mostly good news from the president unless, that is, you live in one of the states. the president said just today we have states, a lot of states, territories too. the problem is he's not happy with the states. he took a swing at governors for not being thankful enough. he thinks the states should have been prepared for this pandemic even though he seemed upbeat on the pandemic. just today he said, it's not going to be long. this is ending. this will end. you'll see some bad things and you'll see some very good things. we're healing, he said. we're getting better. we're getting better very quickly. he reminded everyone this was artificially induced, not his fault, and insisted out loud it is going away. he and his people announced today the cdc now recommends we cover our faces when we go out. the president then went on to say he won't be covering his. don't imagine he would love that photograph. and then he said six times that wearing a face covering is voluntary and that it's for a period of time. in other news, the president blamed the obama administration. he wants to turn now to infrastructure, and he said the election in november should be in-person voting, no voting by mail. he added, everyone should have to present a voter i.d. card with a picture on it. of course that's not up to him. still, it was a lot today. again, however, in the real world as we face it tonight, our country set a new record for deaths today. we head into another weekend with nearly half the planet living under some form of lockdown. nearly 4 billion people are now under some type of a directive to stay inside and avoid gathering in public places, avoid contact, leaving some of the busiest places on our planet now abandoned. in the u.s., more states have seen the light. they're telling people to stay at home. tonight governors in alabama, missouri and mississippi have now issued new statewide orders. the worldwide number of infected is now well north of a million and climbing. the outbreak in this country means more than 275,000 people are known to be infected. more than 7,000 dead. just a reminder, we don't know how many people have this virus. just in the past 24 hours, more than 32,000 new confirmed cases. nearly 2,000 new deaths. that is the backdrop for the latest guidelines from the white house announced late this afternoon. they apply to all of us, advising americans to protect themselves and each other by wearing masks. >> the cdc is advising the use of non-medical, cloth face covering as an additional voluntary public health measures. i don't think i'm going to be doing it, but you have a lot of ways you can look at it as follows. the cdc. they can be purchased online or simply made at home, probably material that you'd have at home. these face coverings can be easily washed or reused. i want to emphasize that the cdc is not recommending the use of medical-grade or surgical-grade masks. you can do it. you don't have to do it. i'm choosing not to do it, but some people may want to do it, and that's okay. it may be good. probably will. they're making a recommendation. it's only a recommendation. somehow sitting in the oval office behind that beautiful resolute desk, the great resolute desk, i think wearing a face mask as i greet presidents, prime ministers, dictators, kings, queens, i don't know. somehow i don't see it for myself. >> while the president was making that announcement along with side comments, the first lady was giving her own advice on social media, and we quote. as the weekend approaches, i ask that everyone take social distancing and wearing a mask/face covering seriously. the pandemic's toll on new york has accelerated. today the state reported its highest daily rise in deaths. 562 souls lost just since yesterday. new york is the hardest-hit state of all 50 with well over 100,000 confirmed cases now. nearly 3,000 dead. that's just in the state of new york. facing increasing shortages of ventilators and personal protective equipment, governor cuomo says he'll use the national guard now to take medical supplies from hospitals where they're not in use and deploy them where they're needed. today trump was asked about the need for equipment and when it might arrive. >> can you assure new york that going into next week, that they're going to have the ventilators that they're going to need? >> no, they should have had more ventilators at the time. they should have had more ventilators. they are totally underserviced. we're trying to do -- we're doing our best for new york. we have other states to take care. we have a big problem in louisiana. we have a big problem in michigan. we have a big problem in seven other really strong hot spots. >> as cities and states struggle to get the equipment they desperately need, the president today defended his son-in-law's assertion that it wasn't the administration's problem. >> yesterday jared kushner said the notion of the federal stockpile was it's supposed to be our stockpile. it's not supposed to be state stockpiles that they then use. what did he mean by "our." >> what are you asking? i mean -- >> even the fact that taxpayers -- >> what's that? a gotcha? >> no. >> you know what "our" means? united states of america. >> why did you say it's not supposed to be state stockpiles that they then -- >> because we need it for the government, and we need it for the federal government. but when the states are -- no -- >> who are you giving it to if it's not the states? >> to keep for our country because the federal government needs it too, not just the states. >> for good measure, when that little exchange was over, the president called the reporter's line of questioning nasty. the economic picture is also looking bleaker by the day sadly. yesterday we learned nearly 10 million americans are now out of work. today's jobless report shows more than 700,000 jobs were cut. "the wall street journal" calling it just the start of a much deeper labor market collapse under way due to the coronavirus pandemic. congress, for its part, is preparing to move on a fourth phase of relief for americans. senate majority leader mitch mcconnell telling the a.p. today he's spoken with speaker nancy pelosi and health care will be a top priority. different story when it comes to the president potentially talking with the speaker. >> if it were important to talk to her, i'd talk to her. if it were important for the american people, i'd talk to her. >> senate democrats, meanwhile, calling for a formal investigation into the firing of the navy captain who sounded the alarm over the spread of the illness on board his nuclear aircraft carrier "theodore roosevelt." this is how the crewmen and women under captain brett crozier's command saw him off the bridge last night. [ cheers and applause ] [ chanting "captain crozier" ] and with that, he was relieved of his command. here with our leadoff discussion on a friday night at the end of another long week, annie karni, white house reporter with "the new york times." robert costa, national political reporter for "the washington post," moderator of "washington week" on pbs. dr. anne rimoin back with us, professor of epidemiology at the ucla fielding school of public health, an infectious disease division of the geffen school of medicine. also runs the ucla center for global and immigrant health where she specializes in emerging infectious diseases, started her life's work as a peace corps volunteer in africa. anne, i'd like to begin with you. the subject of masks has been important to you, near and dear to you. do you applaud what the cdc and white house did today despite perhaps the president's personal diminishment of the topic? >> i think it's a great move that now we are using the global data to inform policy. this is really what we have been lacking all along. we know that the virus is able to transmit through speech droplets. we know that we need to be able to do everything we can to slow the spread of the virus because the testing is not sufficient. because we do not have national policy working on our behalf, we do not have all of the tools in place, the only thing we can do is use these brute measures of social distancing and things like using facial coverings to be able to slow the spread of the virus. without this, we have -- we have very little available to us to be able to do. >> annie karni, the president said the mask isn't for him though the rest of us should feel free. he is not going to give the stay-at-home order for the states that have yet to do that, even a suggestion to them. he's not wanting to own any aspect of this, clearly. so why continue to come out there given his current mood of irritation? >> it certainly doesn't look like he has a lot to announce every day when he gets out there. but this two-hour show that he's doing every day, i've talked to people who say it's -- it's what's really keeping him animated and going. he doesn't have the rallies. he doesn't have the marine one takeoff where he talks to the press. so much of this president is driven by coverage and driven by these interactions with the press. this is not kind of a side dish of his presidency. this is the main event. this is the main course for him. so this is the only place he really gets to joust, and this is what enlivens him. the fact that he has two hours a day to do this every day does raise questions about what else he has on his plate, leading the country right now. but what we see right now is a man who doesn't want to take responsibility despite calling himself and branding himself a wartime president. between the stockpile and not declaring a national stay-at-home order, he wants these decisions to be on the plates of the governors. he doesn't want to take responsibility. he doesn't want to make these broad decisions right now. >> robert costa, does your reporting indicate they see any kind of problem in the west wing? >> well, we've seen such a sea change in the west wing. there's a turbulent sense of negotiations and discussions inside of the white house because it was only a week ago today that the president was thinking about reopening the economy by easter. then he came around after data was shown to him last weekend, and so now he's in this mind-set that he has to follow the advice of the health officials in his administration. but he's watching that economy and those stock market numbers as closely as anyone. and when i'm talking to white house officials, they say he of course like every american is uneasy about the tragedy on the health front that's only mounting, but also the economic front because he sees that so closely tied to his own re-election chances. >> anne, is it too early to say that the lockdown in california, in the los angeles metro area, has reduced the effect of the approaching coronavirus and/or where do you see the peak arriving in our major metropolitan centers? >> quite frankly, it's impossible to say where we are on this curve. we are still lacking widespread testing to understand anything about where we stand. we know right now that testing is not available to most people, that we have very little understanding of population immunity. so we really are so far behind the curve. what we need right now is we need national strategy. and even if we are able to understand where we are with testing, we have many states that have no stay-at-home policy, and as many people have said today, this is like being on an airplane with a smoking section. even if we try to get ahead of the curve by having strict measures here, we are subject to every other state that is not employing these methods right now. we will all pay the price for the states that are not taking this seriously and having a lockdown. we need a national strategy for locking everybody down and to fight together to be able to fight this virus. >> annie karni, by our count you've worked for three new york-based newspapers. what's the president's relationship status with andrew cuomo? should we call it wary? >> the president has been really reactive with these governors across the board. you can track his comments about andrew cuomo day to day based on what andrew cuomo said about him first. he'll praise if he's praised. he'll lash out if he was attacked. he has been very, very aware of andrew cuomo's success with these briefings. he tunes in a lot to watch his morning briefings, and part of the reason why the president does his in the evening is because andrew cuomo kind of already claimed the morning for himself. so he's competitive with him, but he's complimented him at times if he's been complimented, and he's been entirely reactive to governor cuomo. >> robert costa, tell the good people watching who got fired today by the president, the reputation of this inspector general and how far back this beef goes. >> it's a name that's little known nationally, michael atkinson, the inspector general for the intelligence community appointed a few years ago by president trump. he's not part of the government and someone who's aligned against the president. he was appointed by the president. but he will be remembered by historians and certainly was remembered by president trump because he was the person in the intelligence community who heard about the whistle-blower complaint, about that infamous call between president trump and the ukrainian president volodymyr zelensky, and he was persistent in making sure congress was aware of the whistle-blower complaint. even when he had some pressure from different people in the administration to proceed a bit more quietly about the whistle-blower complaint, he made sure congress knew. so in the president's eyes, i'm told by some of his confidants, he has always seen atkinson, this unknown i.g., as the person who helped to light the fire of impeachment. everyone who knows atkinson sees him as someone who is by the book, a former federal prosecutor, and they also underscore that he's widely seen as nonpartisan. he has prosecuted democratic lawmakers and other democratic officials. he is not someone who is seen as aligned or trying to bully president trump. >> and, robert, not to get all joyce brothers here, but do you see this as pretty straight-up score settling when other things aren't going well for the chief executive? >> based on my conversations tonight -- and i've only made a couple with people close to the president, the news just broke -- president trump has always seen this i.g. as someone who wasn't playing by the rules he would like to see his own officials abide by in the administration. he didn't like how this i.g. was so protective of whistle-blowers. he does not, to say the least, share that perspective and embrace of whistle-blowers. atkinson has testified before congress that whistle-blowers are some of the most important people in the federal government. that you have to encourage people to speak out about abuses of power or perceived abuses of power. and he has stood by that to this day, and that's perhaps why he's leaving based on my conversations tonight. >> and, annie, finally there's been something of a hit list on the right. they've been frothed up about certain names in different jobs in the government. some, as robert correctly pointed out, appointed by this president. are there others, do you think? >> this kind of came -- i mean this has been someone who was on the hit list, but that he would do it in the middle of a pandemic late on a friday night, i think was shocking even for the standards of a president we know is vindictive and still hasn't moved past the impeachment and wants to get rid of anyone who was involved with that. so i would say this is a sign that he is going to conduct the business he wanted to do, pandemic or not, and it will be late on friday nights. >> as i thank our guests, i'll say to anne rimoin, thank goodness you only have to cover medicine and not politics like our other guests here tonight. to anne rimoin, to annie karni, robert costa, thank you all for coming on at the end of another long week. coming up for us, lots of talk yesterday and today about the strategic national stockpile. jared kushner said it was "ours" after all and not the states', whatever that means. our next guest will explain how it's supposed to work. and later, one doctor's plan to stop the coronavirus by june if we can all follow it. 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[ barking ] for 15 years now, this country has had a massive effort at the federal, state, and local level of preparedness for pandemic. we've all been very focused on pandemic preparedness. that's what we do. but this particular strain of pandemic, who would have known this particular strain? >> it's worth saying this again. we can't say it often enough. there's clear evidence the country was not prepared for a global pandemic. for starters, we're still not getting lifesaving supplies where they need to go, and we still have no idea how many people are walking around our country with this virus. back with us again tonight, dr. irwin redlener, a pediatrics physician, clinical professor with the school of public health at columbia university in new york. he's also the director of columbia's national center for disaster preparedness with an expertise in pandemic influenza. doctor, the last time i saw you, you and i were still able to come and go from our studios in 30 rock. what did you make of the president's message on face coverings today, on masks? he used the word "voluntary" six times, said it was just a recommendation, said, you know, i'm not going to wear one, but the rest of you guys are if you want to. >> well, i guess it ranks among the more bizarre messages that have come out of the white house. you know, the federal government cannot order every american to wear a face mask. those kinds of orders would have to come from local and state governments. but what the government can do, the federal government, is make very clear directions and guidelines that should override anything else that governors and mayors are proposing. so for the president to use the most powerful words he has in the sense of, i'm giving you a directive in essence that we all need to be wearing face masks, and then for him to say, but it's voluntary, and i'm personally not going to use a face mask is one of the most confusing messages that this white house has ever put out. and we've had plenty of them from the get-go here on this subject and every other subject. it was just frankly bizarre, brian. i don't know how he could feel like he could get away with saying, over here my professional and my experts are saying wearing a face mask, and i don't think i'm going to. it's a total like crazy loss of credibility that actually seeps down to the other layers of government. if we can't expect the president to comply with his own experts' opinions about what should be done in this very serious situation, it's befuddling how he thinks that he could formulate a message that's contradictory to what he said like two minutes before. but i guess we need to get used to that. and i think, look, the other issues that came up about the strategic national stockpile, everything that's uttered by the white house seems to me completely confused and very unfortunate and misleading to the american public. again, undermining the ability of the president and his people to be believed. and i shuddered listening to jared kushner's remarks about that sns yesterday. >> and because of all the other confusion and the kind of side remarks that make headlines, i was just looking at some of what dr. birx said that didn't make headlines. quote, we continue to watch, in addition to the chicago area, the detroit area and have some developing concerns around colorado, the district of columbia, and pennsylvania. each of these will follow their own curves. doctor, as they say in normal times, that would be a headline. is this baked into the cake, or can we act now to mollify the reaction in some of those places she mentioned? >> well, we certainly can, brian. but the problem now is that -- and by the way, this is coming in a big way to every state in the country, every rural area. if you think that by living in a remote county in idaho or mississippi or colorado for that matter that you're going to be somehow protected from getting this virus, it's just not true. and that is why i think we're all now recommending a full national coast-to-coast lockdown or shelter-in-place program. that is the only way that we're going to get control of this. we can't keep skipping and hopping from one area to the other as they get their own flare-ups. that will not work. well, it will work eventually, but it will work in a way that will make many more americans sick and many more americans, you know, suffer a fatal outcome from this disease. so the only thing we have in our toolbox, brian, is shutting down the country and doing it for as short a time as we can but as long as we have to. and that is the only thing that we have. we don't have medicine. we don't have the vaccine yet to prevent it. all we have is a shutdown. and the sooner we become comfortable with that, we need to kind of enforce that. the government -- national government has to recommend it, and every single state has to comply with it. and then we'll have the best chance of slowing the spread, flattening the so-called curve, and keeping our hospitals from getting any more overwhelmed than they already are. that's all we have unfortunately. >> doc, all i have is 30 seconds to ask you when do you expect the peak in a place like new york city? >> well, they're saying april, may, and that may or may not be true. the modelers are continuing to adjust their models for things like the peak and when will we have a second surge, and that will probably come no matter what we do now sometime in late summer, early fall and into the winter. so we're not going to be done with this anytime soon, brian, which makes it really, really difficult, i must say, for every family, including the redlener family, to try to figure out how we're going to remain compliant with these very strict rules to keep ourselves separated. it's difficult, but we're going to have to do it and figure out how we're going to adapt as a country for the public's good, really for the world's good to try to get this under control as soon as we can. >> we're all right there with you. dr. irwin redlener, thank you. it's always a pleasure to have you on our broadcast. we appreciate you welcoming us into your home. >> thanks, brian. coming up, why some governors are still resisting the call to issue stay-at-home measures. the former executive editor of "the new york times" joins us from one of the states that just made the call today when we come back. my name is jonatan and i work for verizon. i totally get how important it is to stay connected. we're connecting with people, we're offering them solutions. customers can do what they need to do, whenever they need to do it online. because it gives customers the ability to not come in to the store, they can simply tap and swipe. something that they can use wherever they are. we care about keeping you safe. at verizon, we are here, and we are ready. we are open 24/7 online, so you can keep managing all you need from home and through the verizon apps and verizon.com. should every state in this country have the kind of stay-at-home orders we now see in places like washington? >> i leave it up to the governors. the governors know what they're doing. >> as we mentioned, alabama, mississippi, missouri now imposing stay-at-home measures. about 90% of the u.s. population heads into this weekend under some type of shelter order. but more than a dozen states have religious exemptions and because there's certainly been no order from the feds, there's still some states holding out altogether. >> the cdc, i watch their guidelines regularly, and they have not indicated that's an appropriate or necessary step across the country. >> for more, we are happy to be joined tonight by the veteran journalist and author howell raines. he's a contributor of ours, also happens to be the former executive editor of "the new york times," where i note they don't do audio, and our audio has given out tonight. so it's not like howell is ordering a pizza. that's how he can hear me ask him questions like, howell, what's going on down there? and let me ask you about where you live. have folks been doing de facto stay-at-home anyway? are they talking about this because up here in the north where we've all been in bunkers for a good, long while, it's pretty much all people are talking about. >> brian, this has been one of the most extraordinary, remarkable weeks in civic life in alabama that i can remember. and as you know from your visits down here, folks down here like to talk about being laid-back in l.a., l.a. being lower alabama. and that was the mood that we started the week with. on sunday, there was a defiant beach party at gulf shores with people swimming and boating in close -- in defiance of social distancing. yet today governor ivey announced a pretty restrictive ban on going out of your homes. she said, we're not asking you anymore. we're telling you. and remarkably for alabama, she did not exempt churches from her order so far. here's what i think has happened. alabama was, in addition to its tradition of defined individualism, also reflecting president trump's cavalier attitude. and what i think we saw this week is a real movement in what i call the fox news curve down here. fox is the biggest determinant of political opinion certainly among white alabamans right now, and i think as long as its commentators were talking about hoaxes and conspiracies, people were very relaxed. as fox began to take a more factual approach to its reporting, notwithstanding the president's uncertain signals, i think alabamans began taking this virus seriously in a way that the rest of the nation has had to. so it's been, as i say, a remarkable change in the course of five days. that said, i took a 30-minute ride around fairhope, this lovely little town, and i would say the traffic at rush hour was down 60% to 70%, which is a lot. most of the retail stores are beginning to close, but i don't want to overstate. i did not see a single face mask in fairhope today. >> what do -- howell, first of all, that's the best and most complete analysis i think i have heard, and i wish to hell the states that are late to act weren't red on the map. but we can't avoid that visual. and as you mentioned, it's a confluence. is there any palpable anxiety or fear among the people in your circle who you deal with every day? >> yeah, and we have a bit of a generation gap that i think began to narrow this week. people of my age, retirees in this affluent retirement community where people come for the beach and the fishing, have been upset that the spring breakers have been defiantly getting close to one another in the normal spring break kind of ways. that began to change this week, but, again, governor ivey has been following the white house script just as the president is saying it's the governors' business, she's been saying it's the mayors' business. so we had a couple of beachfront mayors in gulf shores and orange beach step up after that giant beach party on sunday and close their towns. so we're seeing something of the national paradigm where the federal government or the state government in this case is lagging behind the local leadership who are having to cope with this problem on the ground level. now, let me say this about governor ivey. she acted belatedly but firmly today, and i found that pretty remarkable because alabama does not want a governor who goes out and hunts for problems to solve the way andrew cuomo does. alabama does not want a problem-solving governor. so for her to step up today in the right way, i think, was a signal of the public concern really growing down here. >> howell raines, reporting tonight from what i can attest is one of the prettiest towns in the south and maybe the country, fairhope, alabama. it's always a pleasure having you on. let's try to talk regularly during this thing, however long it lasts. and coming up for us, a ten-week plan to defeat this virus. our next guest has a strategy to crush the curve, but how much of it are we following right now? people don't want to talk about it. so i share it. song by song. the dark and the light. the struggle and the joy with my mental health. what's your mission? use godaddy to help make it happen. 