He meant america has prevailed on testing, which is not true. It is true that Testing Capacity has increased considerably in the u. S. As the atlantic pointed out friday, the country faces the same problem today it did two months ago. There are not enough tests to contain the virus. With the president ial election looming, the white house is trying to convince the American People they can have confidence as they go back to the public square. A big part of that is trying to convince americans most whom know better that we have enough testing. As reporters pressed trump on his testing claims today, he abruptly ended the press conference, walking away from his only Mission Accomplished speech. The president wants you to act like a warrior. He said this. Hes used this metaphor, to rush out into public, to risk exposure to the virus. Even his own economic adviser, the one who works in his white house is literally scared to follow that advice. It is scary to go to work. I was not part of the white house in march. I think that id be a lot safer if i was sitting at home than i would be if i go to the west wing. Everybody knows if you go into work, you have been in the west wing, its a small, crowded place, you know, its a little bit risky but you have to do it because you have to serve your country. Things may be very bad at the white house according to the New York Times. Some senior officials believe the disease is already spreading rapidly through the warren of cramped offices ha mathat make e three floors. Three are under quarantine, robert redfield, dr. Hahn, and Anthony Fauci entering a modified quarantine. Part of the problem may be that people in the white house have been cavalier about Wearing Masks you might have noticed thanks in large part to trump, one white house employee saying the president sees it as weakness to wear a mask. Heres trump not wearing a mask on a visit to a mask factory. I think he later claimed he was wearing a mask, you just didnt see it. Vice president pence going mask less at the mayo clinic, and his spokesperson, katie miller who did not regularly wear a mask while at work. Katie miller is one of the white house officials who tested positive for the virus. Trump held a white house meeting for military leaders and members of the National Security team, none of whom wore masks. Not present for the meeting, national guard, Joseph Lindell did not attend because he tested positive before the meeting while he was at the white house. The white house wanted to visit a pennsylvania factory but factory officials asked to postpone, in part because they were worried his visit would jeopardize the workers. The White House Management Office sent white house staffers a memo requiring them to wear a mask or facial covering in the west wing. Probably a good idea they did. I mean, its basically inevitable, right, that all workplaces in close quarters will have to deal with this. Any packed indoor space is going to have the virus at its doorstep, whether its a prison or meat packing plant or longterm care facility or a random call center in south korea. The one difference with the white house is unlike pretty much anywhere else in the United States, there at least they are testing constantly. With the constant tests, the germophobe president you dont want to get sick, theyre having a hard time getting the virus under control. Trump tweeted democrats are moving slowly to reopen the u. S. For political purposes. They would wait until november 3rd if it were up to them. This is the fundamental problem, the fundamental problem from the beginning, and the fundamental problem during the impeachment. He can only understand the virus as part of some grand conspiracy to stop him from getting a second term. Thats the only way he can see it. As opposed to what it is, an inanimate micro organism that follows the pathways that pathogens do. It doesnt care about politics. Its not trying to bring trump down. What is happening in this country in the fight against the virus is not about him. Joining me now for more on what we need to do to safely open the country and what congress is doing to help americans get through this, speaker of the house nancy pelosi, democrat from california. I appreciate you taking time tonight. I wanted to ask you first the metaphor the president is using, and the American People whether theyre residents in nursing care facilities, meat packers, grocery workers need to think of themselves as soldiers, warriors who are doing battle against the virus, and some might die. Thats the price that has to be paid for liberty. What do you think of that metaphor. I dont think much of what the president says. I think we have to set some of that aside and say what we can do to open up our economy. We can do that through what you have been talking about, testing, testing, testing. What the democrats are here to do is to put forth a plan, a plan with a goal, a plan with milestones, a time line, a plan that is unifying. Built on some of the initiatives we have had in past coronavirus legislation. We passed four bipartisan bills. But this is we have three pillars, one, let us open up the economy by testing, and that means testing everyone, tracing, and having the treatment as well as the isolation that may be necessary. And god willing, we get a vaccine or a therapy soon and that would be helpful to opening up, but in the meantime, we have to know the caliber of the problem. They dont even know the caliber of the problem in the white house. We have to know what it is in the nation. And we have to know how it attacks with communities of color in such a bad way. Secondly, we have to have we have to honor those who are on the front line, those who are heroes, our