Good evening once again tonight from our nbc news headquarters in chicago. Im ali velshi in for brian williams. Its day 1,148 of the Trump Administration. 236 days to go until the 2020 president ial election. As this country now grapples with the concerns over coronavirus, there are many more stark signs of the outbreaks deepening impact. Wall street witnessed yet another meltdown, the worst day there since 1987. Despite the Federal Reserve promising to inject at least 1. 5 trillion worth of money into the financial system, the dow sank 10 . For the second time this week, the rapid stock selloff triggered a halt in trading. Yet even as todays markets were in free fall, the president was sounding optimistic about the financial future. We have a lot of things that were working on with the Financial Markets, and its going to work out fine. Were you have to remember the stock market as an example is still much higher than when i got here, and its taken a big hit. But its going to all bounce back, and its going to bounce back very big at the right time. Going to bounce back very big at the right time. Tonight trumps former director of the National Economic council offered up his assessment. We are in a recession right now. We are having negative growth right now, and the market is pricing in that uncertainty. The good news is we did start from a very strong position just three weeks ago. Efforts in congress to ease the vast Economic Impact of the coronavirus continue. Tonight House Democrats said they are close to a deal with the Trump Administration on an emergency aid package for those affected by the outbreak. Nancy pelosi and treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin have been negotiating all day. We know of at least eight phone calls between them today alone. Tonight pelosi says they hope to reach a final agreement tomorrow. In a letter to democrats tonight, the speaker said the bill would provide free testing for those in need, emergency leave, and two weeks of paid sick leave, enhanced Unemployment Insurance and food programs, and more money for medicaid. In the meantime, the number of u. S. Coronavirus cases in this country continues to climb. There are well over 1,600 confirmed cases here now and at least 41 deaths. And the number of closures and cancellations across the nation is also quickly rising. Disney and universal, msnbcs parent company, are shutting down theme parks. College basketballs march madness is canceled. Pro hockeys season is suspended until further notice. And the mlb is delaying the start of the baseball season. And just a short time ago, news that canadian Prime MinisterJustin Trudeaus wife has tested positive for the new coronavirus. Trudeau, who spoke with President Trump today about the outbreak, is now under selfquarantine as his wife recovers. During last nights primetime address trump rolled out a travel ban from europe scheduled to take effect in just over 24 hours. Tonight the Washington Post reports the president realized today that his speech last night did little to calm fears about coronavirus. Quote, trump, who believed that by giving the speech he would appear in command and that his remarks would reassure Financial Markets and the country, was in an unusually foul mood and sounded at times apoplectic on thursday as he watched stocks tumble and digested widespread criticism of his speech. Today at the white house, trump defended his decision while also seeming to open the door to limits on travel within the u. S. A lot of people went from china into europe. Europe suffered tremendously. You see whats going on. And so i just wanted that to stop as it pertains to the United States, and thats what weve done. Have you considered traveled restrictions within the United States . Such as to Washington State or california . We havent discussed that yet. Is it a possibility . Yes, if somebody gets out of control, if an area gets out of control. I dont want people dying. Thats what im all about. One of the main obstacles to fighting the outbreak continues to be a lack of testing. Today dr. Anthony fauci, the director of the National Institute of allergy and Infectious Diseases was very candid when he spoke to congress about the testing shortage. The system does not is not really geared to what we need right now, what you are asking for. That is a failing. A failing, yes. It is a failing. Lets admit it. Okay. The idea of anybody getting it easily the way people in other countries are dog it, were not set up for that. Do i think we should be . Yes, but were not. Down the street at the white house, the president had a very different take on testing. They have a million tests out now. Over the next few days, theyre going to have 4 million tests out, and frankly the testing has been going very smooth. Millions are being produced. Theres a brandnew thing that just happened, but millions are being produced. Today, even some republican lawmakers were factchecking the president. Thats obviously the goal is to be able to get testing for everybody who wants testing to be able to get it and to be able to get it in multiple locations, but thats not accurate right now. [ inaudible question ] people should not say if you want a test, you can go get a test right now. Amid all of this, it appears donald trump has had another close brush with coronavirus. The press secretary for the brazilian president , who reportedly has now tested positive for the virus, dined with the president in