Our country is going up fast. Tonight it reaches over 8,600 people. Note it has been nearly two months since the first case was diagnosed in this country,s you see 140 total fatalities. As the nation grapples with increasing shutdowns, the president has now adopted a new stance when it comes to positioning his effort to fight this pandemic. Do you consider america to be on a wartime footing in terms of fighting this virus . I look at it i view it as a in a sense a wartime president. While he may view himself and wish to be viewed as a wartime president now, the problem with that is the lengths that he has gone to to diminish the virus, the danger, and the approaching pandemic. Were finding very little problem, very little problem. Now, you treat this like a flu. Its going to disappear. One day its like a miracle, it will disappear. The democrats are politicizing the coronavirus. This is their new hoax. Anybody that needs a test theyre there, they have the tests. The tests are all perfect. Like the letter was perfect. The transcription was perfect. It will go away. Just stay calm. Today trump invoked the korean warera defense production act, which allows him to order businesses to make ventilators and masks for Health Care Workers as well as other critically needed medical supplies. Weve ordered millions of them. But we need millions more. A thing like this has never been requested, and its never never had to even think in terms of these numbers. But we need millions of masks. And all of that will be ordered. We need respirators. We need ventilators is a big thing because its a complex piece of equipment. So we have a lot of ventilators but were going to be ordering more. Nobody ever saw numbers like this. Even with regard to testing. Now were getting highly sophisticated tests and its going very well but nobodys ever heard of testing in the kind of quantities that youre talking about. The president said today this snuck up on us. While the president also announced the government is taking further steps to expand testing capacity, its still impossible for Many Americans to get tested. Even those who are violently symptomatic. It remains true that your ability to get tested right now in this country depends on where you live, who you are, and how much money you make. In news to our north, weve now closed our border with canada to stop nonessential traffic back and forth. As you can guess, Asylum Seekers and other foreigners attempting to enter illegally from mexico are being turned back. This comes as a new internal report from the department of health and human services, first reported on by the New York Times, suggests a sobering time frame for recovery, saying the pandemic will last 18 months or longer and could include multiple waves of illness. Late today u. S. Congressman Mario Diazbalart of florida, ben mcadams of utah became the first two members of congress to announce they have contracted the coronavirus. As the number of cases has increased, theres new information about the types of patients being affected by this. There are concerning reports coming out of france and italy about some young people getting seriously ill and very seriously ill in the icus. It may have been that the millennial generation, our largest generation, our future generation that will carry us through for the next multiple decades, there may be disproportional number of infections among that group, and so even if its a rare occurrence it may be seen more frequently in that group and be evident now. So were looking at that information very carefully. We have not seen any significant mortality in the children, but we are concerned about the early reports coming out of italy and france. This was another tough day for wall street as the dow dropped below 20,000 points for the First Time Since february 2017. It has now wiped out all of the gains made during the trump presidency. Trading briefly came to a halt again today. Earlier on cnbc today longtime Hedge Fund Manager bill ackman urged the president to shut down the country and the markets for a month to contain the coronavirus and rescue the u. S. Economy. What would the president be asking the American People to do . Hes not saying, you know hes not saying to storm the beaches at normandy. Right . Hes saying go home. Go home. Spend a month with your family. Okay . And i know for some families thats a hardship. Okay . But its nothing. Go home. Take a deep breath p you know, spend time with loved ones. Take care of your children. And Corporate America is the gradual rollout of whats going on. We need to shut it down now. That is exactly what the big three automakers did today. Gm, ford, fiat, chrysler temporarily shutting down their factories in the u. S. , in mexico and in canada until at least march 30. An unprecedented move that will affect hundreds of thousands of factory employees. Today trump signed the emergency coronavirus aid bill just hours after it was passed by the senate. This legislation provides free coronavirus testing if you can find it. It ensures paid emergency leave as well as additional medicaid funding and unemployment benefits. Senate republicans are now working on a 1 trillion spending proposal that the white house said would include 500 billion in direct payments to americans. Trump also says he plans to make another announcement about his administrations effort to stop the spread of this virus. Heres what he said during a meeting with the heads of nursing organizations. The fda will be theyve been working very, very hard. And i appreciate what theyre doing. And i think we have some very interesting things that will be brought up tomorrow at the