health care workers, our first responders, our transit workers, food, trash pickup, teachers, all of those who have some exposure here. We want to honor them so that were worthy of their sacrifice, and were doing so in a big way by attributing a larger source for state and local government, and then we have to put money in the pockets of the American People. Recognizing the pain, the agony that they are feeling. To those who would suggest a pause, ill say, the hunger doesnt take a pause. The rent doesnt take a pause. The hardship doesnt take a pause, as we see families losing you said over 80,000, thats unimaginable that so many infected and so many on unemployment. We have a big need. Its monumental. Therefore its a great opportunity to say lets Work Together to get this done. Theres a way to open the economy based on science, testing, testing, testing, and lets get on with it. Thats what were here to do. So those bullet points that you just offered, some of the planks of the legislation. The pillars. Right. So the pillars are some sort of National Program for testing and Contact Tracing, some kind of National Program for both aid to states for their fiscal holes as well as i understand it some kind of hazard pay, actually statutorily mandated hazard pay for mandatory workers, or just states who can pay the workers. There are talking points. These are the pillars of our plan to go forward, to make our own environment in a way that is, again, unifying and respectful of those who are sacrificing their lives as well as those that are feeling so much pain through all of this. This is what they need. This is meeting the needs of the American People. Among the provisions, yes, theres state and local government to address the outlays that they have made inviting the coronavirus as well as the revenue that they have lost because of the coronavirus. And it goes all the way down to small from states to small towns, and it is a result of how our members have brought back the concerns of their constituents and i think it will have broad support among governors and mayors, democrats and republicans alike. Yes, there is an interest in doing hazard pay for those who are on the front lines. Is it mandatory so much as it is an imperative to do so. And thats what were writing down now. So im excited about that. Chuck schumer is too. Thats sort of his baby. So hazard pay for people on the front lines, theres an obvious compelling case for that. Aid to states whose fiscal Balance Sheets are going to be destroyed, whether theyre red states or blue states, red towns or blue towns, in Cash Payments or both . We have the Unemployment Insurance but we also have the direct payments, both of which we have had in previous legislation. Right. The Unemployment Insurance, which were seeing record breaking unemployment rates and so many people signing up for it, it breaks your heart, but we have the Unemployment Insurance that will be renewed in this legislation as well as Cash Payments, the direct payments people are craving that. Its i guess what advantage we have sad as it is, is that people see what is happening, even though theyre working from home, but listening to their constituents, theres a lot of pain and heart ache. People dont know if theyre going to be able to put food on the table. Moms have said and Brookings Institution put this out last week that one in five children is food inskeecure in our count. They dont know where their next meal is coming from. They dont know if theyre going to be able to pay the rent. This is very very personal, and we want to address the concerns in a way that is monumental because it is a big, we have never seen anything like it, and we have to be brave, get up there, just make the case, this is the plan, these are the resources, this is how we want to do this, and as we do it, we want to be worthy of those who lost their lives, worthy of those fighting for peoples lives and we plan to do that in a bipartisan way as possible. Thats what i was going to ask you. In the previous legislation there were tough negotiations that happened in a kind of triangular fashion, it was steve ma knew sh mnuchin doing the negotiations for the white house, and Chuck Schumer working together to do that. In this case, the message has been sent from the republican caucus, from Mitch Mcconnell from the white house, basically were done here. There was a headline that gave me a chuckle in bloomberg, the gop rekindles deficit concerns. What is your read of the posture of the white house and Senate Republicans towards additional legislative rescue relief like youre proposing . Its interesting so see what theyre saying renewing their fiscal hawk positions, they could barely remember. I have confidence in going big with what we do. When i saw them give a 2 trillion addition to the National Debt in order to give 83 of the benefits to the top 1 . That was so irresponsible in terms of it did nothing for the economy, except heap mountains of debt on our children. So with this, what were saying is these are investments. All of these things are for the good of helping people in their personal lives but they also are a stimulus to the economy. Ask any, well almost any, i dont know who they would drum up, economists, theyll tell you. Food stamps, imagine theyre against snap, against expanding the opportunity for people to have access to food stamps at a time where the news is full of families and long lines at food banks and we have to help those food banks as well. So this is personal. Its heartbreaking, really. So i have confidence in the American People. America has a big heart, a heart full of love, and people care about each other, and i think when they see what we are doing, and it