maralago this past weekend. Senator Lindsey Graham was there too. His office has announced hes in selfquarantine. Today the white house issued a statement that said in part, both the president and Vice President had almost no interactions with the individual who tested positive and do not require being tested at this time. And today trump seemed unworried. We did nothing very unusual. We sat next to each other for a period of time, had a great conversation. Lets put it this way. Im not concerned. All right. Our leadoff discussion will begin in just a moment, but first im joined by alan blinder, professor of economics and Public Affairs at princeton and former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve, who served on president bill clintons council of economic advisers. Alan, its a rare occasion to talk to you, but this is a serious one. Heres the issue. The fed cut Interest Rates last week. Today it introduced money into the financial system, but were not solving for a financial problem right now. Thats exactly right. If you think back to 2008 or back to 1998, we had a financial problem on our hands, and certainly in 2008, that financial problem was having dire effects on the real economy. This is not like that at all. This is the this is going the other direction. We have terrible things going on in the real economy, and the Financial Markets are reacting to that, and they know, as you know, that the fed cant do anything about that, about whats going on with the virus, about whats going on in the short term with the real economy. People that are worried about liquidity here and there, the fed can fix that and well. It may take a lot of money, but the fed knows how to do that. But thats really not even secondary to this. Its tertiary at best. So there is a role perhaps at some point as this crisis spreads for the Federal Reserve, but right now it does appear that theyre trying to solve a problem they cant solve, and weve got futures tomorrow morning looking like another bad day. I mean these are times that, alan, we have not seen for a long time, even before your time in the clinton administration, these kind of heavy losses on a sustained basis. No, absolutely. Well, weve seen these in the 200809 crisis for reasons that were horrible and complicated but kind of understandable. But this is a beast of a completely different nature, and what youve seen when the fed cut Interest Rates and what youve seen with its liquidity announcements, today the markets look at that, and they may get happy for ten minutes. Then they realize this is not going to really solve the problem never mind solve. This is not going to seriously ameliorate the problem. Alan, thank you for your time as always. Alan blinder joining us from princeton. Here for our leadoff discussion on a thursday night, my colleague stephanie ruhle, a veteran of the Investment Banking and business world, the host of the 9 00 a. M. Hour here on msnbc. Nbc Business Correspondent susan page, Washington Bureau chief for usa today. And peter baker, chief White House Correspondent for the New York Times. Susan, let met start with you. The president really thought about 24 hours ago, it seemed, that he was going to deliver a speech and a speech from the white house, from the oval office is a serious matter and it would calm markets. Through the course of his speech we already saw futures dropping. The investors around the world, people who have choices about what theyre doing with their money, do not think the white house has a firm hand on the tiller right now. Yes, thats right. This is the kind of address weve seen president s previously make at times of crisis or turmoil. After the Oklahoma City bombing or after the 9 11 attacks, weve seen president s very effectively use an Oval Office Address to the nation to keep people calm, to provide a sense that theyre in charge, that theres a path ahead. But those are reassurances that President Trump did not manage to convey last night and instead i think raised more questions than he answered. Ive got to say of the six president s ive covered, ive never seen a president read a speech off a teleprompter and immediately have to have aides come out and offer factual corrections to what he said. That really does raise questions about whats happening at the white house and the competency of the leadership there. Peter, you and Maggie Haberman have filed a story this evening in which you talk about the fact that what it seems the world and certainly americans wanted or needed or continued to need from the white house is some degree of direction, some unified roadmap to follow forward. And in the absence of that, people are making their own rules, whether those be investors or governors or mayors or School Districts or sports organizations. Yeah, its rather striking. The president of course has been pretty assertive on the issue of closing borders, right . Thats an area hes familiar with. Its an area thats sort of dominated in some ways his three years in office. Hes restricted travel from china, from iran, and now as of tomorrow night, from europe. But the area he has not really asserted himself and provided direction to the country is inside our borders. What do we do with schools . What do we do with universities . Broadway, disney world, the nhl, the mlb, all of these guys are making their decisions on their own without the guidance of the commander in chief from washington. It took anthony fauci, the scientist