Transcripts For MSNBCW Morning Joe 20200312

The coronavirus. This is their new hoax. We must put politics aside, stop the partisanship, and unify together as one nation. And the whiplash doesnt stop there. Minutes after the president said last night that cargo would be restricted from europe, causing the markets to quiver, the white house said, actually, no, no, no, cargo will not actually be restricted. Good morning. Welcome to morning joe. It is thursday, march 12th. Along with joe, whil lillie, an we have mike barnicle. White house contributor, Jonathan Lemire. And from Vanderbilt University, john meacham. He is an nbc news and msnbc contributor. The coronavirus has now entered a devastating new phase, as the World Health Organization declares it a global pandemic. There are now more than 126,000 cases across more than 100 countries and regions. The latest numbers from Johns Hopkins University Ranks the United States eighth in terms of countries with the most confirmed cases. Keep in mind, we have a limit on testing. We learned this morning from the officials in florida that a passenger with coronavirus arrived at Palm Beach International airport from new yorks jfk airport last night. Two sources tell nbc news that in a closed door briefing, the attending physician of Congress Told Senate Staffers yesterday that he expects 70 million to 150 Million People in the u. S. Will contract the virus. On wall street, the dow plunged 1,400 points into a bear market. More on that in just a moment. Last night, President Trump delivered a Rare Oval Office address and announced that travel from certain parts of europe would be restricted. Much more on that in just a moment, as well. The virus is now taking a greater toll on American Social and cultural life. The governors of california and oregon issued new guidelines last night to cancel all gatherings of 250 people or more. The same for Washington State in certain countries. More than 100 colleges have now canceled inperson classes. The latest being duke, georgetown, George Washington university, uva, and the university of notre dame. The nba, meanwhile, suspended all games until further notice after a player tested positive for the virus. Ncaa march madness games will now be closed to spectators. Sources tell espn that Major League Baseball teams are preparing for policies that could disrupt early season games. With the home openers of the l. A. Dodgers, the Oakland Athletics, and the San Diego Padres in question. There was also this rare statement from mlb, the nba, major league soccer, and nhl, that locker rooms and clubhouses will be closed to the staff and nonessential staff. A face we all recognize is now attached to the virus. After tom hanks revealed that he and his wife, rita wilson, tested positive while in australia. Theres also the first known case on capitol hill. A staffer at senator Maria Cantwells d. C. Office tested positive for the virus. Her staff on the hill and back home in Washington State will now work from home. Twitter, which has dozens of offices around the world, also announced that its employees will work from home. Willie, yesterday afternoon, if you watched the news feeds on either twitter or you were watching tv, you noticed things really started to accelerate quickly. It had been a bad situation. The markets had been falling all day. Suddenly, march madness kangs ellel canceled for the fans going to the games. More stories coming out one after the other. Then the president goes on to deliver this speech. We get the news of tom hanks and rita wilson. We get the news of the nba cancelling the rest of the season. One college after another college being closed. Last night, you had americans, for unlike any time since 9 11, the americans were tuning in to watch their president. They wanted reassurance. I did agree with what the president said, that we are in this together. This is a battle we all have to join together, regardless of our political ideology. It is unfortunate though, that instead of reassurance, it seems that his address only unsettled americans more. If you look at the initial response and also rattled the International Markets, which immediately fell. I will say, the one bit of good news for me as i was watching it was that the president called it a pandemic. Yeah. Hes taking it seriously now. This allows his Administration Officials to go out and act aggressively without being worried, without worrying about being undercut by the president , like azar was undercut and fauci and others were undercut before. They can attack this problem aggressively now, and that is good news. It is also good news for physicians. I have a very good friend who is a physician who, yesterday, told me that half of his clients, half of his clients do not believe, or at least yesterday afternoon, did not believe that the coronavirus was real. They believe it was a hoax. They believed it was a hoax made up by the media. This is a guy who had been their doctor for 15, 20 years. The president has spread a lot of misinformation, did a lot of dangerous things. People on trump, protrump broadcasts have said a lot of really dangerous, reckless things over the past couple days. It is my hope that the address last night pours cold water on all those conspiracy theories and, now, we can all get to the business of treating this pandemic. Yeah. Well get to some of the particulars of what the president said last night, if theyre good ideas, what the impact of those will be. Youre right, america woke up last night. Theres no question. In the space of about 30 minutes, the nba suspended its season until further notice. The president gave that address. We got the news, as mika mentioned, that tom hanks and rita wilson have contracted coronavirus while in australia. That list, to put together with all the other things that came during the day, including the fact you have the congressional doctor telling staffers up on the hill that there could be 150 million cases of coronavirus in this country, america is awake now. We know this is a problem. As you say, you cant help but stop and wonder, those weeks spent calling it a hoax by the president , those weeks spent denying that it was happening, those weeks not doing enough about this, will that lost time come back to haunt this country . We shall find out. Well talk to leading Infectious Disease doctor in a moment. President trump has announced a ban on most travel from europe into the United States for the next 30 days. During an Oval Office Address last night, President Trump explained the new restrictions will begin tomorrow at midnight. The ban applies to 26 European Countries and the zone without border controls. The United Kingdom is not included in the ban, though there have been 456 cases of coronavirus there so far, resulting in eight deaths. According to the department of Homeland Security, the ban only applies to foreign nationals who have been in those countries at any point during the 14 days prior to their scheduled arrival to the United States. The ban does not apply to u. S. Citizens, green card holders, or the families of u. S. Citizens. During the address last night, President Trump blamed the European Union for failing to take similar precautions, as those being taken now by the u. S. Taking early, intense action, we have seen dramatically fewer cases of the virus in the United States than are now present in europe. The European Union failed to take the same precautions and restrict travel from china and other hot spots. As a result, a large number of new clusters in the United States were seeded by travelers from europe. To keep new cases from entering our shores, we will be suspending all travel from europe to the United States for the next 30 days. The new rules will go into effect friday at midnight. We are marshaling the full power of the National Government and the private sector to protect the American People. This is the most aggressive and comprehensive effort to confront a foreign virus in modern history. I am confident that by counting and continuing to take these tough measures, we will significantly reduce the threat to our citizens, and we will ultimately and expeditiously defeat this virus. Shortly after the president spoke there, the white house had to clarify some of his remarks. During his address, the president said the restrictions also would apply to cargo shipped into the United States from europe. But the white house later said the ban only applies to people and not to goods. Joe, as you say, the president , at least in his tone and his tenor, taking it seriously finally, after suggesting itd disappe disappear. A couple days ago, saying, stay calm. This will go away. The problem is, there were errors within his speech. Hes talking about this like it is still a containment story and not something that has to be dealt with inside our country. Its here. Right. Health care officials are fine with bans from other countries. Fine with, you know, trying to keep more infected people out of the United States, right . If thats what youre leading with, a ban, if thats your focus, you dont understand, as somebody said last night on twitter, that the killer is already inside the house. Right. So you need to worry first about the killer inside of the house before but go ahead and lock the door. Stop other killers from coming inside the house. But the lead last night should have been testing. The lead last night should have been social distancing. The lead last night should have been relief for workers who are being sent home because their children are home from school. The lead last night should have been a lot of things, and the president just didnt talk about it. He talked, again, about bans. He talked about bans from europe but, somehow, deciding to exempt great britain, which actually makes very little sense. If you look at the numbers themselves. This president last night, sadly, was just overmatched by history. Listen, im going to draw a comparison thats going to make a lot of people upset, Jonathan Lemire. George w. Bush after 9 11 was unsettled. His press conference from the louisiana military base was deeply unsettling. Yet, george w. Bush found his footing, went to gained the res an awful lot of people in those early days after 9 11. The president can do that, but as you wrote last night in the Associated Press, you talked about a president overmatched by this moment and what that means for americans. Ill give you a couple quotes here. Trump continued to play down the virus, slashing into officials, including health and Human Services secretary alex azar for taking up the possible severity of the threat. You go on to write, but the virus has appeared impervious to the president s bluster. The virus does not have a twitter account. Unlike so many others, its resistant to the political bullying or Republican Party solidarity. It is fear of germs and exposing the inadequacies of his administration. Finally, you write, one of trumps most potent political assets is his ability to read a room or a moment. Often issuing longterm planning for instantaneous reaction. But he was slow to come to grips with the threat posed by the coronavirus as it exploded into china. Jonath jonathan, last night, you saw a president finally coming to terms with what he was facing, still relying on some of his old, cheap tricks that may have worked against marco rubio and ted cruz in the president ial primary. It wont work against a pandemic. What can you tell us about how the day progressed yesterday that moved the president from being resistant to calling this pandemic what it was, a pandemic, to the president finally, last night, delivering a sober, if flawed, address, and explaining to americans that this is a Global Crisis . This presidency is in a new place now. To this point, the old tactics donald trump used time and time again arent working. He had to be talked into the Oval Office Address yesterday by top aides, including Vice President pence, who said it was necessary to get out there. Something more dramatic was needed. Theyve been watching the markets which have been tumbling. Theyre seeing the number of cases within the United States borders explode. Last night, the president decided he needed to talk and do something. The initial response, as were seeing on the screen, futures markets werent particularly positive. What the speech lacked was, as you said, any discussion of testing, any discussion of kits. It was not about the issue at home. It remained very much painting the virus as a foreign threat, something we can try to keep out when, of course, it is already here. This crisis in particular seems one that the president is illsuited to address. It is indeed not just because he is long declared himself a germaphobe, but he is so concerned about the economy, which he, in his mind, is so closely linked to the stock market. He tied his own political fortunes to that so greatly. Hes tried to rally it time and time again the last few days, and it has not worked. This is not something he can bluster with on twitter. He cant rally other republicans around it. He now cant rally at all. He was scheduled to have an event in milwaukee next week. He had to cancel that. His opponents, joe biden and Bernie Sanders on the democratic side canceled rallied, as well. The president was reluck tactar. As late as yesterday, there was talk in the white house and campaign of scheduling for event for florida in the next week or so. Theyve had to cancel that, at least postpone it. They realized how unsafe itd be. It deprives the president of not just his life blood we know how he draws energy from his rally crowds but his political weapon. He can command a headline or a moment. Right now, what hes come up with so far has proven inadequate, despite, yes, finally taking it serious enough to deliver the Oval Office Address last night. Right. Well, if people are still trying to figure out what to do, its just anecdotal. What were hearing all around, the president spent nine seconds last night talking about one of the fundamental pillars of dealing with this crisis, and that would be testing. Which still is extremely lacking and limited here in the United States. A lot of people, if theyre not like the folks that we heard coming into your friends doctors office, joe, who think it is a hoax, there are others sort of using their own common sense, trying to figure out what to do. Should i send my child to school . Exactly who should i surround my parent with . My worry is that this pandemic, the lack of knowledge about this pandemic in the u. S. , that could really start ensuing a panic, when the real ramifications of this pandemic start ricochetting around the country. That is growing numbers of people with coronavirus. My sources inside the administration tell me there are more reasons to be concerned about who is working inside the administration. That it is not just the president who sees this primarily as an economic challenge. It is other top officials inside the administration who seem oblivious to the health care pandemic, to the crisis that may be coming in the next few weeks, unless we take dramatic action. There is no evidence right now that the president and all his men and women will rise to the occasion. Let us hope. As the president said last night, we are all on the same team. You know, john meacham, history has examples of president s and of foreign leaders who were underestimated in a time of crisis. Of course, fdr was considered a dilettante with a third rate a third rate intellect who became, of course, the greatest president of the 20th century. Winston churchill had the horrific failures, his alone years, the drinking, the alcoholism and, yet, he saved western civilization in the battle of britain in 1940. Sadly, i dont know that we can have any such hopes for donald trump, but give us some hope from anything you saw last night or that youve seen over the past few weeks. That this president and this administration will rise to really the unprecedented challenges of this pandemic, or at least unprecedented since the spanish flu outbreak broke out in 1918. Yeah. I think you said it at the very top. The fact that he used the word pandemic, that he embraced reality in a way. The fact we are saluting a president for embracing reality tells you where weve been the last three years. But you have to do that. I think that the reality of this, though i agree that he seemed to be almost having a policy discussion on a personal issue, there was a certain lack of syncronicity there, aside from that, he is a tactile reactor. He does react so much to the moment. If, in fact, the one thing that may bring red state and blue state people to the same place in terms of