will be big because the problem is big, and the needs are big of the American People, that it will be more attention paid to what the republicans are saying or doing and then a adjustment can be made. Im optimistic always. I see everything as an opportunity. The bigger the challenge, the bigger the opportunity. Mitch mcconnell has seemed to make some noise to attempt, he had to walk back his comment about states going bankrupt, but he has seemed to make an attempt which is remarkable to me, if i can editorialize, some kind of blanket liability waiver for employers so that they are protected from civil action from employees who may get sick due to the risks they take on working for them. Is that a nonstarter for you or is that something youre willing to talk about. Let me just say this, the best protection for those employers is to support what we want to do in the bill with our osha regulation and it calls for how you can open up and how you space and all the safety. Safety in the workplace is a big issue in our country long before coronavirus, so if the employer takes those presaugcautions, the is protected from a suit because he has taken the protections necessary to protect the worker. Thats how he can protect himself. Its unlikely at a time of a coronavirus that we would say just be cavalier. We know the way it spreads, but youre off the hook if anything happens even if you do not comply with the osha regulations, so we want them to accept the expanded osha regulation and protect their workers, and i think most people are good people that they would want to do that, so well have that discussion but i think we have a common goal. We want people to go safely to work safely, the osha protection is your production, mr. Or mrs. Employer. All rig final question for you. Obviously you and Chuck Schumer and others have worked hard through a series of legislative packages that have been passed in increasing scale and scope to deal with this. As you are set to unveil this latest one, im curious what you think how good of a job have you done, particularly when you look at the kind of comparison between pp skpere and what is dr Small Businesses and the rescue package for large corporations dealt through the fed which seems like its moving more quickly and efficiently. Do you think you have done a good enough job thus far collectively, and the legislation has been passed to address the needs of the American People. I do indeed. I wish we had more cooperation from the white house but even with that, first we passed four bills which are bipartisan. The first one on march 4th. It was called testing, testing, testing, thats how we identified it. March 14th, the next one for ppe, masks, masks, masks, the 28th, the president signed the first c. A. R. E. S bill and we were very proud. House and Senate Democrats to have turned that from a trickle down Corporate America first trickle down bill to putting workers first bubble up bill. It was completely different from what the presenrepublicans had proposed in the first place. The interim bill we started working on the next c. A. R. E. S package, and then all of a sudden a request came from the secretary of the treasury to do more for the ppe. And we took that opportunity under the leadership of lydia velazquez, the chair of the Small Business committee, maxnen waters, so far we havent seen this reach everyone in the communities and we set aside in there. Were waiting to see the results of that, and thats a concern that we have because we want to make sure that it is going to the Community DevelopmentFinancial Institutions, which have connection into the community rather than it just going to people who have a bank relationship. This is for the under banked community and the Financial Institutions that serve them. So we have made a big difference every step of the way, but the president said, when they asked the first bill, it was like 2. 5, 2. 8. We sent them 8. 2, and the president said ill take it, so again, our participation has been very strong, and its important for us to put forth our bill now without too much conversation with other people. Were just springing from the needs of the American People, and the capacity of us to stop the virus by testing, testing, testing, praise and honor those who are on the front line, and help the people who are suffering. And we did that right before c. A. R. E. S 2. We put forth our responsibility bill. Take responsibility, and that largely is what reshaped c. A. R. E. S 1. Yes, i think we have done very well, but we want them to agree on science, and we cant get them to cross that threshold, science, science, science, answer to so many challenges. If you dont believe in science, and you dont believe in governance, you can say lets pau pause, theres no evidence that will convince me because i dont believe in science, and i dont believe in governance. We dont want anymore government than we need. But right now we need a weighing in in terms of resources and policies that will protect the American People as they go forward. And rather than think of them as warriors, we think of them as family, and were all concerned about each one, and when somebody goes out there, they run the risk of taking something home and thats why i see the great wisdom of the American People to protect their own families as they try to accommodate the enormous challenge that were all facing right now. Let me just say one more thing, and that is whatever were doing may seem big. Its never going to be cheaper. The chairman of the fed has said to us, Interest Rates are never lower than this. Go big, and those Interest Rates are propping up the stock market. We want them to prop up the American People as well. Well, that is