news conference. One more note about the availability of tests. As we mentioned, they are still extremely difficult to get. Nbc News White House correspondent Peter Alexander today asked trump why that wasnt the case for some folks. How are nonsymptomatic professional athletes getting tests while others are waiting in line and cant get them . Do the wellconnected go to the front of the line . Youd have and them that question. I wouldnt say so. But perhaps thats been the story of life. That does happen on occasion. And ive noticed where some people have been tested fairly quickly. Well, on that note here for our leadoff discussion on a wednesday night philip rucker, pulitzer prizewinning White House Bureau chief for the washington post, also happens to be the coauthor with his colleague Carol Leonnig of the bestselling book a very stable genius. Kimberly atkins, senior washington correspondent for wbur, bostons npr news station. And ian bremer is back with us, the founder and president of the eurasia group. His expertise in Global Affairs with a particular eye on the relationship between Political Risk and financial markets. He also happens to be the host of g zero world on pbs. Good evening and welcome to you all. Kimberly, id like to begin with you. A week ago tonight the nba season was canceled. A week ago today people were wondering, almost a parlor game, wonder which celebrity will possibly come down with coronavirus. The virus was impressed us all when it started at the top of the chain when we learned tom hanks and reeita wilson were in quarantine in australia, that is to say, a week has passed. Should congress have passed what they did faster . Congress should be working as fast as humanly possible. The one thing that this variety and the fact that people are staying away from each other, social distancing, is that Congress Members of congress, many members, have opened up virtual town halls and facebook meetups. And they have been hearing directly from people on the ground, from their constituents, who are extremely concerned with everything that is going on because it has touched every single american in one form or another, even with just the orders to stay away from one another. They are concerned about everything from how theyre going to take care of loved ones with disabilities or say themselves have a disability. If theyre working parttime jobs. What happens to people in the gig economy . Will the recovery package address them . People who are taking care of elders or taking care of children. There are a host of issues that americans are extremely concerned about. And yeah, im sure seeing people like tom hanks who have means and who he and his wife were able to get their testing because they were in australia, by the way. When im hearing from folks like, you know, my moms own doctor who says she doesnt have the equipment and supplies she needs to treat people and she is telling people who she would normally have to treat to stay home. It is a very concerning time, and people are looking to congress to act and act quickly. Phil rucker, the Senate Majority leader having given the senate a long weekend off, yesterday because its always about the inside game told his members if they had to gag go ahead but vote for the package of legislation. It came out of the senate ultimately today, but according to your reporting today whats the health of partisanship . Is it alive and well in washington still . You know, it has never died in washington, brian, except for a few days around september 11th, 2001. But theres a really interesting political story under way here with the economic response to the coronavirus. And that has to do with the 1 trillion rescue package that the Trump Administration has put together. That includes bailouts for a number of Industries Including the airline industry. And lets think back to 2008 when Congress Passed those bailouts for the big banks. That became a lightning rod issue for activists on both the right and the left. It began the Tea Party Movement that swept republicans into power in 2010. Many of the very same senators and house members who are coming out in support of the current package because its proposed by President Trump were actually elected because they opposed those sorts of bailouts and they preached fiscal austerity. So theres been a real sea change here because of the coronavirus and because of the president s determination to spend a big dollar figure to try to rescue this economy without much regard for the federal debt. Ian, i know youre with us via skype. I know theres always a bit of a builtin delay but i want to play for you an exchange at the White House Briefing today. Well talk about it on the other side. Why do you keep calling this the chinese virus . There are reports of dozens of incidents of bias against Chinese Americans in this country. Why do you keep using this . It comes from china. Its not racist at all. A person at the white house used the word kung flu. Do you think using the term chinese virus, that could put asianamericans at risk . No, not at all. I think they probably would agree with it 100 . It comes from china. Ian, what are we doing here . Well, President Trump hasnt referred to this as the chinese flu until about two days ago. It links up with his policies in response to coronavirus implo imploding and the markets imploding in the United States, and it made it harder for him to blame obama, blame biden. He needs someone to blame. And chinas the proximate country. And the problem with that of course is i mean, yes, it did indeed come from china originally, and furthermore the chinese din deed covd indeed co for the