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 4-week trial plus postage and a digital scale go to stamps.com/tv and never go to the post office again! so this got the attention of new yorkers a few hours ago. an alert sent to everybody's phone pleading for all licensed health care workers to support health care facilities in need. that need grows by the hour. by the way, they've already had 20,000 volunteers before this plea went out. we learned today that a 22-year veteran of the new york city fire department has died from coronavirus. one out of every four members of the city's ems personnel -- that's part of the fire department -- are out sick. my next guest has outlined a rigorous six-point plan that he says can defeat this pandemic by early june if we're all willing to throw in and try hard enough. we welcome to the broadcast harvey fineberg, president of the gordon and betty moore foundation and the chair of the standing committee on emerging infectious diseases and 21st century health threats. if this isn't one, it will do until one gets here. he's also former president of the institute of medicine now known as the national academy of medicine. happens to be the former dean of the harvard school of public health. let me get to your list so we don't waste a second. here are your six points. we'll critique as we go. to crush covid-19 in ten weeks, you are calling for establish unified command. we don't have that. make millions of tests available. we don't yet have that. ppe and equipment to hospitals. we don't have enough. differentiate the population into five groups. that i need to come back to. inspire and mobilize the public. i'm pretty sure we haven't done that. and learn through real-time fundamental research. right now it seems to me we're doing basic triage, but i hope our smarter angels are already engaged in that. so if you can back up to differentiating these five groups, that was a fascinating idea. >> well, thank you, brian. it's a pleasure to be with you. the basic idea is if we are in this as a war, we should be in it to win. and to win we have to do a great deal more than we are doing. one of the critical elements, as you pointed out, was to understand who in the population first is infected, secondly is presumed infected because they have all the symptoms but they haven't yet tested positive. third is someone who's been exposed but not yet infected. so those people should be in quarantine. fourth, those of us who have neither developed the infection nor, to our knowledge, been directly exposed to someone with it. and finally, those who have recovered and presumably have some degree of immunity, which can also be tested. >> we're watching these states one after another late in this process see the light and tell or ask their citizens to stay indoors. it seems to me for every state not under such an order, that threatens the herd, but there is a self-reward for doing what you and i are doing, staying indoors and away from other people. it's your way of making a tough outer shell on you that's going to resist this. >> it's basically distance by physical separation that makes it harder for that virus to find someone else to infect. that's the whole point of our work from home, stay at home, shelter at home, that whole concept. that's likely to reduce the frequency of the spread. but unless we're much more aggressive about testing and differentiating the population into those five groups and then acting on that information, isolate the cases, quarantine those who have been exposed, keep others away from the exposure, we're not going to really win this war. >> well, as you know, as a well-read guy, wars are won in part based on leadership. central leadership and terrific battlefield leadership. we don't have any one person. i'll try to keep you in medicine and out of politics, but if you had your druthers, would it be one of the many highly qualified retired generals in our country, many of whom are quite active and vocal on social media? would it be a dr. tony fauci? do you have a candidate who you wish would rise up and lead this thing? >> the most important thing is, first, whoever it is who's our commander in the field, who reports directly to the president, has to have the full confidence of the president. that is essential. it took lincoln a while before he found his grant. president trump needs the equivalent. secondly, this individual has to understand both the government and the health scene. this is someone who also knows about state and federal relations. this has to be someone who is well respected, very knowledgeable, and decisive in decision-making. there are a number of people, brian, who could qualify. just to name one, to pick a name out of the air, former governor, hhs secretary mike leavitt, kind of person who succeeded in running a department, very complicated, well organized, able to get things done. if you reach across the aisle, you have ash carter, former secretary of defense, extremely brilliant, great history in logistics. maybe you get both of them. maybe one is in charge and one manages different aspects of the program. we need the "a" team brought together under a unified command to direct this effort in a way that avoids a lot of the miscommunication, misunderstanding, lack of coherence in the way we're approaching this problem. just think about the way we've tried to settle the ventilator shortage problem, each state out on its own and then fema and the federal government overlaying its work on top of all the states. this should be a coordinated, unified, thought-through effort so that we can share effectively all of the ventilator capacity by region. >> well, thank you first of all for naming names. those are fantastic nominations, and if you don't mind, we'd love to have you on again and keep this conversation going. dr. harvey fineberg, a great pleasure having you on our broadcast on this friday night. >> it's my pleasure. coming up for us, a rare inside look at what health care workers in the epicenter of this outbreak are taking on day and night. i see what's possible, instead of what's here. others see cracked concrete, rundown courts. i see a way to bring pride back to communities. that's why i made project backboard and a site with godaddy. how will you make your mark? make the world you want. people don't want to so i share it. song by song. the dark and the light. the struggle and the joy with my mental health. what's your mission? use godaddy to help make it happen. welcome back. new york city hospitals are braces bracing for "d" day, as the governor calls it, the day when they are full, overwhelmed by new cases. every hour the problem is they're getting one step closer to that. sky news u.s. correspondent cordelia lynch has this report from a hospital in the city's most populous borough. >> can you open the valve, please? >> reporter: brooklyn's biggest hospital is flat out. an emergency room that's become a battle zone where there's a constant stream of covid-19 casualties. >> so, we're now in the critical care area of the emergency department. everyone that's in here today is here due to breathing problems, almost uniformly all from covid. we're seeing such a large increase on a day-to-day basis on a number of patients who are presenting in critical condition, requiring really all the resources that we have to provide in order to help them. >> reporter: dr. eitan dickman says there are normally 17 beds in this room at maimonides medical center. today there are 32 patients, and the numbers are rising rapidly every hour. >> we have opened up new icus, new intensive care units. we've opened up new medical units in order to accommodate for this increased demand of patients who are coming in so ill. >> reporter: in a city of extremes, this pandemic has been a painful equalizer. this is an intense, demanding, and desperate atmosphere in here. the patients keep coming, and it's not just the elderly. it's the young too, and they're all struggling. >> some of the sickest patients i've seen in my whole career. not only do they have coronavirus, but they also have their diabetes that's out of control. so it's particularly hard, and we're learning how to do it, how to manage. >> reporter: their work has spilled onto the streets. triage tents at the front to tend to the living. refrigerated trucks at the back to carry the dead. but here brave doctors and nurses are working every minute, risking their lives so they can save others'. >> both sad and fascinating to see how story is being reported on for an overseas audience. that report from cordelia lynch with sky news. coming up after our final break, remembering a hall of famer whose voice will remain with us for the rest of our lives. my name is jonatan and i work for verizon. i totally get how important it is to stay connected. we're connecting with people, we're offering them solutions. customers can do what they need to do, whenever they need to do it online. because it gives customers the ability to not come in to the store, they can simply tap and swipe. something that they can use wherever they are. we care about keeping you safe. at verizon, we are here, and we are ready. we are open 24/7 online, so you can keep managing all you need from home and through the verizon apps and verizon.com. ♪ lean on me when you're not strong ♪ ♪ and i'll be your friend ♪ i'll help you carry on >> before we go tonight, just when we needed him most, bill withers is gone. among us fans, he was the essential bill withers. to everyone else, you got to admit he left you a hell of a play list. "ain't no sunshine." "use me." "lean on me." "lovely day." "just the two of us." personal favorite, "who is he, and what is he to you?" he was born in slab fork, west virginia, coal mining town. he stuttered as a child, lost his dad at 13, joined the navy at 17 and served nine years. fast forward an entire career to the rock & roll hall of fame. the effortless and lovely bill withers was 81 years old. and let's just agree on the healing power of music on this strange time of tragedy and home imprisonment. we're going to go ahead and say good night here early for the week, and we're going to let two musicians play us off the air tonight, something they've started doing in their st. louis neighborhood with just a tuba and a bone and the thanks of their grateful neighbors. ♪ ♪ it was one of those moments where you just want to go back two minutes. two minutes ago he was laying beside me and he was alive. now he's gone forever. inside a sleeping house, an armed intruder hunts for prey. >> i heard angie scream, oh, my god, oh, my god. i could see blood running down his neck. >> i nudged justin and his didn't respond. >> her fiance had just been killed but she's calm somehow. >> to me, very cal
president unless, that is, you live in one of the states. the president said just today we have states, a lot of states, territories too. the problem is he's not happy with the states. he took a swing at governors for not being thankful enough. he thinks the states should have been prepared for this pandemic even though he seemed upbeat on the pandemic. just today he said, it's not going to be long. this is ending. this will end. you'll see some bad things, and you'll see some very good things. we're healing, he said. we're getting better. we're getting better very quickly. he reminded everyone this was artificially induced, not his fault, and insisted out loud, it is going away. he and his people announced today the cdc now recommends we cover our faces when we go out. the president then went on to say he won't be covering his. don't imagine he would love that photograph. and then he said six times that wearing a face covering is voluntary and that it's for a period of time. in other news, the president blamed the obama administration. he wants to turn now to infrastructure, and he said the election in november should be in-person voting, no voting by mail. he added, everyone should have to present a voter i.d. card with a picture on it. of course that's not up to him. still, it was a lot today. again, however, in the real world as we face it tonight, our country set a new record for deaths today. we head into another weekend with nearly half the planet living under some form of lockdown. nearly 4 billion people are now under some type of a directive to stay inside and avoid gathering in public places, avoid contact, leaving some of the busiest places on our planet now abandoned. in the u.s., more states have seen the light. they're telling people to stay at home. tonight governors in alabama, missouri, and mississippi have now issued new statewide orders. the worldwide number of infected is now well north of a million and climbing. the outbreak in this country means more than 275,000 people are known to be infected. more than 7,000 dead. just a reminder, we don't know how many people have this virus. just in the past 24 hours, more than 32,000 new confirmed cases. nearly 2,000 new deaths. that is the backdrop for the latest guidelines from the white house announced late this afternoon. they apply to all of us, advising americans to protect themselves and each other by wearing masks. >> the cdc is advising the use of non-medical, cloth face covering as an additional voluntary public health measures. i don't think i'm going to be doing it, but you have a lot of ways you can look at it as follows. they can be purchased online or simply made at home, probably material that you'd have at home. these face coverings can be easily washed or reused. i want to emphasize that the cdc is not recommending the use of medical-grade or surgical-grade masks. you can do it. you don't have to do it. i'm choosing not to do it, but some people may want to do it, and that's okay. it may be good. probably well. they're making a recommendation. it's only a recommendation. somehow sitting in the oval office behind that beautiful resolute desk, the great resolute desk, i think wearing a face mask as i greet presidents, prime ministers, dictators, kings, queens, i don't know. somehow i don't see it for myself. >> while the president was making that announcement along with side comments, the first lady was giving her own advice on social media, and we quote. as the weekend approaches, i ask that everyone take social distancing and wearing a mask/face covering seriously. the pandemic's toll on new york has accelerated. today the state reported its highest daily rise in deaths. 562 souls lost just since yesterday. new york is the hardest-hit state of all 50 with well over 100,000 confirmed cases now. nearly 3,000 dead. that's just in the state of new york. facing increasing shortages of ventilators and personal protective equipment, governor cuomo says he'll use the national guard now to take medical supplies from hospitals where they're not in use and deploy them where they're needed. today trump was asked about the need for equipment and when it might arrive. >> can you assure new york that going into next week, that they're going to have the ventilators that they're going to need. >> no, they should have had more ventilators at the time. they should have had more ventilators. they are totally underserviced. we're trying to do -- we're doing our best for new york. we have other states to take care. we have a big problem in louisiana. we have a big problem in michigan. we have a big problem in seven other really strong hot spots. >> as cities and states struggle to get the equipment they desperately need, the president today defended his son-in-law's assertion that it wasn't the administration's problem. >> yesterday jared kushner said the notion of the federal stockpile was it's supposed to be our stockpile. it's not supposed to be state stockpiles that they then use. what did he mean by "our". >> what are you asking? i mean -- >> even the fact that taxpayers -- >> what's that? a gotcha? >> no. >> you know what "our" means? united states of america. >> why did you say it's not supposed to be state stockpiles that they then -- >> because we need it for the government, and we need it for the federal government. but when the states are -- no -- >> who are you giving it to if it's not the states? >> to keep for our country because the federal government needs it too, not just the states. >> for good measure, when that little exchange was over, the president called the reporter's line of questioning nasty. the economic picture is also looking bleaker by the day sadly. yesterday we learned nearly 10 million americans are now out of work. today's jobless report shows more than 700,000 jobs were cut. "the wall street journal" calling it just the start of a much deeper labor market collapse under way due to the coronavirus pandemic. congress, for its part, is preparing to move on a fourth phase of relief for americans. senate majority leader mitch mcconnell telling the a.p. today he's spoken with speaker nancy pelosi and health care will be a top priority. different story when it comes to the president potentially talking with the speaker. >> if it were important to talk to her, i'd talk to her. if it were important for the american people, i'd talk to her. >> senate democrats, meanwhile, calling for a formal investigation into the firing of the navy captain who sounded the alarm over the spread of the illness on board his nuclear aircraft carrier "theodore roosevelt." this is how the crewmen and women under captain brett crozier's command saw him off the bridge last night. [ cheers and applause ] [ chanting "captain crozier" ] and with that, he was relieved of his command. here with our leadoff discussion on a friday night at the end of another long week, annie karni, white house reporter with "the new york times." robert costa, national political reporter for "the washington post," moderator of "washington week" on pbs. dr. anne rimoin back with us, professor of ep dpeem yolg at the ucla fielding school of public health, an infectious disease division of the geffen school of medicine. also runs the ucla center for global and immigrant health where she specializes in emerging infectious diseases, started her life's work as a peace corps volunteer in africa. anne, i'd like to begin with you. the subject of masks has been important to you, near and dear to you. do you applaud what the cdc and white house did today despite perhaps the president's personal diminishment of the topic? >> i think it's a great move that now we are using the global data to inform policy. this is really what we have been lacking all along. we know that the virus is able to transmit through speech droplets. we know that we need to be able to do everything we can to slow the spread of the virus because the testing is not sufficient, because we do not have national policy working on our behalf, we do not have all of the tools in place, the only thing we can do is use these brute measures of social distancing and things like using facial coverings to be able to slow the spread of the virus. without this, we have -- we have very little available to us to be able to do. >> annie karni, the president said the mask isn't for him though the rest of us should feel free. he is not going to give the stay-at-home order for the states that have yet to do that, even a suggestion to them. he's not wanting to own any aspect of this clearly. so why continue to come out there given his current mood of irritation? >> it certainly doesn't look like he has a lot to announce every day when he gets out there. but this two-hour show that he's doing every day, i've talked to people who say it's -- it's what's really keeping him animated and going. he doesn't have the rallies. he doesn't have the marine one takeoff where he talks to the press. so much of this president is driven by coverage and driven by these interactions with the press. this is not kind of a side dish of his presidency. this is the main event. this is the main course for him. so this is the only place he really gets to joust, and this is what enlivens him. the fact that he has two hours a day to do this every day does raise questions about what else he has on his plate, leading the country right now. but what we see right now is a man who doesn't want to take responsibility despite calling himself and branding himself a wartime president. between the stockpile and not declaring a national stay-at-home order, he wants these decisions to be on the plates of the governors. he doesn't want to take responsibility. he doesn't want to make these broad decisions right now. >> robert costa, does your reporting indicate they see any kind of problem in the west wing? >> well, we've seen such a sea change in the west wing. there's a turbulent sense of negotiations and discussions inside of the white house because it was only a week ago today that the president was thinking about reopening the economy by easter. then he came around after data was shown to him last weekend, and so now he's in this mind-set that he has to follow the advice of the health officials in his administration. but he's watching that economy and those stock market numbers as closely as anyone. and when i'm talking to white house officials, they say he of course like every american is uneasy about the tragedy on the health front that's only mounting, but also the economic front because he sees that so closely tied to his own re-election chances. >> anne, is it too early to say that the lockdown in california, in the los angeles metro area, has reduced the effect of the approaching coronavirus and/or where do you see the peak arriving in our major metropolitan centers? >> quite frankly, it's impossible to say where we are on this curve. we are still lacking widespread testing to understand anything about where we stand. we know right now that testing is not available to most people, that we have very little understanding of population immunity. so we really are so far behind the curve. what we need right now is we need national strategy. and even if we are able to understand where we are with testing, we have many states that have no stay-at-home policy, and as many people have said today, this is like being on an airplane with a smoking section. even if we try to get ahead of the curve by having strict measures here, we are subject to every other state that is not employing these methods right now. we will all pay the price for the states that are not taking this seriously and having a lockdown. we need a national strategy for locking everybody down and to fight together to be able to fight this virus. >> annie karni, by our count you've worked for three new york-based newspapers. what's the president's relationship status with andrew cuomo? should we call it wary? >> the president has been really reactive with these governors across the board. you can track his comments about andrew cuomo day to day based on what andrew cuomo said about him first. he'll praise if he's praised. he'll lash out if he was attacked. he has been very, very aware of andrew cuomo's success with these briefings. he tunes in a lot to watch his morning briefings, and part of the reason why the president does his in the evening is because andrew cuomo kind of already claimed the morning for himself. so he's competitive with him, but he's complimented him at times if he's been complimented, and he's been entirely reactive to governor cuomo. >> robert costa, tell the good people watching who got fired today by the president, the reputation of this inspector general, and how far back this beef goes. >> it's a name that's little known nationally, michael atkinson, the inspector general for the intelligence community appointed a few years ago by president trump. he's not part of the government and someone who's aligned against the president. he was appointed by the president. but he will be remembered by historians and certainly was remembered by president trump because he was the person in the intelligence community who heard about the