people being tested positive as well as some fatalities. >> we know that in the south we have the lowest resilience to coronavirus. in the south we have the highest poverty rates, we tend to have older populations and younger populations that are vulnerable. we have one of the weakest health care infrastructures and because half of the states that have not expanded medicaid in the southeast, we do not have the infrastructure to take care of and serve those in need. we have had some of the highest rates of hospital closures in the south, especially in rural communities. but we also know we have some of the lowest coverage rates of public benefits. yes, everyone can get access to snap and other programs, but in the south, especially in georgia, we have some of the weakest coverage rates, meaning that the amount that you receive, even if you qualify, tends to be not enough to meet the needs that you have. in georgia, specifically, albany, georgia a few weeks ago was number four world wide in coronavirus results. i think the other piece that we have heard conversation about and that we need to focus on is that african-american and latino populations are the most at risk. in georgia the highest population of both contraction and death is african-americans. and that means that the communities that are the least likely to have the resources to fight back are the most likely to lose their jobs, are the least likely to have the revenue to help themselves are also the most likely to face the devastation of this pandemic. >> and the majority of african-americans in the united states are living in the south. the fact that we have seen data and it's been confirmed even -- d fau dr. fauchi confirmed we're seeing a disproportionate impact of blacks and browns, it's even accelerated in the south because that's where the majority of blacks and browns are. >> exactly. it's a compoundment issue. we've had for 40 years a disinvestment. and lay on it the inequities that have always hurt communities and then a weak health care system that allow states not to provide coverage. that means people who need to be tested can't be tested because they don't have a doctor, they live in a region where they don't have hospitals or doctors at all. in an op-ed i wrote with former senator tom daschle, in rural areas in particular, they are the least likely to be able to get access to the services they need and they're the least likely to be tested for what they need. so the crisis is just amplifying. >> now, also compounding that is the issue of voting. you have been with your organization dealing with voter suppression, voter threats to the democratic process period around the country. many of us in the civil rights community have watched as you've organized nationally around this. and this pandemic certainly will impact voting. what are you saying must be done to guarantee that if we are in a place where there's a second wave that interferes with the election, that we ought to be putting in place now things to prepare for that so the vote is not impeded in any way? >> when i was deputy city attorney for the city of atlanta, part of my job was helping the city get ready for municipal elections. i understand elections don't simply happen. you have an intersectional responsibilities at the city and county level, at the state level and the federal level. what we have tried to do through fair fight action and we've successfully down is we have set up organizations in 18 states and federal, state and local corporations. they need to be responsible for fully funding the need for elections in 2020. we don't get a do-over. that means we need to c.a.r.e.s. act. in south korea they just had an election with one of their highest turnouts are since the 1990s in the midst of covid and they did so successfully by understanding that all parties have to work together. >> now you are saying -- let me ask you this, you ran for governor and many of us felt the election was not fair, but i'll put that issue not aside but i'll put a pin in it for a minute. how do you look at this fight between the president and the governors where the president says in one juncture he has all powers and the governors do not have the last word and then throw it is back saying the governors should make the decision. where do you stand in this battle since you sought that office? >> restoring america both during and after this pandemic is going to require working to the from the federal, state and local level. you can't leave out the locals. each level of government has a set of responsibilities and we need a president who understands the limits and the strengths of each level. the president of the united states to date is wrong and the reason we're fighting so hard for voting rights is because we need a leader in 2021 who understands the role of government and the limits -- >> let me stop you right there. there are many that want to see you on the ticket with joe biden for vice president and you've said that you would be excited to serve. one, if you were to be the nominee, how would you debate vice president pence and how would you critique him in that dewabate and how he and the president has performed during this pandemic? >> unfortunately, governor pence signalled before he became vice president he has very little interest in the rolt of public health. it was under his leadership and because of his ambassadors we saw an exacerbated case of aids and hiv outbreaks in indiana because of his false understandings of what his abilities are and his lack of willingness to use his roles in the united states. i understand how good leadership can bring together the mayors, county commissioners, the governors and congress as well as the presidency to restore not only the dignity of america but the functioning. competence is what we need. what we have seen from both vice president pence and the president of the united states is a remarkable