first month. So they are responsible. But on top of this massive market meltdown and economic shutdown were seeing in the United States right now, picking a fight with the chinese, who feel vastly more confident today coming out of this crisis, than they did after 2008 is going to cause more economic damage. And while its politically expedient for trump to do so in an electoral cycle, the likelihood that we end up in an economic fight with the chinese where we pull out of the phase 1 trade deal, theyre not buying the goods they promised to buy, and the chinese are making gains in places like europe, the middle east where theyre actually providing humanitarian medical aid, supplies, personnel, and the americans are actually undermining the relations with those countries, the potential that we end up coming out of this Coronavirus Crisis and a cold war with the chinese is becoming real. Thats aadditional shock right now that you really dont want as we face by far the worst economic crisis weve had in a long time. Kim, i dont need to tell you theyre using the big boy Briefing Room at the white house now after it was idle for a year. That creates an even louder daily megaphone for the White House Briefing, especially when the president is part of it. Is the west wing staff still convinced he is their best spokesperson . Well, he is convinced of that. And weve seen a lot of iterations since the coronavirus became a massive crisis. First it was the creation of that task force. And then mike pence was put out front. And he was the face of it, giving the daily briefings and leading them for a couple of days before the president came back and took control of the message. You can certainly tell in the white house that they feel the increased sense of urgency and they are responding as such. The president is still being the president. And as ian said, doing things like blaming others, like blaming china but at the same time theres a real understanding that this is something massive, it is a bigger economic crisis, potentially bigger economic crisis than we saw in 2008 and that the white house needs to act both for because its the white house and its the head of the executive. But also politically its an Election Year and thats certainly something on the president s mind and he does not want to be seen as the person who is at fault if the response is not enough. Hey, phil, ashley parker, your colleague, et al. At your newspaper tonight giving us this headline. Kushner Coronavirus Team sparks confusion, plaudits inside white house response efforts. In plain english what is Jared Kushner up to now . Brian, this is one of the most interesting stories of the week i think because we see this task force at the briefings every day. Its led by Vice President pence. But theres actually a second task force operating behind the scenes at the white house. It is led by Jared Kushner, the Senior Adviser and president ial soninlaw. He has corralled a number of his loyal associates and allies within the federal government as well as brought in private sector leaders, people from fedex, ups, and other companies who are effectively working in an all hands on deck operation inside the white house to try to get control of the testing situation and try to manage this response. So while theres a publicfacing task force that the Vice President leads, a separate power center is very much emerged in recent days led by kushner, and its created a great deal of confusion inside the government because people are getting orders from both sides. Theyre not really sure whos in charge. Ian, on top of all of it i want to play you this. Here is our secretary of state on fox news. The Chinese Government knew about this risk, had identified it. They were the first to know, and they wasted valuable days at the front end, allowing hundreds of thousands of people to leave wuhan, to go to places like italy, thats now suffering so badly. They tried to suppress this information. You talked about the means by which they did it. Instead of trying to actually do the work to suppress the virus. Ian, this speaks directly to what you were saying earlier. The need to blame. The need to attribute troubles to another source. Its true. I mean, look, it is the fact that china is almost 20 of the worlds economy right now. It was about 4 when sars hit. All of the Major American Companies are massively interlinked in terms of chinas supply chain. And so as a consequence when you end up with more significant risks that come out of china were going to be affected in a much more dramatic way. Lets be very clear here. The mistakes made by china early, and they were intentional, by the Chinese Government are unconscionable. They need to be redressed. And were going to get hurt. The iranians, that was absolutely a response of the chinese not being able to deal with this crisis and refusing to. The europeans as well. But we still have to take responsibility for our own response. And the fact that jack ma, the wealthiest man in china, is offering the United States 500,000 test kits and we arent able to produce them for ourselves yet we lost a month because china covered it up but we lost two months after that because the Trump Administration was asleep at the switch and President Trump was spinning fantasies for the average american saying this wasnt a problem. It was like a miracle, it would go away. Also unconscionable. There is plenty of blame here to go around, brian. And ultimately the americans do have to if you want to put America First, we should also be blaming our own leadership first. Thats really the kind of America First we need to see. We have to see leadership