whistle-blower complaint, about that infamous call between president trump and the ukrainian president volodymyr zelensky, and he was persistent in making sure congress was aware of the whistle-blower complaint. even when he had some pressure from different people in the administration to proceed a bit more quietly about the whistle-blower complaint, he made sure congress knew. so in the president's eyes, i'm told by some of his confidants, he has always seen atkinson, this unknown i.g., has the person who helped to light the fire of impeachment. everyone who knows at kinson sees him as someone who is by the book. a former federal prosecutor, and they also underscore that he's widely seen as nonpartisan. he has prosecuted democratic lawmakers and other democratic officials. he is not someone who is seen as aligned or trying to bully president trump. >> and, robert, not to get all joyce brothers here, but do you see this as pretty straight-up score settling when other things aren't going well for the chief executive? >> based on my conversations tonight -- and i've only made a couple with people close to the president, the news just broke -- president trump has always seen this i.g. as someone who wasn't playing by the rules he would like to see his own officials abide by in the administration. he didn't like how this i.g. was so protective of whistle-blowers. he does not, to say the least, share that perspective and embrace of whistle-blowers. atkinson has testified before congress that whistle-blowers are some of the most important in the federal government, that you have to encourage people to speak out about abuses of power or perceived abuses of power. and he has stood by that to this day, and that's perhaps why he's leaving based on my conversations tonight. >> and annie, finally there's been something of a hit list on the right. they've been frothed up about certain names in different jobs in the government. some, as robert correctly pointed out, appointed by this president. are there others, do you think? >> this kind of came -- i mean this has been someone who was on the hit list, but that he would do it in the middle of a pandemic late on a friday night, i think was shocking even for the standards of a president we know is vindictive and still hasn't moved past the impeachment and wants to get rid of anyone who was involved with that. so i would say this is a sign that he is going to conduct the business he wanted to do, pandemic or not, and it will be late on friday nights. >> as i thank our guests, i'll say to anne rimoin, thank goodness you only have to cover medicine and not politics like our other guests here tonight. to anne rimoin, to annie karni, robert costa, thank you all for coming on at the end of another long week. coming up for us, lots of talk yesterday and today about the strategic national stockpile. jared kushner said it was "ours" after all and not the states', whatever that means. our next guest will explain how it's supposed to work. and later, one doctor's plan to stop the coronavirus by june if we can all follow it. "the 11th hour" just getting started on a friday night. guys! guys! safe drivers save 40%!!! safe drivers save 40%! safe drivers save 40%!!! that's safe drivers save 40%. it is, that's safe drivers save 40%. - he's right there. - it's him! safe drivers do save 40%. click or call for a quote today. safe drivamake it feelh%. impossible to breathe. get relief behind the counter with claritin-d. claritin-d improves nasal airflow 2x more than the leading allergy spray at hour 1. claritin-d. get more airflow. for ralphie's appointment. who's his groomer? carrie. full groom for sure what? i just booked ralphie's appointment online. that work? wait you what? it's that easy! download the app or book online at petsmart.com shbecause xfinity mobilehen ygives you more flexible data.. you can choose to share data between lines, mix with unlimited, or switch it up at any time. all on the most reliable wireless network. which means you can save money without compromising on coverage. get more flexible data, the most reliable network, and more savings. plus, get $300 off when you buy a new samsung galaxy s20 ultra. that's simple. easy. awesome. go to xfinitymobile.com today. like rock, reggaeton, alland techno.. get ready for the drop. wait for it. wait for it. -come on man hit me! wait for it. just do it already! ♪ one more time yeah. for 15 years now, this country has had a massive effort at the federal, state, and local level of preparedness for pandemic. we've all been very focused on pandemic preparedness. that's what we do. but this particular strain of pandemic, who would have known this particular strain? >> it's worth saying this again. we can't say it often enough. there's clear evidence the country was not prepared for a global pandemic. for starters, we're still not getting lifesaving supplies where they need to go, and we still have no idea how many people are walking around our country with this virus. back with us again tonight, dr. irwin redlener, a pediatrics physician, clinical professor with the school of public health at columbia university in new york. he's also the director of columbia's national center for disaster preparedness with an expertise in pandemic influenza. doctor, the last time i saw you, you and i were still able to come and go from our studios in 30 rock. what did you make of the president's message on face coverings today, on masks? he used the word "voluntary" six times, said it was just a recommendation, said, you know, i'm not going to wear one, but the rest of you guys are if you want to. >> well, i guess it ranks among the more bizarre messages that have come out of the white house. you know, the federal government cannot order every american to wear a face mask. those kinds of orders would have to come from local and state governments. but what the government can do, the federal government, is make very clear directions and guidelines that should override anything else that governors and mayors are proposing. so for the president to use the most powerful words he has in the sense of, i'm giving you a directive in essence that we all need to be wearing face masks, and then for him to say, but it's voluntary, and i'm personally not going to use a face mask is one of the most confusing messages that this white house has ever put out. and we've had plenty of them from the get-go here on this subject and every other subject. it was just frankly bizarre, brian. i don't know how he could feel like he could get away with saying, over here my professional and my experts are saying wearing a face mask, and i don't think i'm going to. it's a total like crazy loss of credibility that actually seeps down to the other layers of government. if we can't expect the president to comply with his own experts' opinions about what should be done in this very serious situation, it's befuddling how he thinks that he could formulate a message that's contradictory to what he said like two minutes before. but i guess we need to get used to that. and i think, look, the other issues that came up about the strategic national stockpile, everything that's uttered by the white house seems to me completely confused and very unfortunate and misleading to the american public. again, undermining the ability of the president and his people to be believed. and i shuddered listening to jared kushner's remarks about that sns yesterday. >> and because of all the other confusion and the kind of side remarks that make headlines, i was just looking at some of what dr. birx said that didn't make headlines. quote, we continue to watch. in addition to the chicago area, the detroit area, and have some developing concerns around colorado, the district of columbia, and pennsylvania. each of these will follow their own curves. doctor, as they say in normal times, that would be a headline. is this baked into the cake, or can we act now to mollify the reaction in some of those places she mentioned? >> well, we certainly can, brian. but the problem now is that -- and by the way, this is coming in a big way to every state in the country, every rural area. if you think that by living in a remote county in idaho or mississippi or colorado for that matter that you're going to be somehow protected from getting this virus, it's just not true. and that is why i think we're all now recommending a full national coast-to-coast lockdown or shelter-in-place program. that is the only way that we're going to get control of this. we can't keep skipping and hopping from one area to the other as they get their own flare-ups. that will not work. well, it will work eventually, but it will work in a way that will make many more americans sick and many more americans, you know, suffer a fatal outcome from this disease. so the only thing we have in our toolbox, brian, is shutting down the country and doing it for as short a time as we can but as long as we have to. and that is the only thing that we have. we don't have medicine. we don't have the vaccine yet to prevent it. all we have is a shutdown. and the sooner we become comfortable with that, we need to kind of enforce that. the government -- national government has to recommend it, and every single state has to comply with it. and then we'll have the best chance of slowing the spread, flattening the so-called curve, and keeping our hospitals from getting any more overwhelmed than they already are. that's all we have unfortunately. >> doc, all i have is 30 seconds to ask you when do you expect the peak in a place like new york city? >> well, they're saying april, may, and that may or may not be true. the modelers are continuing to adjust their models for things like the peak and when will we have a second surge, and that will probably come no matter what we do now sometime in late summer, early fall and into the winter. so we're not going to be done with this anytime soon, brian, which makes it really, really difficult, i must say, for every family, including the redlener family, to try to figure out how we're going to remain compliant with these very strict rules to keep ourselves separated. it's difficult, but we're going to have to do it and figure out how we're going to adapt as a country for the public's good, really for the world's good to try to get this under control as soon as we can. >> we're all right there with you. dr. irwin redlener, thank you. it's always a pleasure to have you on our broadcast. we appreciate you welcoming us into your home. >> thanks, brian. coming up, why some governors are still resisting the call to issue stay-at-home measures. former executive ed tore of "the new york times" joins us from one of the states that just made the call today when we come back. if you look close... jamie, are there any interesting photos from your trip? ouch, okay. huh, boring, boring, you don't need to see that. oh, here we go. can you believe my client steig had never heard of a home and auto bundle or that renters could bundle? wait, you're a lawyer? only licensed in stockholm. what is happening? jamie: anyway, game show, kumite, cinderella story. you know karate? no, alan, i practice muay thai, completely different skillset. a new kind of investor is changing things up. [ indistinct talking ] with an app that's changing the way we do money. download robinhood now. amake it feelh impossible to breathe. get relief behind the counter with claritin-d. claritin-d improves nasal airflow 2x more than the leading allergy spray at hour 1. claritin-d. get more airflow. s. should every state in this country have the kind of stay-at-home orders we now see in places like washington? >> i leave it up to the governors. the governors know what they're doing. >> as we mentioned, alabama, mississippi, missouri, now imposing stay at home measures. about 90% of the u.s. population heads into this weekend under some type of shelter order. but more than a dozen states have religious exemptions and because they're certainly been no order from the feds, there's still some states holding out altogether. >> the cdc, i watch their guidelines regularly, and they have not indicated that's an appropriate or necessary step across the country. >> for more, we are happy to be joined tonight by the veteran journalist and author hal raines. he's a contributor of ours, also happens to be the former executive editor of "the new york times," where i note they don't do audio, and our audio has given out tonight. so it's not like hal is ordering a pizza. that's how he can hear me ask him questions like, howell, what's going on down there? and let me ask you about where you live. have folks been doing de facto stay-at-home anyway? are they talking about this because up here in the north where we've all been in bunkers for a good, long while, it's pretty much all people are talking about. >> brian, this has been one of the most extraordinary, remarkable weeks in civic life in alabama that i can remember. and as you know from your visits down here, folks down here like to talk about being laid back in l.a., l.a. being lower alabama. and that was the mood that we started the week with. on sunday, there was a defiant beach party at gulf shores with people swimming and boating in close -- in defiance of social distancing. yet today governor ivey announced a pretty restrictive ban on going out of your homes. she said, we're not asking you anymore. we're telling you. and remarkably for alabama, she did not exempt churches from her order so far. here's what i think has happened. alabama was, in addition to its tradition of defined individualism, also reflecting president trump's cavalier attitude. and what i think we saw this week is a real movement in what i call the fox news curve down here. fox is the biggest determinant of political opinion certainly among white alabamans right now, and i think as long as its commentators were talking about hoaxes and conspiracies, people were very relaxed. as fox began to take a more factual approach to its reporting, notwithstanding the president's uncertain signals, i think alabamans began taking this virus seriously in a way that the rest of the nation has had to. so it's been, as i say, a remarkable change in the course of five days. that said, i took a 30-minute ride around fairhope, this lovely little town, and i would say the traffic at rush hour was down 60% to 70%, which is a lot. most of the retail stores are beginning to close, but i don't want to overstate. i did not see a single face mask in fairhope today. >> what do -- howell, first of all, that's the best and most complete analysis i think i have heard, and i wish to hell the states that are late to act weren't red on the map. but we can't avoid that visual. and as you mentioned, it's a confluence. is there any palpable anxiety or fear among the people in your circle who you deal with every day? >> yeah, and we have a bit of a generation gap that i think began to narrow this week. people of my age, retirees in this affluent retirement community where people come for the beach and the fishing, have been upset that the spring breakers have been defiantly getting close to one another in the normal spring break kind of ways. that began to change this week, but again, governor ivey has been following the white house script just as the president is saying it's the governors' business, she's been saying it's the mayors' business. so we should a couple of beachfront mayors in gulf shores and orange beach step up after that giant beach party on sunday and close their towns. so we're seeing something of the national paradigm where the federal government or the state government in this case is lagging behind the local leadership who are having to cope with this problem on the ground level. now, let me say this about governor ivey. she acted belatedly but firmly today, and i found that pretty remarkable because alabama does not want a governor who goes out and hunts for problems to solve the way andrew cuomo does. alabama does not want a problem-solving governor. so for her to step up today in the right way, i think, was a signal of the public concern really growing down here. >> howell raines, reporting tonight from what i can attest is one of the prettiest towns in the south and maybe the country, fairhome, alabama. it's always a pleasure having you on. let's try to talk regularly during this thing, however long it lasts. and coming up for us, a ten-week plan to defeat this virus. our next guest has a strategy to crush the curve, but how much of it are we following right now? for nearly 100 years, we've worked to provide you with the financial strength, stability, and online tools you need. and now it's no different. because helping you through this crisis is what we're made for. - [female vo] restaurants are facing a crisis. and they're counting on your takeout and delivery orders to make it through. grubhub. together we can help save the restaurants we love. so this got the attention of new yorkers a few hours ago. an alert sent to everybody's phone pleading for all licensed health care workers to support health care facilities in need. that need grows by the hour. by the way, they've already had 20,000 volunteers before this plea went out. we learned today that a 22-year veteran of the new york city fire department has died from coronavirus. one out of every four members of the city's ems personnel -- that's part of the fire department -- are out sick. my next guest has outlined a rigorous six-point plan that he says can defeat this pandemic by early june if we're all willing to throw in and try hard enough. we welcome to the broadcast harvey feinberg, president of the gordon and betty moore foundation and the chair of the standing committee on emerging infectious diseases and 21st century health threats. if this isn't one, it will do until one gets here. he's also former president of the institute of medicine now known as the national academy of medicine. happens to be the former dean of the harvard school of public health. let me get to your list so we don't waste a second. here are your six points. we'll critique as we go. to crush covid-19 in ten weeks, you are calling for establish unified command. we don't have that. make millions of tests available. we don't yet have that. ppe and equipment to hospitals. we don't have enough. differentiate the population into five groups. that i need to come back to. inspire and mobilize the public. i'm pretty sure we haven't done that. and learn through real-time fundamental research. right now it seems to me we're doing basic triage, but i hope our smarter angels are already engaged in that. so if you can back up to differentiating these five groups, that was a fascinating idea. >> well, thank you, brian. it's a pleasure to be with you. the basic idea is if we are in this as a war, we should be in it to win. and to win we have to do a great deal more than we are doing. one of the critical elements, as you pointed out, was to understand who in the population first is infected, secondly is presumed infected because they have all the symptoms but they haven't yet tested positive. third is someone who's been exposed but not yet infected. so those people should be in quarantine. fourth, those of us who have neither developed the infection nor, to our knowledge, been directly exposed to someone with it. and finally, those who have recovered and presumably have some degree of immunity, which can also be tested. >> we're watching these states one after another late in this process see the light and tell or ask their citizens to stay indoors. it seems to me for every state not under such an order, that threatens the herd, but there is a self-reward for doing what you and i are doing, staying indoors and away from other people. it's your way of making a tough outer shell on you that's going to resist this. >> it's basically distance by physical separation that makes it harder for that virus to find someone else to infect. that's the whole point of our work from home, stay at home, shelter at home, that whole concept. that's likely to reduce the frequency of the spread. but unless we're much more aggressive about testing and differentiating the population into those five groups and then acting on that information, isolate the cases, quarantine those who have been exposed, keep others away from the exposure, we're not going to really win this war. >> well, as you know, as a well-read guy, wars are won in part based on leadership. central leadership and terrific battlefield leadership. we don't have any one person. i'll try to keep you in medicine and out of politics, but if you had your druthers, would it be one of the many highly qualified retired generals in our country, many of whom are quite active and vocal on social media? would it be a dr. tony fauci? do you have a candidate who you wish would rise up and lead this thing? >> the most important thing is, first, whoever it is who's our commander in the field, who reports directly to the president, has to have the full confidence of the president. that is essential. it took lincoln a while before he found his grant. president trump needs the equivalent. secondly, this individual has to understand both the government and the health scene. this is someone who also knows about state and federal relations. this has to be someone who is well respected, very knowledgeable, and decisive in decision-making. there are a number of people, brian, who could qualify. just to name one, to pick a name out of the air, former governor h.h.s. secretary mike levitt, kind of person who succeeded in running a department, very complicated, well organized, able to get things done. if you reach across the aisle, you have ash carter, former secretary of defense, extremely brilliant, great history in logistics. maybe you get both of them. maybe one is in charge and one manages different aspects of the program. we knead the "a" team brought together under a unified command to direct this effort in a way that avoids a lot of the miscommunication, misunderstanding, lack of coherence in the way we're approaching this problem. just think about the way we've tried to settle the ventilator shortage problem, each state out on its own and then fema and the federal government overlaying its work on top of all the states. this should be a coordinated, unified, thought-through effort so that we can share effectively all of the ventilator capacity by region. >> well, thank you first of all for naming names. those are fantastic nominations, and if you don't mind, we'd love to have you on again and keep this conversation going. dr. harvey fineberg, a great pleasure having you on our broadcast on this friday night. coming up for us, a rare inside look at what health care workers in the epicenter of this outbreak are taking on day and night. miralax works with the water in your body to unblock your system naturally. and it doesn't cause bloating, cramping, gas, or sudden urgency. miralax. look for the pink cap. introducing tide power pods with cat & nat. i love how much i can stuff into these machines. but that is such a large load, 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governor calls it, the day when they are full, overwhelmed by new cases. every hour the problem is they're getting one step closer to that. sky news u.s. correspondent cordelia lynch has this report from a hospital in the city's most populous borough. >> reporter: brooklyn's biggest hospital is flat out. an emergency room that's become a battle zone. where there's a constant stream of covid-19 casualties. >> so we're now in the critical care area of the emergency department. everyone that's in here today is due to breathing problems, almost uniformly all from covid. we're seeing such a large increase on a day to day basis on a number of patient who's are presenting in critical condition, requiring really all the resources that we have to provide in order to help them. >> reporter: dr. atan dickman says there are normally 17 beds in this room. today there are 32 patients and the numbers are rising rapidly every hour. >> we have opened up new icus. we've opened up new medical units in order to accommodate for this increased demand of patients who are coming in so ill. >> reporter: in a city of extremes, this pandemic has been a painful equalizer. this is an intense, demanding, and desperate atmosphere in here. the patients keep coming. and it's not just the elderly. it's the young too, and they're all struggling. >> some of the sickest people i've seen in my whole career. not only do they have coronavirus, but they also have their diabetes that's out of control. so it's particularly hard, and we're learning how to do it, how to manage. >> reporter: their work has spilled onto the streets. triage tents at the front to tend to the living. refrigerated trucks at the back to carry the dead. but here brave doctors and nurses are working every minute, risking their lives so they can save others'. >> both sad and fascinating to see how story is being reported on for an overseas audience. that report from cordelia lynch with sky news. coming up after our final break, remembering a hall of famer whose voice will remain with us for the rest of our lives. nasal congestion make it feel impossible to breathe. get relief behind the counter with claritin-d. claritin-d improves nasal airflow 2x more than the leading allergy spray at hour 1. claritin-d. get more airflow. we've worked to provide you with the financial strength, stability, and online tools you need. and now it's no different. because helping you through this crisis is what we're made for. ♪ lean on me when you're not strong ♪ ♪ and i'll be your friend ♪ i'll help you carry on >> just when we needed him most, bill withers is gone. among us fans, he was the essential bill withers. to everyone else, you got to admit he left you a hell of a play list. ain't no sunshine. use me. lean on me. lovely day. just the two of us. personal favorite, who is he and what is he to you. he was born in slab fork, west virginia, coal mining town. he stuttered as a child, lost his dad at 13, joined the navy at 17 and served nine years. fast forward an entire career to the rock & roll hall of fame. the effortless and lovely bill withers was 81 years old. and let's just agree on the healing power of music on this strange time of tragedy and home imprisonment. we're going to go ahead and say good night here early for the week, and we're going to let two musicians play us off the air tonight, something they've started doing in their st. louis neighborhood with just a tuba and a bone and the thanks of their grateful neighbors. ♪ happy to have you with us this friday night. the united states now has more than 273,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus, and that, be mindful, that is with millions of americans who would like to be tested, who have reason to be tested, but they are still unable to access testing. still, though, with millions of americans unable to access testing, we've got 273,000 confirmed cases, and that is the largest in the world by far. the second largest number of cases in the world is in italy, but they're way behind us. we're 273,000. they're at basically 120,000. if you are