amount of incompetence and a refusal to take responsibility for their actions. >> you seem anxious for that debate. the white house coronavirus task force is about to have a briefing so i'm going to hand it over to my colleague andrea mitchell. andrea. >> reporter: thank you so much, reverend al. we do have that two-minute warning. you see the white house. reverend al, we know that the president has scheduled this briefing a thet a time when he been in a feud with the governors telling them it's now up to them to take charge. testing is the big question. they say they don't have the facilities, don't have the capacity to test and know when to reopen their states but he's saying it's up to them after of course earlier this week saying that it was all up to him and that he was in charge. monica alba is at the white house on the north lawn. we expect that dr. birx is going to be there. now we see the president. let's hear what the president has to say on this saturday afternoon. >> we continue to see a number of positive signs that the virus has passed its peak. it's been very devastating all over the world, 184 countries, probably more. this number was as of a week ago. dr. birx will walk through some of these trends in a few moments but they're very positive trends for winning, a win, close it out. while we mourn the tragic loss of life and you can't mourn it any stronger than we're mourning it, the united states has produced dramatically better health outcomes than any other country with the possible exception of germany and i think we're as good or better. on a per capita basis, remember that, on a per capita basis, our mortality rate is far lower than other nations of western europe with the lone exception of possibly germany, this includes the u.k., switzerland, belgium, the netherlands, italy, france. spain, for example, has a mortality that is for times the rate of the united states. you hear we have more death so we're a much bigger country. when the fake news gets out there and talk about the united states being number one, we're not number one. china is number one. they're way ahead of us. they're number one in terms of deaths. i know it, you know it, they know it. but you don't want to report it. why? you'll have to explain that. someday i'll explain it. since we released the guidelines to open up america again, and this was two days ago, a number of states led by both democrat and republican governors have announced concrete steps to begin a safe, gradual and phased opening. texas and vermont will allow certain businesses to open on monday while still requiring appropriate social distancing precautions. and i can tell you the governor of texas, greb abbott, he knows what he's doing. he a great governor. knows exactly what he's doidoin doindoing. montana will again lifting restrictions, ohio and idaho will have a phased opening starting may 1st. throughout this crisis my administration has taken unprecedented actions to rush economic relief to our citizens. as an example, you don't hear any more about ventilators. what happened to the ventilators? and now they're giving you the other. it's called testing, testing. but they don't want to use all of the capacity that we've created. we have tremendous capacity. dr. birx will be explaining that. they know that. the governors know that. the democrat governors know that. they're the ones that are complaining. we've already processed nearly $350 billion to 1.6 million small businesses across the nation to keep american workers on the payroll. so we're asking the democrats to get it done. it should be bipartisan. it should be a 100% vote. it's been incredible, the $350 billion that's been approved is so popular and it's keeping businesses open and it will be open hopefully friorever. amy wright from north carolina, as an example, said the program is a game changer for her and her family. it's coffee shops and she has 120 employees, many of whom have developmental and intellectual disabilities. and now they're all staying and they're getting paid and she's got a dream and it's going to take place very quickly when she opens again. so, amy, good luck. north carolina, great place. scott and julie alderink helped lead a church and own a restaurant in south dakota with about 15 employees. they were already starting layoffs, layoffs were moving along rapidly, but now they've hired their employees back and they can keep their restaurant open and it will be moving quickly. very quickly. as opposed to not having anybody and probably not having a place to have all of these people employed, she would have been out of business, she would have been gone. the paycheck protection program, funding is fully drained. it's out, it's gone. $350 million to small businesses and in turn it goes to the employees of those small businesses. lawmakers must stop blocking these funds and replenish the program without delay. the democrats have to come on board. i used to read these were democrat programs, not republicans. seems to have switched around a lot, hasn't it? switch around a lot. the republicans want it. i think the democrats probably do, too. but they also want other things that are unacceptable. this is about covid. this is about the plague and what it's done to us. this isn't about extraneous things they've been trying to get for years and that our country doesn't want them to have. as we enter the next stage of our battle, we are continuing our relentless effort to destroy the virus. my administration is taking steps to protect high-risk communities by providing funding for 13,000 community health center sites and mobile medical stations in order to equip them with the most advanced and robust ittesting capabilities. the job they do is incredible. these centers provide care to 28 million people living in medically underserved medical and rural regions, including many african-american and hispanic communities. we're taking care