how we see reality for the first time in a long time, if it is this common thre threat, then there is a capacity here for the administration, for the federal government, and hopefully the president will get out of the way if at all possible, to address this with some coherence. If he continues to but one more thing. The thing that worries me about that is the first two or three minutes of this last night were all about how great what we had done so far was. Which was exactly out of tune with where everybody is emotionally right now in the country. Out of tune with where everybody is emotionally. Also untrue. Everybody knows that to be the case. This morning, of course, willie, after the president said we must put politics aside, come together as one nation, the president , two minutes ago, tweeted an attack against nancy pelosi, quoting a cable news tv host. Here we go. The president , of course i withdraw my comment. The president is can i revise my remarks . You can revise and extend your remarks, congressman. Well put your full text in. Willie, the president already attacking nancy pelosi, quoting other cable news hosts, at a time, again, where hes stepping again on his message. Last night, he said we have to put politics aside, and we have to all come together as one. How many times have we seen this . The president of the United States gives a prompter speech, and some people grading on the curve, give him the benefit of the doubt. He was pretty good last night. Then hours later, hes back to his twitter self. Joining us now here in new york, Infectious Disease doctor and senior scholar at Johns Hopkins center. Doctor, thank you for being here. Lets tick through this. First of all, testing. The president did not talk about testing. In fact, he touted the low number of positive cases here. We all know thats because we havent had any testing, or enough testing to find how many cases there are in this country. What would you have liked to have heard from the president as a doctor about testing, and what can be done today . I would have liked to hear an acknowledgment that the low numbers are because were not finding the companies. Quest and lab corps can offer tests, but its a lot of bureaucracy. It is not like ordering an hiv test or influenza test. Why is that . Theyre send out tests. Not many hospitals have the capacity to do the test, and you have to send it out. It requires paperwork. Many cases are mild, and many people dont have the time to fill out the papers for someone youre sending home. Hospital administration gets vovrd, and involved, and it is more difficult. Hiv test, you order, its done. There are a lot of steps in the way of getting a test for a patient, so thats why there are incentives not to test. There is guidance for what protective gear you have to wear to get a swap. Washington and oregon are not using cdc guidance anymore because it is cumbersome and probably not evidence based in terms of what the risk is for someone swabbing someones nose, that you have to wear the personal equipment. Thats a drawback. The diagnostic testing is the story of the pandemic. We know its been in the United States for some time, but we werent able to detect it. We didnt have the test. And this was an impression that it was foreign, only travel related or exclusively travel related. We know its been spreading since november in china. Many countries might have been seeded and had these outbreaks that were mixed into our flu and cold season. As you say, we need to know how many people have it before we can bring the number down. What changes the testing trajectory . Not the trajectory of how many people have it, bringing it down and getting it under control, but when do we begin how many people have coronavirus in america . I think its really starting to ramp up with the state coming online and the Big Companies. Now, there is this acknowledgment that were in a pandemic, we have Community Spread in places like Washington State and new york state. People know that you dont just have to have come from china or iran or italy. Thats going to get people to want to order the tests. We know that we have to know where we are on the epidemic curve, and we dont know yet where we are on the curve. Last night, i think a lot of americans woke up. Maybe they were listening to the president who said, dont worry. Itll go away. They were spectacle that it was media hype. Last nagight, the confluence of events from the president s speech to the suspension of the nba season, to someone like tom hanks and his wife, rita wilson, contracting coronavirus. We have americas attention now. Where are you on how this proceeds from here . In other words, how bad is it . Where does it go tomorrow and a week from now and two weeks from now . I do think that were going to see an increase, a steep rise in case as testing comes online and people are more aware this is in their communities and doctors look for it. Well start to hear about severe cases. We still dont have a full handle on what the case fatality ratio is. It is probably 1 ish. Might be lower than that based on south korean data. Were going to hear reports from hospitals with critically ill patients. Maybe how hospitals are preparing, which is the linchpin in the response, how well hospitals can deal with the surge of patients theyll recei receive. It is going to get worse before it gets better. Well be in for a season, and it may taper off, as you heard in a lot of places, when it is warmer. Respiratory viruses have seasonality. We dont know for this one, but we know on others related to it. Could be increase when the Southern Hemisphere comes to the winter. Hopefully well be better prepared for vaccine development, clinical trials, antiviral, results. If it is under control in the short term, it could be back in the fall . This is now endemic in human populations and wont go away without a vaccine. I think it will be seasonal. There are four other coronaviruses that are seasonal every year. It is likely to be the fifth with a higher severity level. Doctor, you just said we know its been here for some time, placing your awareness about this virus to last december, correct . Mmhmm. So do you know could you tell us, please, what rna extraction kits are . Rna extraction kit is how you its a kit that allows you to extract the genetic material of the virus. Thats what theyre doing in order to test for it. Theyre looking for the genes of the virus in a person. Put a swab in the nose, they get a specimen, and they extract the genetic material of the virus and amplify it. That gives you a positive test. How is it in the United States of america, the wealthiest in addition on the face of the earth, we have a shortage of these kits . Whats happened is theyve had to create a special test that was directly related to this novel coronavirus. Initially, this was done by the cdc then it was pushed out to the states. We havent the major labs invested in the beginning. This was mostly government labs doing this, and it still is mostly government labs until basically this week. It is something that we have talked about a lot on pandemic preparedness. Diagnostics are as important as antivirals and vaccines. People dont think of diagnostics like they do with vaccines. It has symptoms that are different from the cold and the flu, but you have a different test. There have been shortages of some soof the supplies needed t run the test. Its not exexcusa excusable if going to be a country that can fight the pandemic. Are you concerned about the lack of hospital beds available in the nearest future . That is the biggest concern i have. Hospitals operate near total capacity all the time, and this will be a major issue for hospitals. We get inundated during a bad flu season, like 2017 2018, where you have to be creative with bed space at a hospital. If this has the 1 mortality and we have critical ill patients, i worry how hospitals will deal with the icu capacity, ventilator supplies, emergency room crowding, and how theyll keep the chemotherapy, other treatments, how theyll keep the hospitals fortified. Youre not a family doctor, but i want you to play one. There are probably a lot of families wondering, do i send my kids to school . Do we go on spring break . Do i get on a plane . All things that affect moment to moment, day to die liay life in country. What would you say . No one size fits all decision for every family. You have to look at what your riggs risk factors are. You how old are you . Do you have this as essential . Where is it in the hierarchy of values of what you want for your life . Make a decision. There are some places id avoid. Large gatherings, rock concerts, sporting events. Theres going to be itll be hard to socially distance yourself. There are others you can do it. I think it has to be context driven and depends on what is happening with the virus in your community and how you can distance yourself at those events. Doctor, great to have you with us. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. Mika . Mika, lets talk about one of the issues brought up. Thats the lack of hospital beds. That concern. You talk to any health care provider, and actually you talk to the president s former director of Homeland Security. He was talking about hospitals being creamed within the next ten days. All you have to do is look to italy to see where the United States could be going if we dont get ahead of this immediately. May be too late already. Italy, the horrible scenes in the Emergency Rooms of people being put on ventilators in hallways, of it looking like a war zone, of doctors having to perform patients and deciding which patients they can treat, which ones they cant. It sounded an awful lot like katrina, where doctors had to make life or death decisions in a snap, saying, well, this patient has a better chance of surviving than that patient. Were just going to have to leave that patient to die. Try to save this one. Thats happening in italy right now. Every medical Health Care Professional ive spoken with over the past several weeks say one of their biggest concerns is the fact that our hospitals arent ready for whats about to hit them. Theyre not. Thats why with two months notice. Mr. President , we need the testing. We need the social distancing. We need to be more aggressive. Or those scenes of horror unfolding right now in Italian Hospital Emergency Rooms, mika, will be emerging here. There should be cordoned off areas, or even coronavirus care centers, areas where these people come in and dont infect the entire hospital population. This has been obvious for several months. That it was coming here. We have wasted this time. There is no uniformed effort to coordinate where to put the patients that we will inevitably get. We need more hospital beds, ventilators. There is a shortage of ventilators. We need more ventilators. Were going to have to start to build up and be prepared for the next epidemic, for the next pandemic. Be assured, its coming. President trumps efforts to quell coronavirus fears during his Oval Office Speech last night did little to ease concerns on wall street, as stock futures pointed to another low this morning. Futures dropped more than 1,100 points, while the s p and nasdaq pointed to lower openings. Markets reacted poorly, as investors were hoping for a stronger fiscal response from the president than his new european travel ban and his plan for Financial Relief for ill workers. After an 11year run on a bull market, the dow plunged yesterday into a bear market after reporting losses of over 1,400 points. S p and nasdaq also reported losses. Joining us now, cnbcs courtney reagan, live from the nasdaq, with more. Reporter good morning, mika. We are officially in bear market territory. That means that the major market indexes have fallen more than 20 from their recent 52week highs. By the way, that was about 19 trading sessions ago. Thats another concern. The velocity at which we have seen stocks fall. You mention the president s address last night. If you were watching the futures market, which is indicative of where stocks will open when wall streets opening bell sounds at 9 30 a. M. Eastern time, you saw the futures tick down as the president was speaking. Investors were not reassured by what he had to say. There was no real promise of any fiscal stimulus, which had been reported that the president was potentially looking into some tax cuts. It may still come. We didnt get it last night. Around the world, you saw markets fall. Australia sold off by more than 7 . Japanese nikkei tumbled 4 . South korea down 4 . European markets are down to the tune of about 6 today. When you look at individual sectors, itd make sense, as were seeing the airlines selloff precipitously. Down double digits for american, delta, because of the travel restrictions. As well as hotels. Were expecting to get an announcement out of the European Central bank to help support the european economy from a monetary standpoint. Thats coming later this morning. We are in for another wild ride on wall street. Just a reminder, there are Circuit Breakers that could be deployed today if we see the s p 500 drop 7 . If that happens, we will see stocks halted for 15 minutes, sort of allow cooler heads to preva prevail. Just so the viewers know, the number were watching for the s p 500, if that were to be the case, 2549. Back to you. Cnbcs courtney reagan, thank you very much. Joe, this is obviously a huge part of the story, watching how the markets respond to this. Yeah. It is. You have to take care of first things first. The president was obsessed with the travel ban. Thats fine but, again, the killer is already inside the house. You have to take care of whats inside the house. Of course, keep others from coming in. You have the president obsessed with the financial crisis. His top officials are more obsessed with the financial crisis around him than they are the Health Care Emergency that we have. Because of that, the president can throw all the money at this he wants. The markets will continue collapsing until he takes care of the underlying problem. The underlying problem is a pandemic. Not a financial problem. He needs to show the markets, the heaamericans, the rest of t world that he understands that and he has a plan to aggressively add taaggressive ly attack that pandemic. Pandemic without an end in sight. The markets dont see the end either. Senior Business Correspondent and msnbc anchor Stephanie Ruhle joining us. The mark it ets are reacting to uncertainty of where does this end. Joe nailed it. The markets arent that focused on a fiscal stimulus plan. The markets are aware this is a Public Health crisis that hadnt been addressed yet. No one accurately assessed and addressed the risk. Its been handled like a Public Relations political issue. Until the markets see the president say, this is how big the testing is going to be. This is how many people we think have it. Heres what were going to blanket this country in, and basically put a pause on the economy. Send everyone home sick until we know were clear, and then go back to work. Thats something weve never, ever done. It is a time where he continues to bring ceos. Were watching the president in the most important hours, where he should be surrounded by health experts. He is surrounded by bank ceos. This isnt a banking crisis. No one thought this was a banking crisis. One of the reasons its not is elizabeth warren, chris dodd, and barney frank. If this were 2006, banks would be still taking enormous risks, and they would be underwater with the markets. Since we have dodd frank, the banks take less risks. Look what the markets did. Theyre going, are you kidding me, sir . Thats not what this is about. On the issue of the bank ceos, our reportings from from the room is the bank ceos down played the crisis to the president , which is what he wanted to hear. The talk that hed push back the tax deadline, and he delayed it for some people who can make payments after april 15th, he pushed the payroll tax idea again, seese peuspending that, theres not a big audience on either side, is there a jolt he could do for the economy . Without a doubt. Help people be secure. Listen, we heard him talk about sba loans, and it is important. If you run a Small Business and youve got to pay your rent the end of the month, that matters. But it doesnt solve for it. We have a servicebased economy. If you own a restaurant, and at the end of the month maybe you dont you can get an sba loan and youre not going to be held up for your rent, its a positive. But it is not putting anyone in the restaurant. When it is filled again, you cant get the money back. We are in an unprecedented time, and itll take creative