you just showed on air, to say yesterday at a congressional hearing, yeah, maybe the nba should think about suspending games. We shouldnt have these large gatherings. And within 24 hours of him saying that, you saw all of the professional sports essentially react in a very strong way. The president himself didnt say that last night. He didnt give any direction on what he thinks people should do beyond washing their hands and keeping vulnerable populations, you know, isolated. So i think thats an unusual situation. Maybe he will turn that around. Hes talking about a national emergency. Hes talking about using emergency powers. But so far hes left it to the country to decide for itself, and the result is much of American Life has been closed down. Stephanie ruhle, you and i have many times said that the stock market is not a proxy for the economy because of the number of people who are not invested in it. But when you see 20 , 25 losses on the stock market over a twoweek period or threeweek period, it becomes a bit of a proxy for the fear that the world is fearing. Sure, about half of americans are invested in the stock market in one way or the other, but lots of americans work for Public Companies and at this point this feels like the slow, grinding shutdown of an economy that is really making people fear for their futures. It does, and i mean im in agreement with former economic adviser to the president gary cohn. Were absolutely slipping into a recession. But i want to give you a sliver you know, a bit of a Silver Lining here. What we have seen in the last 24 hours is a really scary tipping point. Peter just went through whether youre talking mlb, nhl, the nba, the college and university closings, across the board. What has happened, as we more from corporate america, less from the government, are truly getting our heads around assessing and addressing the risk of corona, Everyday Americans are now having to change how we live our lives in order to address this. And at least in the short term, we are going to selfquarantine. We are going to hunker down. And when we do that, were not spending. And when were not spending, were not contributing to the economy, and that turns markets in the red. Now, the sooner we do that and that has become today for more and more americans, the sooner we get to the other side, and that is the bright spot. So as alan blinder said, this is very different from 2008 where you had a disastrous underlying economy. Thats not where we are today. Were facing a disastrous Natural Disaster that was not done by bad risktaking from banks or bad decisions from executives in the auto industry. And the sooner we get to the other side of this mountain where china has started to get and south korea has started to get and maybe italy soon, were actually going to get back to normalcy. So as scary as it is and youre absolutely right. Its like a falling knife, the market right now. The fact that at least were tackling it, theres a lot of sophisticated investors out there that are saying were taking our medicine and after this were going to get better. Susan, there is a consequence to the president continuing to talk about how its the media that is providing a narrative that is not honest about this, and the president s got a lot of supporters in rightwing media who are doing this. Youve done a poll. There was a u. S. Today ipsos poll in which you polled people who identified as republicans and democrats about a basic thing like washing their hands to prevent coronavirus. The result was actually different depending on your political party. You know, i was looking at the cross tabs on the question of are you washing your hands more often because i thought men and women would be different on that by the way. No offense to men. And i found a small gap on gender, but a huge gap on partisanship. By more than by double digits, democrats were more likely to be washing their hands more often than republicans. And i dont know exactly why thats the case but i think it may be the effect of the president s bully pulpit, that republicans trust him when he tells people its not so serious, were going to get better, its being overblown. They believe it, and they dont take these common sense measures like washing their hands. Democrats dont believe the president. They believe tony fauci and Public Health officials that say wash your hands as much as you can. So theyre taking heed of that. That just shows you perhaps in a small and quirky way kind of the power that the president has to lead on an issue like this or to make things more difficult for the country. I dont know, but ali, i would say, how humiliating for the president. Who does he want the approval of more than anything . The ceo set, the most powerful men in america. And what do they do . Ignoring what he is saying, calling the coronavirus a hoax, trying to downplay it. And on the other side, they are taking extreme borderline, draconian measures to address it. So one could say, yes, the president looks so powerful among his republican base, but thats not actually who he seeks, who he desperately seeks the approval from, and thats the most powerful ceos out there. And they certainly dont agree with him. Peter baker, whom i know to be a hand washer, peter, the president has directed Jared Kushner to take some sort of leadership role in this. But ultimately as you heard alan blinder say moments ago, this is not a financial crisis. This is a Public Health issue. The