in our country to take care of our own people. And i see a lot of passing of the buck right now. I dont see a lot of it stopping with the white house. By the way, lets take a half million test kits if offered. Ian bremmer, philip rucker, kimberly atkins. Our thanks for starting us off tonight. And coming up, theyre about to close down the floor of the nyse. Trading will go on, but thats about the only positive news out of there these days. Stephanie ruhle with us tonight to talk about the financial damage. Andte the hardships being faced by the medical professionals on the front line of this pandemic with the job of protecting all of us as the 11th hour just getting under way on this wednesday night. Day. Life isnt a straight line. And sometimes, you can find yourself heading in a new direction. But at fidelity, well help you work through the unexpected. With Financial Planning and advice for what you need today. And tomorrow. Because when youre with fidelity, a partner who makes sure every step is clear, theres nothing to stop you from moving forward. A partner who makes sure every step is clear, tv sports announcer yeah, thats my man there. Tv sports announcer time out. 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[ whines ] can your internet do that . Xfinity xfi can because its. Simple, easy, awesome. [ barking ] the stress people are under evident all day long on cnbc in particular as they watch the financial damage pile up. The stress was audible during an interview with bill ackman. Hes a wellknown, wellregarded hedge fund ceo in new york. He is currently selfquarantined to protect his elderly father. And as youll hear, he is not bullish on our near future. I called the ceos of a number of our companies and told them to my concerns. Okay . Companies were closest to. And to not stop the buyback programs, to husband resources, to pull down, draw down their credit lines because hell is coming. And i felt ive never had this experience before in my life. The closest i had was the financial crisis where im saying, you know, things are bad stuffs coming. But this was a feeling like ive never had, like theres a tsunami coming. Right . The tsunamis coming, and you feel it in the air. Right . The tide starts to roll out. Okay . And on the beach people are playing and having fun like theres nothing going on. And that is the feeling ive had for the last two months. Its spring break now. A lot of people were going to take these two weeks off anyway. So extend it for a month. A month at home. Okay . How hard is that . Compare that to going to war. Right . Compare that to getting on one of those boats and storming the beach. Its nothing. Its not a sacrifice. Okay . Its easy. Its simple. Back with us again tonight is our friend stephanie ruhle, Senior Business correspondent for nbc news, a veteran herself of the invest banking and business world, the host of the 9 00 a. M. Hour on this network. Stephanie, tell us about mr. Ackman and what did you make of that very emotional warning for what we all may be in for . I know bill ackman pretty well. While much of what he said is shared by a lot of Business Leaders, tonight for example rich handler, who is the chairman and ceo of jeffries wrote a very thoughtful letter that could be a template for what the administration could do, sort of detailing that businesses small and large are really going to suffer here. In the financial crisis the issue were banks and the government came in and assured they were solvent and made sure the rest of the system could work. Now what we have is a business crisis and what we need to do to address the Health Emergency is stop business. Many Business Leaders, whether it be mr. Handler, whether it be mr. Ackman, have said maybe we need to shut down temporarily and really attack this because the thing is, brian, businesses cannot survive. Most businesses like individuals who live on credit cards, businesses live on leverage. And across most industries they cannot survive Something Like this if its a slow bleed. So many Business Leaders are urging the administration to do something more severe. Rich handler has suggested not just doing a bailout but saying lets actually create loans for these companies and instead of writing a check to every american put the money through these companies to their employees and that will assure they will keep their jobs because three months from now if all youre doing is paying the American People cash they will not have any companies to go back to. So there are a lot of Thoughtful Solutions here. But i have to tell you what bill ackman did today on television was so wildly irresponsible. I get it. Bill ackman wants to go down in the history books that he called this. Bill ackman has chosen to be in documentaries about some of his best trades and put on this grand extraordinary show. But in putting on that grand show while he was getting choked up talking about his father he caused the markets to puke and he caused the Circuit Breakers to trigger. So its taking advantage of the fact that cable news puts him on television, really hardworking cable News Reporters who are trying to get smart Business Leaders on tv to explain the real picture, maybe to urge the white house to make really good choices, but make no mistake, bill ackman could call the white house any day of the week. I assure you. Jared kushner would love to take his calling. But what has so many people wondering tonight, why bill ackman, who maybe has the right idea or very good intentions would put on such a ridiculous show and cause such damage to an already panicked market. Thats whats puzzling. Because and i are jersey kids i