thinking. The most important thing for big business is to see the administration truly take this seriously. Not get up there and say, well, we have less people than europe does. How can you possibly though that . We havent done adequate testing. Steph, john meacham has one for you in nashville. Curious where you think the long it have term fallout could be. So much is in the moment now, and we live so much, all of us, in the moment. The fundamental slowdown of the broadest kinds, of economic and cultural activity is spreading so rapidly. Are we looking at a sustained recessi recession, even into possibly, and ill use the word, a depression . Is that a possibility here . It is a possibility. In 2008, we had a disastrous underlying economy. Were not in that situation. We had a very good jobs number a week ago. We have a good economy. What were going to have to do to address this pandemic does put our economy on hold. You know, you talk about the nba cancelling the rest of the season. I know weve said it over and over. Youve got to think about the trickle down. You have to think about all of the people, the jobs, all of the parts of our economy that get impacted, that doesnt get solved overnight. The sooner we get out of this and we can get back to a normal economy, is when we can get people out again, living their normal lives. We cant do that, and we cant address this economically until we address it medically. Stephanie ruhle, thank you very much for coming on early this morning. Still ahead on morning joe, during his address last night, President Trump said the risk of coronavirus for americans is very, very low. Well compare that to what the experts are saying. Plus, will Congress Come together to help fight this thing . Senator dick durbin joins the conversation. Morning joe is coming right back. Tv sports announcer time out. Lets go to a commercial. Nooooooo not another commercial when you bundle your home, auto and Life Insurance with allstate you could save 25 . In fact, the more you bundle the more you can save. Put the other game on if its important to you allstate can protect it. Home auto and Life Insurance you could save 25 . If its important to you allstate can protect it. What . Bundle and save with allstate. Click or call for a quote today. The best of pressure cooking and air frying now in one pot, and with tendercrisp technology, you can cook foods that are crispy on the outside and juicy on the inside. The ninja foodi Pressure Cooker, the Pressure Cooker that crisps. And the clock could be ticking towards bad breath, receding gums and possibly tooth loss. Help turn back the clock on gingivitis with parodontax. Leave bleeding gums behind. Parodontax. How you watch it does too. Tv just keeps Getting Better. This is xfinity x1. Featuring the Emmy Awardwinning voice remote. Streaming Services Without changing passwords and input. Live sports with realtime stats and scores. Access to the most 4k content. And your movies and shows to go. The best tv experience is the best tv value. Xfinity x1. Simple. Easy. Awesome. Xfinity. The future of awesome. I can say we will see more cases and things will get worse than they are right now. How much worse well get will depend on our ability to do two things. To contain the influx of people who are infected coming from the outside, and the ability to contain and mitigate within our own country. Bottom looine,its going to get worse. We do not know what this virus is going to do. We would hope that as we get to warmer weather, it would get down, but we cant proceed under that assumption. We have to assume that it is going to get worse and worse and worse. This is a really serious problem that we have to take seriously. I mean, people always say, well, the flu, you know, the flu does this, the flu does that. The flu has a mortality of 0. 1 . This has a mortality of ten times that. Lets push through all of this information. Joining us now, morning joe chief medical correspondent dr. Dave campbell. We also heard yesterday, dr. Dave, that the congress inhouse doctor told capitol hill staffers in a closed door meeting that he expects 70 million to 150 million of people in the u. S. , a third of the country, to contract the virus. How accurate is that, in your estimate, and how lethal could that be . The estimate is in line with other projections from experts. It underscores the potential seriousness of this pandemic. Dr. Monaghan, the physician for the United States congress, briefed congress two days ago. That somewhere in the vicinity of a third of the country may become positive with this virus. Theres statistical modeling out of harvard that supports this, as well. The doctor finds 20 to 60 of the world, adults in the world, will become positive and infected with this new coronavirus. Potentially, were right at the beginning of this, and not the middle or the end, which is quite frightening. We heard from dr. Anthony fauci that, you know, it remains difficult to really assess mortality rates right now. Is that accurate . Can you tell us why . Yes. The problem that we encountered over the last few weeks is that there was a prediction of thought that there were a lot of asymptomatic patients who were infected. The World Health Organization has found that is not the case. So as we see the increasing numbers being reported, as the World Health Organization did, we saw a 3. 4 mortality rate reported. If the seasonal flu, the flu, is 0. 1 mortality, even if it is only 1 , as dr. Fauci said, thats a tenfold increase over the flu. If were using the flu as a measure, that should tell everybody how serious and how potentially fatal this disease is. Couple of things here. We heard that tom hanks and his wife, rita wilson, theyve got the coronavirus. Theyre in australia, which puts a face to this. I wonder about the president s european travel ban. How much thats really going to affect the spread of the disease in the United States. Because, for example, we have reports like the one we got this morning, of a passenger from jfk who comes down to palm beach, is completely positive for coronavirus, and an entire plane now has been exposed. I mean, its here, is it not . It is here. We do know that someone arrived last night, Palm Beach International airport, who had tested positive before they got on the plane. Whoa. But the president s ban on european travel, it cant hurt. As dr. Fauci said, there are different ways to mitigate the spread of this disease. One is to stop adding newly infected patients to the pool. Thats a good thing. But we also have to deal with the mitigation include, in my opinion, social distancing is what we can all do. We can start practicing that today. Tufts university, speaking as a surgeon now, has stopped scheduling and performing elective surgery. Wow. You heard from me that a few days ago, i stopped scheduling elective surgery. Well see it spread across the country as physicians decide what to do with their kind of routine clinic visits, with their elective surgical procedures and tests. This is a big week. The seriousness of this cannot be overstated. It is ramping up. Dr. Dave campbell, thank you, once again. Willie . Lets bring in the editorial from the boston globe. She served as chief policy adviser to the president obamas council of advisers on science and technology, where she helped shame the response to the ebola epidemic. After her time in the white house, she was the director of Global Policy at a Biomedical Center that partnered with mit, harvard, and five leading boston hospitals. Thanks so much for being with us this morning. If you were waking up in the white house this morning, what would be the first thing youd be thinking about today . What would be the first thing you were doing . We know about all the mistakes that have been made. We know weve moved too slow on this. Here we are. What should the white house be thinking about this morning . I think a big portion of this is how to communicate with the american public. How to communicate and support states and cities with responding to and mitigating the spread of the virus. So as you mentioned, President Trump last night made put a big focus on the european travel ban, which i think, as your correspondent pointed out, probably wont hurt when it comes to containment. It isnt addressing the issue that we already have Community Spread in the u. S. In order to abate that, we need state and localities to be able to cancel large mass gatherings, node to prevent the spread of the disease, and think about how we curtail the Health Care Burden thats coming to our hospitals and doctors offices. You all wrote in the boston globe a couple days ago in an editorial, disruptive asdecisiv save lives. What are the actions that could be taken to save lives . At the low cal and state lev, it includes gatherings of very large numbers of people, includes trying to shore up the social safety net for those workers who cant work from home, including paid sick leave. It includes trying to expand the capacity of hospitals and doctors offices to take in patients. What we dont want is for the peak of this epidemic to hit, and for there to be such an extraordinary toll. I think italy is a cautionary tale right now. Where you do see sort of wartime triage happening in hospitals and doctors offices. Were two weeks behind italy here, according to epidemiologists. We have the opportunity now to try to prevent some of the worst impacts at the peak of the epidemic, to try to prevent the number of cases we have by social distancing measures, by encouraging those who can work from home to work from home. So that those who cant can benefit from the collective action. Up there in boston where youre seated right now, you work with some of the very best hospitals in the world. What are you hearing from those hospitals about testing . What do those hospitals need today . Well, i think weve seen a lag in testing. Were hearing increasingly that theres more access to testing this week than there was last week. Of course, we know about those delays. I think testing remains important. We need data to get a better handle on things like the mortality rate. It is still elusive. Also to understand what role, for example, children are playing in spreading the virus. We suspect, epidemiologists are noting theyre probably less symptomatic for the virus than the elderly or the rest of us, but we dont know what role theyre playing in spreading the virus. Itll inform decisions about whether there should be Public School closures. The information could be informed by Getting Better tests and having them more distributed. Were past the point of isolating particular cases and focusing most of the energy of the Health Care System on sort of containing and trying to do Contact Tracing for individual cases. More of the energy of policymakers and scientists is being focused on, and should be focused on, the larger mitigation of the collective impact through social distancing, through increasing the capacity of hospitals, to be able to treat patients as the influx increases, which we do expect it will. Bina, lets stick with the hospitals. What can you tell us . We have some of the best hospitals in the world in boston, general, brigham womens. What about the planning for the potential lack of hospital beds . Were just getting a handle on that now. At the globe, the Editorial Board is looking into this question today. We know facilities like boston medical center, which is very much working hand in hand with the city, with boston university, they are investing in tents and expanding their capacity for beds. We expect to see other hospitals announcing more of their measures. I think like a lot of the country, theres been a lack of awareness for weeks of how serious this problem could get. I think part of the problem has been a lack of clear information from leadership in the white house, to kind of go back to that. But i think were lucky here in boston. Were lucky in massachusetts to have these worldleading experts, people lithat are following and focusing our attention on the lack of capacity. I want to put to you this question, what would you say to families watching today . Mother, father, getting kids up, deciding whether or not to send them to school, deciding whether or not to travel this weekend perhaps. How should families be thinking about coronavirus this morning . Look, im not a doctor, but i really advise people to listen to epidemiologists who are talking about this problem at the state and local level and the national level. You heard tony fauci on the hill yesterday talk about how this problem will get worse before it gets better. I think his advice is the best advice for people to follow, which is to use their discretion, not make unnecessary trips. Think about their contact with the vulnerable populations, the immunocompromised and elderly. Limiting those interactions. Particularly for the populations to avoid large gatherings, mass transit at rush hour, and those kinds of measures we can all take. Bina who, again, helped president obamas response to the ebola crisis of 2014. Thank you so much. Good to see you. Mika . Thanks so much for having me jo. Ahead, so much more to get to on this. Kong is set to vote today on a Coronavirus Relief package. Well talk to congresswoman Lauren Underwood, a former registered nurse, about that. Morning joe will be right back. Get em while theyre hot. Applebees 25 cent boneless wings are back in your choice of three sauces. Applebees 25 cent boneless wings vo i want to rock rock i want to rock rock i want to rock rock rock rock rock rock rock rock i want to. chris rock whod you expect . Sylvester Stallone i dont know. Me . vo i want to rock rock rock rock rock i want to rock its an honor to tell you that [ applause ] thank you. Liberty mutual customizes your Car Insurance so you only pay for what you need. I love you only pay for what you need. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. From anyone else. So why accept it from your allergy pills . Flonase relieves your worst symptoms which most pills dont. Get allinone allergy relief for 24 hours, with flonase. 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I cant give you a real ig c realistic number until we put in the factor of how we respond. If we dont do aggressive containment and mitigation, the number could go way up and be involved in many, many millions. If we sought to contain, we can flatten it. Theres no number answer to your question until we act upon it. Ill give you a question. Nobody talks about, you know, every night they play, like, eight to ten nba games, and nobody talks about shutting them down. Is the nba underreacting . We would recommend there not be large crowds. If that means not having any people in the audience when the nba plays, so be it. As a Public Health official, anything that has large crowds is something that would give a risk to spread. A few hours later, the nba suspended all games until further notice after a player tested positive for the virus. Welcome back to morning joe. It is thursday, march 12th. Still with joe, willie, and me, we have mike barnicle, Jonathan Lemire, and john meacham. Joining the conversation, capitol hill correspondent and host on msnbc, kasie hunt. Columnist and associate editor for the Washington Post, david ignati ignatius. David, we had a lot coming at us yesterday afternoon and last night, of course. The news about the nba cancelling its season. March madness being played without crowds, which does seem absolutely surreal, of course. The dow going into a bear market for the first time in over a decade. The president delivering his speech. We get the news of tom hanks and rita wilson having coronavirus. I mean, they occupy a space in american popular culture, like john wayne did in the 1950s. One of the most beloved stars. Im just curious, after the president s speech, after the markets collapsed, the overnight markets collapsed, as he was delivering his speech, im curious your insights about where we find ourselves. Where this administration finds itself. And what you believe this Administration Needs to do. The president is right, were all on the same team. We all have to Work Together. What does the white house need to do now . Joe, i think yesterday was a day when the extreme seriousness of this health Care Challenge ahead of us hit everybody, including the president. You could see in his demeanor, there was no cockiness. He seemed concerned, worried. Its not his gear, really, to speak in a calming way to the country. Thats not what he has grown up as a new politician doing. Hes been more an excite er and divider sometimes. He played the role of a president we more wanted him to. Some of the measures make sense. Trying