>> thanks lawrence. >> well, it's all about testing now. that's how the governor of new york sees it. for him, coronavirus testing is the number one issue. that is why mr. cuomo went to washington today, to meet with the president of the united states. here's what governor cuomo told nicolle wallace on msnbc immediately after his meeting with the president. >> the meeting went well. and i think it was productive. the big issue was testing, as everybody knows that's going to be the next step as we go forward. and how do we separate the responsibilities and the tasks on testing, vis-a-vis as stated in the federal government and the acknowledgement that we will need to work together on this. it has to be a real partnership. and i think we had a very good conversation. >> governor cuomo maintaining diplomatic relations with donald trump. did not mention anything specific that the president actually agreed to. and the president didn't mention anything specific that they agreed to when the president appeared later at the white house press briefing. governor cuomo did say that he believes new york state has to double its current rate of testing from 20,000 tests a day to 40,000 tests a day. dr. zeke emanuel will join us later to discuss a new action plan from the rockefeller foundation, proposing what it calls "an ambitious but achievable goal of rapidly expanding testing capacity to 30 million tests per week over the next six months." he's one of the contributors to that rockefeller foundation action plan. 30 million tests per week is over 4 million tests per day. a new harvard university study says that we should be conducting at least 500,000 tests per day, or more over the next 30 days. we are currently testing about 150,000 people a day nationally, without any national coordination for the testing process at all. 50 states compete not just with each other, but virtually every other country in the world for testing kits and equipment necessary to do the testing. the testing crisis comes as the director of the centers for disease control, robert redfield, gave an interview to "the washington post" in which he said a second wave of the coronavirus could be worse than what we are seeing now. he said -- there's a possibility the assault of the virus on our nation next winter will be even more difficult than the one we just went through, and when i've said this to others, they kind of put their head back. they don't understand what i mean. we're going to have the flu epidemic and the coronavirus epidemic at the same time, he said. we'll ask dr. harvey feinberg, an expert on infectious diseases, in a moment what that second wave could look like. today, donald trump said we're going to do very significant testing. we're going to do very significant testing. and by "we" donald trump does not mean donald trump or the trump administration or the federal government. by we, he means he intends to watch governors and mayors scramble to find ways to protect people and ways to do test enough people so that governors and mayors can make careful decisions about when people can go back to work or go back to school safely. the county coroner in albany, georgia, told the new york times that the coronavirus "hit like a bomb." that leaves the mayor of albany, georgia, who will join us later in this hour, scrambling to protect his community now that the republican governor of georgia decided to allow the opening of some small businesses in georgia, non-essential businesses. so beginning on friday, if you really want a massage or a haircut, or a tattoo, the governor says those businesses can all open everywhere in the state. and after you get your tattoo, you can go to the bowling alley, which is also allowed to open on friday. dr. deborah birx was asked about this at the white house briefing today, and once again, dr. birx gave the kind of answer that a republican party lawyer would give, an answer designed to protect any republican office holder with a bad idea. dr. birx actually said that it's perfectly okay to open those businesses as long as you can maintain social distancing inside those businesses. social distancing for a massage. social distancing for a tattoo. social distancing, six feet away for haircutting. dr. birx actually pretended that all of those things are possible. >> if there's a way that people can social distance and do those things, then they can do those things. i don't know how, but people are very creative. >> that is a purely trumpian answer. dr. birx is saying someone can cut your hair from six feet away. congressman demings from florida, whose name appears on a lot of lists as a possible vice presidential choice for joe biden, will join us later in the hour to discuss the new package of relief that nancy pelosi and chuck schumer agreed to support. along with republican leaders of congress. the new legislation finally contains some money for testing, $25 billion to support testing. when mitch mcconnell tried to bring the republican version of this bill for a vote, it did not contain one penny for testing. the $25 billion to support testing in this country is in the legislation only because democrats forced it to be in the legislation. and when president trump signs this bill later this week, he'll probably once again invite no democrats to the signing and not acknowledge any democratic input in the legislation, and claim full credit for the testing provision in the legislation. in his "washington post" interview, the director of the cdc, dr. redfield, said this when asked about protests against stay at home orders. he said, "it's not helpful." president trump was asked about that today. >> the director of the cdc said that protests against stay at home orders are not helpful. you've encouraged some of these protests. what are your thoughts of the cdc director saying that? >> it's not a question of helpful or not, people want to get back to work. i've watched some of the protests, not in great detail. i've seen that, and they're separated, there's a lot of space in between. they're watching, believe it or not -- social -- they're doing social distancing, if you can believe it. >> if you can believe it. if you can believe it is one of those donald trump signatures he frequently attaches to his lies. when president trump says if you can believe it, you cannot believe it. the protesters are not doing social distancing. everyone in that room knows that the protestors are not doing social distancing. they are not carefully six feet apart. the protests are protests against the very concept of social distancing. if there was a serious public health official in that white house briefing today with the president, that person would have raised her voice and said something to the effect of, i have seen the pictures of those protestors and they are not social distancing and they are all risking their own lives by doing what they're doing, and they are risking the lives of other people in their communities, their neighbors, and their families who they might come in contact with after being in the thick of one of those reckless demonstrations. but everyone in that room working on the trump team knows, being a trump team member requires keeping their own safe distance from a truth like that. amy is a surgical trauma nurse at stony brook university hospital on long island. here is some of the video diary she's been keeping for us. >> all the icus are still full. they're full. the sickest people are still there. some are getting ex-tubated but the truth is, there is still people on the floors who need to be intubated and come to us. so, we may have a bed or two available, but it's not like we're emptying out. you know, if we choose to open too soon, we're going to be at capacity. we've already used our reserves. there's like nothing left. we are maxed out. we can't open this country. we can't open the tristate area, that's for sure. none of us in the down state area of new york can handle anything more. there's no way. we're full. and frankly, we're tired. and there's nobody to be able to do our job. if you want to live, you stay home. my god, don't open up this country. it needs to be closed until at least june. please. >> tonight, the number of reported coronavirus cases in the united states is 803,553, and as of tonight, there are 44,564 reported deaths linked to coronavirus in the united states. leading off our discussion tonight is dr. harvey feinberg, the former president of the national academy of medicine and the former dean of harvard school of public health. he is the chair of the national academy standing committee on emerging infectious diseases. and ron klain is with us, former senior aide to violation vice president joe biden and president obama, he served in the obama administration as the chief coordinator in the fight against ebola during the obama administration. dr. feinberg, thank you very much for joining us tonight. i want to start with what the director of the cdc said about the possible second wave and how the second wave could be worse than what we've been through already because of the way it might interact with the seasonal flu. what can you tell us about that? >> lawrence, every virus is its own thing, and has its own properties. so looking to the future, what will happen with this particular virus is speculative. there are reasons to believe that we are in for the likelihood of a second wave. one of those is experience in the past with influenza pandemics, and particularly the great pandemic of 1918-'19 when the second wave was much worse than the first wave. in addition to that, many of the models that project the way in which the virus and disease will behave do show this tendency to wane, that is to go down, and then at a certain point in time as it builds up, it can rapidly escalate. so there's reason to worry about a second wave. it's prudent to plan for the likelihood of a second wave. but nobody can guarantee what will or will not happen. >> ron klain, joe biden tweeted today, rather than execute a swift and aggressive effort to ramp up testing, donald trump is tweeting incendiary rhetoric about immigrants in the hopes that he can distract everyone from the core truth, he's moved too slowly to contain this virus and we are all paying the price for it. ron, governor cuomo went down to washington to talk to the president about testing. he was, of course, the diplomat that he has become in dealing with donald trump so he didn't reveal very much how that conversation went. joe biden is making testing his number one campaign issue, and yet, the president still refuses to pick up that issue and run with it as he is uniquely empowered to do. >> yeah, lawrence. i mean, it's kind of hard to understand at one level. the president says he wants to open up the economy. he wants people to go back to work. and almost every expert on the left, on the center, on the right, republicans, democrats, all agree that the initial condition for reopening the country is more testing so we can separate the sick from the well, so we can monitor where the disease is flaring up, so we can know when a second wave is coming, where it's coming. we don't test, we're not going to find it. so testing is the essential quality. as you said at the outset of the show, lawrence, what's really stunning about this is not just that we started slow on testing. that is what it is. it's that for the past month, we have made virtually no progress at all. the past month, there's only been one day we've tested more than 150,000, 160,000 people in this country. otherwise, we're basically where we've been for four weeks. and you can't get to a goal of 500,000 or 750,000 or a million tests a day if you don't make any progress at all. >> dr. feinberg, give us your assessment of where we are on testing, and where we need to go on testing. >> the first thing to understand about testing, lawrence, is that we have to understand the purpose of the testing. do we want to identify patients who are coming down with this infection or have recently contracted it? do we want to identify individuals who had it in the past and might be now resistant to coming down with illness? do we want to understand in the community how widespread this virus is? we need different kinds of tests to answer those different questions, and we need all of them in much greater volume. more importantly even than that, is that for the new serology tests that look at antibodies, we need to validate carefully whether these tests perform in the way that the manufacturers claim. and right now, the fda is allowing these tests to come to the market because of the enormous need for them. and yet we need to validate their performance or we're going to get misled potentially. so we need more tests, we need to understand the purpose, we need to deploy them where they're needed. and we need to validate their performance. >> dr. fineberg, stay on that for a moment. at the white house briefing today, dr. birx was asked about validating these tests and how the fda is basically allowing them to rush out with tests, saying that the companies who are producing the tests have the job now of validating themselves, and i don't think there was anything in dr. birx's answer that we could make sense of. she seemed to be saying that when you get that test, if you get your hands on that test, the manufacturer somehow has to have a document on it that will, to some extent, indicate the reliability of the test. but it was all so vague, it was hard to tell what she was saying. >> yes. lawrence, we need independent validation of these tests. and even from a single manufacturer's performance result, you want to compare different kinds of tests at the same time against standards. because we're going to be using these different tests in different parts of the country, and we're going to need to know is the result in place one, using test "a" meaningful and similar to place "b" using test "b". so we need to validate these tests. it's a little like ronald reagan used to say about the russians. trust but verify. >> ron klain, you know when you were working on a possible outbreak that one of the things that was necessary was to figure out what the benchmarks the public would need in order for the public to feel safe. so when you sit here tonight, if you were working in the white house and the question of what do we have to do to enable universities to invite their students back to living together in dormitories in late august, what are the kinds of things that you would think the public would need to see and have available as information before deciding to let their children go back to those dormitories or the universities welcoming them back, given that so much of the faculty is old enough to be in the high risk group. >> i think there are three really important preconditions, lawrence. the first is, the amount of disease has to go down. incidence of the disease has to go down. i think one thing about what we're seeing in georgia is, no matter what you think about the white house standards, and i've been a critic of them. what's happening in georgia they don't even meet the white house standards for reopening. 14 days of decline in disease, i think that's a low bar to reopen, but that hasn't been met in georgia. we need to see much less decease before you reopen places. secondly, you need to have testing, and the kind of testing dr. fineberg because talking about. all varieties of tests. we have to know that these tests not only work, but it's a meaningful result. and then finally, we have to have the health care system in these places strong. the nurse on long island who you talked to, we have to know that hospitals can deal with flare-ups of cases when they come. >> dr. fineberg, before we go, let me put this in personal terms to you. if you were a parent of a student who is considering going back to college, going back to the college dorm in august, or going back to high school in august, what would you need to know about what that student would be facing at that school? >> i would want to know that the school my child or grand child was going to had taken all the steps that they could to protect the health of that child. it means keeping physical distance where you can. it means using masks. it may mean testing temperatures, it may mean screening on regular intervals to make sure students are coming down with illness are able to be isolated and separated from others. basically, all of us in any industry, including schools, need to take these kind of steps to protect our students, our employees, our customers, our visitors. >> dr. harvey feinberg, a real honor to have you join us tonight. ron klain, thank you very much for joining us again with your expertise. we really appreciate it. when we come back, congresswoman val demings will join us to discuss the new relief bill that congressional leaders have agreed on. she'll explain what is not working in the bills congress has already passed because of republican designed unemployment systems like the one in florida, which makes it impossible for many florida workers to obtain the benefits they should be getting. that's one of the many flaws in the relief bills congress has already passed. congresswoman val demmings is next. good morning, mr. sun. good morning, blair. [ chuckles ] whoo. i'm gonna grow big and strong. yes, you are. i'm gonna get this place all clean. i'll give you a hand. and i'm gonna put lisa on crutches! wait, what? said she's gonna need crutches. she fell pretty hard. you might want to clean that up, girl. excuse us. when owning a small business gets real, progressive helps protect what you built with customizable coverage. -and i'm gonna -- -eh, eh, eh. -donny, no. -oh. -and i'm gonna -- -eh, eh, eh. fred would do anything for his daughter! even being the back half of a unicorn. fortunately, the front half washed his shirt with gain. ahhhhhhh. the irresistible scent of gain. there are times when our need to connect really matters. to keep customers and employees in the know. to keep business moving. comcast business is prepared for times like these. powered by the nation's largest gig-speed network. to help give you the speed, reliability, and security you need. tools to manage your business from any device, anywhere. and a team of experts - here for you 24/7. we've always believed in the power of working together. that's why, when every connection counts... you can count on us. there's already serious criticism of the abuse of the small business relief package that congress has already passed into law. when president trump was asked about this today, he pretended that he didn't like what was happening in the abuse of the small business program, abuse that was specifically and deliberately allowed by the trump regulations. instead donald trump condemned another recipient of federal money obtained under a different provision of that law. a provision specifically designed to help poor college students harmed by the shutdown of their colleges, which in some instances left some of those poor students with nowhere to live. >> you said about the small business program, harvard is going to pay the money back. how confident are you that you can claw back money -- >> look, i don't like harvard, that has a $40 billion endowment, or some incredible amount of money that harvard gets this money. harvard should pay that back. i want harvard to pay the money back, okay? if they won't do that, then we won't do something else. they have to pay it back. i don't like it. this is meant for workers. >> harvard university did not take one penny that was meant for workers, not one penny. in the $2 trillion relief package that was passed by congress, about 7% of that bill was a specific set aside for the higher education emergency relief fund aimed to help students, not the universities. through a formula in the law, harvard was allocated $8.6 million, 100% of which they have dedicated to students in financial need. most students who go to harvard cannot afford it. 2/3 of the student body gets financial aid from harvard. and much of that aid in effect comes from the university's endowment. president trump specifically said he did not want to mention anyone else who he thought was abusing federal money, so he didn't mention the university with the second largest endowment in america, which is the university of texas, which has a $31 billion endowment. the university of texas got $172.5 million in that legislation, which texas republican senator john cornyn bragged about. the university of texas didn't take any of that money away from workers, either. and we can hope that the university of texas is using that money honorably and passing it all along to students in desperate financial aid. in the new legislation congress has agreed on today, it will provide $310 billion for the paycheck protection program, $60 billion for the emergency grant and business loan program. $75 billion for hospitals. and $25 billion to support coronavirus testing. joining us now is democratic congresswoman val demings of florida. congresswoman, i went through that story about harvard that president trump was lying about today just to point out that there are always surprises about what happens in the legislation, and one of the big surprises is how much the small business fund is being abused. what can the new legislation do to protect the small business fund to go to people in real small businesses and what can it do to protect people's paychecks? >> well, lawrence, thank you. it's good to be back with you. and look, when we passed c.a.r.e.s. one, we passed wit the primary goal of protecting america's workers, particularly those small businesses that are most vulnerable in our communities. obviously, our $2.2 trillion package, the largest passed in american history, was not enough. we quickly realized that. so we have to regroup and make sure that we have processes if place and procedures that will make sure that the money that we will pass hopefully tomorrow in the interim relief package, will go to those who need it. that those dollars are specifically designated for those small businesses who, all over the country are struggling just to stay afloat. we have much work to do. this package is not perfect either. as you already mentioned, it includes testing. if we're ever going to get back to any degree of normalcy, we have to make sure we do, as the speaker said many weeks ago now, testing, testing, testing will allow us to get there. and then we need to take care of our hospital and health care workers who you see are struggling every day to keep us safe and healthy. we need to look at hospital capacity and make sure that we're able to meet not only the needs of the epidemic or the pandemic now, but to be able to address any future needs. and so we still have some work to do. but we hopefully will pass this legislation either tomorrow or thursday. >> congresswoman, the "miami herald" is reporting in your state of florida, over 1.5 million people at least have applied for unemployment benefits, and only 40,000 have actually received any benefits. 