administration or at least donald trump and it seems Jared Kushner according to reporting shares this view, that this is actually a public psychology issue as opposed to an actual Public Health crisis. It could be both. Public spirit and public mood plays a role. We are having the first pandemic really of the social media era, right . It was 2009 we had the h1n1 virus, but we didnt have the prevalence that we do today of twitter and facebook, and they didnt play such a large role in our life, in which all the information that were getting these days doesnt just come from television. It doesnt just come from the president of the United States. It comes from our friends and our neighbors and our colleagues, all of whom are scared. And this fear has no doubt caused a greater reaction than might have been seen in historys other pandemics. Now, the question is what the president does in that kind of climate. Does he reassure the country, or does he look like hes out of touch . And theres a fine balance between being confident and projecting optimism, and looking like youre not taking it seriously enough. For the president right now, a lot of his critics think he looks like he hasnt been taking it serious enough. Jared kushner is part of the debate in this white house and there are people like that who think like the president , that really there has been an overreaction, that it is about politics, that its the media or the democrats trying to damage him. Theres another set in the white house, the Public Health oriented people who are worried and think the government should be doing more. Well see how that debate plays out in the days to come. Thank you to the three of you help pg us out to kick off this discussion. Coming up, Health Care Workers are sounding the alarms about a potential shortage of critical medical supplies, basics like surgical masks and beds. An update on hospital preparations just ahead. And later, schools are being shut down in states where primaries are supposed to take place just days from now. So now what . The 11th hour just Getting Started on a thursday night. The coronavirus does not have a political affiliation, will affect republicans, democrats and independents alike. It will not discriminate based on national origin, race, gender or zip code. It will touch people in positions of power as well as the most vulnerable in our society. The New York Times is reporting that hospitals in the United States are growing anxious as coronavirus continues to spread. The times reports, quote, with the bow wave of Coronavirus Infections still to come, hospitals across the country are trying to prepare for a flood of critically ill patient whose will strain their capacities like nothing they have seen in at least a generation. Even with some time to prepare, administrators fear they will not be ready, end quote. Back with us again tonight, dr. Irwin redlener, the director of columbias National Center for Disaster Preparedness with an expertise in pandemic influenza. Hes now part of the biden campaigns special coronavirus committee. Irwin, good to see you again. Unfortunately every time you and i talk, bad things are happening. A lot of people have probably seen this in the media or on social media, this curve of demand for health care services, and it can go one of two ways. It can spike and exceed our capacity to provide people with the necessary care, or something can happen that is called flattening the curve. In other words, the same number of people might get infected but it will happen in a way that we can management. Over a longer period of time, right. So, this is the third wave of very serious concerns about what the government is doing and not doing, starting of course with all these failures that continue, by the way, with our ability to test for the coronavirus. That was one. And the second thing is the messaging issues, which i would like to come back to. But in terms of the hospital issues, you know, lets take a couple numbers for a minute, ali. So were dealing with we currently have between 90,000 and 100,000 intensive care beds in the entire United States, and theyre almost all full all the time. If we had a kind of a moderate to severe peak of Coronavirus Infections around the country, we might need double double that number of intensive care beds with everything that goes with it including mechanical ventilators, staffing properly these beds and these units. And we are extremely far from being remotely close to real preparedness for any of this deluge that could be a reality. And actually in a matter of a few weeks given the rate of replication and spread of the virus. We only have to look at italy to see what a worse Case Scenario is. And a few weeks ago they were in not much different a situation than we are now. We have a lot to worry about and not much done to this point. Tell me what it looks like. In other words, if we exceed our capacity, if we have 100,000 beds and we need 150,000 or 200,000, what does that look like versus doing it in a more orderly fashion because not everybody dies from this. No. Were very familiar with the flu, so we know when youre supposed to go with a doctor and when youre not. But we dont know with this. So, there are a whole bunch of people who wont be sick but may be using medical care, but maybe we want that so they dont infect people who could die. We have a lot of people who are sick but with mild or moderate symptoms. Theres no question about