of them, and it's so important because you've all been reading about the disproportionate numbers on african-american and you're reading a little bit less about hispanic but likewise hispanic communities. the numbers are disproportion e disproportionate. in fact, we're doing big studies on it right now. we don't like it. not right. nationwide we've now conducted over 4 million tests and deborah will be talking about that. it's double the number conducted by any other country on earth. so that's more than two times the number conducted than anywhere else on earth and i started with an obsolete broken system from the previous administration or administrations, but i would really say administration for a different reason because testing has become so advanced over the last number of years. and we have the most advanced of all. i spoke with other nations this morning, the leaders and they all are talking about our great testing capability and some of them want to know what to do, how can they get involved because they need it for their own countries. in louisiana, massachusetts, rhode island, new york and other hot spots, we have also tested more people per capita by far than italy, spain, germany, france and the united kingdom and all other major countries. so think of that. in new york, for instance, per capita testing is 6% higher than in singapore. in fact, there's a typo. it's 67% higher. a big difference. i'd say there's a big difference between 6% and -- i was looking, i said 6% doesn't look too good. it's 67%. good job out there. higher than singapore, 64% higher than south korea and it's 67% higher than singapore, which is a very advanced place in terms of what they're doing. my administration has also been speaking frequently with many of the governors to help them find and unlock the vast unused testing capacity that exists in their states. dr. birx discussed yesterday the commercial and academic laboratories in the states have tremendous unused capability, which they can use. the governors should use it. tremendous unused capability. they're waiting for business for these governors that some of them complain. i must tell you for the most part we're getting along great with them. but some of them like to complain. the hardest thing of all, by a factor of 20, is the ventilateors and now we're the king of ventilators. we're going to be helping other countries very soon. we're going to be helping mexico. i spoke to the president of mexico. he's a great, great guy. they desperately in mexico need ventilators. i told him we're going to help them very substantially. we're building now thousands a week and they're coming in rapidly and they're very, very high quality. but we're also helping governors to develop strategies to smartly deploy their testing capacity to protect vulnerable and underserved populations while getting americans at lower risk safely back to work. so again, we have tremendous testing capacity. now, a lot of people like the abbott test that we came up with. abbott is a brand new technology, brand new test, great, five minutes, boom, you put it in, and we're making thousands of machines -- abbott is making thousands and thousands of machines but not everybody's going to get that one but they're going to get others. we have numerous platforms, which we'll talk about in a minute. unfortunately some partisan voice attempting to politicize the issue of testing, which they shouldn't be doing because i inherited broken junk, just as they did with ventilators where we had virtually none and the hospitals were empty, for the most part the hospitals didn't have ventilators and we had to take care of the whole country and we did a job -- we assembled an army of young, brilliant people, for the most part young, a couple of older ones, but for the most part young, brilliant geniuses that did a job like nobody would believe. i wish could you have seen it. around the clock. now the rest of the world is coming to us asking if we could help them with ventilators. they're very complicated, very expensive. they're very hard to build and we have them coming in by the thousands. but you don't hear that from even the governors. nobody's complaining about ventilators. and if there was a surge, we could have ventilators to them within hours because we have a stockpile, almost 10,000 ventilators. when i first started everyone was talking oh, hospital beds, hospital beds. the governor of new york correctly asked me for hospital beds and we got the army corps of engineers out and -- he needed them. i know he said we were projecting we're not projecting new york. we're listening to the governors. he wanted them, he needed them and we gave them thousands of beds in javits center and we brought the ship and had it converted to a covid-19. that was a big deal, by the way, because of ventilation and all the things we had to do but we did. and fortunately for him and for us, all of us, they haven't used either one very much because the numbers have gone down significantly. but it was there and it was built and it was beautiful. 