40,000 sounds like what you would get in a normal month. >> lawrence, florida taxpayers paid over $77 million for our current unemployment system. under governor rick scott, he was advised there was some major problems with the system. that the system was difficult to navigate, that there were over 600 system errors, that there were problems with the system. and he did nothing about it. there's no evidence that he did anything to correct it. last year, governor desantis was informed of the problems by state auditors with the system. he did absolutely nothing. it appears there's no evidence that he did to correct the many numerous flaws and errors. and now here we are, with the pandemic as you mentioned, that has caused over a million people to be unemployed who desperately need those benefits. they're being kicked out of the system. they cannot navigate it. now, the governor has hired some call takers. but the problem we are seeing in florida deals with fundamental problems with the system that were never, ever addressed. and we find ourselves as basically the worst, at the bottom of the list in terms of how we deal and how we process unemployment benefits in our state. we've got to do better. >> congresswoman, before you go, you're on many speculative lists as a possible vice president choice for joe biden. as possible vice presidential candidate. would you accept that offer if joe biden made that offer? >> well, lawrence, in my career, in my lifetime, i have chosen tough jobs and when we look at what's going on in our country right now, i have certainly been a crisis manager in numerous situations. i would consider it an honor if asked to serve my country alongside vice president biden. >> congresswoman, thank you very much for joining us tonight. we really appreciate it. >> thank you. and when we come back, georgia's republican governor wants people to go to movie theaters next week. that's after they get massages, tattoos and haircuts this weekend. some mayors in georgia are outraged by the governor's decision to allow some nonessential businesses to reopen. albany, georgia, has been hit hard by the coronavirus. the coroner there says it hits like a bomb. the mayor of albany, georgia, will join us next. an ever. we've increased network capacity, given more access to unlimited data. and provided free data for schools and students. visit t-mobile.com to learn more. you can also manage your account, make payments, and find t-mobile stores that are open near you. we've been asking, are you with us? but we want you to know, we're with you. from fires and hurricanes in 90 years at farmers we thought we'd seen it all. to animal antics we could laugh about later. but we haven't seen this. so, farmers is reducing auto premiums by 25%, extending payment due dates, and expanding coverage for the delivery drivers who are carrying us through. and then we'll do the next thing, and the thing after that, until this is another thing we've seen and done. it's starting to people are surprising themselves the moment they realize they can du more with less asthma. thanks to dupixent, the add-on treatment for specific types of moderate-to-severe asthma. dupixent isn't for sudden breathing problems. it can improve lung function for better breathing in as little as 2 weeks and help prevent severe asthma attacks. it's not a steroid but can help reduce or eliminate oral steroids. don't use if allergic to dupixent. serious allergic reactions can occur, including anaphylaxis, which is severe. tell your doctor right away about signs of inflamed blood vessels, such as rash, shortness of breath, chest pain, tingling or numbness in your limbs. tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection and before stopping any asthma medicines, including oral steroids. du more with less asthma. talk to your doctor about dupixent. saturpain happens. aleve it. aleve is proven stronger and longer on pain than tylenol. when pain happens, aleve it. all day strong. this virus is testing all of us. and it's testing the people on the front lines of this fight most of all. so abbott is getting new tests into their hands, delivering the critical results they need. and until this fight is over, we...will...never...quit. because they never quit. gyms, hair salons and tattoo parlors in georgia will be allowed to reopen at the end of this week. and on monday, restaurant, dining rooms, and movie theaters in georgia will be allowed to reopen. but who will show up at those restaurants and movie theaters and tattoo parlors if they reopen? as of tonight, georgia has 20,166 confirmed cases of coronavirus. and 818 confirmed deaths from coronavirus. the latest nbc/"wall street journal" poll finds 58% of americans worry about lifting stay at home orders too quickly. and 32% worry it is taking too long to lift those restrictions. albany, georgia, a city of 75,000 people, has suffered one of the worst coronavirus clusters in the country. and joining our discussion now is the republican mayor of albany, georgia. mr. mayor, thank you very much for joining us tonight. what are your concerns as friday approaches? >> i'm not a republican, lawrence. i don't know who told you that. >> it was in my teleprompter, so it must be true. sorry, go ahead, mr. mayor. >> yes. well, our concern obviously is to assure the safety of employees and the customers are protected during this period of transition. of particular concern are those businesses you mentioned. beauty shops, barbershops, the theaters, amusement parks, bowling alleys. we intend to assure that these businesses understand the restrictions that they will be operating under. >> and what would those restrictions be? i mean, we heard from the white house today dr. birx saying they have to maintain social distance. well, that's at least six feet. how do you cut someone's hair if you're standing six feet away? >> well, that's obviously impossible. some of these businesses, there is physical contact between the customer and the employee, no doubt about it. but the governor has implemented 20 measures, which should be followed. and that is the conditions we're referring to. but more importantly, with barbershops, beauty shops, i think you're going to have to have spacing of the patrons in waiting rooms and probably protective gear. for the beauticians and the barbers. >> mr. mayor, there's two sides of this. when the governor says these businesses are allowed to open, it doesn't mean every one of these businesses will choose to open. some business owners might find it too risky. some workers might find it too risky. and plenty of customers might find it too risky, so the customers might not show up. >> that's particularly true here in albany. a large number of our people are apprehensive about returning to theaters or going to a restaurant or getting a haircut when friends and family are in the hospital on ventilators struggling for their lives when we're in the midst of an epidemic. but that is the governor's executive order, and the order says no municipality or county can enact provision more stringent than the executive order. we have to live with it, do the best we can. i can tell you that some citizens who own beauty shops and barbershops have declined to open. i am very proud to say that our faith-based community, some of our larger churches, have announced they will not have worship services in the sanctuary until may 17th, and they intend to insist upon social distancing when they have those services. many of our churches are requesting that their elder members make provisions such as watching the service online rather than attending for the foreseeable future because they're out to protect those members. also, i can tell you that -- of course, our big manufacturers, they have company policies that protect the employees, which are far more stringent with what the governor is doing. but we have seen some of these businesses, mr. o'donnell, that have been very vocal in their opposition to our shelter in place ordinance, which we had one here in albany that was enacted two weeks before the statewide ordinance because of our situation. a gentleman that owns a gym, he has removed all the equipment, the bikes, treadmills, and repositioned everything so that it's eight feet apart. these people have been saying we can comply with these restrictions and now we'll see if they can. >> albany, georgia's democratic mayor, thank you very much for joining us tonight. i hope you and your community stay safe in the weeks to come. thank you very much, mr. mayor. >> thank you. and when we come back, we'll ask dr. zeke emanuel how much testing we will need before we can cautiously reopen some of these non-essential businesses as they are now doing in georgia. we'll be right back. d telling pe that liberty mutual customizes your insurance, so you only pay for what you need! 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>> well, they don't suggest that it would happen overnight. they have suggested that you would ramp up over time that you would have an emergency next eight weeks trying to increase the testing capacity, mostly by utilizing labs and universities and other places and optimizing labs, and that they would create an accelerator so that we could figure out better ways and faster ways to test over the next six months. so it's really looking at 30 million a week over the -- to get to the next six months. and importantly, they sort of don't just pull this number out of the hat. we looked at what south korea is doing. and if you tie very, very strategic contact tracing with testing, you can probably get away with about 2.5 million tests per day, multiply that by seven and you're at 17 million and then there's reasons to go up higher than that. but they're pretty strategic about how many tests you need and try to peg it to find out who's spreading the disease. so you're not just going blindly forward. so i think it's a very thoughtful report in that regard. >> and this rockefeller foundation report that you participated in says in taiwan, there have been 132 tests conducted for every confirmed test. in australia, the number is 62, in the united states, it is five. that is a shocking number for the united states. what does that mean for us going forward? >> well, it means what we've been talking about for a long time and what we have talked about for weeks, which is, we have an inadequate testing infrastructure. we have, you know, not done it well. made many mistakes along the way. and that if we're really going to get to a situation where we can open up the economy, we're going to have to have a much more robust testing infrastructure. i think you made an excellent point in your interview of the mayor of albany, georgia, which is look, you can open these stores. but unless people are feeling safe, they're not going to come out. are you going to risk your life to have a meal in a restaurant? no. and so that is the problem. you want to get the economy working, you can't simply open stores. there's a lot of stuff that has to go into it, and people have to feel secure. and the only way they're going to feel secure is if we have the right testing in place, and we can assure them we have minimize ed risks. just like harvey fineberg said about sending kids back to school. you have to assure people they are going to be safe. you can't just say we're open for business, and by the way you might get sick and die from a disease you caught at the store or the university. that makes no sense. so to get the economy moving, we have to get the public health in the right position to screen and contact trace team to minimize the number of cases. and that's something i don't think the governor of georgia has gotten and many other politicians who are rushing to -- we've got to open the economy. >> dr. zeke emanuel, thank you very much for joining ours discussion tonight, really appreciate it. >> thank you lawrence. >> when we come back, i don't know about you but as zeke as saying, i don't think i'm going to be comfortable sitting in a theater for crowded restaurant again or stadium probably until there's a vaccine, john kohn, an expert on vaccines, joins us with the latest on how far away is that kind of return to normal that could only be achieved with a vaccine. but there's no mistaking it. and it's our job to protect it... because the best people to fight for our communities are those within them. so, if you've just bought a volkswagen or were thinking of buying sometime soon, we're here to help with the community driven promise. tide cleaners is offeringe free laundry services you. to the family of frontline responders. visit hope.tidecleaners.com to learn more. all the way out here just for a blurry photo of me. oh, that's a good one. wait, what's that? 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joining us now, john cohen, staff writer for "science" magazine. he has covered infectious diseases and vaccines for over 30 years. john, where are we in the chase for the vaccine? >> i've never seen a more rigorous chase for any vaccine. there are over 70 efforts under way right now. five have already started clinical trials. the clock starts on january 10th when the virus is first publicly described with the sequence. that's a remarkable period of time. i mean from now to then, i've never seen anything like this. so there's a tremendous amount of activity. there's a lot of investment. there are a lot of very smart people trying to do it. but, you know, the question you're raising is when are we going to be able to go to a movie theater with the vaccine in our bodies and feel great? i don't know. nobody knows. and anyone who tells you they do know isn't telling you the truth. >> and in the competition, is this is a competition, or is this kind of a cooperative effort among different researchers on getting to a vaccine? >> i -- i think there's a remarkable attempt to coordinate this and to collaborate. scientists don't always get along and don't always collaborate. there always is competition. some of it's healthy. some of it isn't. we have to wait and see. right now i see several organizations attempting to organize the field. but it's going to be a big question how you narrow down from more than 70 to one, two, three that are going to be produced. i mean i don't know in the end how many will work. i don't know if any will work. i'm hopeful that we'll have a vaccine. it doesn't look like that tough of a scientific nut to crack. but there's a lot of uncertainty, and that's hard for people to accept, but that's reality. >> and if we get to the point where that nut has been cracked, as you put it, and there is a vaccine and it's a vaccine that seems very reliable and actually gets to the point of being proven to be reliable, how do you scale up the manufacture of that to deliver it not just to the 330 million americans who want it right away but the whole world wants it right away? >> yeah, that's a huge challenge. and people are fortunately putting some thought into that now. bill gates has talked about even financing building plants for vaccines that never get made so that that problem doesn't occur. questions of equity and access are going to become real if there is a working vaccine. there are big pharmaceutical companies in the game. there also are some old-fashioned technologies that are here that most everyone could do. so we have to just wait and see what proves effective. i think it's important to talk about it now because equity and access are hard to talk about after the fact. >> well, i mean equity, if we just looked at it in national terms and didn't think beyond our borders, for example, how african countries can possibly compete with us to get the vaccine, just within the united states, how long do you think it would take to get from the privileged where it would surely begin in terms of distribution all the way through to the poverty population of america? >> i've never seen anything hit the entire world the way this virus has hit it, and maybe climate change has, but some people don't even believe in that. everyone believes in this virus. i don't think we're going to be able to silo ourselves like that as the united states. so let's just say what's the timeline for any country -- and it could well be china -- to make a vaccine and prove that it works? the estimates are at least a year if everything goes well. i've watched a lot of vaccine development. things don't go well most of the time. there are small problems that crop up even with something that's a good vaccine. so say it's a year, say it's 18 months, and that's optimistic. there are attempts to speed things up more quickly, to make some shortcuts. they're inventive, and they could work. but we're talking big gambles. >> and let's say the vaccine is developed. does it take another year after it's developed for it to be distributed to all americans or more than a year? >> not necessarily. i mean we could ramp up production depending on the technology that's being used. we could ramp up production to hundreds of millions, if not billions of doses if we prepare properly. and i think the discussions are happening now. i'm heartened to see that. but, you know, i'm a skeptic. i think we have to remain skeptical about this until we really see the plants are built and are running and people are doing these things. lots of little things can trip up production of a biological product like a vaccine. this isn't making a drug with chemicals, you know. it's taking the virus, reformulating it in a way that it helps us rather than attacks us. >> jon cohen gets tonight's last word. thank you very much for joining us tonight. we really appreciate it. >> thanks so much for having me. >> and that is tonight's last word. "the 11th hour" with brian williams starts now. a vacant times square tonight, not quite the crossroads of the world with much of the world hunkering indoors while a virus is killing people around our planet. good evening on this day 1,188 of the trump administration. that leaves exactly 196 days until our presidential election. the headline today belonged to the director of the cdc. in an interview with "the washington post," he warned a possible second wave of coronavirus this coming winter could be deadlier than what we are living through right now. are living through right now. so with that in mind, the question came up at today's white house briefing, should georgia really be allowing hairstylists, tattoo artists, and massage therapists to go back to business considering those three occupations, for starters, depend on close proximity, human-to-human contact? dr. birx when asked about it took a pass. she said she didn't want to pre-judge. the president said he presumes customers will be tested on their way in, and of course the truth is our nation has nothing close to that capacity. dr. birx said she doesn't know if a second wave could be deadlier than this because, quote, she thinks this has been pretty bad.
hand over the cups, while keeping six feet away. >> a lot of people have actually been very thankful having just, like, a space to come get your coffee and talk to somebody for a second. makes it feel like they're back in their kind of routine. >> together, as ever, as one. ramirez says his dream is to open a cafe. he's certainly got the service part down. thank you for watching. time for "cnn tonight" and that means d lemon. >> that reminds me. remember the old thing? the old punching thing when we were young? the expandible thing that had the boxing glove on the end. you don't remember that? >> oh. oh. oh. i know what you're talking about. i thought rock 'em, sock 'em robots. >> you're way older than me, so you probably don't remember that. that was before my time. or the hook. >> pull him on stage! give him the hook. >> well, that, i remember. i still fear that, by the way. >> you do. >> and let me ask you something. >> you can ask me whatever i want. >> if you and i meet on the phone, and we discuss business -- >> i heard that. it's not a meeting. unless you say it's a meeting. i mean, maybe -- okay. i just had a thought. maybe, in this environment, it's a meeting. but a phone call is not, necessarily, a meeting. it's a conversation. when you say meet, that means, what? you meet. >> but semantics. either you have been talking with them about this same problem, or you haven't. and we're in the same pickle. the fed says the states should do testing. the testing, in the states, they say they can't get up to capacity. then they have a meeting, they still can't make progress. and we're still not ready anywhere. i don't get it. i don't get why we can stay on the same page. >> you think i'm going to disagree with the governor right now? >> you really fell on that one. boy, oh boy. i hope -- i hope it worked out well for you. >> that's not going to happen right now. i'm glad you are doing well. i am thinking about you know who. the little one. >> yeah. he's okay. got the same deal that christina had. so they're doing better than i do. at night, it's hard. the sinus pressure. but, look, man. this is how it works its way in families. hopefully, we get lucky the other two don't get it. one day at a time. >> i count -- you know, i get up later than -- than my other half. and i'm like, okay, how long before i get the did you talk to chris yet? some days, it's 20 minutes. some days, it's, like, six minutes. you know, today is took longer. but, anyway, be well. i got to run. you be well. >> i love you have a great night. >> thank you very much, sir. this is cnn tonight. i'm don lemon. here is our breaking news. it involves people, sadly, and deaths, because there are more than 846,000 cases of coronavirus in this country. more than 46,000 americans, dead. they have died. and there is news, tonight, about the director of a key federal agency, working on a coronavirus vaccine, who says that he was dismissed from his post. and he was dismissed in retaliation, he says, for raising questions act hydroxychloroquine. you know, that's the drug that the president has been touting, praising, for months. telling sick americans, what have you got to lose, he says. dr. rick bright. that's his name. says that he is going to file a whistle-blower complaint, in a statement that goes on to say this. he says,i am speaking out because, to combat this deadly virus, science, not politics or cronyism, has to lead the way. in the middle of a deadly public health emergency, one that kills more and more americans every day, our leaders are sidelining science. the science that our lives depend on, right now. and, before we could even absorb that development today, a top scientist saying the administration forceled hd him during a deadly pandemic, for advocating a science approach. well, then, came another example. cdc director, robert redfield, forced to fall on his sword tonight after his warning to the "washington post" that a second wave of coronavirus, coming at the same time as the flu, could be more difficult and more complicated. forced to do that, fall on his sword, with a grim president stand big. >> thank you, mr. president. i really do think it's important to clarify this as we build the confidence of the american people. when i commented, yesterday, that there was a possibility of a fall-winter -- next fall and winter, it could be more difficult, more complicated. when we have two respiratory illnesses circulating at the same time. influenza and the coronavirus 19. but i think it's really important to emphasize what i didn't say. i didn't say that this was going to be worse. i said it was going to be more complicate -- or more difficult and potentially complicated because we'll have flu and coronavirus circulating at the same time. >> okay. so the president claiming dr. redfield was misquoted. he wasn't. look at your screen. he wasn't misquoted. all right. redfield, himself, said that he was accurately quoted. >> that quote that i just read was accurate, right, sir? that's the quote from "the washington post." you were accurately quoted, correct? >> i am accurately quoted in "the washington post." as -- as difficult -- but the headline was inappropriate. >> okay. and then the president started jumping in and saying, you know, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. it was like quit while you're, i guess, ahead. i'm not sure. so here's what the "washington post" said. okay? this is "the washington post." there is a possibility that the assault -- look at the quote -- the possibility that the assault the virus on our nation next winter will actually be even more difficult than the one we just went through. and when -- when i have said this to others, they kind of put their head back. they don't understand what i mean. we're going to have the flu epidemic and the coronavirus epidemic at the same time. sounds pretty simple. that's what he said. he said what he said. a source telling cnn other members of the task force share dr. redfield's concerns. and listen to what the president says tonight about dr. rick bright. okay. who says that he was dismissed from his post for raising questions about hydroxychloroquine. >> i want to ask you about rick bright. he is the head of the federal agency in charge of getting a vaccine out to americans once it's ready. he says he has been pushed out of his job because he raised questions about hydroxychloroquine and some of your directives on that. was he pushed out of that job? >> i never heard of him. you just mentioned the name. i never heard of him. when did this happen? >> this happened today. >> i've never heard of him. if the guys says he was pushed out of a job, maybe he was, maybe he wasn't. i don't know who he is. >> never heard of him. don't know who he is. nothing to see here. never heard of the official who questioned the unproven drug the president has been touting. but, wait a minute, the president said he never heard of the guy who was heading up the search for a vaccine. the guy looking for the only thing that can end this nightmare pandemic? wouldn't you expect a president to have some idea who that person is? i mean, at least some idea. but all this sounds a lot like what the president said last night when he claimed not to know anything about the study that found the drug, not only had no benefit, it increased death rates. that, as researchers, in new york, have submitted preliminary results to the health department of what's being described as the largest study, so far, of hydroxychloroquine. the results haven't been released. and the health department didn't respond when cnn asked when it plans to release them. and then there's dr. deborah birx, who as i said last night, i respect a great deal. especially, for her work on hiv-aids. but she seems to have really downed a whole lot of the kool-aid. failing, last night, to defend the guidelines that she wrote. guidelines georgia is just ignoring and planning to reopen businesses like barber shops, nail salons, and tattoo parlors this friday. >> i believe people in atlanta would understand that if their cases are not going down, that they need to continue to do everything that we said. social distancing. washing your hands. wearing a mask in public. so if there is a way that people can social distance and do those things, then they can do those things. i don't know how. but people are very creative. so i'm not going to prejudge. >> she's not going to prejudge when a state ignores the guidelines. let's be honest. guidelines that she put forth. and remember when dr. anthony fauci was a fixture at most coronavirus task force briefings? remember that? well, he disappeared for days. source telling cnn that he, now, waits to see if white house officials will call him down to the west wing. tonight, after five days, they apparently did. >> there will be coronavirus in the fall. if we do, which we don't, but let's take an imaginary cure. okay. coronavirus. foefr forget about it. we're not going to do anything about it. it will take off. that's what viruses do. but that's not what's going to happen. we are going to respond to it, to not allow it to do that. >> good to see him, right? dr. fauci saying it plainly. there will be coronavirus in the fall. that's what the science tells him. but it may not be what the president wanted to hear. let's see if he gets a call for tomorrow's briefing. the fact is scientists have been sidelined in this crisis over and over. there's the cdc's nancy messenier who on february 25th, warned about the possibility of a pandemic and warned community spread is likely and she was right. we're learning today that the first death from the coronavirus was on february 6th. a california woman, who had no history of recent travel overseas. but when dr. messenier issued that warning, the president was furious and threatened to fire her. she has been sidelined ever since. scientists, sidelined, when they speak scientific truth to power. forced to fall on their own swords. facts questioned and buried. this is the kind of thing that happened in china where doctors were fired for sounding alarm about a virus that has killed people worldwide. this disregard for science comes from the top but it is spreading, and putting americans at risk. georgia's governor, ignoring administration guidelines and insisting that he will open businesses like barber shops, nail salons, tattoo parlors, on friday. ignoring modeling used by the white house. that says his state should not reopen until june 19th. just yesterday, the president said this. >> so he is a very capable man. he knows what he's doing. he's done a very good job as governor, georgia. and, by the way, south carolina. governor mcmaster, also. so you have two very capable people we're going to find out. >> very capable. tonight, he is changing his tune. >> i told the governor of georgia, brian kemp, that i disagree, strongly, with his decision to open certain facilities, which are in violation of the phase-one guidelines for the incredible people of georgia. >> so which is it? strongly disagree? or knows what he's doing? or is this just another attempt to have it both ways? or push blame onto the states if there's trouble? and, then, there is the mayor of las vegas. did you see this? calling for the city, including casinos on the strip, to be reopened, while refusing to even consider providing guidelines for how to do that safely. if you haven't seen it, you have got to hear this exchange with anderson. >> i mean, hundreds of thousands of people, coming there, in casinos. smoking. drinking. touching slot machines. breathing circulated air. and then returning home to states around america and countries around the world. doesn't that sound like a virus petri dish? i mean, how is that safe? >> no, it sounds like you're being an alarmist. i'm not. i've lived a long life. i grew up in the heart of manhattan. i know what it's like to be with subways and on buses and crammed into elevators. >> i'm being alarmist? >> i think you are by saying what you have just said. >> so you don't believe there should be any social distancing? you don't believe that this is a -- >> of course, i believe there should be. of course. >> how do you do that in a casino? >> that's up to them to figure out. i'm -- i don't own a casino. i don't know anything about a casino. >> wait a minute. >> the mayor. it's outrageous. calling for casinos to reopen, even though she doesn't have the authority to make that happen. all the while, refusing to do anything to keep people safe. i don't know, she says. this is a time to put the facts first. we need to know the facts to protect ourselves, our loved ones, our neighbors, our co-workers. is this where we are now? where we ignore the science, we push it aside, for politics and feelings? what is the story behind this dismissal of the top official working on vaccines? and will it slow the search for the one thing that can stop the coronavirus? we are going to discuss. kaitlan collins is here as well as dr. harvey fineburg. that's next. 