that. But whatever modeling assumptions, you make, there are going to be a lot more people who are going to need hospital beds and intensive care unit beds and ventilators and all that sort of thing. The problem with that is were not prepared for even that. But the second part of this equation that we havent been talking about enough is it also crowds out our ability to take care of regular people without coronavirus, who have had a stroke or a heart attack or some trauma where they need hospital care. And were not going to have the room to handle the surge of coronavirus patients in addition to the normal surge of everyday living that has kept our hospital beds completely full. Right. So if you have some other underlying illness, you want to be able to know that you can get treatment for that and this will occupy those beds. Exactly. So this is what were facing is really a kind of coming winter here, or however that game of thrones expression was. But were heading there almost inevitably to some sort of significant surge in command on hospitals. And we havent put enough money or time into thinking about how were going to deal with this. After all, theres no local community, big city, small city, mediumsize city that has the capacity to expand in the way that im talking about without a significant amount of federal assistance. And its not forthcoming, and its kind of the next wrung of incompetencies that were seeing from the federal government, which is a failure to really help the local communities get ready for whats undoubtedly going to be a major surge in demand on our hospitals. So, irwin, this is your specialty as mine is economics. And i look at this market. The worst day in my career that ive ever covered in terms of a market loss, and yet i was talking to alan blinder a few minutes ago, and he said, this isnt a financial problem. This is not actually a problem that is solved in the Financial Markets. Sure. Its solved you hinted at this. Its solved by messaging, that were in command here. Earlier on lawrences show, sarah nelson, the flight attendant, described how flight attendants are trained to keep passengers calm. When they think something is going bad on a flight. The messaging is crucial here. The psychology is important in addition to Public Health. Ali, heres the thing about that. For many weeks i was saying as much as i could, we have to find that sweet spot between complacency and panic, and especially we have to see that coming from the president , which of course we see zero evidence of. But even i was saying, yeah, we cant panic people, and we should not be panicking people. But in a certain way i would like to panic our Hospital Systems and the people that support those systems. They need to be up and running full speed ahead. Now, i should also note that the public is actually doing very, very well. Theyre complying with a lot of the regular hygiene rules that were imposing. Its really its been amazing. People are accepting this without panic, but i just want to rev up our other entities that involve the care of actual patients. The other thing i would say is that im very concerned about the lack of leadership from the white house about this fact, which is that were leaving the governors and mayors up to their own devices and imaginations to say, oh, were going to stop anything over 250 people at a major event. Other cities will say 500. Theres zero Scientific Evidence for any of these arbitrary numbers, and its pretty desperate at this point, and they have to get their act together. But absent leadership, were all making our own decisions, right . Thats why some people are selling their stocks, because they dont know what right looks like. Irwin, thank you again. Sure. I know youre on our air a lot, and we rely on you. Thank you. Coming up, the roadblocks getting in the way of testing those who need it. Introducing a single sports destination, 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. Testing now is not going to tell you how many cases youre going to have. Mmhmm. What will tell you what youre going to have will be how you respond to it with containment and mitigation. Okay. The idea of anybody getting it easily the way people in other country are doing it, were not set up for that. Do i think we should be . Yes, but were not. According to the cdc, only 11,000 coronavirus tests have been conducted so far, prompting fears that the u. S. Health care system could soon become overwhelmed. Our next guest has this reporting tonight, quote, many private laboratories in the United States still arent able to conduct their own tests in part because of a demanding government approval process. The delays of prolonged waiting times to diagnose infected patients while the virus has spread further. Joining us for more, nbc News National reporter suzy khimm. Suzy, officials first heard about this in december. By january, coronavirus was actually a thing. By february, it was full blown in china, and in almost the middle of march, you and i are discussing why we dont have enough testing capability in america. It is inconceivable that were even having this conversation. We are weeks and weeks, if not months behind where we should be right now, and basically whats happening, as youre seeing, is that both public and private laboratories are racing to catch up. Unfortunately, there have been many roadblocks along the way, some of which have been lifted and some of which still exist. I think thats why