2,900 beds. it was incredible what they did. they did it in a matter of a few days. but it was very good. the relationship was very good. i'm frankly glad they don't need them but they were there. louisiana, same thing. the governor democrat, good guy. he this i think tell you the store we had had more than enough. i said we were supposed to build one more, if you don't need it, would it be possible we don't build it, we'd like to build it somewhere else or not build it and save money and he called me back the next day and said, sir, we don't need it. i said that's great that you say that. but we were ready to go. we took good care of louisiana, michigan. we took good care of every place. we didn't miss a trick. we're in great shape on testing. we have nine different platforms. on monday we're going to be adding one. that will be nine to ten. i don't like to count them before they're up. we'll have neine to ten platfors with a tremendous testing capability. people can go. just like with ventilators, we're building now the best ventilators. our testing is getting better and better. i took the first test. the first test was not pleasant. this was not a pleasant thing. i said you got to be kidding to the doctor. you got to be kidding. up your nose and then we hang a right and then it goes down here and then we'll wig it will around here under your eye and then we'll pull it out and say -- i said, no, there's no way that can happen. is that the way it goes? you sure? this was a very unpleasant test. and then i was tested a few weeks later with the new test that just came out, the abbott, where they just touch your nose basically and put it in a machine and literally they tell you a few minutes if you're fine. i was lucky in beau caoth cases because i've seen the damage this does to people. but we have a tremendous laboratory capability all over the country. for some reason the governors -- a lot of them are but some of the governors like to complain and they're not using it. we have tremendous capability. we're ready for them. as we go along, we'll get better, more advanced and we'll be able to do things that nobody would have even believed possible. but we started off with a broken system. we inherited a broken, terrible system. and i always say it, our cup boards were bare. we had very little in our stockpile. now we're loaded up. and we also loaded up these hospitals. we're talking about payment. we gave billions of dollars of things to hospitals. we'll have to work that out at some point. they're going to work it out with congress. the federal government loaded up hospitals with things to take care of people that are very desperately ill. we weren't worried about payment at that time. we said you'll take care of it at the right time. but we gave billions and billions and billions of dollars worth of medical goods and medicines and equipment to hospitals. and we'll work it out with them but people don't like to talk about that. so we have done a job that nobody believed -- this was a military and private enterprises march. we marched. and unfortunately with the other side, because they're viewing it as an election. how did president trump do? oh, he did terribly. let's see, he did, ah, yeah, he did terribly. oh. we just got them the ventilators they didn't have that they should have had. we just got them hospital beds by the thousands. we just got them testing that they don't even know how to use. in some cases they have machines they're only using 5% or 10% of the machines because they have an advanced machine and they don't though how to use it. it can do much more. we've had people explain how to use it. i don't know. i don't think i'd do that on the other side. i really don't. i think that here we have a crisis, and we have to work together and i hope we're going to work together but we're moving along and moving along well. we're moving along well. this should not be a partisan witch hunt, you know, like the russia witch hunt that turned out to be a total phony deal. unfortunately some of these voices, though, are attempting to bring this into politics and whether it's testing or ventilators or hospital beds or other dimensions of our sweeping public health we responsible, we have had a sweeping response. speaking to the leaders of other countries this morning, they said this is incredible the way you've done this so quickly. we're only talking about a few weeks since everybody knew this was such a big problem. and the rest of the world is watching and they respect what we've done. i don't think anybody else -- i know nobody else could have done what we've done. and we started with garbage. as our experts said yesterday, america's testing capability and capacity is fully sufficient to begin opening up the country total totally. our system is the most robust and advanced than anyone in the world by far. i spoke to president moon of south korea. he just won the election. he won it by a lot. he had a big victory, which was happy about. he was saying what a great job we've done in this country. i told him the same thing. he said what a great job we've done here in this country. by the way, he had a great victory and we're very happy about that from the standpoint of our country, working very well with him. south korea. as we approach and the approach that we use but as we approach hopefully the downward side of what's going on, i think you're going to see some incredible hard facts and evidence that what we did was right. there's a lot of talk about herd, the word herd. i don't want to show you charts of people that went a different way but it's scary. it sca it's scary. i think we would have had millions of people die had we done a different way. and i think members are just coming out where they're estimating 60,000 people will die. that's horrible. i always say one person is too much. especially in this case when it could have been stopped in china. it could have been stopped in china before it started. and it wasn't. and the whole world is suffering because of it. but this herd concept -- and everybody had to think of it at the beginning because look at us, we have the greatest economy in the history of the world, better than china, better than any country in the world, better than any country has ever had. we had the highest stock market in history by far and i'm honored by the fact that it has started to go up very substantially. that's because the market is smart, the market is actually brilliant. i've seen it. and they're viewing it like we've done a good job. they view it that way, because if you would have told me that we're at 24,000 and beyond and the highest we were ever was we never hit 30. we were getting close to 30. so let's say around 29,000, we're at 24. we were heading down. i started