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(baby crying) ♪ ♪ it's got all my favorite shows turn oright there.boom, i wish my trading platform worked like that. well have you tried thinkorswim? this is totally customizable, so you focus only on what you want. okay, it's got screeners and watchlists. and you can even see how your predictions might affect the value of the stocks you're interested in. now this is what i'm talking about. yeah, it'll free up more time for your... uh, true crime shows? british baking competitions. hm. didn't peg you for a crumpet guy. focus on what matters to you with thinkorswim. ♪ working day in, day out.e. at&t is here. providing support with advanced services for first responders. and connected temporary hospitals, mobile testing sites and emergency management centers. because until their job is done, it is essential that we all have their backs. it's what we've always done. it's what we'll always do. coronaviru coronavirus briefing saying the nation won't go through what we west through t went through the last two months again. as more americans die every day. i want to bring in cnn white house correspondent kaitlan collins. and dr. harvey fineberg, the chair of the standing committee on emerging infectious diseases. kaitlan, going to start with you because we are seeing the president either contradict or have some sort of conflict with many of his advisers on the science. and we're seeing it happen live. at least we saw it today. and it's happening on a number of levels. >> yeah, don. we've seen the doctor say the president has always taken our advice that we have given to him about how to proceed. but, at times, we see the president contradict them in real time. as we did today when the president wanted the cdc director to come out and clarify a comment he made, though he didn't clarify it, he just reaffirmed that, yes, that was the comment that he had actually given to the "washington post." and he was adding, you know, some context around it. but he was repeating what he had already said. meanwhile, the president was saying that he didn't know if the coronavirus outbreak would have a second wave later this year. when you saw dr. fauci say, no, we do fully expect that to happen. and we're preparing as such. which is what we've heard from people like dr. birx and others. and this is something that's happened time and time again at these briefings where, often, you'll see the doctor weighing in on a subject. then the president comes back later. he tries to offer a statement that's a bit more vague about what exactly the future could look like when the scientists are saying, no, we've already look looked at the data. we have a pretty good idea that this is likely what's going to happen and this is the direction we are leaning in. when often you see the president try to really couch those statements. >> yeah. i kept wondering, like, what are they arguing about? because the guy is actually saying -- he's contradicting you, and you keep arguing and making the point for him. it was really -- today was really bizarre, kaitlan. i mean, i've got -- it was an unraveling in the beginning of that press conference. dr. fineberg, let me bring you in. you hear dr. fauci saying the country will have coronavirus in the fall. dr. redfield is saying that it could be more difficult, which is what the quote said. that's what everyone is saying, they're quoting the quote. this is what i'm talking about. watch this. >> it may not come back at all. he is he talking a worst-case scenario. and if it does come back, it's not going to come back and i have a spoken to ten different people, not going to be like it was. also, we have much better containment now. before nobody knew about it. nobody knew anything about it. we understand it now. if we have pockets, a little pocket here, we're going to have it put out. it's going to go out fast. we're going to be watching for it but it's all possible. it's also possible it doesn't come back at all. >> okay. so, doctor, let's just be clear. the scientists are saying we will have it. dr. fauci is saying we will have it. the president is saying we might not. so how can he say that? >> they can both say it, don, because neither one of them is actually putting a probability on their statements. the doctors are talking about what's probable. they think that it's more than likely, greater than 50%, that we're going to see coronavirus. of what scale and severity, that's another debatable point. but coronavirus is not going to disappear entirely. when the president said it's possible that we're not going to have a major outbreak in the fall, maybe some of his advisers are telling him something that's less than 1% chance but still in the realm of what is remotely possible. >> doctor, let me ask. no, he's saying -- dr. fauci's saying we are going to have it. that was his sound byte. the president is saying it might not come back. they're not saying probably. they're saying -- dr. fauci's saying we're going to have it. the president is saying it might not come back. maybe the president is saying it might not. but -- >> well, i would probe both of them, actually, because i don't think dr. fauci, if pushed, would say he's 100% certain. he would say it's more likely, maybe 80%, 90. i'd like to hear what, exactly, he would say. so the difference here is our imperfect language about expressing uncertainty about events in the future. the fact of the matter is we should prepare as if it's going to be coming back, and as if it's going to be severe because that is the prudent thing to do. so when dr. fauci advises it is going to come back, he's really telling us you should prepare as if it is going to be here, because that will be very serious. >> okay. thank you, doctor, for clarifying that. listen, kaitlan, i want you to talk to me about your reporting that the director of the office involved in developing a coronavirus vaccine, says that he was removed from his post for questioning the drug pushed by president trump. what is the president saying about this? >> the president is denying knowing who dr. bright is. now, he did run this really small, not very well-known government agency. but it's really powerful and it's especially critical at a time like this, living through a pandemic, because it basically has purchasing power for vaccines and drug treatments. they can pay people to conduct these studies. and he's got a lot of money, and it's a pretty powerful position that dr. bright was in. he's now been removed from it. we noted, last night, that was really unusual. just given that someone would leave this position in the middle of a pandemic. and then he puts out this scathing statement today, making these allegations against the administration and basically saying he believed he was retaliated against because he wasn't pushing for widening availability of a drug we have seen the president push multiple times in the briefing room. now, it's important to say he wasn't saying it's wrong. he was saying this drug needs to be under the supervision of a physician, in a hospital. basically, saying the way it was being carried out, he didn't support. the president said he didn't know who dr. bright was. he wasn't familiar with him. hhs is not responding to our request for comment, but he is saying that he is going to file a request for an investigation. so this likely isn't the last we've heard of dr. bright. we should note he is no longer in this position, and his deputy has taken over in -- in that acting capacity for the time being. >> interesting times. thank you both. i appreciate it. and be sure to watch new cmn global town hall, anderson cooper, dr. sanjay gupta joined by steven han, governor cuomo, plus a special performance by alicia keys. coronavirus, facts and fears, begins tomorrow night at 8:00 p.m., right here on cmnn. much more on the top government expert ousted from his role developing a coronavirus vaccine. i am going to speak to someone who knows him. she's a former fda commissioner, who will also tell me why she is concerned about some states' plans to reopen. awesome internet. it's more than just fast. it keeps all your devices running smoothly. with built-in security that protects your kids... ...no matter what they're up to. it protects your info... ...and gives you 24/7 peace of mind... ...that if it's connected, it's protected. even that that pet-camera thingy. 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[ barking ] the director of the federal agency working on coronavirus vaccines, saying that he was dismissed because he pushed back on untested drugs touted by president trump. dr. bright announcing that he will file a whistle-blower complaint. he is putting emphasis on science. at the same time, some states have moved ahead with reopening, despite what the science shows. joining me now is dr. margaret hamburg, the former fda commissioner under president barack obama. doctor, thank you for your time. i appreciate it. >> thank you. >> so dr. bright says that he is speaking out because science has to lead the way here. you know him. is he the kind of person to make that charge lightly? >> i so strongly feel that science and evidence-based decisions should be driving our decisionmaking. it's true, in the midst of a pandemic, as well as in how we conduct science, policy, and practice, routinely. i think that, you know, dr. bright, i don't know what happened here. my interactions with him, he's, you know, a very intelligent, dedicated, experienced individual, with real vision, and who wants to make a difference. he's the kind of person that i think you want at the table when important activities are going forward. especially, in the midst of a pandemic. and i think, you know, he's just one example of the kind of expertise that goes pretty deep in government, in agencies like the centers for disease control, the fda, the national institutes of health. other parts of health and human services, and other components of government. and we ought to be, you know, just pulling on all of that expertise and experience to help support actions that need to be taken, policies that need to be developed, and strategies that we need to implement going forward. >> yeah. rely on the science because there could, indeed, be something good that happens from the drugs hydroxychloroquine and all of that. but you need to wait for the conclusions from -- from the tests. listen. i want to ask you about georgia. leading the charge to reopen, many businesses could be back up as soon as this week. the state is more than four times behind recommended testing level. it hasn't had new cases trending downward for 14 days. you say this is mystifying. what are the risks here? >> well, i think, you know, sadly the risk is, after have o havi having put in place social restrictions and taking a hit on the economy. as i recall, georgia was a bit late to the game in terms of implementing some of those kinds of practices. but after having done that, then you move too quickly, you don't have the systems in place. you don't have the criteria the white house recommends as a starting point for decision-making. and we know that they have significant number of cases. they're talking about opening up enterprises, where it's very hard to imagine how you can do the kind of social distancing that one would want. and, also, opening up, you know, enterprises that probably aren't the most central to getting the economy growing again. so i think it's a real risk that you start to lose some control over containment of the epidemic. don't really realize the benefits of what's already been done, with people disrupting their lives and, you know, really taking a hit to the economy. and, then, losing those gains with the recrudescence and increasing community spread. >> doctor, president trump tonight making all kinds of false and bizarre comments on testing. i want you to listen to this, please. >> the swabs are coming in by the millions. they're coming in, literally, coming in by the millions. >> we're doing tremendous testing. and, ultimately, we're doing more testing, i think, than probably any of the governors even want. not everybody believes as strongly as some people on testing. some people want to do testing because they think it's impossible for us to fulfill that goal. that's easy compared to ventilators, as i've said. but we have a tremendous testing capability. >> so -- so governors, on both sides of the aisle, say they don't have what they need. swabs are in short supply. health experts say we need to exponentially ramp up testing. if testing is so crucial to reopening, how do we get to where we need to be? >> testing is very, very important. it's important to really understand the full nature and scope of this unfolding epidemic. and it's important in terms of being able to isolate, to identify, and then isolate, those individuals who are actually infected and to make sure they get the care that they need. i think experts do differ about, you know, what would be the ideal program for testing? and how would you implement it? but i think what's clear is that, you know, from the very beginning, we have not been adequately testing. it's put us behind where we want to be in terms of the management and control. of -- of this coronavirus epidemic. and it is the case that we are in a better place than we were a month ago. but we are not where we need to be, and we're not utilizing the capacity that exists within this nation. and what we really need to do is -- is, again, make sure that we have a strategy that we really know how to ensure our testing capacity can continue to meet the needs. and it may be that we are going to increase the number of swabs, but we need to make sure we increase the number of swabs, we ever access to the reagents necessary. that we have the -- the -- the diagnostic machines. and the right guidelines for use. all of those things need to align and, right now, it's a bit of a patchwork quilt. but i can tell you, in talking to health commissioners across the country and people running hospitals and people involved in healthcare, everybody feels that testing remains a problem that we we, i absolutely believe, can do a better job at addressing. >> thank you, doctor. appreciate your time. thanks so much. >> thank you. >> tyson foods closing some of its plants after they became the center of the coronavirus outbreaks. but did the shutdowns come too late? the mayors of two towns, in different states, where those hotspots are simmering, both join me next. connection is more important than ever. so we're making big moves to help those who need it most. introducing t-mobile connect. a prepaid plan to help keep america connected. starting at just $15 a month, it gives flexibility for uncertain times. visit t-mobile.com/connect to learn more. you can also manage your account, and make payments online. stay connected with t-mobile connect. tonight, tyson foods is closing two pork processing facilities after coronavirus outbreaks at the plants. one is in waterloo, iowa, where the small town has seen a dramatic spike in cases. the other plant is in logansport, indiana, where we're told more than 2,200 employees will undergo testing. joining me now are the mayors of these two cities. mayor quentin hart of waterloo, iowa. and chris martin of logansport, indiana, joins us. thank you, both, mayors. i appreciate it. i know it's a tough time for you guys so we doubly appreciate it. may may mayor hart, i'm going to start with you. you have been pushing for this shutdown for weeks. today, it finally happened. what do you think? >> i think, literally, that's the billion-dollar question. is it too late? i think it's too late to continue business as usual at the plant. i believed it needed to be closed. they went ahead and did that today, which will give us an opportunity to close, clean, test the employees, put in stronger preventative measures, and then get this plant opened back up. it's an incredible need for our entire country and the world. so we owe it to our resilient workforce to make sure they're protected and secured. >> what's happening, mayor, now, to take care of the tyson employees in your city? >> well, just read a statement today from tyson that indicated the employees will continue to be paid. there'll also be continuous testing. we just received 1,500 more tests. i think we were expecting those today and the hope is that we can do some on-site testing at the plant, directly. >> okay. mayor martin, what about in -- in indiana? you spoke to tyson foods a month ago about how to prevent the spread of coronavirus. but, clearly, that was not enough. >> yeah, you know, we're in an unprecedented time. you know, it's not something that you want to happen and it's not something that you can prepare for. and so you can't -- i don't think we can really point the finger at anybody in this situation. a month ago, when tyson was explaining what they were doing, it looked like it was going to be okay. but, again, unprecedented time, so you're going to see, you know, certain things that are going to come about and we're seeing that all across the world. you know, you can't plan for some things. you know, you can be proactive but, eventually, something's going to come about and you just got to be able to be that leader and react in the right way, at that time. >> did you discuss potentially closing the plant on that -- on that phone call? >> we had talked about working with the county health department. so the health department, the cass county health department has really been the leaders with working with tyson. an and, let's be clear, tyson has really been supportive on making sure that these measures are taken and closing the plant and their operations by saturday. >> you understand, or at least understood, the ramifications, considering what was happening around the world because tyson is the biggest employer in loga logansport. this outbreak has ramifications for your entire community. >> of course. of course. and that's the thing. we -- the reason why we had that phone conversation was because we wanted to make sure that, not only tyson but, all of our factories in our community, were taking the right steps and being proactive. and the deputy mayor and i, we took those steps during that week and visited with the health department, every factory in the city of logansport that was operating at that time, to make sure they were following cdc guidelines and to make sure that everything was going as planned. everyone was doing exactly that. there were a couple factories who maybe needed a little more guidance, so we made sure they had that guidance. and very sireventually, what has some of those stopped operation like tyson did saturday. >> mayor, please come back. thank you. good luck. be safe. thank you. if you didn't see this today, you -- you have to check it out. the mayor of las vegas, telling anderson cooper that she wants to open her city back up, including hotels and casinos. and her city could serve as a control group. the congresswoman representing las vegas responds, next. ♪ ♪ ♪ (baby coos) ♪ (laughter) man on video chat: hey! man chasing dog: oh no no no no! 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>> that's for them to figure out. i'm not a private owner of a hotel. >> chinese researchers have shown how this virus spreads and i want to put up for viewers, this is a restaurant. >> anderson you are a tough one. >> this isn't china, this is las vegas, nevada. >> that's really ignorant. this is a restaurant. >> that's ignorant to say? >> that's an ignorant statement. that's a restaurant, and yes, it's in china, but they are human beings too. >> we offered to be a control group. anything that knows anything about statistics knows, you have a vaccine -- >> you're offering the citizens of las vegas to be a control group to see if your theory of social distancing works or doesn't work. >> wrong. absolutely wrong. don't put words in my mouth. what i said was -- >> you just said a control group. >> excuse me, what i said was i offered to be a control group and i was told by our statistician you can't do that. if you're talking disease. i'm talking life. i'm talking life and living. these are people who have had to abandon -- >> it doesn't make sense. >> maybe it doesn't to cryou. >> i want to discuss that with congresswoman dina titus, she represents las vegas. congresswoman, thank you so much, i don't know what you think of the interview. i don't know what else to say. mayor goodman offering the citizens of las vegas to be a control group in order to get the city to reopen. what do you think? i don't know what you think but what is your reaction? >> well, thank you for having me and for caring about the people of las vegas. i think that the mayor needs to listen to the scientists and the health care specialists and stop talking about my constituents as though they're guinea pigs in some grand experiment that she's trying to conduct. we can bring back the economy, which is one of the things she seems to think is a priority, but you can't bring back people's lives. >> do you understand what she's talking about in that interview? i had real trouble because she's said she's not offering them up as a control group, and then she said she is. i did not understand. i had a tough time with that. i'm not sure if you -- >> well, it is hard to follow, and i just go back to the fact that we are doing a good job in nevada. the governor shut down things. it was a very hard decision early on. he's got the support of people on the front lines, culinary union, health care workers, also the big executives from the casinos think this is the way to go. we want to open up. nevada is resilient. las vegas is a city that's been through a lot of tough times before and come back but you have to do it the right way. you can't open up too soon, cause death or health problems for individuals, and then the economy will tank even worse and it will take us longer and be harder to come back. >> and you have a lot of gig workers there, people who make earn their living from tips, and you know, restaurants and casino workers. it's tough. people haven't had a paycheck for a long time. people get it. listen, so our hearts go out to them, and those people -- and people need to make money. they need to earn a living to take care of themselves and their families. i think everybody gets that. but i want to talk about this recent cdc report. it showed how quickly the virus can spread in a restaurant, and when you think of the casino, anderson had this up, casino filled with people pulling on slot machine levers passing and playing cards and chips. does it sound like a breeding ground for a surge, do you think? >> well, we don't want that to happen, and you have got some of the best people, the best minds working on plans to phase in, so you don't open everything up at once. but that's right, people will be crowded on casino floors. they will be in shows. they will be shopping. they will be at restaurants. they will be at sporting events. that's a new aspect of las vegas with the knights and the raiders and the women's basketball. so those are places where people like to gather. they like to have fun. they like to be with friends and family so you cannot open that up too quickly. you know, i get over a hundred calls in my local office every day. people are scared. they are frustrated but very few are angry. they are not saying why don't you open up sooner. they're saying how do i get my check, or how do i get unemployment, help me make it through this, and i think that's very telling. >> listen, we appreciate you coming on. we appreciate your level headedness, we wish you the best. please stay safe. >> thank you. >> we'll be right back. >> thank you very much. during trying times. today, being on your side means staying home... "nationwide office of customer advocacy." ...but we can still support you and the heroes who are with you. we're giving refunds on auto insurance premiums, assisting customers with financial hardships, and our foundation is contributing millions of dollars to charities helping with covid-19 relief. keeping our promise to be on your side.