want to read you this. Also as an example of the kind of tragedy you and i are going to start covering here real soon. This is a New York Times headline. March 18th. Coronavirus ravages Seven Members of a single family, killing 3. This happened in the county seat of the county i grew up in freehold, new jersey. When Bruce Springsteen sings about his hometown, thats his hometown. And this is sadly, stephanie, emblematic of the real genuine nonnyse related human suffering were going to see. Brian, that mother who died didnt even know two of her children had died before her. And to think we saw that today where we did see those pictures of people partying on in miami, bill ackman is not wrong. These are very serious times. We just have to address them with the most thoughtful, thoughtful measures. Stephanie ruhle with us in new york again tonight. Were going to be calling on you often, i just know it. Thank you very much for always answering the bell. Coming up for us, a man who once wore four stars on each shoulder is with us tonight to remind us about the awesome power of the u. S. Military, which has so far gone largely untapped in this. W. With key nutrients to help support thyroid, bone, hair and skin health. All with great taste. New, boost women. Designed just for you. 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Upper respiratory tract infection and headache may occur. Tell your doctor about your medicines, and if youre pregnant or planning to be. Otezla. Show more of you. The business of family time. And downtime. And you time. And forgetting what time it is. Altogether. Modernized comfort inns and suites have been refreshed because when your business is making time, our business is you. Get the lowest price guaranteed on all Choice Hotels when you book direct at choicehotels. Com. The president said today two massive u. S. Navy hospital ships are being deployed to battle the coronavirus in the next week or so. But heres the problem. Even that statement may not stand up to scrutiny. The ships are the comfort and the mercy. The comforts going to pull into new york. The mercys going to the west coast. The problem is nbc news reporting the comfort is undergoing maintenance on the east coast right now. No medical personnel are on board. A pentagon spokesman told the New York Times it could be weeks before its deployed. Out west the mercy is also undergoing maintenance on the west coast. No word yet on its destination or schedule. Both vessels, though, are a tiny fraction of the band width, the expertise, the muscle that the u. S. Military could provide in this crisis if they are tasked to do so. Back with us again tonight, retired u. S. Army fourstar general barry mccaffrey, decorated combat veteran of vietnam, former battlefield commander in the persian gulf. He has moved entire armies all around the world. General, tell us what d. O. D. Could bring to this fight. A civilian audience may not know their lift capacity and sheer power on the ground. Well, look, brian, i was very encouraged today to listen to secretary mark esper, the secretary of defense, tell us essentially they got their marching orders yesterday. Im sure in the background general mark millie, the chairman of the jcs and the services, have been actively getting ready to move when they get the order. At the end of the day weve got 2. 1 million men and women in the armed forces, active guard reserve. The active reserve in particular are the preponderance of lojs tirksz our transportation, medevac, military air police, military police for security. They all have a role to play. The actual delivery of Health Care Services to the american. In this crisis is going to be primarily civilian. But what the military can do is they can come in and help run operations centers, provide the security for the hospital. The biggest asset the department of defense has is command and control and contracting. So rather than working through fema and hhs it seemed to me the secretary of defense probably ought to be the primary officer of government to deal through the nations governors, county executives, and mayors to give them the assets that they need to try and get their way through it absolutely horrible disaster thats awaiting us if we dont act quickly. But they need to mobilize. They need to get their orders now. They need to sort out on the ground where the hot spots, where are they supposed to move to. While were talking about my home county on the jersey shore, monmouth county, we have fort monmouth. Just like all the other military bases that were made idle as they contracted, its a huge campus. It is just sitting out there, not being used for much. What about the corps of engineers, general . Its new yorks Governor Cuomo who keeps saying send them here, we need their building skills, we need to take over otherwise unoccupied buildings. The corps of engineers principal advantage is they know how to do contracting and supervise projects, project management. So they can do this through Construction Industry in the local area. I would be very cautious about thinking about military hospita hospitals, fieldprepared blowup structures instead of moving into either military bases, which are all over the country, but more likely hotels and schools near existing medical civilian facilities. I think what we need to do and the department of defense is provide support to the civilian structure again through the governors, the county executives, and the mayors. Youre not going to be able to run this out of washington, d. C. For sure. Final question is a personal one. Hows your community doing out there in seattle . How are you and your Family