to say, oh, wow, we may be heading into territory where i started. i didn't like that. now we're way up if you would have said to me with what we've gone through, not caused by our country or our people, not caused by certainly anybody within our country, but if you would have said after going through this horrible plague that we'd have a stock market that's much, much higher than when i started, much higher than where i started, and i think it's -- i think we have tremendous momentum. we have a big election coming up but i think we have tremendous momentum. first we get rid of the plague. because of what we're doing with the ppp, what we're doing with the paycheck, as we call it, i think we have a chance to have these companies get back to action quickly. but our approach to testing is based on facts, data and very hard evidence, not partisan agendas or coordinated political talking points. mike pence, who is a phenomenal guy, making the commencement address right now at the air force academy where they're being very politically correct, everyone is standing not six feet but ten feet apart, right? i made that speech last year. i'm going to west point, i think they changed the date to june 13th because of what's going on in new york, june 13th. i'm doing that commencement speech. and they're going to have the cadets. they may not have the parents. but they're going to have the cadets. the parents, so proud of them. at the air force academy where mike is speaking right now they don't have the parents. they have the ka dcadets, they' very, very wide spread. you talk about social distancing. i looked at it. they're using ten feet. but it's very important to have it. that's a great thing. that's a big start. so he's there right now. he's a gentleman, mike pence, a real gentleman. and they requested -- the democrat senators requested a phone call with him yesterday and i think they had for the most part all of them on like approximately 47, i heard it was just about all of them, whatever it might be. i don't want to be wrong by one or two or ten, i'd have the press say he lied, he told a lie, terrible, terrible. whatever it was. but they have 47 and i guess most of them were -- i heard they were so rude. i used a term today i said rude and nasty. but i heard they were so rude. no matter what he said, which was all very positive in terms of winning this battle against the invisible enemy, no matter what he said, they were fresh, they were nasty and i heard just a terrible thing. and i said, mike, that's politics. that's what it is. if we came into this room today and said the battle is over, we have won, it's 100% done, the democrats would say the president has done a horrible job, he has done a disgraceful job. it is a shame how bad he is. this is the talking points. this is political. it would be nice not to have that, especially when we've done the job we've done. all we have to do is look at the big v for victory or v for ventilator. tack a lo take a look at it. everybody said they had us on that. they thought they had us but we got them done at numbers nobody would believe. we did use our act, our production act. we didn't need it like a hammer. we used it in a number of cases but for the most part all we had to do was talk about it. all we had to do was say we're going to use it if u don't do this and everybody was for the most part good. we used it a couple of times because it didn't work out the easy way but it worked out the hard way but whether it was masks or ventilators, it was incredible what we've been able to do. this is a very critical time for american people and the american people deserve real information and responsible and thoughtful dialogue from their elected leaders and from the media. the media's been some very honest and some very dishonest. you know that. i read a story where mark meadows, a tough guy, he was crying. maggie haberman won a pulitzer prize for her work on russia but it was wrong on russia. they should all give back their prizes the crime was no the committed by this side, it was committed by the other side, a bunch of bad people who saw the reports coming out over the last two weeks. they got caught! so maggie haberman gets a pulitzer prize. she's a third-rate reporter, "new york times," and we put her name up here last week. people thought it was a commercial. it wasn't a commercial. it was like a commercial. it wasn't a commercial. it was just clips. because we exposed her as being a bad reporter, what happened is she came out and said mark meadows is crying and they made it sound -- i said, mark, it's okay if he did, i wouldn't -- look -- but i think he was crying probably really for the wrong reason they had it down. but he's not a cryer. i could tell you people that you know that are very famous, they cry. and that's okay, too. but it was a nasty story in so many ways. it was fake news. she only did it because we exposed her for being a terrible, dishonest reporter. she is. i've known her for a long while. i haven't spoken to her in a long while. i made a mistake. i took a picture with her at the desk a long time ago. every time she does a story, i haven't spoken to her in long, many, many, many months, maybe years. i don't speak to her. she's fake. a lot of people are fake. a lot of people. >> we're going to interrupt the president's briefing because we were told he was going to brief the brief about the current state of the crisis, the coronavirus crisis, but clearly he is on a political tear, attacking reporters, attacking "the new york times," saying he inherited garbage when in fact he inherited a plan from the obama administration and an office on pandemics, which he then disassembled and was unprepared as well as medical health officials who were prepositioned in china who might have spotted the beginning of this pandemic, he also said that they only had weeks, three weeks of warnings that this was going to be so