to reduce the spread and danger. Trying to take care of those who are most vulnerable. Obviously, critical, speaking about the special plight of the elderly. Its something we all should remember as we go about our daily business. The Health Care Experts that i talk to caution that you need to understand that the announcement yesterday by the World Health Organization, that this is a pandemic, means that the initial efforts at containment largely have failed to contain the numbers in controllable, mana manageable levels, and were now in a new phase, which you can call mitigation. You try to mitigate the damage. I dont think the president talked enough about that. Cutting off travel from europe really is more about the earlier containment approach than the new mitigation approach that i think were all going to want to talk about. Which means, you know, the six feet away from people. Be careful about when you go out of your hougse. All the things were learning to do. John meacham, i guess you have to go back to 9 11 to look at a time where the United States faced similar crisis. Where do we find ourselves in relations to that crisis . I brought that up last night with a ceo of an International Company who laughed and said, oh, my god. This is so much worse than 9 11. So many more people will die, and we dont know where it ends. We knew after 9 11, you know, two, three, four days after 9 11, we knew what hit us. We knew how we were going to respond. He said, were still just shuffling through the dark here and have no idea the scope of the damage thats coming, the number of deaths thats coming, and the Economic Impact to our economy. Yeah. Well, at the riggs k sk of selfparody, i think this goes way back, basically to plato and aristotle. This is patrick hobbs. We go into society out of fear, and we believe that if we surrender a little bit of liberty in exchange for the security of the tribe, the security of numbers, then the contract works. Otherwise, its a state of nature, and a state of nature is the one in which, as hobbs said, life is nasty, brew diud is bru short. Without being alarmist, thats kind of where we are here. Theres the thinnest of veneers, and september 11th showed it because of the terror and the wield of power, the perversion that led the attackers here. Then the bravery, the amazing courage of the death and salvation of some of the innocents in new york city, pennsylvania, washington. We saw on september 11th, and were seeing right now, in a slightly less dramatic but more prolonged way, as you were just saying, that the thinnest of veneers separates us from chaos. All right . Civilization is a very tender flower. We take it for granted most of the time. Its one of the reasons president ial leadership here, which would always be essential, is so magnified. We have this huge organization thats devoted, the federal government, that should be devoted to helping us, with the scientists, to get through this, and you need a president who is at once pastoral, at once reassuring, not panglossian. And this president , president of the United States, is not capable of staying out of the story. The testimony we saw yesterday was so much more important than anything the president said. Every american should try to find, if they can, the testimony yesterday and engage on the facts. Unfortunately, were in an era where we have to discount the president. Wow. President trumps former Homeland Security adviser for the president s first year and change in office has been speaking out quite a bit this week. He worked on the Global Health Security Team under President Trump, as well. Knows what he is talking about. Wrote an oped in the Washington Post and talked about the hospitals in the United States being a cream at from being creamed. He tweeted this morning after listening to the president s speech. Quote, the biggest misunderstanding about coronavirus interventions is that they are an a la carte menu to be selected. They all have to be implemented. Close schools and cancel events, writes thomas bosser. He writes, there is little value to a european travel restriction. Poor use of time and emergency. Earlier, yes. Now, travel restriction screenings are less useful. We have nearly as much disease in the u. S. As in europe. We have to focus on layered Community Mitigation measures now. This is somebody who is sounding the alarm for yet another day. Bossert was willing to break with him on the handling of the ukraine matter, as well, which led to his impeachment. He also tweets that at this point, the risk is the virus will be so widespread in the United States that the travel ban with europe, which he already says is not worth it, will be ineffective because the u. S. Will reinfest europe. People will go back there once the ban expires. This is indicative of a president who was slow to react. Even though, as he is clearly taking this more seriously, the administration ramped up the response, particularly with the Oval Office Address last night, he has one eye, if not more, still on the Economic Impact. He doesnt want to go all the way. He doesnt want to give guidance from the white house that other sports leagues and not just the nba should suspend games. Schools should close. That businesses should mandate workers work from home, whatever it might be. He is afraid of what the reaction would be on wall str t street. Hes afraid of what could happen to the economy. He is people around him are saying, he is still viewing a lot of this not just as a global Health Crisis, of course, but through the prism of his reelection effort in eight months. Hes terrified. He closely identified his political fortunes with the stock market, the economy, he is terrify thadied that a slowdown were in a bear market and could be approaching a recession, mike barnicle, could be moving to a depression if things continue to spiral, he fears it can doom his lelectoral chances. He wont put the pedal to the floor. For weeks now, addressing the international Health Crisis, the principal focus has been the stock market. He is more concerned about the stock market than this exploding virus across the country. Mika, one of the interesting aspects of that is we have people like the doctor we just had on, at one of the most recognizable experts and epidemiologists in the world, and they still have, the p profession professionals still maintain a respect for the office of the presidenc presidency. When you listen to them, you realize theyre like many people, shocked at the lack of leadership and preparedness in this country for dealing with this on a day to day basis. Absolutely. Absolutely can see that. House democrats are going to vote today on their proposed multibillion dollar aid package in response to the coronaVirus Outbreak. Among the emergency provisions included are three weeks of paid sick leave, widespread, free coronavirus testing, food aid and unemployment insurance. The next hurdle to jump will be getting the white house and Senate Republicans on board with the provisions. An Administration Official tells nbc news the package, wrote, contains proposals on some of the Critical Issues that the administration agrees are important. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi spoke to treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin twice by phone yesterday to muster up support. Meanwhile, a Senate Republican leadership aide tells nbc news that if the white house is behind House Democrats bill, the sen nats wiate will vote on. The house and Senate Begins a week long recess today and intends to pass Economic Relief measures beforehand. Kasie hunt, what is the mood on capitol hill pertaining to not just this package theyre trying to pass, but in terms of being able to Work Together and work with the white house . Is there a change in tone . Mika, i think that the tone is more urgent than ever. And there are a lot of questions that had been kind of hanging out there over the last 48 hours. That people are now rushing to answer. I couldnt know, to the point that Jonathan Lemire was making earlier, the president seemed to kind of skip ahead a couple steps. Hes worried about the markets. He wants to propose a payroll tax. Congress, both democrats and republicans, in consultation with Administration Officials, not the president , Steve Mnuchin, and others, are looking at this in terms of how do we help americans do the things they need to do in order to minimize the spread of this virus . Were a ways away from talking about taxes and relief for industries. Were talking about giving people sick leave so that if they feel sick, they dont feel as though theyre risking economic livelihoods by staying home. It is critically important. Talking about School Lunches for kids whose schools closed out of an abundance of caution, or perhaps out of real concerns here. Those are the kinds of measures that are in this bill. All of the signals that we are getting right now are that this is on, you know, a fast track. Normally when we say congress does things quickly, it is a period of a week, maybe two. This, were talking about days. Literally a matter of days. This is not something, really, that the president has been terribly directly involved with. Which, you know, i think, frankly, congressional leaders are happy about that. They want the president himself to kind of keep his distance, to let people who are the experts kind of work on this measure. You know, the reality is that that recess is important. The Capitol Building itself is a significant risk. Were already seeing one case, cantwells office. It took them until last night to cut off tours. Literally millions of people walk through the Capitol Building every day, tourists from all every the world and all over the country. Everyone was playing a game of change. Nobody wanted to be the first to say, we have to shut this down. Now, theyre getting to that point. You know, this is a delayed reaction on the part of the government that weve talked about a lot. Its obvious. Were talking about facts. Complete delayed reaction. Also, you wonder, joe, if a lot of what this president has done to the value of the truth and facts are leading people to be more lax about what they hear and what they believe in a time of cry skisis. Maybe supporters. Somebody took a picture of huge crowds in the capital rotunda yesterday or the day before. I asked myself, who is like, who is in charge . Its not just donald trump. You know, business leaders, Bank Officials sitting around, telling the president everything was going to be okay. Those tours continuing. I mean, there has been a lack of seriousness. People have been dragging their feet. There are going to be consequences for that. I do wonder, though, kasie, really quickly. Yeah. It was a week ago the republicans were mocking the coronavirus. It was a week ago that the president was calling it a hoax. People wearing gas masks on to the floor. President said the coverage suggesting it would be a pandemic was a hoax. Many of his supporters still believe its a hoax. People on certain Cable News Networks still talking about how the Media Coverage is a hoax. Theyre trying to take down the president. Im curious, after the sobering testimony that members received yesterday, not only from dr. Fauci but also from house medical officials, is there a growing understanding among republicans who had dismissed this, mocked it, laughed at it last week that this is, in fact, a pandemic and they better get moving . There is a reason for all of us to be very skoeconcerned. I think it is absolutely the case, joe. It started at cpac, when a bunch of republican members were potentially exposed to this. You know, there was kind of this realization that, you know, this was this is so far beyond politics. I mean, we have become used to, as a country, this vast divide between us. Theres been shouting back and forth. Nobody wants to believe anything the other side says. Although the vast middle of america, everyone is worried about this. Both quote, unquote, sides, partisan sides here, you know. This virus isnt going to take political sides. I do think there is a growing realization that they need to do something. I completely understand that there was a reluctance to overly alarm people. Because if americans are overly alarmed, it is going to put more stress on systems that are already going to be facing stressors. If people are panicked pause they have a cold and g to to to er, overwhelming testing, its a problem. However, we havent heard from our leaders, you know, calm urgency around this, in a way thats broken through. I think, mika, your point about the truth is a very, very important one. I mean, weve documented all the times that the president has not told americans the truth, to the point that there are some who have tuned that out and said, oh, its just the media. It doesnt matter. The reality is, we have to be able to trust the president of the United States in a situation like this. You know, i think thats what all our leaders are grappling with right now. Absolutely. Joining us now, democratic congresswoman Lauren Underwood of illinois. The congresswoman previously served as a seen nior adviser a the health and Human Services, helping respond to health emergencies. You have a lot on your plate. Id like to start with your thoughts on how the president did last night. Did he say anything you were hoping he would . Good morning. I viewed the president s speech last night with eager anticipation of a reflection on the gravity of this moment. A hope that he would outline a plan for widespread testing. You know, express to the American People, there was emphasis on some measures that could be useful in a containment strategy. I was pleased to hear that he is open to potentially signing legislation coming out of the congress. Im looking forward to voting for that familys first Coronavirus Response act that well have on the floor of the house today. Im trying to think of the obvious inevitabilities here, hospitals s becoming overrun, at least one person contaminating an entire Health System inside a hospital. Are measures being taken to sort of get ready for what is clearly on the way, on the horizon . Absolutely. Last night, we passed a package to help officials do this critical work. There are agencies in the federal government that work with hospitals and health care coalitions, Health Departments all around this country, to help them prepare for these types of emerging Infectious Diseases. In the bill we will be considering later today, there are measures to protect health care workers, the front line first responder, to make sure they have access to the personal protective equipment and the other measures, to make sure they can keep themselves safe. Not just our system functioning, but these Critical Health care workers remaining able to do their jobs. I think thats going to be really important as we see more and more Community Spread around this country. Congresswoman, David Ignatius with the Washington Post is with us and has a question. Congresswoman, i want to ask you because of your expertise, the basic question i know so many viewers want to have answers to. What should people do in this period of great anxiety to reduce their risk . Explain the ways of social distancing, of protecting yourself, of acting wisely, that will be helpful to people as they try to stay safe and stay healthy. Well, theres some basic tips to help families as they navigate throughout our communities, which include frequent hand washing, coughing and sneezing into your elbow, sanitizing frequentlytouched surfaces, avoiding touching your face. If you feel sick, stay home if you can. As we know, there is Community Spread, and there are also social distancing measures. For the elderly or those who are immunocompromised, well advise people to avoid large gatherings, avoid unnecessary travel. Make sure that we are all consulting trusted health care resources. There are really two critical ones. One is the centers for Disease Control and prevention. They have a new website, coronavirus. Gov, which outlines all types of advice and guidance we can implement into our daily lives. The second is in each of our states and communities. We have a health department. Those officials have been working around the clock the assess the risk in each of our communities, of which we know there is considerable variability, right . We have some hot bed of activity in the pacific northwest. Theres hot bed of activity in new york city and other areas around this country with different risk levels. Those local Health Departments are advising their communities specifically on what they should do. I think we can take cues from governors. My governor was on