now it's time for "the last word with lawrence o'donnell," good evening, lawrence. >> as much time as you want right now telling the story of how you met those years ago when you were so intimidated. anything you want to add to that is just fine. >> meeting susan was intimidating enough but when it became time to meet susan's iron lady mother, it was like i was reduced from human size to mouse size, and i have never quite come back to the same size i was before that day. she is a very, very intimidating person, and she's awesome. and she's 90. she's going to live to be 390. she's amazing. so i am lucky to be her daughter-in-law. >> well, i have a 90th birthday present for her tonight. stacy abrams. yeah, stacy abrams is going to be here to join us. >> she'll be delighted. >> perfect. it's the perfect birthday present. and, rachel, you are of course a towering hero to all of us no matter what you might think of yourself. so just remember we're with you. >> thank you very much. >> thanks, rachel. well, last night at this hour, we said that we would be crossing the million mark today, and we did. the united states now has 1,012,535 cases of coronavirus. reported. the united states has one-third of the cases worldwide that have been reported. the united states now has 58,303 reported deaths from coronavirus. one of those deaths was ralph, a captain in the new york city fire department who survived his tour of duty at the world trade center on 9/11. he retired from the fire department a couple years later and thought he found the perfect job to supplement his fire department pension. ralph became a jet blue flight attendant. on april 5th, ralph became the first jet blue employee to die of covid-19. another jet blue flight attendant not authorized to speak to the media told the "los angeles times" this about ralph. he was saving lives, and then he retired and he went to passing out potato chips and pretzels. and this is what this man is going to die from? on april 11th, a long line of cars drove slowly by ralph's house on long island. some had jet blue scarves tied to their mirrors. many were driven by jet blue flight attendants. they waved to ralph's wife and family who stood in the driveway wearing masks. just over two weeks later, jet blue ordered everyone working on jet blue flights and every passenger boarding jet blue flights to wear masks. that jet blue order came more than three weeks after ralph died. no one is keeping a count of how many people in the airline industry are dying from covid-19. no one is keeping that number, but the "los angeles times" studied a two-week period in april and discovered that the number is more than one person per day in their count of airline industry deaths from covid-19. and jet blue is the only airline that is mandating wearing masks on its planes. later this hour, sara nelson, the head of the flight attendants union will join us to explain what the airlines and the government have to do now to make flying reasonably safe in the age of coronavirus. so far the government has done absolutely nothing. the faa is silent on the subject. the way the federal government is allowing airlines to operate now is proof that donald trump has no idea how to safely open up businesses in the united states. they have not issued requirement for all the airlines to wear a mask. they could do it easy. you cannot go into a super market in los angeles or new york without wearing a mask, but you can board an airliner in each one of those cities and sit in a middle row seat in coach with no mask because the trump government is literally doing nothing about safety. the mayo clinic has a rule about masks. it's very simple. everyone who enters has to wear a mask. couldn't be simpler. and everyone is observing that rule except this guy who went to the mayo clinic today and he refused to follow the mayo clinic's own rule about wearing the masks. mayo clinic told reporters that mike pence and his staff had been briefed about the mask policy prior to their arrival. mike pence didn't care. >> mr. vice president, there is obviously some controversy since you got here about the decision not to wear a mask around the mayo clinic as the governor and other officials here did. can you just walk us through why you have made the decision not to wear the mask in the mayo clinic? said they basically they have asked you to do so. >> well, let me say as vice president of the united states i'm tested for the coronavirus on a regular basis, and everyone who is around me is tested for the coronavirus. and when the cdc issued guidelines about wearing a mask, it was their recognition that people that may have the coronavirus could prevent the possibility of conveying the virus to someone else by wearing a mask. and since i don't have the coronavirus, i thought it would be a good opportunity for me to be here, to be able to speak to these researchers, these incredible health care personnel and look them in the eye and say thank you. >> you can look them in the eye wearing a mask. the governor wore a mask. everyone else wore a mask, but not mike pence. and he says he didn't wear a mask because, quote, i don't have the coronavirus. really? when was the last time you were tested? were you tested after you violated social distance guidelines yesterday standing beside that guy in the red tie? and donald trump violates social distancing guidelines all the time. here he is sitting so close to the florida governor today that he can breathe the florida governor's air, and he's leaning in to do that. mike pence does not know if he has coronavirus tonight. he only knows that his last test for coronavirus indicates that he didn't have it the last time he took that test. mike pence could have then picked it up off a surface minutes after he was tested. none of us know if we have it. we only know what our last test result shows. and if you are not mike pence, if you are like most of us, you have never been tested. and you have no hope of being tested because donald trump and mike pence are doing nothing to get you tested. mike pence has no symptoms, but he gets tested all the time. because, you know, it's just nice to know. and i have had no symptoms, and i'd like to be tested. it's nice to know. but i have no chance of being tested. it's now looking like i'll never be tested unless i get some convincing symptoms, and that's true of all of you. you won't be tested unless you get symptoms. dr. anthony fauci said today, in effect, you will never get tested just because you want to get tested like mike pence wants to get tested. he said that that's just not part of the strategic approach. so that's another fauci contradiction of trump. >> anybody that wants a test can get a test. that's what -- >> i will just say that we -- >> that was donald trump lying seven weeks ago. here is what dr. fauci said today. >> when will everybody who needs to get a test be able to get one? >> yeah. i like the word you use, jake, when you said need because a lot of times people say i want a test, and it's not part of the strategic approach. but needing is important. everyone who needs a test according to the way we're approaching the identification, isolation, contact tracing, keeping the country safe and healthy that hopefully we should see that as we get towards the end of may, the beginning of june. jake, that's what i'm being told by the people who are responsible for the testing. i take them for their word. if that doesn't happen, i'm going to go to them and say what happened here? why didn't it happen and how can we fix it? >> dr. fauci is so confident that that goal will not be met that he already knows what his lines are going to be. he already knows what he's going to say to the people when they fail to meet that testing goal. why did that happen? how can we fix that? so far, the only thing you can rely on about coronavirus testing in america is that whatever the trump administration says is going to happen will not happen. as rachel maddow has been thoroughly reporting, meat packing plants have become one of the most unsafe places to work in america in the age of coronavirus. and just as one worker lawsuit against a meat packing plant's unsafe conditions was making progress in court, donald trump sided with his big campaign contributors in the meat packing industry and issued an emergency order tonight ordering meat packing plants to stay open and working. that probably means that workers who are exposed to the unsafe conditions in those meat packing plants will have no right to sue their employers and the republican governor of iowa is saying tonight that if any workers decide to choose their health and safety over their jobs, then they will not be eligible for unemployment benefits in iowa. if that kind of cruelty sounds un-american to you, it is. cruelty towards workers was the norm in this country 100 years ago, but francis perkins guided democratic governors and then democratic president franklin delano roosevelt toward more and more protections for workers in the workplace. the progress was imperfect as progress always is. but for most of the last 100 years, american thing to do, the right thing to do was increasingly protect workers' safety and workers' rights. but the sad truth is that has never been the republican thing to do. but trump republicanism is not just a failure to embrace worker safety. trump republicanism is an embrace of cruelty from caging children at the southern border to doing absolutely nothing to protect the safety of airline workers from covid-19 to ordering workers at meat packing plants in effect to go back to work in the plants that are being overrun with coronavirus. and if they don't go back to work in those unsafe plants, trump republicanism means that they get nothing, no unemployment. trump republicanism will make sure that those workers cannot afford to buy the food that they used to produce if they don't risk their lives by continuing to work in those meat packing plants. that is a cruelty level republicans did not reach before donald trump showed them new levels of cruelty. jocelyn hall is an emergency medical technician at north well hospital in new york. this interview was conducted for nbc's "dateline." >> as a health care provider on the front lines, i am greatly concerned for a second wave. we don't know much about this virus. there is too many uncertains, and i would like to think that while the majority of the public doesn't really understand how terrifying this has been, i would -- i would like them to think that they want themselves and their families to stay safe and to ride this out so that one day we do have the opportunity to go back to some level of normalcy. >> leading off our discussion, a former senior aide to vice president joe biden, president obama, ron klain, and the director of the harvard global health institute. doctor, i want to go to the point that jocelyn just raised in that video, which is the second wave and her fear of the second wave. what can you tell us about what we know or have a right to expect might be coming in a second wave? >> yeah. so, lawrence, thanks so much for having me on. i think most of us believe that there will be a second wave, almost surely. the big question is will it come in the fall? can we keep our economy and our lives reasonably intact for the summer and assuming that we do our -- we play our cards right we can get through the summer okay? we're going to see a resurgence of this disease in the fall. unfortunately it will coincide with a resurgence of the influenza virus which always comes in the fall. i think we have to gear up for a tough fall and winter ahead. >> and, doctor, to dr. fauci's point today about testing, he just is throwing out the idea that we will ever get to a point where if you want to get tested you can be tested. he's limiting it to the definition of people who need to be tested. and he's saying we won't be able to test everyone who needs to be tested until at least june. >> yeah. you know, this has been the fiasco after fiasco after fiasco of this administration. it's really been stunning. you know, we have been hearing for months that we're doing enough tests. everybody knows we're not doing enough tests. and the bottom line is we are shut down because we failed to get testing in place. we remain shut down because we still haven't gotten testing going. and if we do not get testing figured out, if we're not testing at least a half a million people a day, we will not be able to stay open after we open up again. so i don't understand why the administration has not made this priority one, two and three, but they haven't. and so here we are. >> and ron klain, there is absolutely no indication that this administration is going to do anything to push testing. >> no. as a matter of fact, there is every indication they're doing just the opposite. in fact, yesterday there was much hype about a so-called new administration announcement on testing. all that announcement was was basically, hey, we should have a plan for testing. i hope someone thinks of one and the proposed goal in that nonplan was roughly the level of testing we're doing now, which is less than half the number of tests that dr. jha just said we needed. which is on the lower end of which many people think we need. so there is no question that we are in the mess because we didn't test in january and february when we could have isolated chains of transmission and traced those contacts. we continue to be in the mess we're in. when you hear people say, hey, we're going to open now and we'll get the tests in late may or early june as dr. fauci said today with the caveat he put on it that you noticed, that's just a formula for disaster. you can't open and then test. we need to test and then open. >> we have had over 20 meat packing plants in the country have to shut down because of outbreaks of coronavirus. we have had over 20 deaths from those plants already. what is your reaction to the president's in effect order that those workers keep going to those plants, instead of leaving it to the plants themselves to make their own decisions about when it is safe to operate and when it is not safe to operate? >> yeah. i think this is extremely shortsighted. and of course extremely harmful from a public health point of view. look, you can't -- an executive order will not override biological reality. and if you force people into situations that are unsafe, people will get sick. they will die, and people then -- and those plants will run out of workers, and they will have to shut down. so it is much better to be proactive, to give workers a break, to test workers before they go in and make sure you have safe working environments. there is no kind of way out of this. an executive order doesn't override the infectiousness and the lethality of this virus. >> and ron klain, does it mean that the workers there will not be able to sue employers who have been maintaining in many cases some extremely dangerous working conditions? >> lawrence, i mean, people today read upton sinclair's "the jungle" to remember a time when workers were treated like human production bits, when they were tossed aside, allowed to give up their lives and their limbs to produce meat. 100 years from now people will watch your monologue from this show to get a sense of what this time was like, where the president of the united states who has refused to use defense production act to produce ppe or tests or anything we need to fight this virus and today said he would use it to make workers work against their will in these meat packing plants without adequate protection and try to strip them of their rights to access to courts to get that protection. this really is a return to the horrible practices of 100 years ago of treating workers like machines, like chattel, whatever you want to call it in a time when we need that president to use that authority to fix our health care system, not fix the meat packing plans. >> thank you both for starting us off tonight. really appreciate it. >> thank you. >> thank you. coming up, there is news on a vaccine being developed in england. we'll get to that later in the hour. and stacy abrams will join us next. ohio's presidential primary conducted mostly by mail was completed tonight. stacy abrams wants to see much more voting by mail in the election in november when her name might be on the ballot for vice president of the united states. stacy abrams will join us from georgia where the governor has allowed certain businesses to reopen over stacy abrams' objection. that's next. s' objection. that's next. to keep me moving the way i was made to. it nourishes and strengthens my joints for the long term. osteo bi-flex. find our coupon in sunday's paper. ibut that doesn't mean ayou're in this alone. we're automatically refunding our customers a portion of their personal auto premiums. we're also offering flexible payment options for those who've been financially affected by the crisis. we look forward to returning to something that feels a little closer to life as we knew it, but until then you can see how we're here to help at libertymutual.com/covid-19. [ piano playing ] wefrom the 7,000 cignat, clinicians,. supporting front line doctors and nurses, to everyone staying home to protect others. find answers to your most pressing questions: at cigna.com/covid19 i had no idea that my grandfatherfe changing moment for me. was a federal judge in guatemala. he was an advocate for the people... a voice for the voiceless. bring your family history to life like never before. get started for free at ancestry.com our bargain detergent couldn't keep up. with us... turns out it's mostly water. so, we switched back to tide. one wash, stains are gone. daughter: slurping don't pay for water. pay for clean. it's got to be tide. ♪ ♪ ♪ and... l(music fades in). hey! -hi! ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ georgia's republican governor brian kemp decided that this is the week when georgians should go to the movies, go to their local movie theaters and watch a movie. the governor allowed local movie theaters to open this week, but the movie theaters know better and they are staying closed. the big movie chains say they will stay shut down in georgia until at least july. hollywood is not distributing any new movies to any movie theaters anywhere in the country and netflix has more subscribers than ever. former georgia house minority leader stacey abrams called governor kemp's decision to allow certain businesses to reopen, quote, dangerously callous and deeply incompetent. and joining us now is stacy abrams. she came in second in the race for governor in georgia in 2018 after georgia republicans used voter suppression tactics to block turnout of democratic voters. thank you for joining us tonight. i want to begin with your reaction to the governor and your state allowing the reopening of certain businesses, which obviously doesn't mean that those businesses will necessarily reopen and risk safety. what has been happening in georgia so far? >> fortunately, very few people are taking advantage of this very untutored decision by the governor. we are the eighth largest state in the nation, but we have the 14th highest infection rate, topping 23,000 as of this week. we have the 7th slowest and lowest testing rate. meaning, we don't even know how many people are sick. we are one of the states that has chicken processing plants. we have already had 4 deaths at processing plants that will now likely balloon because they don't have access to the adequate protections they need. what we are hearing across the state is that we're not ready to reopen because our people are not safe. luckily businesses like restaurants and movie theaters are saying no, but my deep concern is the number of workers who are being forced back to work by employers who know that in a right-to-work state if someone says no they can be fired from that job. these are low wage workers who face risking health of themselves and their families or risking their livelihoods. that's a choice no one should be forced to make. >> what would be your guidelines about deciding when georgia could begin to allow some places to reopen or reopen schools? what kind of progress would you have to achieve in georgia to allow that? >> we'd have to follow the facts and follow the science. that means that we have the ability to test. georgia is a populus state, more than 10.5 million people. we have one of the lowest testing rates, so we don't know what we don't know. number two, we have a broken public health infrastructure. if people are tested, there is not necessarily somewhere for them to go to be treated. we have nine counties without a single physician, and we have a number of counties without access to hospitals. and, so, i would ensure that we have the public health infrastructure that we need. third, we need to be able to do contact tracing. that is something that we're just starting to hear about. but, again, it only makes sense if we have done the testing necessary and have the treatment available to help the people we need to serve. last friday i held a call with hundreds of georgians to talk about what was happening in the hardest hit part of our state, and what i heard there is what is true across the state. we are not ready to reopen. >> you're on everyone's short list for joe biden's possible running mate, including, i'm sure, joe biden's short list of running mates. would you accept the vice presidential nomination if joe biden offered it? >> i've gotten this question a number of times since 2019, and i appreciate it. and i try to always be honest with my answer, which is that of course i'd be willing to serve. but let's be clear, this is joe biden's choice. he has a smart team, and he has done this job. he knows what he needs in a partner. he knows what he needs to do to serve to not only win the election but to govern this country. i know that he's putting together a process that will serve him best. i have been clear because i believe in being honest with my answers, but this is his choice and he's going to follow the process he decides. >> i want you to listen to something that president trump said today because first of all it is worthy of your response anyway, but there is a distinct possibility you could be on a vice presidential debate stage with mike pence and he will say something like this, no doubt, that you would have to respond to. let's listen to the president explaining why he said we were going to go down to zero cases of coronavirus in this country. let's listen to this. >> today the u.s. hit a grim milestone of 1 million cases of the coronavirus. back in late february, you predicted that the number of cases would go down to zero. how do we get from your prediction of zero to 1 million. >> well, it will go down to zero ultimately. and you have to understand, when it comes to cases, we do much more testing than anybody else. we're going to show more cases because we're doing much, much more testing, double anybody else. somebody said if you add everybody else combined, that would be a number, and it will be at the appropriate time. it will be down to zero, like we said. >> how do you respond to that? >> donald trump has lied to the american people more than 600 times about covid-19, about his response and more importantly about his understanding. and the reality is that he has cost tens of thousands of lives and absolutely put people in jeopardy because of his incompetence, chaotic leadership and his absolute inability to tell the truth. what i would say is that anyone who suborns his behavior, anyone who stands next to him and nods pathetically as he lies to the american people about injecting clorox into their veins, anyone who would say that that is the right way to lead does not deserve to have the job. and donald trump has proven time and again that he is unequal to the task of leading our country. that's why i'm so excited about the opportunity we have in november to elect joe biden. >> mike pence went to the mayo clinic today. he broke their rule. refused to wear the mask. everyone else there is wearing a mask, the people that work there, the other politicians who were with him, including the governor. we have all seen politicians visit hard hat sites and put on the hard hat when necessary, do different things. donald trump's very fond of wearing his red hats in different places. what was your reaction to mike pence setting that national example today of walking into a medical facility and violating their rule by not wearing that mask? >> it reminds me of what happened in brazil when the president went to a protest and coughed. people are pretending they don't understand what's happening, but they know what they see. they know the disregard that's not only being shown for protocol but for people. it is disingenuous to have someone say they're a leader when they refuse to take responsibility for the people they are in charge of, and the reality is that mike pence did that because he was trying to play to an audience of one. the man who has ruined our country in a moment when we needed his leadership the most. his predecessor, president obama, vice president biden and ron klain understood that we have to build a global health security network. they built that network, and donald trump and mike pence broke it. and any attempts to prove they are impervious shows americans they do not care who we are and if we survive. >> joe biden won the ohio presidential primary tonight and it was postponed until tonight, and he won it largely almost entirely by mail. almost all of those ballots were mail-in ballots, which seems perfectly reasonable in the age of coronavirus. you'd like to see many more mail-in ballots in november. >> absolutely. we know that vote by mail is safe. it's accessible. but it is also bipartisan. governor mike dewine and i don't hardly agree on anything. but as governor of ohio he provided for vote by mail. larry hogan in maryland will make sure there is vote by mail with postage paid, which is even better. i'm working hard to lobby congress to ensure we have vote by mail in every safe. it's not simply about making it safe and accessible. it is about making sure those that don't have the option to vote by mail can safely go to the polls early or on election day. if you're disabled, have language barrier, are homeless or are displaced by covid-19 or if you are absentee ballot did not work, then those are the people who have to show up in person. our responsibility is to remove as many people as possible out of the line, let them safely vote from home because we know this will not be over in november. if we want to meet november's challenges, we have to start planning and investing today. >> stacey abrams, thank you very much for joining us tonight. we really appreciate it. >> thank you for having me. it's been a delight. >> thank you. please come back. and when we come back, safety is supposed to be job one of every airline, but most airlines have done nothing to protect the health of passengers during the coronavirus pandemic or protect the health of the people who work on those airplanes. and donald trump just wants to give the airlines money without giving them orders about how to keep passengers and airline workers safe during this pandemic. you can't go into a grocery store now without wearing a mask, but in most big cities, you can now, any big city, you can board any airliner to go anywhere you want without wearing a mask. president of the association of flight attendants, sara nelson joins us next. nothing gentler. nothing lasts longer. flonase sensimist. 