you are still hearing and seeing complaints from ordinary people who might be feeling sick, who might believe that they might have the virus from doctor whos have expressed frustration that they havent been able to get enough patients tested. So while there has been progress made, there still is a lot of work to do here. And the governments slow response to this and the missteps theyve made along the way havent been helping. Suzy, whats the solution . Is it the cdc sending out more test kits . Is it hospitals . Is it lowering the threshold for which you can get tested . Is it private labs which you have written about . What does success look like here . So there are a number of different obstacles that are holding up testing right now. So in recent in the last week, youve seen two major testing companies, labcorp, and quest which Many Americans may be familiar with from their doctors office. They have started broad scale commercial testing that you should be able to get. Many medical providers offices. But they cant just turn a switch and Start Testing it at absolute Maximum Capacity overnight. They need equipment, staff, time to ramp up. Quest told us it would take up to six weeks for them to be able to do tens of thousands of tests a week. So thats one problem. Another problem is just lack of basic Lab Materials and personal protective equipment for the Lab Technicians doing the test. I spoke with one major provider, a medical provider that runs 26 sites across the country, and they say that they basically had a lot of trouble finding basic equipment just to protect their lab staff to do enough tests in their facilities. So there are many different obstacles that are still in place even after the government has changed some of its policies and finally did let private labs begin to develop their own tests. But that only happened at the very end of february, and now were in middle of march, and its clear that this is still a major problem in terms of access to testing. Suzy, thank you for your reporting on this. We appreciate it. Coming up, in the midst of a global pandemic, how do you hold a primary . More on that when the 11th hour continues. When i noticed my sister moving differently, i didnt know what was happening. She said it was like someone else was controlling her mouth. Her doctor said she has tardive dyskinesia, which may be related to important medication she takes for her depression. Her ankles would also roll and her toes would stretch out. I noticed she was avoiding her friends and family. Td can affect different parts of the body. It may also affect people who take medications for bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. She knows she shouldnt stop or change her medication, so we were relieved to learn there are Treatment Options for td. If this sounds like you or someone you know, visit talkabouttd. Com to sign up to receive a personalized doctor discussion guide to help start a conversation with your doctor about td. Youll also be able to access videos and a free brochure that show the different movements of td. Visit talkabouttd. Com or call to learn more. We were so relieved to learn there are treatments for td. Learn more at talkabouttd. Com. The election will proceed forward on tuesday. Im encouraging all local election authorities to expand the hours of early voting every day until election day. Theres ample opportunity to kind of spread this out as far as the number of people who are, you know, in line at one time. So we do not anticipate any major problems on election day on tuesday. While schools and businesses across the country are closing their doors because of coronavirus concerns, state Officials Say theyre moving ahead with tuesdays democratic primaries. Polls in arizona, florida, illinois, and ohio are still scheduled to be open. Officials there have urged residents to opt for early voting or mailin ballots to lower the number of people gathered in one place on election day. Illinois and ohio are scrambling to move polling places away from vulnerable senior centers. As for the two leading Democratic Candidates, both have canceled their Campaign Events ahead of the primaries. For more, we welcome to the broadcast, mary ann ahern. And back with us again, charlotte alter, a National Correspondent for time and author of the new book the ones weve been waiting for. Correspondent for time. Charlotte, youve been reporting on the changes to the campaign. People are going to have to think about this more holistically because we dont know how long this goes on for. Certainly in the coming week there have been major changes to the way the campaigns and candidates are approaching the voting. Yeah. Sanders and biden have both canceled major rallies. Were already seeing both candidates begin to do some kind of like elbow bumping instead of instead of handshaking. But, listen, both top Democratic Candidates at this point are exactly in the vulnerable range, and theyre constantly, you know, under typical campaign circumstances, theyre constantly surrounded by people. Theyre constantly shaking hands. Theyre constantly in big crowds, exactly what doctors are now telling people is, you know, the most dangerous type of situation for contracting coronavirus. So both campaigns have, you know, taken a step back from those types of events, and i think that theyre both being very careful about how they proceed forward. Mary ann, i live in new york city. Were actually relatively good at ignoring each other even in large crowds, but not in chicago. Chicago cancelled the st. Patricks day parade. Joe biden was going to be here on friday for an event. Its a different place. It is a different place, and no one throws a chicago st. Patricks day party. It is amazing, the marching, the politicians, going up and even giving a hug and a kiss, and they wont be able to do that this time. In chicago theres going to be a fantastic party there would have been on friday night. 