serious. it was actually months. and that he for months was in fact praising china back in february saying that china was doing a great job. monica alba on the white house lawn. there's a lot of fact checking that we have to bring to bear here. the president seaems to be talking partly about the impeachment investigation and referring back to what have called a propaganda video that he showed at one of these briefings last week and also about a story that the "new york times" wrote about mark meadows, new chief of staff, reporting that he had cried on two occasions in the last week. let's talk also about the testing. he is saying that the governors have all the testing capacity that they need, that there are labs that are not being used when in fact what we're told by governor after governor, republican as well as democrat, governor hogan, a republican in maryland, governor dewine in ohio, obviously governor cuomo, that they have test kilts bts b they don't have the chemicals, the pre-agents to perform the tests. monica? >> reporter: exactly, andrea. it's very important to point out this briefing has veered off into other topics and it wasn't even on the schedule for most of today. it was a late addition and it seems president trump really wanted to come out here and continue to defend his and his administration's handling of the coronavirus, particularly because of all of that criticism on the issue of testing. the president continues to say they are in great shape on testing when in reality they promised 27 million americans would be tested by the end of march. in fact, it's only about 4 million americans and the president continues to tout that they have done more testing than any other country without mentioning that on a per capita basis to take into account our population, that's not true. we're lagging behind other countries. yes, as you pointed out, we have heard from both parties' governors that there is a real frustration with a lack of guidance and support from the federal government on what they're going to do on testing. that is why the white house held such a lengthy briefing last night trying to give an update on what they might do but ultimately with the message from the president that they are going to pass the buck on to the states and to the governors, andrea. >> so, monica, we're going to interrupt you just for a moment because now we have a scientist standing at the podium, deborah birx. let's hear what she has to say. >> we're talking about some of the other metro areas. next slide. this is the 25 -- top 25 metro areas. and you can only see the new york metro area in this slide. again, the axis goes up to about 300,000. it includes the new jersey part of the metro area as well as part of southern connecticut. next slide. but if i take new york out and the reason i wanted to do that, now the axis is 1/10 of the previous axis. so that slide 300,000, this slide 30,000. that will give you a frame of reference for some of these other metros. the reason i wanted to show you this is this is cumulative cases and we are still tracking very closely the issues in chicago and boston. but on this slide i hope you can see the yellow line. that is detroit. detroit and the mayor of detroit has done an extraordinary job and the people of detroit have done an extraordinary job with their social distancing. the other line i want to call your attention to is the line here. this is new orleans. and i think, frankly, i was concerned about new orleans because they had a lot of preexisting co-morbidities. they have two or three major hospitals but a lot -- cover a very large geographic area. and that other blue line that you can see that's down right here, that's the seattle line. and you can see their response because of the nursing home alert, they were one of the first states and the first metro areas to really move to social distancing. so they've never really had a peak like many of the other metros. next slide. then i want to take you through some of these new case graphics. that was cumulative cases. this is daily cases. obviously there's a lot of variablity in reporting. you can see clearly in new orleans about a month ago, very low levels, probably less than 50 cases, large peak in spike around the beginning of april and they have come down and have it down to very few cases again. i showed you how the syndromic cases have come down. this is seattle. so you can see they had a much lower peak and this is when we talk about flattening the curve, in is what flattening the curve looks like. it becomes a longer, slower decline but it never gets very high. and then goes back down. next slide. and then this is detroit. and we always look at the metros as a consolidated. so this is both wayne and oakland in michigan and we really want to thank the mayor for the incredible job that they have done to really ensure everyone is receiving adequate health care and testing and they've done quite a good job with testing in michigan. all of these states, louisiana and new york have tested 30,000 per million inhabitants. those are some of our highest numbers across the board. next slide. and so the president talked about the mortality rates. we've lost a lot of americans to this disease. we pray and hope for each one of them that are in the hospitals in excellent care. what this graph illustrates is the amazing work of the american people to really adhere to social distancing. this was nothing we had everyone attempted to do as a nation and the world hadn't attempted to do, but they were able to decrease the number of cases so that in general most of the metro areas never had an issue of complete crisis care of all of their hospitals in a region. and so you can see our case mortality rate is about half to a third of many of the other countries. >> excuse me, does anybody really believe this number? does anybody really believe this number? >> i put china on there so you could