Holding up . Pretty good. We ended up at the epicenter of this thing. Theres about 1,100 cases now that we know of. Undoubtedly theres several thousand more. The local political leadership, the governor is very straightforward. They seem to know what theyre doing. Theyve to a large extent closed down the city. It was eerie coming in here. It reminded me after 9 11 coming to 30 rock. So i think theyre focused on it. But again, we need resources, assets, and the budget is probably the major thing. Those hospital ships, by the way, remember we sent within of them to puerto rico. And it saw some tiny number of patients because of bureaucratic problems. So we need Emergency Authority to spend money and provide contracts to civilian business to get behind this mass effort. I hope everybody in the pentagon with stars on their shoulders are listening, general barry mccaffrey, always a pleasure. Thank you. Best of luck out there. Coming up for us, they are the front lines in this fight. The medical professionals who are begging and pleading for more of that protective gear. F r youre in a. Mercedes. Yeah, we wish. Wish granted. 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Now youre in control. For ralphies appointment. Ss. Whos his groomer . Carrie. Full groom for sure what . I just booked ralphies appointment online. That work . Wait you what . Its that easy download the app or book online at petsmart. Com transitions light under control. Upbeat music transitions signature gen 8, available now in 4 new style colors. Transitions. First responders all know the three letters ppe. Health care workers on the front lines are battling this contagious virus, and they desperately need ppe, personal protective equipment. It means gowns, gloves, goggles, face shields, hand sanitizer, masks. Medical professionals across the country are taking to social media themselves to warn the rest of us, their potential customers after all, about these shortages. Bloomberg reporting hospital workers in Washington State have resorted to making face masks with Office Supplies because they dont have enough. Right now the cdcs website is suggesting Health Care Workers could use homemade masks like a bandanna or scarf for care of patients as a last resort. However, homemade masks are not considered ppe since their capacity to protect the workers is unknown. Here to talk about it with us tonight, amy lee patchock, a nurse at Stonybrook University hospital in new york, and on the telephone james lewis, a respiratory therapist, also with Stonybrook University hospital. Amy, to you first. Tell us what its like for us on the front lines so our audience can, if they possibly are able, help in the fight. So what were seeing right now is a rise in patients coming in with covid19. Varying symptoms. Some are just coughing and being able to be put on the floor. Some are being intubated and being in Critical Care areas. I work in a Critical Care area. My institution is like a lot of institutions in the sense that we the practitioners have a lot of fear and insecurity about this situation because our institutions and the government have not provided us with the appropriate equipment to properly protect ourselves to care for these patients. So what will happen eventually and what is starting to happen now is that the Health Care Professionals are getting sick and we havent even seen the height of this pandemic. James, are you getting tested . And isnt a test a snapshot in time . So you may test negative for that day, you may be exposed the next . No, sir. We havent been tested. And as far as i know, there isnt any conversation of us being tested. Were just monitoring symptoms and taking temperatures daily. When you reach for equipment, when you reach in a drawer for a mask, when you reach in a drawer for a face shield, is it there . Face shields and masks, no. Theyre typically held by the administrators because unfortunately theyre a hot commodity right now. People are stealing them. You know, visitors steal them or anyone will steal them. We even had somebody run into an e. R. And grab a box of masks and run out. So its unfortunate they have to be doled out on a casebycase basis. Which can be frustrating. But i guess its only going to get worse from here on out. Hey, amy, weve got washington, d. C. Full of members of the house and senate telling us what you need. If you had a chance to tell them what you need, what would it be . We need n95 masks. We need face shields to cover our face. We need appropriate gowns and gloves to protect us. We need specific things to protect our hair. The disease is airborne. And it is very contagious. So if we dont have the appropriate equipment then we become vectors. And we can spread the disease to our patients. We can bring the disease home to our family, to our friends. And that would be incredibly horrible to do, being that we should have the tools and the instruments we need to protect ourselves and its just not possible. At this time. James, do you go home to other people at the end of the day . Are you protecting yourself in terms of exposure, james, from friends and family after work . Yeah. My wife and i, were both respiratory therapists. We just started tonight, i come home and i throw my clothes on the floor in the garage and i take a shower in the basement before i come up and we wash the clothes. So hopefully were not bringing things in. But then of course were not going out into the public or seeing any of our loved ones, who are keeping it in the house. So. And as i said, were every american does. Yeah. I know, i get it. As i said, were all potential customers of yours and not in a good way. On behalf of a grateful nation and people everywhere, thanks to our medical professionals, thanks for both of you for joining us. 