1,200 people at the irish Fellowship Party that joe biden wanted to just swing right through. Right. Instead there will be a virtual town hall tomorrow afternoon from chicago. Wow. For the residents of chicago. Charlotte, this is what the campaigns are doing. The states and the Democratic Party hosting these primaries, theyve got to give some thought to how this all goes down. People are wondering, you go into a place and keep on pressing a button on a machine. Do they have ways to think about they want to reduce the flow through these places, but thats against every fiber in an election organizers body to reduce flow or cut back on crowds. Exactly. Theyre in a really tough situation. I mean how do you drive people to the polls when were in this situation where you dont want people to be congregating in large crowds. I do know some polling places are taking extra precautions around wiping down pens that they give people to fill out their ballots, making sure all the surfaces are sanitized. But i certainly think theres going to be a significant drop in turnout, not just because of the crowds, but also just because some of the locations that polling has been happening in are these schools that have been shut down. Location, you get some dropoff. It gets complicated. People dont know it moved. They lose energy to do that. Exactly. I also think its important to remember two of the states that vote on tuesday are arizona and florida, and those are two states with very high aging populations. And so, you know, people who would be really, really vulnerable happen to be in these states that are voting on tuesday. The chicago board of elections still is trying to locate more than 90 polling locations that they have to move. They were in like senior places or schools. Senior homes. Theyre still scrambling to find those. You show up on tuesday to vote and your polling place is not there. It is definitely going to be chaotic. You actually sent us a picture. Your daughter was at a target in the area. Was it around chicago . Tonight. This afternoon. Look at this. Looks at this picture. Looks like a target that hasnt opened for business yet. There she was, my daughter codi, new mom. Goes to buy new cleaning materials, and nothing left. Nothing left on the shelves. Thats incredible. Charlotte, do you have a sense if everybodys got to follow the same rules, does it hurt anybody . I think both campaigns are taking this really seriously. I do think that just given the generational breakdown weve been seeing in some of the polling numbers, sanders is doing much better with Younger Voters and also much better with sort of hes got a super committed, extremely enthusiastic base. So it could be that this results in a sort of inadvertent boost for him just because maybe Younger Voters might be less scared to show up and, you know, his hard core fans wouldnt necessarily be deterred. But i know that the Sanders Campaign is taking this really seriously, and i dont think they take any joy in that. I think that both campaigns want their candidates to be safe and also want the voters to be safe. Yeah. So, you know, its certainly going to be unpredictable and chaotic. Local campaigns even have done this. I was going to say. Theres downballot races here. In a place like illinois, thats a big deal. Right. They have said, okay, on Election Night we will not be throwing our usual campaign parties as well as, of course, biden and sanders are doing the same. Were going to see empty rooms of people celebrating, which is just its unbelievable. Well, for us reporters, its hard to get our head around. Were all going to have to adjust. I mean we judge things by the crowd and the frenzy and the energy in the room, and thats right. And were not going to see the knocking on the doors on these final days. In chicago they have whats called palm cards. The ward boss gives out the list. Okay. Heres who you go in and you vote for. Yeah. And it literally is the size of your palm. I already received one in the mail this time because im not sure theyre going to be at the polling places. They want to make sure youve got it. They want that list out there. But instead perhaps not as many germs if its mailed to you instead. That is amazing. Good to see you. Thank you for joining us. Thank you. Mary ann ahern and charlotte alter, thank you for joining us. Coming up, how an anxious nation craves credible leadership during times of crisis when the 11th hour continues. This is the most aggressive and comprehensive effort to confront a foreign virus in modern history. The Washington Post reports last nights Oval Office Address from the president , quote, reflected not only his handling of the Coronavirus Crisis but in some ways much of his presidency. It was riddled with errors, nationalistic and xenophobic in tone, limited in its empathy and boastful of both his own decisions and the supremacy of the nation he leads. Back with us tonight, president ial historian and pulitzer prizewinning biographer jon