your program yesterday describing how frustrated he was with the lack of availability of test kits, right . We have local leaders, state leaders who are able to speak directly to their communities with the current state of affairs. We want to be sure to take our cues from them. Congresswoman, we saw yesterday the nba moved to suspend their season at least for the time being. The ncaa march madness is going to have games played without fans apparently. Itll obviously have a psychic impact on americans as they see this. Absolutely. For a lot of families, the thing closest to home is their children and schools. With your expertise, with your studying the issue, should School Districts, should major cities, whether in new york or a washington or a chicago or smaller ones, should they unilaterally be doing district wise School Closures right now . I, again, would refer people to the guidance from centers for Disease Control and the state and local Public Health agencies. We have not seen a blanket recommendation for School Closures, but we do know, in response to exposures, some schools and School Districts have taken that on, which is why in our package that we are voting on today, there is important nutrition assistance. We know that thousands of children around this country count on that school lunch, that school breakfast, and those meals as the only nutrition that they can kounts count on each ay day. As School Districts are making those tough decisions about whether to keep their doors open or to extend spring breaks weve seen a number of colleges and universities make these kinds of determinations for their students we want to make sure these basic food and nutrition aspects are being anticipated and that there is funding mechanisms to make sure no kid goes hungry. In the same way, this package were voting on today, the family first Coronavirus Response act, includes supplemental snap funds. We know that on that level with the lowincome families, that there is considerable food insecurity. For those folks who are reliant on hourly work and maybe have some instability as this economy starts to reel from the impact of the coronavirus, there could be considerable impact in their availability and their vabavaile to afford basic foundational needs like food. Right. Congresswoman underwood, just another problem youre working to tackle, and it is a problem that has has been underserved in many ways. That is Maternal Mortality, especially in the africanamerican community. Tell us, youre rolling out the momnibus bill, nine bills, trying to attack this problem. Tell us about it. In the United States, black women are four times three to four times more likely to die during childbirth in this country, a statistic unchanged for the last three decades. The United States is actually leading the industrial world in this elevated Maternal Mortality rate. Weve seen a variety of proposals coming ut of the congress. The 115th congress at the end of 2018, they passed legislation offered by butler to address Maternal Mortality. Medicaid could be expanded to a full postpartum. We recognize there are significant gaps. What our momnibus bill is doing is filling the gaps. Veteran women, incarcerated women, trying to fix the gaps in data were seeing across the country. Incorporating technology to save moms lives. Dealing with the real Substance Use and Mental Health aspects of Maternal Mortality. Really trying to take advantage of this critical opportunity and moment we have, to do all we can to save lives. No mother should be dying during childbirth or in the year afterwards in the United States in 2020. Congresswoman and registered nurse, Lauren Underwood, thank you very much for coming on. A lot going on. Willie, you know, it seems it really does seem like last night was a watershed moment, with all the things that hit us. I fully expect the markets are going to be unstable. Well probably lose a lot. I expect you to see im already hearing from friends that supermarkets are jammed this morning. Its like hurricane warnings. Every hurricane warning since ive been growing up, in florida, and been through dozens of them, initially met with skepticism and scoffs. People say, ill ride it out. Then you go through a katrina or andrew, you go through a major storm and, suddenly, its not a laughing matter anymore. I almost sense thats where we are this morning. Last night was a watershed moment for this country. Theres no question. Because it all came so quickly. The day started with the ncaa announcing there would be no crowds at the games that are played in football stadiums. The final four is in atlanta in a football stadium that could hold 40,000, 50,000 people. There wont be anybody in the game if they, in fact, end up playing final four. Last night, in the space of 30 minutes, i couldnt had tyou ha of the United States giving an Oval Office Address, the most serious address a president can give, the news the nba was suspending its season until further notice because one of its allstars was diagnosed with the coronavirus, and the highprofile case of tom hanks and rita wilson announcing they, in australia, were diagnosed with the disease, as well. We got another piece of news. The eu put out a statement saying it got no warning about the european travel ban the president announced in an Oval Office Address last night. It didnt know that was coming. They put out a statement condemning that. Weve heard from tom bossert, the president s former Homeland Security adviser, saying it is too late for things like containment, like shutting down travel from europe. By the way, not all of europe. The uk can still travel freely here. Were hearing from people, not critics of the president of the United States, people who worked alongside him, worked for him, Public Officials saying it is time to take this seriously. Lets hope the president does. David ignatius, how terrible that, at a time of crisis, when coordination with Health Organizations all across the world, across asia, across europe, across every continent, that coordination every bit as critical as sharing intel when youre in a war. Its so distressing that the president of the United States last night decided to attack europe at the top of his speech, implement a travel ban that really makes no sense. Again, i have no problem with travel bans as long as theyre directly related with the health care crisis. Exactly. Last night, it was not a tight fit. He ended up insulting again, as hes done the past three years, our closest allies, people we need to work with through this crisis to contain this pandemic globally. Joe, you put it just right. It was an address that should have been steadying, gathering the country and americas partners in dealing with this extraordinary moment of emergency that we face. It obviously didnt have that effect. Still, im struck in the way that everybody i talk to, including people from foreign governments, u. S. Officials, turning to the experts who know information that can help us. I think the president is going to try to speak from the oval office, but the focus, i think, is on the scientific, medical knowledge thats essential. Even trump seems to be def deferring, some of the time, to dr. Tony fauci, to the people who really are our National Treasures in this. There is also recognition that Government Matters weve been through a long period of den gra denegrading government services. I think fear makes you look at where you turn when youre in need. People know they have to turn to state, local, federal governments. Despite the problems at the top, there is an understanding among people, among a broad swath of legislators i talked to yesterday, that we need experts. We need to pull together. We need government to have good policies. It ends up populism and posing expertings. Talking about the death of experts, it doesnt stop a virus. Before we go to break, and we are going to break, id be remiss if i didnt, willie geist, bring up the fact that john meacham at the beginning of this segment talked about selfparody before speaking. I thought very well about aristotle and the social contract. I didnt find it to be selfparody. Then, in a remarkable act of selfparody, and seemingly unaware, he then used the term panglossian without a second thought. Of course, willie, you and i long said panglossian is one of the english languages most underused words. It is naively optimistic. Of course. He tossed out panglossian as if he was throwing out a conjuncti conjunction. I thought it was a selfparody in itself. John, our viewers, when they see you come on, they watch with a dictionary. They dont understand half of what youre saying. We love you anyway, buddy. Well, just because people who went to alabama and vanderbilt dont have the vocabulary doesnt mean we have to dumb this down. Raise the bar. David ignatius, thank you. Again, again, whenever willie and i brought up panglossian at our classes at the university of alabama and vanderbilt, our professors would scoff and say, please, please stop being so pretension. Suwannee is just up the road. Ill buy you a bus ticket. Still ahead, much more. Light break here. The Virus Outbreak gripping the nation. As we go to break, a quick update on the 2020 race. Senator Bernie Sanders said yesterday that he is pushing forward. That was quite a press conference, by the way. You thought he was dropping out. Nope. Ramping up with his president ial campaign despite former Vice President joe bidens big wins in a number of key states. Sanders addressed reporters in his hometown of burlington, vermont, yesterday, where he acknowledged bidens front runner status. He focused on the issues he hopes to press him on during sunday nights adddebate. Well be right back with much more morning joe. Last night, obviously, was not a good night for our campaign from a delegate point of view. Today, i say to the democratic establishment, in order to win in the future, you need to win the voters who represent the nurture of our country, and you must speak to the issues of concern to them. You cannot simply be satisfied by winning the votes of people who are older. The allnew silverado hd adds to the legendary capability of the strongest, most advanced silverados ever. With best in class Camera Technology and larger, more functional beds than any competitor. 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So there are people out there who believe this, and they are going about their business like nothing is going on. We have about 10, 15 seconds for you to get your message to them. For people who arent afraid of coronavirus and think it is just politics and hype. Well, obviously, theres been some irresponsible rhetoric, but the American People should know that President Trump has no higher priority than the health and safety and wellbeing of the people of this country. Just a few minutes ago, Vice President mike pence was asked by Savannah Guthrie on the today show whether the rhetoric downplaying the coronavirus by some was appropriate. Pence went on to credit the president s efforts to fight the virus. I will say this though, i will say this though, listen, we can spend the next two or three months in the middle of this Global Crisis nitpicking every word. I understand. It is going to be pitched politically. People are going to be covering their back sides for how badly they handled this crisis from the very beginning. But i just will say, willie, we have to look in every statement for a ray of hope. In this case, when mike pence said there has been some irresponsible rhetoric there, we need to focus on that, just like we needed to focus last night on the fact that the president of the United States called this what it was, a global pandemic. Im not waving a wand of absolution. I wouldnt have that power anyway. Im just saying that i do see the Vice President this morning, and the president last night, despite the many failures of that address, at least starting to take this seriously. Heres the most important thing he had an address. Heres the most important thing, gives Health Care Officials like dr. Fauci the free reign to be as aggressive as they need to be to get testing out, push social distancing, and to speak the truth to the American People at last. Vice president pence used the passive voice, saying there has been some irresponsible rhetoric. Clearly, he was answering a question from savannah about the president of the United States. We dont see that very often. I guess well take it. The truth is, as john meacham talked about earlier, and you and i have been saying for a week now, you have to look past the president and look at the experts. Look at dr. Fauci, look at the scientists and is doctors who have information, the people weve had on this morning who know what theyre talking about. Dont worry about the president s tweets. Focus on the doctors and the scientists. Lets bring in New York Times reporter jeremy peters. He is out with new reporting in the times on how rightwing pundits are covering coronavirus. Have you seen a shift at all in the last couple days in how some of those people who have been reckless and irresponsible with the way theyve talked about it, as a democratic conspiracy and a hoax, the same way the president has, have they changed their tune at all . Not really. We can listen to the radio shows today. As of yesterday afternoon, Rush Limbaugh was calling this basically a chinese bioterrorism plot. This is meant to destroy President Trumps economy. It is a employ by the democrats and the liberal media to take him out and undermine him. To attempt to impeach him again. This is part of the problem with where our political culture is in this country right now. Nothing is what it is. With President Trump and his support supporters, theres always a political emplploy. They dont see a Health Crisis but a political crisis, and one that could be potentially damaging to the president s reelection prospects. Everybody kind of defaults into this attack mode, where they attack the media, they attack the democratic party, they attack Public Health officials who are trying to say, hey, wait, we need to take this very seriously, and assume that it is all somehow meant to damage the president. Just think for a second about the most Vulnerable People as far as this virus is concerned. Theyre older. 