true. They are propping up the stock market right now, along with a lot of other things the fed is doing. Speaker nancy pelosi who has been working overtime in the house. Thank you so much for taking some time with us tonight. I really do appreciate it. Thank you, my pleasure. Thank you, chris. Ahead, senator cory booker on the attempts by the president and his ally to turn the conversation about reopening businesses into a culture war. Senator booker joins me next. Across america, Business Owners are figuring things out. Finding new ways to serve customers. Connect employees. And work with partners. Comcast business is right there with you. With a network that helps give you speed, reliability and security. And enough bandwidth to handle all your connected devices. Voice Solutions Like remote Call Forwarding and readable voicemail. And safe, convenient installation. When every connection counts, you can count on us. Get the connectivity your business needs. Call today. Comcast business. A friend of mine for all of us as we head towards the summer is what does American Life look like while the pandemic is still out there as a threat, and we for a variety of reasons just cannot continue an indefinitely multiple months long shelter in place. And the question is a hard one, we have covered it on this show night after night, theres various competing policy imperatives and risk assessments and questions about whats the best way to go forward. Its complicated but its not, or it shouldnt be a culture war question of rhetoric and values and symbols. Its not like the controversy over whether people should stand for the National Anthem and what it means if they dont. And yet that is the way that the president and trump tv and his allies have been trying to portray it. Like what we get is the situation like the hair salons in texas where the owner was sent to jail for keeping her business open and she became a celebrated business owner, and ted cruz goes there to get his haircut in solidarity, and this wild scene on mothers day, which i didnt believe until i saw it, a restaurant packed with customers having breakfast. On the spectrum of risky behavior, this is really up there. I mean, close quarters, indoors, a whole ton of strangers, no masks in sight. And you might not be surprised to learn that the restaurant that opened this way tweeted on saturday quote we are standing for america. Small businesses, the constitution and against the overreach of our governor in colorado. The problem for people waging this deranged and selfdefeating culture war is that it remains the case that the overwhelming majority of people are not taking crazy risks and do not want to get sick. Thankfully. The big thing restraining commerce in the country is not the governors, its the virus. We saw this before the lock downs even started where restaurant activity plummeted before the restaurants were closed. Right . The bold orange line on this graph shows that the median percent change in restaurant reservations from last year and the dotted vertical line is when restaurants close, and you can see it just starts plummeting days ahead of the lock down orders. Thats people being like im maybe going to skip a restaurant. They changed their behavior before the government required them to. And were seeing a very similar pattern on the back end, right . This is the same year over year reservation data in tennessee, texas and georgia. Three starts that have started reopening. Although with all sorts of restrictions and conditions, particularly many texas, you can only have 25 of the people there. Its not like people are racing back into restaurants. Theres not much of an up tick at all. People are still choosing to stay home. Theyre choosing to comport themselves as if there was a deadly pandemic raging. Because most people do not buy this culture war vision. Theyre making sensible assessments to the risk. While the president is trying to march the country into a situation where honestly we could end up with the worst of both worlds, you have high risk events, as some kind of symbolism like the colorado restaurant that really do serve as a place the virus can spread or super spread. You dont have sustained economic normalcy. For more on the manufactured coronavirus culture war im joined now by senator cory booker, democrat of new jersey. And senator, you know, there are sort of different categories of policies that you encounter as a politician, right, theres stuff thats kind of technical and in the weeds and doesnt feel like this kind of front level culture war stuff, and then theres the intense things that people with very strong feelings about seem to represent their values or backgrounds and it does seem to me actually, this question could be in the former category and there are people trying to put it in the latter category, and how do you understand this problem we all collectively face . Look, i just dont think were as different as some of our politicians want to make us feel in this country. We all have a lot of concerns right now, as you said. Most americans want us to err on the side of Public Health and safety. We also understand the urgency. I know businesses up and down the state of new jersey who are fearful. They spent their lives building in the tourist towns of cape may and the small mom and Pop Restaurants in bergen county, new jersey. Theres an urgency to save those businesses, but this is about health. This is about science. This is about data. Its not about our opinion. Its not about our politics. Its about what is the best way to get this country back to business because if we open up too early and we have a second wave, im telling you right now its going to be more damming to our businesses