see how basically unrealistic this could be. when highly developed health care delivery systems of the united kingdom and france and belgium and italy and spain with extraordinary doctors and nurses and equipment have case fatality rates in the 20s up to 45 and belgium has an extraordinarily competent health care system and china at 0.33, and this includes the doubled number out of wuhan. i wanted to put it in perspective but i wanted you to see how great the care has been for every american that has been hospitalized and our extraordinary work of our doctors and nurses and our l laboratoryians -- >> and the number for iran, does anybody really believe that? put that slide back, if you would. does anybody believe this number? does anybody believe this number? >> and this is why the reporting is so important. and i think you remember almost six weeks ago, maybe a month ago, i was telling you what italy was showing to us and what france was telling to us and the warnings that they gave to us and said be very careful, there's an extraordinary high mortality among people with preexisting conditions and we used their information to bring that to the american people. that came, that alert before we even had significant cases came from our european colleagues on the front line. that's why we keep come beiing how important in a pandemic and a new disease it's really critical to have that level of transpea transparency. it changes how we work as a nation. it allowed us over march 15th to make an alert out there about vulnerable individuals and the need to protect them. and my call out to millennials to really protect their parents, protect their grandparents and get that information out to everyone that there were preexisting conditions that put people at greater risk. that information came from our european colleagues, who were in the midst of their battle themselves. so there is never an excuse to not share information. when you are the first country to have an outbreak, you really have a moral obligation to the world to not really talk about it but pro ride that information that's critical to the rest of the world to respond to this credibly. i want to thank our european colleagues who worked so hard to get us that information, even in the midst of their own tragedies and i think that really shows how important transparency is. we can show you this really encouraging and great news. so we know that fatalities will continue to lag because people are in hospitals still and some are still in intensive care units. but these covert-like illnesses, this is our hospitalization related to flu, this is this year's flu season and you can see our covid-like illnesses and this is all of them probable and confirmed cases, hospitalizations are declining. now, i showed you metros that have made tremendous progress and we've been up here many times talking about it being six, ten, 15 additional cities and now we're really just focused on chicago and boston and massachusetts and really some issues that providence is starting to improve now their relationship to the two large outbreak cities. but this is really reassuring to us, the progress we're making across the country against this disease. i just really want to conclude by thanking again the american people for making these type of graphics possible, thank the data team who puts these together for me, so they are working until about 3:30 every morning to make sure we have the most up-to-date information. that's the data that goes to our supply chain individuals to ensure every hospital, state and community has what they need based on data and to make sure that we're serving the needs of american people as effectively as possible. thank you, mr. president. >> thank you very much. um, the fact is that we've been learning a lot from deborah and tony and so many of the professionals, the director. we're spending the united states, without help my knowledge mostly in africa $6 billion a year. and that's on aids. we spent $6 billion a year in africa. that's been going on for a long time. nobody knows that. you've never heard that. i've never heard that. $6 billion a year. millions of people are living right now and living comfortably because we found the answer to that horrible disease. it's been done by great professionals, including this is professional here. that is something you worked hardest on and something close to her heart. so it's something that i think people should start hearing. the world health organization, we just find more and more problems. and we spend this money really well. there are other ways we can spend the $500 million that, is $500 million. this is $6 billion. we can find other ways to spend it where people will be helped in a much greater way. we're doing research on certain people that take a lot of credit for what they do. and nih is giving away a lot of money, a lot of money. some people are happy so we're looking into. that they're giving away approximately recently more than $32 billion a year. $32 billion. and so we've been looking at that for a while. and we're going to be having some statements to be made about that. we'll have some statements on that. those are much bigger numbers than what we're talking about with national, if you look with the friends from wherever they come from. 500 million is a lot of money. but it's not a lot compared to the kind of money that we give out. he would talked about the lab in china. we're, i guess, 3.7 million was given some time ago. and we're looking at that very closely. chief of staff has that pretty much under control. but it's money that too bad it got spent there. but that was spent -- what year was that? four, five years ago. >> six years. six years ago approximately. that's the lab that people are talking about. all right. so we're looking at a lot of things. this tremendous waste in our government. we found it in many different ways and many different