meacham. His newest work, which is available now, is the hope of glory reflections on the last words of jesus from the cross. Jon, its not hard to find people who have no interest in the federal government, who dont think they rely on it, who dont trust the federal government increasingly more and more. And yet a point rachel made earlier, it is the organization, it is the institution on which we are relying for guidance right now, and you dont realize its not there until you dont get the guidance youre looking for. Exactly. Its the basic social contract that weve had really from the beginning. We had huge debates in the 1780s and 1790s through the civil war about the relative role of the federal government. But since 1933, weve had a basic sense in this country that the federal government had a genuine and ambient role to play in our lives. And even the most conservative among us have accepted the notion that an institution like the federal government needs to be competent. It needs to be wellfunded in order to respond to crises of fundamental order, and thats what this is. This is a crisis of order. Its not quite existential, but its certainly closer to existential than any of us want it to be. But you bring an interesting point up because even if you are for limited government, even if you believe in small government, there are basic things we believe the federal government does that we would not do better on our own, and this is one of those things because in the absence of cogent leadership in this, people are making their own decisions, governors and mayors and businesses are making their own decisions about how theyre going to deal with this. It goes back to the preamble of the constitution. This is basically about public safety. That phrase doesnt appear, but the preamble, gouverneur morris, a peglegged founder, wrote it, saying this is about the general welfare. And if this doesnt fall under the general welfare clause, if Public Health doesnt fall under that original phrase, then nothing does. Whats the sense of the attack on government that weve seen for some decades now but it has intensified in the last couple of years where we talk about the deep state . We have built a situation for ourselves in which Many Americans, maybe many millions of americans, have deliberately learned to distrust government. This is a longterm trend. 1965 marked the high watermark in our polling history. Something like 77 of americans trusted the federal government in 1965 to do the right thing some or most of the time. Thats crashed by more than 60 points. And part of whats happening here is President Trump, without making this a partisan issue, this is an observation, its a clinical observation. President trump is reaping what he has sowed. He has sowed distrust. He has sowed tribalism and a sense that he is the only person that his followers can believe. We know that not to be the case. The simple workings of reason tell us that that is an outlandish claim. And one of the fascinating things thats going to unfold here i dont think ive ever seen a president ial campaign turn as quickly as this one has in the past call it ten days, but certainly the past 72 hours. You had the challenger today appearing more president ial, more reassuring than the incumbent. And what that is, again, its not a partisan point. Its an historical point because what americans want is a president who at least will do as little harm as possible, right . I mean thats a very conservative idea. We just dont want him making things worse. And right now i think a lot of americans believe that the incumbent president is, in fact, making things worse, and theyre hungry for leadership whether its elective or appointive. We just want the facts. As governor Michael Dukakis put it unsuccessfully in 1988 running against george bush, this is not about ideology. Its about competence. The country disagreed then. I think in this case we would certainly agree with dukakis principle. Is it your sense of the feedback the white house has received in the last 24 hours will change anything . I think its the president has been impervious to changing data and circumstance. Yeah. Right . So he does what he wants to do, and whenever he gets into a corner, he just keeps going in the sense of whatever it he carries on as he set out. Hes shown no capacity to learn or change, and thats one of the tragedies of the era. Jon, in the last ten days or so, you are the first person to invoke gouverneur morris, so i appreciate that. Thank you for your time. That is our broadcast for tonight. Good night from our nbc news bureau in chicago. These folks, they dont have time to go to the post office they have businesses to grow customers to care for lives to get home to they use stamps. Com print discounted postage for any letter any package any time right from your computer all the Amazing Services of the post office only cheaper get our special tv offer a 4week trial plus postage and a digital scale go to stamps. Com tv and never go to the post office again good morning, everyone. It is friday, with march 13th. The coronavirus spreading rapidly and disrupting almost every aspect of public life at this point. Maryland, ohio, michigan and now oregon have ordered schools to close statewide. Kentuckys governor has recommended schools to close. West point has told cadets not to return from spring break on monday. The arch dioceses of washington has also closed its schools and has canceled mass