and to our economy and on top of that, our health. So weve just got to stop this nonsense, and chris, this is what makes this being a moment that we have the most uniquely unqualified president in our history, at a time we want someone to give us like a fireside chat or appeal malice toward none, charity toward all, at a time we want to be called together in a common purpose, we have a president that is doubling down on demeaning and degrading and divisiveness whos injuring the soul of our country, turning us against each other, tweeting out the most obnoxiously damaging tweets like liberate the state. This is not about his petty culture war. This is about the strength and health and well being of a nation. Well, part of it strikes me, i think he, well, a fireside chat sounds nice and aspirational, i would just take actual understanding of how Communicable Diseases works which seems to be absent in this case. He really does view everything about the election and about him personally. I thought it was revealing that governors were trying to keep states closed to screw me on my election. It is impossible for him to imagine people are trying to do the right thing and protect Public Health. Theyre just not thinking about that. Theres no governor in america thats thinking one way or the other about Donald Trumps reelection when theyre thinking about their state. Look, in a time when this administration is fighting transparency and oversight, the one thing thats been utterly transparent from the beginning of this is that donald trump cares about himself. He tells us that fact. You know, he didnt want to let people off of a cruise ship in the beginning because it would hurt the numbers and how he looks. This is a guy that tweets out very transparently that everything is about him. What people say about him. Is this governor being nice to him. Are they plotting to get him. Sorry, this is not about him. This is about the greatest National Crisis in generations and how we are 5 of the globes population, but because of a failure of leadership, we have roughly a third of the cases on the planet earth right now. So i guess my final question is this, we know that. We know thats the way the nature of the president and his character, and the way he does the job or doesnt do the job. Your colleagues in the senate, we were talking to speaker pelosi. Theres this weird impasse, successful bipartisan pieces of legislation, and there was this kind of bipartisan policy tag team that you used to see 20 years ago, a lot more on big bills, heres an idea of how we can help Small Businesses, things like that. Your republican colleagues have said were done, were done. You guys figure it out. Get out there. Youre warriors, get back to work. Go to the meat factory. Do you think you have colleagues on the republican side that are not on board with mcconnells stance on this right now . Yeah, look, thats exactly, you put it right. I am not going to let this crisis be defined by Mitch Mcconnell and donald trump, who in my opinion are failing in their leadership and their ability to drive the common, pull the country, pull the senate together. Theres so much bipartisan work going on. Ive got a bill with Chuck Grassley for first responders. Im working on a bipartisan bill of setting up national service. There is so much room here to bring this country together. So i just, we cannot let him define this moment in American History. What should define this moment in American History is our moral imagination for who we are, our expanding circles of empathy of everybody from essential workers, who were once ignored, to all the way to people out every day taking risks pr ofor safety and well being. If we could expand moral vision and empathy, we wont just get through this crisis together but we could be a light into the world for how to do it. Thats what we need right now, and i know theres a you know, i have a faith in the universe and maybe theres going to be an election right smack in the middle of this which will give america a chance not to choose between left and right but to begin to return to a moral compass that pushes us forward and thats my hope. Im sorry, these two men we just mentioned do not define this moment in American History. We the people will. Let us all stand together and show that our love for each other, our concern for each other, our willingness to adhere to science, but more importantly, adhere to our hearts that that be our guide and not the brutal divisiveness that we steam to be seeing at the highest levels. Can i ask, i find all of that very compelling, but i have a more mundane follow up which is basically like is mcconnell going to be able to hold the line here . Is the mundane sort of like inside the beltway question that is incredibly consequential for the country because it really matters whether hes going to be able to sort of hold off republicans to say, no more for any of you guys or whether you think thats not a tenable position . Let me give you a simple example. I talked to my governor today. New jersey is not the only state thats going to need state and local funding. There will be blue states and red states. In fact, kentucky is going to be in bad shape. Mcconnell has tried time and time again. He brought two bills to the floor. We had a standoff and stare down and he blinked and we moved that bill to be better for the American People for testing and better Unemployment Insurance. So i just think theres so much bipartisan pressure from governors who, by the way, i was an executive. Youre not that partisan. You just want to help things, people, republican governors out there making me want to scratch my bald head but the reality is there are people on both sides