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They cost about a dollar each. The prototype took about three hours to design. According to an article in forbes, the Coronavirus Crisis may have an upside. And we quote. While the grave and tragic human toll of lost lives cannot be measured, there is a silver lini lining. If the history of pandemics is a guide, this contagion like all others will spark a wave of innovation proportional to how it alters the shape of society. We are so pleased to have our friend back with us, walter isaacson, distinguished fellow with the aspen institute, former editor of time magazine, veteran journalist and author, biographer of in no particular order franklin, einstein, kissinger, jobs, and da vinci. In his spare time hes a professor of history at the jewel of new orleans, tulane university. Walter, thank you very much for coming on. I guess i want to know from you what do you think we are at the beginning of right now and how is your betting on america as you know it to get through what you think is coming . I think america will get through it. Its the most innovative country in history. And as you said, sometimes tragedies like this have to spark innovation. I think well have new ways of doing supply chains. Well have printing on demand. The whole notion of a Global Supply chain will probably break down a bit but well have more local manufacturing. But most importantly, i think it will be a century of biotechnology. I think people watching this who are young today will say all right, the past half century, or last part of the 20th century, was an Info Technology revolution. This is going to be a biology revolution, a biotech revolution, and its going to come with people understanding viruses, understanding how to do genetic editing, understanding new technologies like crispr because those are going to be so much in demand. Let me run a theory by you. In all the history youve studied and know about, has there ever been a single individual who will have even though its socioeconomic, who will have as big a control over our supply chain as jeff bezos and amazon and the role theyre about to play in getting stuff to American Homes that can afford it . Well, yes. I mean, thats one of the innovations that came after the sars crisis, was a whole lot of Online Shopping. And i think youre going to see that now. But there is a hunger that people have to actually be together. We thought that Online Shopping would destroy the Retail Industry just as we thought walmart might. But people do want to get out and get together. So i think once we create vaccines and treatments for, this whether its in six months or 18 months, i dont think were going to just be shopping online. So we can assume is that the engine of american industry, science, technology, were all motivated to work toward a cure toward therapeutics for this, we can assume that theyre going to be running hellbent for leather toward that goal. Oh, everybody is. I was just in communication with jennifer dowden, one of the coinventors of the geneediting technology crispr, and theyre Holding Meetings about how do you find new Detection Technologies . How do you find new ways to fight viruses . You know, bacteria have been fighting viruses for 3 billion years, and one of the things that weve done in biotech recently is take from bacteria some of the ways that they fight against viruses. So i think youre going to see this type of innovation just like after world war ii, where the government, academia, and private enterprise all Work Together to create things like the computer, the internet, and the microchip. We try to keep religion out of this kind of thing, but your lips to gods ears. Walter isaacson, thank you. Were probably going to ask to talk to you along the way. We greatly appreciate being able to interview you tonight. Coming up for us, a brief tour of our new reality in this business. With key nutrients to help support thyroid, bone, hair and skin health. All with great taste. New, boost women. Designed just for you. And sometimes, you can find yourself heading in a new direction. But when youre with fidelity, a partner who makes sure every step is clear, theres nothing to stop you from moving forward. A papay your dues. S sure work now, play later. Climb the ladder. All your life, youve been told, business first, fun later. 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The broadcast you watch and are watching now are going to look different if they dont already. Youre going to see more skype interviews. Youre going to hear more telephone interviews. There are going to be longer satellite delays. No more inperson guest interviews. As we try to practice what we preach, as we attempt television in an age of social distancing with a big assist thankfully from technology. So in hopes that you are taking care of yourselves and each other. That is for now our broadcast for this wednesday night. Thank you so much for being here with us. Good night. Very happy to have you with us. Our set may look a little different tonight. I may look a little different. Were trying out a remote studio option to see how it works. Were going to have some of our guests tonight joining us by skype. Were just trying out a whole bunch of Different Things to see what works, while we try to make this broadcast as resilient and as permanent and as safe as possible for everybody involved in producing it, including our crew of all different types, our staff, our guests, everyone. So if anything looks or sounds a