60s, 70s. Who watches fox news all day long . People in their 60s and 70s. It is a problem. This is not just delusion. This is dangerous. When people hear it is whipped up by the partisan media, there are lives that are on the line. Thats the problem, joe. As you know, you cant just pass it off as rush being rush, talking to his audience or hannity being hannity and talking to his audience. They have millions and millions and millions of listeners and viewers who cake what they say as go as gospel. I do wonder, some of the Network Heads that are hearing some of the things people are saying, either on their radio shows or television shows, and how they and advertisers and people that own stock in those companies arent stepping forward and saying, listen, we understand that we live in idealogical times. We live in partisan times. There have to be guardrails. When you have hosts saying things that are just extraordinarily reckless. There was a host a couple nights ago on a Business Network that was talking about this being nothing more than a hoax like impeachment or like the mueller report. That people were just out to get donald trump. That actually, jeremy, feeds over into americans who go to their doctors and say, its a hoax. Yes , exactly right. Where else it feeds, joe, is the way republican politicians feel they are or are not emboldened to respond to it. That has changed, hasnt it, since cpac . Seems to me, when the republicans got the news that millions of americans could get infected by this, and theyve seen their friends at cpac already impacted by this, hasnt that changed on the hill at least for some republicans . I think for some. I think there are republican physicians on capitol hill who could be doing more to say, look, this is serious. This is not political. I have heard some of that. I havent heard a lot of it. The head of cpac is selfquarantined in his home in virginia right now. Giving medical advice on television, saying that the virus apparently is not very contagious because no one at cpac we know of is infected. That may be true. Maybe people at cpac, beyond the one individual we know about, wont be infected. But to default to this assumption that everything is fine, what youre hearing is not really whats happening, this is all hysteria, is not just another political game. When partisan news means pandemic, youre in uncharted territory. Sorry, mike. Quickly, it is interesting that on fox news, prime time, you have a split with hosts. Right. Some suggesting that it is nothing more than a hoax. Others, from the beginning, taking this very, very seriously, and calling out the administration and the United States governments slow response to this pandemic. Yeah, exactly right. Credit where credit is due. Tuck eer carlson has been more aggressive on this, as he has with other issues of trumps policy, saying that the tax cuts, for example, have gone to the wealthy and are not benefitting the working class voters that trump says he is for. What tucker has been doing over the last few days is saying, you know, taking on, not by name, but pretty implicitly sean hannity and others on the network who are playing down this pandemic. I think that is remarkable. Michael savage, talk about Michael Savage, his background, and his going after exactly people like hannity and others. Yeah. Exactly. I spoke to Michael Savage a number of times over the course of the trump presidency. We were emailing back and forth yesterday. Hes a scientist by training. He has a phd. He has been out there at the forefront saying what is essentially what Rush Limbaugh and the other hosts are doing is essentially what he told me is criminal negligence. They apparently, as far as hes conce concerned, dont have social n conscience. They are politicizing the one issue that shouldnt be politicized. Kasie, as discussed, a Tipping Point among conservative response, among the media and lawmakers, was cpac. Weve seen ted cruz and others selfquarantine, provide updates on twitter and so on with how theyre doing. What is your sense in terms of the republicans on the hill right now, their appetite for some sort of relief package, but also what are they telling the president . Do you have any sort of reporting in terms of them steering the trump to sort of take this more seriously and step up the administrations response . Well, i think the way theyre working with nancy pelosi is extraordinarily telling. To say, theyre basically telling her sail the ship. That says everything in terms of, you know, how seriously they are taking it. Under normal circumstances, right, theyre not going to let nancy pelosi just write the bills and give her whatever she wants. Shes obviously consulting with republicans and with the administration. I think that underscores how ury and how seriously they are taking things on capitol hill, that all of our normal rules for how, you know, this would kind of break down in a partisan way are out the window because everybody is suddenly on the same page. I do think there is a lot of private anxiety on capitol hill. Theres a lot of work, both mcconnell and pelosi are working very hard to project calm in this crisis, but it is covering up a lot of personal anxiety throughout the hill. I have had a lot of conversations with offices that are very concerned. You know, one quick thing to what joe was saying before, theres some reporting in politico this morning that the president is not declaring a National Emergency because hes concerned in part about how that headline would work, would look excuse me and potentially affect the politics of this. You know, that is a tool he has at his disposal that could free up billions of dollars for this response. I have a lot of questions for members of congress about whether they think that the president should take that step because if hes only not doing it for political reasons, thats potentially hamstringing a response at one of the most critical times, as dr. Fauci outlined yesterday. Mika, before we go to break i just want to briefly read ian bremmer, a guest on morning joe what he tweeted. I certainly hope the white house will take note of this because it will have consequences down the road. Chinese response to the coronavirus, air lifting massive medical aid to italy. The u. S. Response, cutting all flights. This will not be forgotten. No. Kasie hunt, thank you very much. Jeremy peters, thank you as well. Coming up, we have a lot more to cover on the global fallout from the coronavirus, but we have another big headline to get to. Former movie mogul Harvey Weinstein gets sentenced to 23 years in prison, but his lawyers are vowing to appeal that. Well talk about his day in court next on morning joe. Yes yes. Yes. Yeah sure. Yes yes. Yeah, yeah no problem. Yes. Yes, yes a thousand times yes discover. Accepted at over 95 of places in the u. S. Discover. How do you gaveeno® happy 24 7 . With prebiotic oat. It hydrates and softens skin. So it looks like this. And you feel like this. Aveeno® daily moisturizer get skin healthy™ where you can find games, news and highlights. All in one place, right on your tv. The new xfinity sports zone. Use your voice to search every stat and score. Follow the teams you love. And get notifications when the games about to start, with the xfinity sports zone, everybody wins. Now thats simple, easy, awesome. Say xfinity sports zone into your voice remote today. Harvey weinstein, the former hollywood producer who just last month was convicted of rape and criminal sexual act was sentenced to 23 years in prison yesterday in a landmark victory for the me too movement. Weinstein was sentenced to 20 years for criminal sexual act in the first degree, three years for rape in the third degree, to be served consecutively for assaulting the two women in new york. He was also sentenced to ten years of postrelease supervision for both charges. Joining us now, state attorney for Palm Beach County dave aronberg. Dave, what did you think of the sentence and what will happen next . Mika, i thought the sentence was appropriate. It sends a strong message to the world that rape is rape, regardless of delayed reporting, regardless of whether the victim had an ongoing relationship with the defendant. Sometimes the friendship continued long after the rape occurred and the prosecutors got this over to the jury and the jury got it. They had a very good 11page sentencing memo as well that set forth a lifetime of abuse and bullying conduct. They added evidence that wasnt part of the trial because they could do it at sentencing in new york, things like an allegation against a young woman from 1978 showing he had four decades of this behavior, bullying behavior, a physical assaulting even his own brother at work, knocking him out cold. This is a guy with no remorse, no compassion, no empathy, and they left the judge with that impression, a guy with private investigators on speed dial to dig up dirt on his enemies including the women who accused him. Someone who openly bragged he had the ability to have people killed. 23 years is a tough sentence, it is on the high end of the range, but i think here it was appropriate. As far as the appeal, i dont think it is going to succeed. There are some arguments theyre going to make about the introduction of evidence of other women who were not part of the charges, but theres a lot of deference given to the Trial Court Judge and i dont think hes going to win on appeal. He will serve the rest of his years in either a new york or a california prison. You know, his statement to the court, i read it. I dont know if perhaps it might have been different if you were in the court, but it seemed, dave, so hollow and surprising for someone with apparently so much talent in terms of movie producing, that he couldnt even concoct words that would express remorse. Am i overstating this . No, youre not. He believed that he was above the law. His own lawyers were trying to shut him up during the statement because they knew it was going poorly. He showed an utter lack of remorse. He was claiming to be the victim himself of this me too movement, that he was the one black listed when in reality he did a lot of the black listing. You had meara siravino who was black listed from much of hollywood for 22 years. So i think that the 23year sentence for Harvey Weinstein was appropriate in light of that. Hes no victim here, hes no martyr. I have five seconds. Does he have a chance of appealing this . Is there a chance he could reduce this . Hes going to try, but it is not going to work. Hes going to also be sent to l. A. To face another rape trial where he could get another 27 years in prison on top of the 23 years in new york. So hes locked up. Dave, thanks. We will be coming back to this for sure. Coming up, we will talk to the number two democrat in the senate, dick durbin, about the measures being considered to ease the financial burden for americans amid the coronaVirus Outbreak. Plus we will talk to the governor of ohio as he prepares to announce new measures to keep the virus from spreading in his state. Back in one minute. So it looks like this. And you feel like this. Aveeno® daily moisturizer get skin healthy™ were finding very little problem, very little problem. Now, you treat this like a flu. This is the most aggressive and comprehensive effort to confront a foreign virus in modern history. It is going to disappear one day. It is like a miracle, it will disappear. We will be suspending all travel from europe to the United States for the next 30 days. We have thousands or hundreds of thousands of people that get better just by, you know, sitting around and even going to work. Some of them go to work. If you are sick or not feeling well, stay home. The democrats are politicizing the coronavirus. This is the new hoax. We must put politics aside, stop the partisanship and unify together as one nation. And the whiplash doesnt stop there. Minutes after the president said last night that cargo would be restricted from europe, causing the markets to quiver, the white house said, actually, no, no, no, cargo will not actually be restricted. Good morning and welcome to morning joe. It is thursday, march 12th. Along with joe, willie and me, we have msnbc contributor mike barnacle. White house reporter for the Associated Press Jonathan Lemire. And historian and author of soul of america at Vanderbilt University professor, john meachem an nbc news and msnbc news contributor. The coronavirus has entered a devastating phase as the World Health Organization declares it a global pandemic. There are now more than 126,000 cases across more than 100 countries and regions. The latest numbers from Johns Hopkins University Ranks the United States eighth in terms of countries with the most confirmed cases. Keep in mind we have a limit on testing. We learned this morning from officials in florida that a passenger with coronavirus arrived at Palm Beach International airport from new yorks jfk airport last night. Two sources tell nbc news that in a closeddoor briefing the attending physician of Congress Told Senate Staffers yesterday that he expects 70 million to 150 Million People in the u. S. Will contract the virus. On wall street the dow plunged 1,400 points into a bear market. More on that in just a moment. Last night President Trump delivered a Rare Oval Office address and announced that travel from certain parts of europe would be restricted. Much more on that in just a moment as well. The virus is now taking a greater toll on americans social and cultural life. The governors of california and oregon issued new guidelines last night to cancel all gatherings of 250 people or more, the same for Washington State in certain counties. More than 100 colleges have now cancelled inperson classes, the latest being duke, georgetown, George Washington university, uva and the university of notre dame. The nba meanwhile suspended all games until further notice after a player tested positive for the virus. Ncaa march madness games now will be closed to spectators. Sources tell espn that Major League Baseball teams are preparing for policies that could disrupt early season games, with the home openers of the l. A. Dodgers, the Oakland Athletics and the San Diego Padres in question. There was also this rare statement from mlb, the nba, soccer, that locker rooms will be closed to the press. A face we recognize is attached to the virus after tom hanks revealed he and his wife, rita wilson, tested positive while in australia. Theres also the first known case on capitol hill. After a staffer at Maria Cantwells d. C. Office also tested positive for the virus. Her staff on the hill and back home in Washington State will now work from home. Twitter, which has dozens of offices around the world, also announced that its employees will work from home. So, willie, yesterday afternoon as you just watched the newsfeeds on twitter or you were watching tv, you noticed things really started to accelerate quickly. It had been a bad situation. The markets had been falling all day, but suddenly march madness, in fact, cancelled for fans going to the games and more stories coming out one after another, and then the president goes on and delivers his speech. We get the news of tom hanks and rita wilson. We get the news of the nba cancelling the rest of the season. One college after another college being closed. So last night you had americans, unlike any time really since 9 11, americans were tuning in to watch their president and they wanted reassurance. I did agree with what the president said, that we are in this together. This is a battle we all have to join together regardless of our political ideology. It is unfortunate though that instead of reassurance it seems that his address only unsettled americans more if you look at the initial response and also rattled International Markets which immediately fell. I will say the one bit of good news for me as i was watching it was that the president called it a pandemic. Hes taking it seriously now. This allows his Administration Officials to go out and act aggressively without being worried, without worrying about being undercut by the president like azar was undercut and fauci and others were undercut before. They can attack this problem aggressively now, and that is good news. It is also good news for physicians. I have a very good friend who is a physician who yesterday told me that oh, right. Half of his clients do not believe at least yesterday afternoon, did not believe they think it is a hoax. That the coronavirus is real. They believed it was a hoax made up by the media, and this is a guy who had been their doctor for 15, 20 years. The president has spread a lot of misinformation, has done a lot of dangerous things. People on trump, protrump broadcasts said a lot of really dangerous, reckless things over the passed couple of days. It is my hope that the address last night pours cold water on the conspiracy theories and now we can all get to the business of treating this pandemic. Yes, we will get to some of the particulars of what the president said last night, if theyre good ideas, what the impact of those will be. But youre right, america woke up last night. Theres no question. In the space of about 30 minutes the nba suspended its season until further notice, the president gave that address and then we got the news, as mika mentioned, that tom hanks and rita wilson had contracted coronavirus while in australia. That list to put together with all of the other things that came during the day including the fact that you had that congressional doctor telling staffers up on the hill that there could be 150 million cases of coronavirus in this country, america is awake now. We know it is a problem. But, as you say, you cant help but stop and wonder those weeks spent calling it a hoax by the president , those weeks spent denying it was happening, those weeks not doing enough about this, will that lost time come back to haunt this country . We shall find out. We are going to talk to a leading Infectious Disease doctor in a moment, but, as we mention, President Trump has announced a ban on most travel from europe into the United States for the next 30 days. During an Oval Office Address last night President Trump explained the new restrictions will begin tomorrow at midnight. The ban applies to 26 European Countries and in a zone without border controls. The United Kingdom is not included in the ban, although there have been 456 cases of coronavirus there so far resulting in eight deaths. According to the department of Homeland Security, the ban only applies to foreign nationals who have been in the countries at any point during the 14 days prior to their scheduled arrival to the United States. The ban does not apply to u. S. Citizens, green card holders or the families of u. S. Citizens. During the address last night, President Trump blamed the European Union for failing to take similar precautions as those being taken now by the u. S. Taking early, intense action we have seen dramatically fewer cases of the virus in the United States than are now present in europe. The European Union failed to take