of the aisle right now that have urgencies and i really do believe that thats my hope for getting another major package through the United States senate. Thats a good answer, and was sort of what i was going for. Senator cory booker of new jersey. Thank you so much. Thank you, appreciate you. The longest and most severe coronavirus lock down in the world, at least to date has been in wuhan, china, it was the home of the first big outbreak. Very very strict. Much stricter than the u. S. Were entering week eight in new york. The lesson is at a certain point, you cannot keep people sheltered in place for an indefinite period of time. The question becomes how do you slowly reemerge into the world cautiously and safely by understanding the spectrum of risk you face. And crucially learning how to distinguish between higher risk and lower risk activities, right, and a great new piece in the atlantic called quarantine fatigue is real. Epidemiologist julia marcus writes in essence this is the Harm Reduction model which recognizes some people are going to take risks whether Public Health experts want them to or not and instead of condemnation, and joining me is julia marcus, an assistant professor of population medicine at harvard medical school. I really like the piece, doctor. Let me first, i guess, start with this, which is how should we be thinking broadly about moving from a kind of, like, binary, were all going to be at home, you dont leave your house, to a spectrum of risk, avoiding high risk situations and not putting people in danger . I think what we really need is Public Health guidance that can give people a sense of that spectrum of risk. And if you think about it with the abstinence only analogy, if we dont give people a sense of lower risk activities, they may have sex anyway and not know how to reduce their risk. What we need here is a more nuanced approach to this that gives people a sense of what may be lower risk but more sustainable in the longterm. You talked about shame, which i thought was interesting because shame has been a sort of shame is an interesting tool of sort of social mobilization. And i sort of feel the same way, like, and im not really into shaming people that are doing the wrong thing mostly because i dont like shaming people generally but it also does seem like its an important thing were doing as were communally establishing norms and shame is one of the way you establish norms. Its one of the ways you say what is and isnt passable, what is and isnt polite for doing something, like if you walk down the street with no pants on, thats against the law but mostly its a shameful thing that other people look bad at. At some level you want to create that for masks. What is the role you see for that for shame or not in this situation . Im an hiv prevention researcher and we know from decades of hiv research that shaming people doesnt necessarily have the effect that we want it to have. It may feel good in the moment and give us a sense of control to shame somebody elses behaviors and it may make us angry to see someone doing something that is putting themselves and other people at risk but the reality is when we shame individuals and their behaviors, what ends up happening is those behaviors get driven underground where we cant address them at all. It ends up backfiring in the end. What are the big lessons here . I thought when you talk about things being driven underground, right, there are certain things that seems like we know these are super risky kinds of things like if you have a big, like, closely held House Dance Party with a few hundred people, you know, small confined space, thats a really bad idea but if you go and visit a few friends at a park, and sit around each other, thats probably much better. How do we think about telling people what they should be doing . Ideally, we would have Public Health guidance at a National Level that would be giving us that sense of a spectrum of risk, and so with that guidance, rather than having a house party, somebody might say, oh, you know what, i actually can gather with my friends, i should do it outside and i should wear a mask, and at this point, what we have is this kind of binary approach thats either stay at home indefinitely or go back to business as usual. Risk is not binary, theres a lot we need to be communicating as Health Experts and were not hearing that at a National Level. My hope is state and local Health Departments will step in and fill that space. It seems to me that the outdoor indoor binary is a big one in terms of the way were understanding risk of transmission here. Theres been a lot of writing by Public Health experts, let people go to parks. Let people go outdoors. People need for mental health, physical health, social health, people do need to get out of the house, and the data we have on the virus suggests that in the sp spectrum of risk, outdoor is superior to indoors . Absolutely. I mean, this is a new virus so were still learning about it, but based on early studies of the epidemiology of the virus, it really seems like the highest risk settings are in closed, crowded indoor settings where people have prolonged close contact with other people, and so outdoors in general is going to be much lower risk and then even within the outdoor settings, we can redesign our outdoor spaces to create more space, open up streets for people to have Recreational Activities where they can keep more distance from each other. There are ways to restructure everything around us to promote physical distancing in a way thats going to be sustainable in the longterm. But the point you make is so crucial which is that like we do need some guidance other than like, you know, cable news, like people saying, look, these are the spectrums of risk, and this is how we can understand this framework, and this is how we can keep people we love safe and our society safe while not losing our minds indoors indefinitely. Julia marcus who wrote the piece in the atlantic and changed my thinking on this. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. Contact tracing will be key to safe reopening. What will that entail . Well speak with an epidemiologist who is literally training people to do that task coming up. Oh. Im scratching like crazy. Youve got some allergic itch with skin inflammation. Apoquel can work on that itch in as little as 4 hours, whether its a new or chronic problem. And apoquels treated over 7 million dogs. Nice. And. The talking dog thing . Is it bothering you . No. Itching like a dog is bothering me. Until dogs can speak for themselves, you have to. 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There are a lot of like, classic and big titles that i feel like i missed out since i dont have time to read, mean i might as well listen. If i want to catch up on the news or history or learn whats going on in the world, i can download a book and listen to it. Because i listened to her story over and over again, i made the decision to go ahead and follow my own dream, which was to help other veterans. I think theres like 180 books in my, in my library now. It changes your perspective; it makes you a different person. Its true, its so true. To start your free 30day trial, just text listen17 to 500500. It has been clear since at least the wildly misleading spa summary of the Mueller Report released by the attorney general that william barr is fundamentally a bad faith actor, as opposed to any kind of independent dispensing of justice. His doj decided to drop the criminal charges against former trump National Security adviser Michael Flynn who pleaded guilty to lying to the fbi. They also intervened to recommend a lighter sense for roger stone who was convicted of obstructing congress among other charges. Those actions led to two blistering opeds from former department of justice employees calling out the actions of the attorney general. The first my mary mccord who served as acting assistant attorney general for National Security. Thats a very very big deal, important job, and she had it after spending nearly 20 years assen a assistant u. S. As an assistant u. S. Attorney. In the New York Times oped she slams the rational for dismissing charges writing the account of my interview in 2017 does not help the Department Support its conclusion. It is disingenuous for the department to twist my words to suggest that it does. The second oped is by jonathan cravis who served as a federal prosecutor for ten years and was on the roger stone Prosecution Team but were resigning in protest over that downward reduction in his sentence recommendation. He writes, i believe the departments handling of these matters is profoundly misguided and im convinced the departments conduct in the stone and flynn cases will do lasting damage to the institution. Singles out william barr writing for the attorney general to directly intervene to benefit the president s associates makes this betrayal of the rule of law even more egregious. This is happening while a letter was released signed by 2,000 doj and fbi employees calling for barrs resignation, and this is something were keeping our eyes on amidst the covid pandemic, there is growing noise on the right among the president , his lackeys and cronies and cheer leaders that they want to pursue criminal charges against the obama administration. Were going it talk about all of that tomorrow with former u. S. Attorney general eric holder. Do not miss it. Word to any adventure. But when allergies and congestion strike, take allegrad. A nondrowsy antihistamine plus a powerful decongestant. So you can always say yes to putting your true colors on display. Say yes to allegrad. To putting your true colors this virus is testing all of us. And its testing the people on the front lines of this fight most of all. So abbott is getting new tests into their hands, delivering the critical results they need. And until this fight is over, we. Will. Never. Quit. Because they never quit. The u. S. And south korea both recorded their first positive coronavirus cases on the very same day. January 20th. South korea then had a very quick outbreak after that which they with incredible determination suppressed with a very aggressive testing and the Contact Tracing regime. They also had people going through the streets disinfecting them. They test people, they find cases and they isolate them. And that has kept the death toll in south korea just over, get this, 250. 250 total. While in the u. S. , over the same period of time, weve lost more than 80,000 people. This has allowed south korea to reopen the country to an extent thats really unimaginable here, including opening up places like nightclubs. But now it, looks like south korea is struggling with a second outbreak tied to a nightclub. This morning, 4,000 clubs and bars in seoul are closed. At testing sites, long lines, as Health Workers try to track 5,500 people who went clubbing more than a week ago and might be infected. They say a 29yearold man went to three night clubs the night of may 1st, wasnt wear a mask and tested positive for covid19 last wednesday. With an nbc report from south korea where they are trying to Contact Trace and identify thousands of people who may have been exposed to the virus, that undertaking puts into sharp relief just how operationally and logistically difficult this whole thing is. This makes you wonder if this is something we can actually pull off in the United