forms. and this is one of them. we can spend $500 million using all of it in a much more efficient manner. if we choose to do that. it will be to the good of many more people than getting it right now. if luke at the mistakes, so late. they were against that. they didn't like the idea of closing off our government. they said waits a bad thing to do. they have since taken that back. but it was a very lucky thing that we did it. a very lucky. we would have had numbers that were very significantly greater tony fauci said that. he said it would have been significantly greater had we not done. that so we made a lot of moves that were good moves. but it's still a very depressing subject. there is a lot of death. and if we stopped very early on at the source before it started blowing into these proportions, you have 184 countries that would have been in a lot better shape. i expect that we're going to be bigger, better, and stronger than ever before. i will take a few questions. jeff? >> mr. president, you mentioned that the doctor mentioned china a few times today. that clearly suggesting that the data has not been good. and -- >> do you think that data is good when you soo he that? do you think that's correct? do you honestly believe that's correct? >> a dramatic contrast. >> yes, that's dramatic. >> the question to you, sir -- >> why didn't the press, why didn't you people figure that out though? why do we have to put up a chart? the numbers -- it's an impossible number to hit. why haven't you come up and said that? >> the question, sir, is china now cooperating with the united states to figure out what happened and what do you want from them now? >> they said they're doing an investigation. they're doing an investigation. so let's see what happens with the investigation. but we're doing investigations also. go ahead. >> thank you, sir. you spoke, we heard dr. birx saying that every country has a responsibility to tell the rest of the world what is going on. you talked repeatedly about how this could have been stopped in the past. i know you don't want to telegraph what you would do. but do you think that there should be some consequences if in the end, you know, china was responsible for all of this? >> well, if they were knowingly responsible, certainly. if they did -- fit was a mistake, a mistake is a mistake. but if they were knowingly responsible, yeah, there should be consequences. you're talking about, you know, potentially lives like nobody seen since 1917. and the other thing had we not done what we did in terms of closing, because there is that concept of let's let it ride, but at some point i'm going have to. i don't want to embarrass countries that i like and leaders that i like. but you have to see some of the numbers. in my opinion, so we're talking about maybe 60,000 or so. that's a lot of people. but that's 100,000 was the minimum we thought that we could get to. and we'll be lower than that number. i really believe it could have been billions of people if we didn't do what we did. we made a lot of good decisions. go ahead. >> you have ruled out this was an unknowing situation? >> i haven't ruled out anything. i want to look at the facts as they come n i want to look at the facts. please? >> thank you, sir. >> last week you claimed your charge of everything, yet the american people don't understand why you're unwilling to use the powers of your presidency to make american companies, manufacture ppe and also the testing equipment that -- >> who are you with? >> who implement your recommendations. >> i'm with tmn recommendations -- >> tmn? what is that? >> my name is doug christian. >> go ahead. keep reading your question. >> the thing is, how to make companies build these testing equipment so that can you do what you want -- >> we're doing that. we're doing that. we're doing it right now with ventilators. we have general motors, general electric. we have 11 different companies, great companies building them for us all over the united states. as far as testing is concerned, most of that now is done in the united states. the we're doing it in the united states. our different platforms. >> senators are complaining to -- >> which senators? >> independent senator angus king. >> he is worse than any democrat. he's no the independent. >> he said he was livid, actually. >> of course he said that. because he's a democrat. okay? angus king is not an independent. he use that's term for whatever reason. it's a waste of time. >> it's not a motive type of senator. . >> yes he s you haven't seen him. no. angus king is a democrat. that was totally staged. i heard that. and it was totally staged. just like you read the question, he read his question. yeah, please, in the back. >> you retweeted from paul spary, let's see if authority enforce the social distancing for ramadan like they did for churches during easter. >> i would like to see that. you know, i just spoke with leaders and people that love mosques. the they love mosques. we have to see what will happen. i've seen a great disparity in this country. i've seen a very strong anti-israel bent in congress with democrats. and now, they're into a whole different thing between omar and aoc plus three. add them on. you have -- i mean, the things that he say about israel are so bad. and i can't believe it. now just for a minute. i would be interested to see that. but they go after christian churches. but they don't tend to go after mosques. i don't want them to go after mosques. i do want to see what they're bent is. in the back? >> mr. president, go ahead, please. >> you are suggesting that they wouldn't follow social distancing? >> i just had a call with them. i'm somebody that believes in faith. and it matters not what your faith is but our politicians seem to treat different faiths very differently. and they seem to think -- i don't know what happened with our

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