the same precautions and restrict travel from china and other hot spots. As a result, a large number of new clusters in the United States were seeded by travelers from europe. To keep new cases from entering our shores, we will be suspending all travel from europe to the United States for the next 30 days. The new rules will go into effect friday at midnight. We are marshaling the full power of the federal government and the private sector to protect the American People. This is the most aggressive and comprehensive effort to confront a foreign virus in modern history. I am confident by counting and continuing to take these tough measures we will significantly reduce the threat to our citizens and we will ultimately and expeditiously defeat this virus. Shortly after the president spoke there the white house had to clarify some of his remarks. During his address the president said restrictions would apply to cargo shipped into the United States from europe, but the white house later said the ban only applies to people and not to goods. Joe, as you say, the president at least in his tone and tenor taking it seriously finally after suggesting it would disappear even just a couple of days ago. Right. Saying, stay calm, this thing is going to go away. The problem is there were many errors within his speech and he is talking about this like it is still a containment story and not something that has to be dealt with inside our country. It is here. Right. Well, Health Care Officials are fine with bans from other countries, fine with, you know, trying to keep more infected people out of the United States, right . But if thats what you are leading with, a ban, if thats your focus, you dont understand thats exactly right. As somebody said last night on twitter that the killer is already inside the house. Right. So you need to worry first about the killer inside of the house before but go ahead, lock the door, stop other killers from coming inside the house, but the lead last night should have been testing. The lead last night should have been social distancing. The lead last night should have been relief for workers being sent home because their children are home from school. The lead should have been a lot of things that the president just didnt talk about. He talked, again, about bans. He talked about bans from europe, but somehow deciding to exempt great britain, which actually makes very little sense. If you look at the numbers themselves. And well talk about all of those missed leads straight ahead with a doctor who spent his career studying Infectious Disease. Morning joe is coming right back. Things at once. So when her car got hit, she didnt worry. She simply filed a claim on her usaa app and said. I got this. Usaa insurance is made the way kate needs it easy. 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I like to recommend pronamel to my patients to help them protect their teeth and keep the enamel strong. And i dont count the wrinkles. But what i do count on is boost high protein. And now, introducing new boost women. With key nutrients to help support thyroid, bone, hair and skin health. All with great taste. New, boost women. Designed just for you. Joining us now here in new york, Infectious Disease doctor and senior scholar at Johns Hopkins center for health security, dr. Amish adalja. Thank you for being here. Lets tick through some of this. First of all on testing, the president did not talk about testing. In fact, he touted the low number of positive cases here. We all know it is because we havent had any testing or enough testing to find how many cases there actually are in this country. What would you like to have heard as a doctor from the president about testing and what still can be done today . I would like to have heard an acknowledgement of the fact we have low cases, the fact our curve is not high has to do with the fact we are not finding the cases, that it is even with Big Companies being able to offer the test like lab corp and quest, you have to go through a lot of burden. It is not as seamless as ordering an influenza test. Many of the cases are mild and many people dont have the time to fill out all of the papers on someone you are just going to send home, and the fact is hospitals want to know who you are testing. The Hospital Administration gets involved and it becomes more difficult. It is not seamless the way when you order an hiv test it is ordered and done and you get the result. Theres a lot of steps in the way of getting a test for our patient. Thats why we are seeing a lot of people choosing not to test and theres guidance on what kind of protective equipment you need to wear to get a swab. Washington and oregon is not using cdc guidance anymore because it is cumbersome and not evidence based on the risk of swabbing someones nose, that you have to wear full protective equipment. Thats the draw back in the response. The diagnostic testing will be the story of the pandemic because we know it has been in the United States for sometime because we werent able to detect it because we didnt have the test and there was an impression, which was false, that it was something foreign, something only travel related or exclusively travel related when we know it was spreading at least since november in china meaning many countries might have been seeded and had these outbreaks mixed into the cold and flu season. What changes the testing trajectory, not the trajectory of how many have it and getting it under control, but when will we begin to know how many have coronavirus in america . I think it is starting to ramp up with the state health labs coming online and the Big Companies and now theres an acknowledgement we are in a pandemic, we have Community Spread in places like Washington State and new york state, that people know you dont have to just come from china or iran or italy, and thats going to get people to want to order the tests. We know that to right size the outbreak response we have to know where we are on the epidemic curve and we dont know where we are in the epidemic curve. As i said, i think last night a lot of americans woke up. Maybe they were listening to the president who said, dont worry, it will go away, they were skeptical it was media hype, but last night the confluence of events from the president s speech to suspension of the nba season to someone as visible as tom hanks and his wife rita wilson contracting coronavirus. We have americas attention now. Where are you on how this proceeds from here . In other words how bad is it and where does it go tomorrow and a week from now and two weeks from now . I do think we are going to see an increase, a steep rise in cases as testing comes online and people become aware it is in their communities and doctors start looking for it. We will start to hear about severe cases. We still dont have a full handle on what the case fatality ratio is. We know it is probably 1 , it may be lower than that based on south korean data and we will hear reports from hospitals with critically ill patients, we will hear how hospitals are preparing which is the linchpin in the case, how well hospitals can deal with the surge of patients theyre going to receive, but it is going to get worse before it gets better. It may taper off as you heard in a lot of places when it gets warmer because respiratory have seasonality. We dont know specifically for this one but we know for others related to that. It likely will come back in the fall and hopefully we will be better prepared when it comes in the fall with diagnostic test and farther on vaccine development, clinical trials, we will have some of the results. Doctor, great to have you with us this morning. Thank you so much. Coming up, an important voice in the policy fight against coronavirus. The second ranking democrat in the u. S. Senate, illinoiss dick durbin joins our conversation. Morning joe is back in a moment. This new Samsung Galaxy on verizons 5g network is a big upgrade. vo this is ultra. The new Samsung Galaxy s20 ultra 5g powered by verizon 5g ultra wideband. 5g ultra wideband is so much faster than even my home internet. vo with ultrafast speeds. In the gaming world, if you lag youre done. With verizon 5g ultra wideband, i dont worry about lag. vo now, buy one of our newest Samsung Galaxy 5g phones and get an s20 on us. 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Bottom line, it is going to get worse. We do not know what this virus is going to do. We would hope that as we get to warmer weather it would go down, but we cant proceed under that assumption. Weve got to assume that it is going to get worse and worse and worse. This is a really serious problem that we have to take seriously. I mean people always say, well, the flu, you know, the flu does this, the flu does that. The flu has a more tatalitymort. We heard yesterday, dr. Dave, that the congress inhouse doctor told capitol hill staffers at a closed door meeting he expects 70 to 150 Million People in the u. S. Thats like a third of the country, to contract the virus. How accurate is that in your estimate and how lethal could that be . Mika, that projection is in line with other experts and underscores the seriousness of this pandemic. Dr. Monahan, the physician for the United States congress, briefed congress two days ago that somewhere in the vicinity of a third of the country may become positive with this virus. Theres statistical modelling out of harvard that supports this as well. Dr. Lipswich in his modelling finds 20 of adults in the world will become positive and infected with this new coronavirus. So potentially we are at the beginning of this, not the middle or the end, which is quite frightening. We heard from dr. Anthony fauci that, you know, it remains difficult to really assess mortality rates right now. Is that accurate . Can you tell us why . Yes. The problem that we encountered over the last few weeks is that there was a prediction of thought that there were a lot of asymptomatic patients who were infected. The World Health Organization has found that is not the case. So as we see the increasing numbers being reported as the World Health Organization did, we see a 3. 4 mortality rate reported. So if the seasonal flu, the flu is. 1 mortality, even if it is only 1 as dr. Fauci said, thats a tenfold increase over the flu. So if were using the flu as a measure, that should tell everybody how serious and how potentially fatal this disease is. So a couple of things here. We heard that tom hanks and his wife rita wilson, theyve got the coronavirus. Theyre in australia, which really puts a face to this. I wonder about the president s european travel ban, how much thats really going to affect the spread of the disease in the u. S. Because, for example, we have reports like the one we got this morning of a passenger from jfk who comes down to palm beach, is completely positive for coronavirus and an entire plane now has been exposed. I mean it is here, is it not . It is here and we do know that someone arrived last night at Palm Beach International airport who had tested positive before they got on the plane. Whoa. But the president s ban on european travel, it cant hurt because, as dr. Fauci said, there are different ways to mitigate the spread of this disease. One is to stop adding newlyinfected patients to the pool. So thats a good thing, but we also have to deal with the mitigation strategies which include, in my opinion, social distancing, is what we can all do and we can start practicing that today. Tufts university, speaking as a surgeon now, has stopped scheduling and performing elective surgery. Wow. You heard from me a few days ago i stopped scheduling elective surgery. We will see that spread across the country as physicians decide what to do with their kind of routine clinic visits, with their elective surgical procedures and tests. This is a big week and the seriousness of this cannot be overstated. It is ramping up. Dr. Dave campbell, thank you once again. Coming up, states are on the front lines in the fight against coronavirus with many struggling to get the testing kits they desperately need. We will talk to republican Governor Mike Dewine about that next on morning joe. We have like 40 years of data thats incredibly valuable . I. I dont know. When did we introduce siracha . Not soon enough. These are our sales. By product, by region. Set against evolving demographics. You can actually see taste trends. Since when can we do that . Since we started working with bdends. announcer people who know, know bdo. And the 2020 census is how that great promise is kept. It informs where billions in funding will be spent on programs that touch us all. Shape your future. Start here. Learn more at 2020census. Gov will be spent on programs that touch us all. Tmobile has the first and only nationwide 5g network. Experience it on a Samsung Galaxy s20 5g. Right now, when you buy one, you get one free. 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In particular, we are strongly advising Nursing Homes for the elderly suspend all medically unnecessary visits. In general Older Americans should avoid nonessential travel in crowded areas. And it is not just Older Americans as socalled social distancing ramps up across the country. More than 200 universities across the country announced inperson classes will be cancelled or postponed. That according to a public Google Spreadsheet maintained and updated bay georgetown scholar. Yesterday Duke University and the university of north carolina, georgetown and George Washington universities, the university of virginia, the university of michigan, and the university of notre dame in indiana all announced they would now move to online classes, upending the education of thousands as dorms emptied out and students scrambled to find housing. The State University of new york and the City University of new york systems also announced they would be moving to virtual courses. Florida State University system also instructed its universities to move to remote classes as soon as possible. Joining us now is the governor of ohio, mike dewine. Thanks very much for being on with us. Good morning. I understand your state has several cases of coronavirus, but i always put that up against the actual number of tests. How many tests does ohio have to test for coronavirus . Well, what we had yesterday was our first example of Community Spread. We had this from an individual who was in stark county. So this has certainly ratcheted up for us. We issued an order yesterday in regard to Nursing Homes, to limiting the number of people who not only who can go in, but we wanted to make sure that the temperature is taken of everyone going in, whether theyre a worker, theyre a contractor, whoever is going in those Nursing Homes, we have to have them screened. Today we will be issuing an order having to do with the whole issue of mass gatherings. But part of my message to the people of ohio the, look, it is not just what the governor is ordering. Thats the minimum. Right. People have to take it into their own hands and make decisions, is this trip necessary, is this meeting necessary. And when you weigh it against the possibility of getting the virus, most of the times the answer is going to be no, it is not necessary, it is not worth the risk. Right. But do you have how many tests does your state have . Are you still lacking like others . Well, i think every state is does not have an abundance of tests. We got some additional ones yesterday. You know, we are doing this based upon the individuals who are the most dire situation, and that is, you know, what the protocol has been across this country. So were no different than any other state. So, governor, thanks for being with us. You told the people of ohio what you were trying to do by taking aggressive measures was to stop being or hope that maybe ohio wouldnt become like italy, that the United States wouldnt become like italy. What do you need from the federal government right now more than anything else to help you help the people of your state contain this virus . Well, i think the actions taken by the president last night certainly made sense. You know, woo that the federal government can control is our boarders. Thatour borders. I think the president had the right tone. It is time to put politics aside and come together. But were constantly my director of health, dr. Amy atkins, who is doing a phenomenal job as are the Health Departments around the state of ohio, we have 113 separate ones. But our focus is on ohio, on the people of ohio, telling them the truth of what we know, getting them to change their actions. It is tough because people look around and they see nothing has really changed. Everybody