States. Here with me dr. Emily gurley, epidemiologist of Infectious Diseases at john hopkins. Let me start with the logistical cono , of Contact Tracers in south korea. What do you think about what they are trying to undertake right now . Its a daunting effort, but theyre prepared. I mean they had quick testing and Contact Tracing on the ground when i ththey first had s and thats why they have been able to control it so well. As we all see just because youve done that once doesnt mean that you can let up. The infrastructure still has to be there because the virus hasnt gone away. I guess the question, so theres two issues here, one is that when you think about, like, some sort of, like, godzilla battle of nightclub versus Contact Tracing in the war against the virus, it does seem like nightclub is a pretty powerful foe, maybe you cant have nightclubs, that no amount of powerful Contact Tracing is going to let you have a society until we have a vaccine where things like nightclubs can happen . Well, i think thats a question for, you know, each city, each society to determine. What risk are you willing to take or opening up which places. So its not theres no one good answer there. But, you know, at least they do have the Contact Tracing in place to try to figure this out. So talk me through when you train Contact Tracers, the basic principles that play here for if you were, say, doing Contact Tracing in baltimore after the city had sort of gotten the outbreak in a more manageable situation. Youre not doing mass mitigation. What does that look like . How many people would you need in a city like baltimore, what would they be doing . So what were all trying to do now, right, is stay home so that we have a reduced number of case, while we build up the Public Health force of Contact Tracers to try to meet that need. So theres no one magic number of how many Contact Tracers you need. You just need to be monitoring your Contact Tracing to ensure that youre finding people on time, youre able to quarantine contacts in a timely way, so if youre able to do that, then you have enough. But i think that, although Health Departments all over the country do Contact Tracing all the time for sexually transmitted diseases and tuberculosis, covid19 moves much faster, we have many more cases and so what we have to do is at a scope and scale thats much larger than what we have ever done before. Its really important for us to start ramping up these new Contact Tracing activities and our course, we developed a course on Contact Tracing, the basics, its freely available to anybody who wants to cake its on corcera, it was developed with support from bloomberg philanthropies and we hope its going to play a role in places all over the u. S. Where they are trying to ramp up Contact Tracing, hire a lot of new people, and really get this effort off the ground so that we can start to think about opening up in a safe way. I cant make any promises on night clubs, but we can do better than what were doing now for sure. Is the first step, so if lets say this individual, by the way, who i think is sort of blameless in the south korea situation. He was asymptomatic, and the nightclubs are open, you want to go tonight clubs, its not his fault, but in this situation where youre doing Contact Tracing, is the first step that like a person tests positive, is there like an intake interview with the person who tests positive as the first step . Yeah, exactly. So what will happen is sorry. Theres a delay. What will happen is that once someone tests positive, they will be contacted by the health department. They will be asked to keep themselves separate from anybody else so that they dont infect anybody else. But then they also have to understand from them who they have had contact with, so that they can find those contacts and ask those people to quarantine. Or also isolate themselves from others so that we can break the chain of transmission. So that once you find those contacts, hopefully theyre not going to infect anybody else. So thats the goal. And those are the steps that Contact Tracers will take. Final question quickly, ive seen some sort of like weird american exceptionalism that says Public Health interventions that work in other places cant work here because were so different as americans. What do you think of that . Well, i think its true that each Public Health intervention has to happen within the cultural context of that particular place, city or country. And then some countries have other tools, you know, some tools that others dont have, but i think people are people at the end of the day, and Contact Tracing will work if everybody can come together and agree that, yes, were going to share some of our information with Public Health. Were going to try to stay home so we dont infect other people. If we all agree to that as a community and agree that its important to save peoples lives, i think we can do that here like they have done in other places. Dr. Emily gurley, thank you so much for making time tonight. That is all in for this well, good evening. After this day 1,208 of the trump administration, 176 days to go until our next president ial election. And while we are deep into the Trump Presidency now, we are nonetheless covering a number of firsts tonight. For starters, the president of the United States stood in the rose garden today and accused his predecessor of committing a crime while offering no details or proof. And that wasnt even the lead story from the press conference today. If there was a Bumper Sticker quote to emerge from todays session about the climbing u. S. Death toll, it was this, and we quote, dont ask me, ask china because as others have theorized, unable to run for the