weeks ago. That had a lot of impact in the 1200 onetime cash payment getting into the original bill. Mitt romney came out for it, senator cotton, some real conservative republicans thought a onetime cash infusion was something that they could agree to on unanimous consent. So here is the deal. If it worked now, why not expand it . Why not say this is going to continue at 2,000 per person, even people who are in college or teenagers who are working, they should get it, too. Parents should get another 500 for dependents in addition to what theyre getting. Lets put this out until the economy returns to where it was unemploymentwise anyway, pre coronavirus. I think thats fair. Weve got big holes to plug and people are suffering. I dont think its quite hit the administration how deeply this suffering runs. Congressman, what are you going to do once this is all over . What sort of institutions need to be put in place . What new programs need to be put in place . After the Great Depression we got social security, unemployment insurance, there was the wpa. What is this going to end up with . I think the onion is being peeled back, katy, to all the economic inequality thats been happening in this country for a long, long time. You look at the people on the front lines now, these nurses, emt, police, fire, primarily women checking us out at the Grocery Stores, vastly underpaid. They dont make a living wage. Thats a real issue. Were also seeing really interesting things starting to emerge. Youre seeing a new civic spirit around the Maker Movement where people are printing masks and sewing gowns as a part of this Maker Movement renewed in the civic spirit. I think a Huge Investment into the Americorps Program or something around national service. Huge shifts around telemedicine. We in the last bill started to reimburse telemedicine, so all those doctors and patients who never wanted to try it ended up doing it. Doctors got paid and patients liked it because they didnt have to leave their house. The onion has been peeled back on the digital divide, too. I think we have to make huge jemts into broadband making sure every school has the proper technology. Those are a few things. The expansion of some of these programs like social security, to make sure the suffering that happens every day in the country doesnt have to, but also with a big vision, a bold vision for what the future economy is going to look like. Congressman, im guessing food banks in ohio are getting overwhelmed as they are across the country. During your campaign for president you spoke so eloquently about working americans, the people, as you put it, who took a shower at the end of their work day, not at the start of it. This has been especially cruel to that population. Sometimes when i say that, people think of the 55yearold white factory worker. They dont necessarily think of the africanamerican woman who is working in a hospital, or the women checking us out on the front lines at the Grocery Store, interfacesing with the public at a most dangerous time. So i hope, really more than anything else that comings out of this, brian is theres a shift in our culture, an appreciation for each other. My wife is a First Grade School teacher. The Text Messages shes getting from parents of, oh, my god, i cant believe you do this every day with not just one or two kids. Now that parent is at home, but you do it with 20 or 30 kids. The front line First Responders who we walk past and dont always appreciate, or the nurses who go to work in a hospital where people are sick every single day or doctors who do the same thing. I hope, again, the food workers every day, interfacing with the public. I hope the biggest shift out of the coronavirus is a shift in our culture where we recognize and appreciate and respect each other where nobody is forgotten. Everybody matters, everybody counts. The garbage is still getting picked up. All these small things we took for granted our parks system. Those kind of things. Lets leave this tragedy remembering that loving and caring and respecting for each other is the thing that is ultimately going to shift our society and shift the economy. Former president ial candidate currently at home, Ohio Democratic congressman tim ryan. Congressman, thank you very much for being with us and adding your voice to our coverage. Still ahead for us, as we continue, the next challenge for our countrys food supply. But first, well speak to the Senior Chaplain of the navy ship comfort. The vessel remains docked in new york city to help treat covid patients. Some of those patients include members of the ships crew. Ng i. Like, quitting every monday hard. Quitting feels so big. So try making it smaller, and youll be surprised at how easily starting small can lead to something big. Start stopping with nicorette. Gimme one minute. And ill tell you some important things to know about medicare. First, it doesnt pay for everything. Say this pizza is your part b medical expenses. This much about 80 medicare will pay for. Whats left is on you. Thats where an aarp Medicare Supplement insurance plan, insured by Unitedhealthcare Insurance Company comes in. This type of plan helps pay some of what medicare doesnt. These are the only plans to carry the aarp endorsement for meeting their high standards of quality and service. 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Sure all the patients labs are done and making sure we know exactly where theyre going and whats going on with them. My husband is actually mobilizing, also. Hes a corps man as well. I have two kids at homement thats really scary for me, knowing that my kids arent going to have their parents home. Its been a little bit of a rough one. Just a glimmer of life on board the u. S. Navy ship comfort helping bear some of the brunt of the load in new york city hospitals. The comfort arrived on march 30 with 1,000 hospital beds on board. It was supposed to handle none coronavirus emergencies. Last week it cut its capacity in half to handle covid19 patients and carried out the transition, as the president reminds us every day, as of now the hospital ship comfort has 70 patients on board. 46 of them tested positive for covid19, and with this expanded Mission Comes new challenges for all those on board. We are happy to have joining us the minister who provides guidance and comfort to the ships crew and patients, chaplain of the u. S. N. S. Comfort Lieutenant Colonel chad hamilton. First of all, a very basic question. How many faiths or Belief Systems does a chaplain in the modern military have to be conversant in to do your job . Well, we live in a pluralistic society. So theres all kinds of different religious beliefs. As chaplains, we minister to all, care for all, regardless of the religious beliefs or lack thereof. Talk about life right now on board the ship and how the crew is holding up. When we started taking the covid19 patients, i think there was concern with the crew. As i make my rounds and talk with the crew members, theyre focused on doing their mission. Morale is high. Theyre doing well. The ppe precautions are in place. Im impressed with the sailors and all the health care providers. Theyre doing a great job. Like i said, the morale is high. Were you expecting a patient load higher than it is right now . I know that would only make your job more difficult. I think when it first berthed in the hudson river, we thought perhaps we would see a steady stream of ambulances to the deck of the comfort. I dont have the expectations regarding that. Thats more of a leadership concern, and theyre sort of in charge of that. Are there two interactions with patients that are alike for you . Do you go by the patients needs . Do you listen to their thoughts first and then administer what you administer to them. Some of the patients would like to talk to the chaplain. They have spiritual needs. We talk with them, pray with them, try to comfort them and make our rounds to visit the other patients to see if theyre interested in chaplain services. What have your own deployments been like in your career in the armed forces . I was deployed to afghanistan with the marines and also in the persian gulf. So those were Different Missions than the mission were involved in now. Nevertheless, the same principle. The navy we can defend our country, but we also protect it and serve our citizens and the principle of working hard and doing our job with excellence, that applies whether were in new york city or whether in afghanistan or the persian gulf. The man who provides comfort to the patients and Staff Members on board the comfort, Lieutenant Commander chad hamilton, thank you very much for joining us. Katy. Ill second that thank you as well. Next up, a look at the renewed concern over americas food supply. Are those Grocery Store shelves going to remain full . There are some issues with Processing Plants. What does that mean for your next shopping trip . Stay with us. When you shop with wayfair, you spend less and get way more. So you can bring your vision to life and save in more ways than one. For small prices, you can build big dreams, spend less, get way more. 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