is going about their business, so it is hard to get people to understand, look, we have to dramatically change what were doing. And as all of the experts on your show and other shows have said and the expert advise im getting from about 15 doctors i put together in a working group and that is, look, our goal is to spread this out, it is to slow it down. We dont want our Health Care System to implode, and that is really the message that im carrying to the people of the state of ohio. Im very, very focused on ohio. This is my job, to focus on what is going on here in ohio. Hey, governor, it is willie geist. One of the things you have been focused on and keeping a close eye on i know is the schools in the state of ohio. I ask this because every state and municipalities, big states, little towns, are wonder whether or not they should keep their schools open. Where are you . I know yesterday you said, im not ordering to close schools k12. Does it change today . Does it change down the road for you . What is the distinction when we talk about social gatherings with a bunch of people getting together for a concert or a game or Something Like that versus a school with large groups of young people and teachers in one place . Again, i consult the expert. Im not the science expert or the medical expert, but we pull the best people we can in. This is the toughest decision according to the experts because there are a lot of consequences when you close schools. Sure. You know, you may end up, for example, with a lot of kids being taken care of by grandparents. That might be okay if the grandparent is 42, but what if the grandparent is 70 or 65 where the mortality rate goes up rather dramatically . That is one big concern. Another concern thats been expressed to me is, you know, about a third of our health care workers, you know, have a young child. They have a child in school. So what happens if that child is home and that parent say it is a single parent has to stay home and so you are pulling that individual out of the Health Care System. So i dont have a great answer, but, i tell you, we are spending most of today pulling people in, kind of war gaming this in, getting our educators on the phone, getting many of our superintendents and talking this thing through. What i have said is we should start preparing for that time. We dont know when that is going to be. We know at some point the schools will have to close. You know, you are trying to weigh the risk of doing it or not doing it, and it is a tough decision. It is. Candidly. Governor, in terms of the word preparation, you have a primary election coming up tuesday, the 17th. What are you doing now that you werent prepared to do, say, a month ago given the number of people who have been voting in other states . What are you doing . Well, we had, i think, about 75 polling places that were in Nursing Homes. So that was the first thing that secretary larose, our secretary of state who runs the elections, the first thing we did was say, we got to get them out of the Nursing Homes. We cant have that many people going into the Nursing Homes. We are encouraging people. In ohio we have early voting. People can vote today. They can go to their board of elections. We are encouraging people to figure out a time of day when there are not that many people there and go vote. The election will be held on tuesday. We want everybody to go vote. But if you can vote early, you know, if you have an absentee ballot for example as long as it is postmarked on election day that ballot is going to count. People can actually go into the board of elections, lets say, at 2 00 this afternoon or 2 30 this afternoon when the lines probably wont be very great at all, and go ahead and vote and get it out of the way. We are trying to spread the voting out and encouraging people to do that so they avoid that personal contact. We keep getting back to, look, avoid situations where you are in a lot of close contact with a lot of people. So whether thats in a restaurant, whether thats in a bar, you know, think about that. Is there a way to avoid that or lessen that contact. All right. Governor mike dewine with word from the front lines of all of this. Thank you very much. And up next, senator dick durbin joins our conversation with a look at how capitol hill is dealing with the outbreak. As we go to break, here now is the Republican Partys 2008 Vice President ial nominee moments before President Trump addressed the nation on coronavirus. Right here on morning joe. When a girl walk in with a waist in your face you get struck oh, my god. What is our show . Come on. No. No. N. Ni ni, no no only discover has no annual fee on any card. Stays at choicehotels. Com and earn a free night. 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By brushing with sensodyne sensitivity gum at home its giving you the relief that you need and the control that you need to take care of your oral health. And it creates a healthier environment. Theres no question its something that i would recommend. Well, the first thing i would want to point out is that this virus did not originate in the United States. It originated in wuhan and Hubei Province in china. It originated sometime ago. Unfortunately, rather than using best practices this outbreak in wuhan was covered up. Theres lots of open source reporting from china, from chinese nationals that the doctors involved were either silenced or put in isolation, that sort of thing, so word of this virus could not get out. It probably cost the World Community two months to respond, and those two months if we had had those, been able to sequence the virus and had the cooperation necessary from the chinese, had a w. H. O. Team been on the ground, had a cdc team, which we offered, been on the ground, i think we could have dramatically curtailed what happened both in china and what is now happening across the world. Oh, gee. That was National Security adviser Robert Obrien speaking yesterday in washington. Several governors have declared a state of emergency in their own states at this point. Well, you know, for the National Security adviser to obsess about where it started, thats fine if he really wants to do that. I think what he points out is a lack of transparency in china at the beginning of the coronavirus caused its spread outside the borders of china, and, of course, the United States president s lack of transparency caused Serious Problems here, terrible missteps early on in the process compromised our ability to test to know how widespread it is. Joe, we have known about it since december 1. Also, it stopped Health Care Officials because of our lack of transparency from doing proper things. After this is all over we need to talk about china, we need to talk about chinas response. If you read markets in china, where a lot of diseases originate. We need to have that discussion after this is over. But the killer has walked through the door. It is in our home. Us locking the door after that makes sense, i guess, but we have to address the situation at hand. We have to address the crisis in front of us. And people i see people on twitter talking about what to call the virus. Do you call it the chinese seriously . Are you serious . Is this what you really want to debate about right now or debate on how to save your mothers life . How to save your fathers life. How to save your grandparents lives, your childs life if he or she has an underlying condition. This is complete silliness. Lets have the debate afterwards. Right now there is a killer in the house. We need to get. Governors have declared a state of emergency in their own states. President trump, though, has been reluctant to do the same for the entire country. Pol politico reports the president is worried it will stoke panic. The president is also concerned the declaration would hamper his narrative that the coronavirus is similar to the seasonal flu. Instead, trump is expected to sign a more limited designation that will allow the federal government to cover paychecks for wage workers and Small Business loans. Health and Human Services secretary Alexander Azar is reportedly pushing for an Emergency Declaration which would enable the administration to use femas 40 billion Disaster Relief fund. But Vice President mike pence, head of the task force on coronavirus, is reportedly concerned a declaration would send the economy into a freefall. Several News Agencies are reporting that lawmakers are preparing to ask for the Emergency Declaration that didnt come in last nights president ial address. Politico reports that Chuck Schumer and senator patty murray of hardhit washington are preparing a letter to the president. Joining us now, the second ranking democrat in the senate, member of the judiciary committee, minority whip dick durbin of illinois. Thanks for being on. Should the president declare a National State of emergency . Yes, i believe he should. We have to keep america safe. Speculating on how this started, where it started and where there were politics involved in it, leave that to the historians. We want American Families to feel safe and feel that were doing everything within our power. The first thing is to make sure we have the test kits out and available. When the governor of illinois calls me, calls my office and tells me theres a shortage of these kits and the cdc is not providing them to my home state of illinois, one of the first with an identified coronavirus victim, that, to me is a the need for a National Emergency response. Why did we turn down the w. H. O. Offer of test kits that were being given to over why didnt we set it up senator, why did we do that . It has put us behind. Why did the president turn down test kits that would have allowed us right now to know who is infected, the extent of the infection and how we limit further spread of the infection . Why . Thats the question thats gone unanswered. Ive gone to all my colleagues, patty murray and Chuck Schumer and others and said, youve talked to people in the administration. I have, too. I havent had an answer. Cdc told me as much yesterday on the phone that they dont have the chemicals, the reagents necessary so these test kits can be taken to a laboratory and actually processed. That, to me, is a breakdown, basic breakdown. If it takes a National Health emergency to get beyond that and have the test kits we need, lets do it. So what do we do . What do you do specifically today to make sure that the people of illinois, the people of florida, arizona, where there are more Elderly Population, what do you do as a United States senator to begin moving the president , moving the administration, moving the federal government forward more aggressively to get that testing out . And more importantly to educate americans to let them know when theyre going to be able to get a test. When their mother, their grandmother, their grandfather are going to be able to get those tests. Well, i can tell you most of us are speaking out and reaching out to this administration to express our concern, if not anger over this current situation. We need to move and move quickly. Now the president s announcement last night is worth looking at. Im not going to judge it on its merits about travel between europe and the United States. Europe does have a problem. Italy. And its anticipated other in countries. But lets get this right at home. Lets get this right at home. Figure out what it takes to make sure these test kits are produced in a timely manner as quickly as possible, despite all the president s promises. It is not a fact, in my state of illinois, we need more of these test kits, need them now and were not the only state facing that. Senator, its Jonathan Lemire. A time of crisis like this requires both leadership and assistance from the federal government. So i wanted to ask you, first of all, your take about the tone from the president last night, his Oval Office Address, but also the Senate Democrats plan and where things stand right now with negotiations with your republican counterparts and the white house to helping americans who are impacted by this virus. Well, our focus is really on the workers and the families and the seniors across america who really have to be the first line of response to this pandemic challenge. The Illinois Restaurant association comes in to see me, and i asked, so what if a person in the back of the house has a fever and should be going home. Can they go home . Is it a situation that without a paycheck they cant pay their rent, pay for their food and utilities . Shouldnt we have, as part of any response by the federal government, a guarantee that there is paid sick leave so that sick employee goes home as they should, not infecting other employees and customers and the public at large . Shouldnt we have Unemployment Benefits ready immediately for those who lose a job when Companies Start throttling down because the economy is contracting . What were looking at are the families first. Make sure theyre taken care of and we do the right thing from a Public Health viewpoint. Sick leave and unemployment are the starting points for me. Senator, its willie geist. You called for the president to declare a National State of emergency. Governors have taken pains as theyve declared states of emergency within their own states to say, this isnt a freak out. This frees up resources. Its an administrative question. What would you say to the people who hear National State of emergency and do get very worried . All hands on deck. All the resources of our government at the federal level as well as at the state level should be dedicated to responding to this as quickly as possible with the best in testing, the best in medical care, the best in advice of what we do with our families and our daily activity. We need to mobilize this nation behind it. A National State of emergency would achieve that. All right, senator dick durbin, thank you very, very much. And as he said, joe, as we close out the show here, all hands on deck. I think the bottom line is, politically, we are where we are. We are where we are in terms of this virus coming to the United States. And its up to everybody to try and help out and follow the rules that the scientists are giving us. Yeah, well, i agree with what the president said last night that were all in this together. I my greatest hope today is that the president heeds his own words and moves forward accordingly. Declares a National Emergency. Gets those test kits out there so we can see the size and scope of this pandemic problem of the United States and start aggressively working to contain it. As much as we can. Actually, i guess i should say mitigate it because were well past containment because of the errors, Jonathan Lemire, already made by the United States government. No question. Interesting to see the tone from the president today. Were not expecting to see or hear much from him. He does have one event today with the Prime Minister of ireland. Hes expected to address the press briefly then. After his Oval Office Address last night, there is no Coronavirus Briefing on the schedule today. You dont have to be a historian, joe, to realize and have read about what happened after december 7th, 1941, in america. Where cities like detroit literally rebuilt the country for preparedness for war and getting ready for war and won the war. And you have to wonder today listening to dick durbin, structurally, what has hand to the United States government that we are faced with this National Medical emergency. We dont have enough medical test kits, enough respirators. Joe and mika, youll see after last nights turning point, the nba set a standard. The season has been suspended. I suspect the nhl will follow and the Major League Baseball season suspended in some way. This has changed america already. Can we get it under control while we still have time . Sdhthat does it for us this morning. Stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now. Im Stephanie Ruhle. Its thursday, march 12th. A whole new phase of the coronavirus crisis. Maybe even a Tipping Point. The country and the world on pause as it races to fight what we are now able to officially call a global pandemic. Right now there are 1,284 confirmed cases in the United States. The virus has taken 38 lives here. And reached 43 states, 17 of those have declared a state of emergency. We learned just moments ago that carnivals Princess Cruises will pause global ship operations for the next 60 days. And that adds to whats been a crazy 24 hours. The nba suspends its 18 after a player on the utah jazz tested positive for the virus. Washington, california and oregon put out new guidelines calling for all gatherings of more than