24 hour non-drowsy allergy relief hold on one second... sure. okay... okay! safe drivers save 40%!!! guys! guys! check it out. safe drivers save 40%!!! safe drivers save 40%! safe drivers save 40%!!! that's safe drivers save 40%. it is, that's safe drivers save 40%. - he's right there. - it's him! he's here. he's right here. - hi! - hi. hey! - that's totally him. - it's him! that's totally the guy. safe drivers do save 40%. click or call for a quote today. sprinting past every leak in our softest, smoothest fabric. she's confident, protected, her strength respected. depend. the only thing stronger than us, is you. she's confident, protected, her strength respected. across america, business owners are figuring things out. finding new ways to serve customers... connect employees... and work with partners. comcast business is right there with you. with a network that helps give you speed, reliability and security. and enough bandwidth to handle all your connected devices. voice solutions like remote call forwarding and readable voicemail. and safe, convenient installation. when every connection counts, you can count on us. get the connectivity your business needs. call today. comcast business. jorge worked for 11 hours on a flight from rio de janeiro to miami on march 15th. he worked on several flights around the united states as a flight attendant in the days after that, but he was still worried about that flight from rio. he told "the l.a. times" there were a lot of elderly customers onboard who came from the canceled cruise ships. a lot of them were sick. none of them were wearing masks. jorge spent eight days in the hospital being treated for covid-19. his test results confirming that he had covid-19 arrived on the day that jorge was healthy enough to leave that hospital. jorge morales told "the l.a. times" that it was not until april 15th, a full month after his brazil flight, that his airline called to say there had been confirmed positive cases onboard. joining us our discussion is sara nelson, the president of the association of flight attendants and has been a flight attendant for 24 years. sara, this -- these stories that i have been telling tonight about flight attendants, including death of flight attendants, i think has surprised people in that they just assumed that a business that depends on safety so -- so urgently all the time would have been thinking about how to preserve the safety inside the cabins of these airliners. >> uh-huh. well, from the beginning we have not had the kind of coordinated response that you would normally have from the government to give good policies to the airlines to put in place to stop the spread of a communicable disease at the door of transportation. and of course this has overtaken us, and this is the largest crisis that we have seen in over 100 years, there there are characteristics of this much greater than any other time. but still we have not had the attention to getting the proper ppe and protections and notifications to crew and testing that's necessary to have in place a good plan to stop spread through aviation. and now it is into our communities and it may be very clear in that case that the coronavirus was contracted from that flight. it seems very specific to that. but we also have approximately 100 flight attendants who have tested positive for coronavirus, and it is no longer even -- we can't even say for sure that this has happened at work because it is so pervasive in all of our communities, and flight attendants not only travel on planes but they often take public transportation to work, transit through the airport, hotels, all these touch points where they could be coming into contact with the virus. >> so jet blue now says you must wear a mask to be on a jet blue flight. american airlines is handing out masks, but it is optional whether the passenger uses the mask or not. what should the rules be inside the aircraft? >> look, here's the problem, lawrence. what should be happening is that every single essential worker on the front lines should have an n-95 mask every single day that would actually protect them. that is not even available to our health care professionals, and so what we know from scientists is that we need to make sure that every single person in a public area, and this is guidance from the cdc, should be wearing a face cloth or covering because that's not necessarily going to protect you, but it's going to protect the people around you. and if everyone else participates in that activity, then we're all going to be safer. so there needs to be a mandate from the federal government that all throughout transportation, when you get to that airport door, you need to have a face covering over your face whether that's a mask or some other -- a bandanna or something else, and every single person needs to be required to be wearing that. i want to applaud jet blue because they got out in front and normally these policies and these guidelines would be coming from the government. but absent that direction, they are setting a tone for the industry. and i implore their colleagues around the industry to follow the lead of jet blue and make sure this is standard across the industry because we cannot wait one more day to act when this government has totally failed us. >> what about seating on the air craft? some said we're going to limit middle seats we sell. shouldn't they just exclude that, like we're not selling middle seats anymore at a minimum? >> look, here's part of the problem, is that this crisis came over us so quickly. and of course we have talked many times about what we had to do just to stabilize the industry. but what we also did with that financial package in stabilizing the industry is there was language that said we needed to continue essential service. we needed to get medical professionals to the hot spots to help contain the virus, we needed to move goods and services to all of our communities, but what that also says is that only essential travel should be happening right now. and, so, now, as we're taking steps to try to cut back the spread through aviation because none of this has been mandated, we need to make sure everyone is wearing masks and we need to have social distancing policies on the flight. so this is what airlines can do as well, is not selling seats in specific areas. >> sara nelson, thank you very much for joining us again tonight. we really appreciate it. >> thank you, lawrence. >> okay. and when we come back, scientists in england believe they are getting closer to a coronavirus vaccine, and they do appear to be way ahead of other researchers around the world. dr. harvey fineberg, the former dean of the harvard school of public health will assess vaccine progress next. assess vaccine progress next ent. that's why we're a fiduciary, obligated to put clients first. so, what do you provide? cookie cutter portfolios? nope. we tailor portfolios to our client's needs. but you do sell investments that earn you high commissions, right? we don't have those. so, what's in it for you? our fees are structured so we do better when you do better. at fisher investments we're clearly different. -excuse me. uh... do you mind...being a mo-tour? -what could be better than being a mo-tour? the real question is... do you mind not being a mo-tour? -i do. for those who were born to ride, there's progressive. our bargain detergent couldn't keep up. with us... turns out it's mostly water. so, we switched back to tide. one wash, stains are gone. daughter: slurping don't pay for water. pay for clean. it's got to be tide. but when allergies and congestion strike, take allegra-d... a non-drowsy antihistamine plus a powerful decongestant. so you can always say "yes" to putting your true colors on display. say "yes" to allegra-d. we will not return to anything resembling normal until there is a vaccine, and the latest vaccine news is from oxford university scientists in england who are racing to develop a vaccine. last month researchers in the united states tested the oxford vaccine on six monkeys. all of the monkeys remained healthy after then being exposed to heavy quantities of covid-19. the vaccine appeared to work in that experiment. clinical trials involving more than 6,000 people are scheduled to begin by the end of next month. nbc news spoke with dr. adrian hill, a leader of the oxford vaccine team. >> if you can have a vaccine in the next six months, it makes the other measures any of us are suffering from at the moment, being isolated and not being able to interact more worthwhile if there is an end in sight. and i think there is. we have a good idea of what type of immunity it produces. >> reporter: how many doses of vaccine do you think you will make? >> not millions, probably not tens of millions but ideally hundreds of millions of doses of this vaccine. >> joining our discussion now, dr. harvey fineberg, the former president of the national academy of medicine, the former dean of harvard school of public health, the chair of the national academy standing committee on emerging infectious diseases. which is advising the white house. dr. fineberg, what is your reading of the oxford vaccine development? >> it is a very positive development, lawrence. we now have evidence in animals rhesus macaques, that the vaccine appears to confer protection against the challenge with the coronavirus. that's really promising as a development. keep in mind, though, that there are many steps between now and having a fully demonstrated, safe and effective vaccine that could be used in humans. >> the oxford team had a head start on this because they were working in this vaccine arena before covid-19 actually broke out. so do they -- do they seem like the likely first team to get across a finish line with something? >> well, they are apparently ahead at this moment. they were working on a vaccine against a middle east respiratory syndrome, another coronavirus. so very conveniently, they could take the vehicle that they had developed in order to test that vaccine and reprogram the critical component to match the new coronavirus. since they had already documented a lot of the safety from that earlier vaccine, they were authorized by the british authorities to move more rapidly into a larger human trial for safety. and as you mentioned, very soon for efficacy or effectiveness of the vaccine. i'm aware of at least three other vaccines, two in the u.s., one in china, that are also being tested at this stage at a more preliminary level in human beings. >> do you share dr. hill's optimism when you hear him talk about getting to what he thinks might be a finish line? he's describing that in months. >> i love the enthusiasm and confidence of any vaccine developer or drug developer. they have to have confidence in their product. experience teaches that many promising developments, whether treatment or vaccine, do not come all the way through all the tests to the finish line, that's why it's so important that we've actually got a number of candidates in process. if we have several effective vaccines, we protect ourselves in a couple of ways. we can avoid eliminating a vaccine and not being able to use anything if one of them for example develops a serious side effect down the line. we also have the capacity with different vaccines to gear up more quickly, not only to the hundreds of millions of doses that dr. hill mentioned, but to the billions we will need to protect the global population. >> so you expect there to be, when we get to vaccine stage, whenever that is, there will be more than one vaccine on the market. >> with luck there will be. we will have more than one vaccine that will be in production, that will be demonstrated to have passed safety and efficacy standards and that would be in production and distributed in the world. one of the most critical things now, lawrence, is before there is a success, authorities in different countries should work together to ensure that whatever succeeds and however many succeed we've got in place the agreements and arrangements to be sure there's equitable sharing of the vaccines around the world. >> doctor, thank you for joining us tonight. really appreciate it. >> my pleasure. breaking news, not a big surprise. joe biden has won the ohio primary, it was postponed and most of the voters who participated voted by mail this time. steve kaornacki will join us net with news from ohio and what it could mean for the election. he's back as steve kornacki the election guy. that's next. laughs ♪ that liberty mutual customizes your insurance, i just love hitting the open road and telling people so you only pay for what you need! [squawks] only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ if you have a garden you know, weeds are low down little scoundrels. with roundup sure shot wand you don't need to stoop to their level. draw the line. the sure shot wand extends with a protective shield to pinpoint those pesky bedfellows. it lets you kill what's bad right down to the root, while comfortably guarding the good. draw the line with the roundup sure shot wand. roundup brand. trusted for over 40 years. that family doesn't have to take out of their house. it relieves stress off of me to let me know i'm doing something good for the community, not just papa john's. i'm doing something good for the community, ♪ ♪ ♪ i want to add my voice to the many who have endorsed you to be our president. just think of what a difference it would make right now if we had a president who not only listened to the science, put facts over fiction, but brought us together. >> there are now 189 days until the presidential election in november. today ohio held its primary election almost entirely by mail due to the coronavirus pandemic. ohio had postponed its primary, which was originally scheduled for march 17th. and joining us now with the latest election news from ohio is steve kornacki at the big board. boy, it's fun to say that. haven't said that in a while. steve, what happened in ohio? what does it tell us about november? >> yeah, it's interesting, lawrence. we haven't had one of these in a while. really this is the last of this kind at all that we're going to have this year, so enjoy this one, folks. what i mean by that is officially the primary is today. the ballots were due today, or at least had to be postmarked by last night. but if you remember back in march when this primary was postponed, there had already been some votes cast for this. they had had in-person early voting going for a while in ohio. they had some ballots that were sent in already. so basically what they said back in march was all those ballots will count, and then we're going to do a mail-in primary in late april. so you've got a mix here. these results here are sort of a mix. some of these votes were cast when this was still a competitive race, when bernie sanders was running against joe biden, and a lot of these votes were cast after bernie sanders dropped out of the race and endorsed joe biden. so exactly which come from each bucket, we don't really know. but this is the last time really you're going to have votes that were cast when this was a competitive race. and, again, biden obviously not surprisingly winning this thing overwhelmingly. there's a chance sanders will actually get some delegates out of this. every single county in the state going for joe biden. and the big question, as you say, lawrence, is what does this mean for november? what does it mean in terms of what our election is going to look like in november because what happened here in ohio where they had to scramble and improvise and basically turn this into a mail-in primary election, a lot of states are going to have to ramp up and do that this november. and they haven't tried it before. administratively they haven't had the scale of mail-in ballots they're going to deal with this year. so there's a question here of how this goes in ohio. does it indicate how it will look in other states? we can tell you there are still some votes to be coming in. you can ignore this number. that's based on old math. there are still votes to come in but it looks like democratic turnout is down 33%, roughly 33%. that's the trend right now. about 33% down from 2016. but, again, in 2016 you had a very competitive primary, hillary clinton versus bernie sanders. a not so competitive primary this time. tough to know exactly what this decline in turnout means. certainly they did get a lot of votes here that were cast in this thing. the main issue is this. it will take a few days to figure this out. there were some voters in ohio saying i requested a mail ballot and it never arrived. and the mail was going slow in some parts of the state because of this pandemic. it was running five, ten days behind schedule. i think one thing we're going to find out in the next few days is how widespread was it that people requested ballots and didn't get them? was it a small issue that can be fixed in other states, or was it a broader issue? that's what we're going to learn in the next couple days, lawrence. >> steve kornacki, just great to see you back at the big board. lawrence. >> steve kornacki, just great to see you back at the big board. thank you, steve, for joining us tonight. we really appreciate it. steve kornacki gets tonight's last word. "the 11th hour" with brian williams starts now. day 1,195 of the trump well, good evening once again. day 1,195 of the trump administration, leaving 189 days to go until our presidential election. the president pointed out today there would be no press conference by the coronavirus task force, and he said that at the end of a press conference in the east room. the subject was billed as the american business world, but he waded into the coronavirus nonetheless. the big headline from today was the president saying, quote,
anything you want to add to that is just fine. >> when it became time to meet suzanne's iron lady mother, it was like i was reduced from human size to mouse size, and i have never quite come back to the same size i was before that day. she is a very, very intimidating person, and she's awesome. and she's 90. she's going to live to be 390. she's amazing. so i am lucky to be her daughter-in-law. >> well, i have a 90th birthday present for her tonight. stacy abrams. yeah, stacy abrams is going to be here to join us. perfect. it's the perfect birthday present. and, rachel, you are of course a towering her rohero to all of u matter what you might think of yourself. so just remember we're with you. >> thank you very much. >> thanks, rachel. well, last night at this hour, we said that we would be crossing the million mark today, and we did. the united states now has 1,012,535 cases of coronavirus. the united states has one-third of the cases worldwide that have been reported. the united states now has 58,303 reported deaths from coronavirus. one of those deaths was ralph, a captain in the new york city fire department who survived his tour of duty at the world trade center on 9/11. he retired from the fire department a couple years later and thought he found the perfect job to supplement his fire department pension. ralph became a jet blue flight attendance. on april 5th, ralph became the first jet blue employee to die of covid-19. another jet blue flight attendant not authorized to speak to the media said this about ralph. he was saving lives, and then he retired and he went to passing out potato chips and pretzels. and this is what this man is going to die from? on april 11th, a long line of cars drove slowly by ralph's house on long island. some had jet blue scarves tied to their mirrors. many were driven by jet blue flight attendants. they waived to ralph's wife and family who stood in the driveway wearing masks. just over two weeks later, jet blue ordered everyone working on jet blue flights and every passenger boarding jet blue flights to wear masks. that jet blue order came more than three weeks after ralph died. no one is keeping a count of how many people in the airline industry are dying from covid-19. no one is keeping that number, but the los angeles times studied a two-week period in april and discovered that the number is more than one person per day in their count of airline industry deaths from covid-19. and jet blue is the only airline that is mandating wearing masks on its planes. later this hour, sara nelson, the head of the flight attendants union will join us to explain what the airlines and the government have to do now to make flying reasonably safe in the age of coronavirus. so far the government has done absolutely nothing. the faa is silent on the subject. the way the federal government is allowing airlines to operate now is proof that president trump has no idea how to open up the united states. they could do it easy. you cannot go into a super market in los angeles or new york without wearing a mask, but you can board an airliner in each one of those cities and sit in a middle row seat in coach with no mask because the trump government is literally doing nothing about safety. the mayo clinic has a rule about matzin masks. it's very simple. everyone who enters has to wear a mask, and everyone is observing that rule except this guy who went to the mayo clinic today and he refused to follow the mayo clinic's own rule about wearing the masks. they said he had been briefed about the mask policy prior to their arrival. mike pence didn't care. >> mr. vice president, there is obviously some controversy since you got here about the decision not to wear a mask around the mayo clinic as the governor and other officials here did. can you just walk us through why you have made the decision not to wear the mask in the mayo clinic? said they basically they have asked you to do so. >> well, let me say as vice president of the united states i'm tested for the coronavirus on a regular basis, and everyone who is around me is tested for the coronavirus. and when the cdc issued guidelines about wearing a mask, it was their recognition that people that may have the coronavirus could prevent the possibility of conveying the virus to someone else by wearing a mask. and since i don't have the coronavirus, i thought it would be a good opportunity for me to be here, to be able to speak to these researchers, these incredible health care personnel and look them in the eye and say thank you. >> you can look them in the eye wearing a mask. the governor wore a mask. everyone else wore a mask, but not mike pence. and he says he didn't wear a mask because, quote, i don't have the coronavirus. really? when was the last time you were tested? were you tested after you violated social distance guidelines yesterday standing beside that guy in the red tie? and donald trump violates social distancing guidelines all the time. here he is sitting so close to the florida governor today that he can breathe the florida governor's air, and he's leaning in to do that. mike pence does not know if he has coronavirus tonight. he only knows that his last test for coronavirus indicates that he didn't have it the last time he took that test. mike pence could have then picked it up off a surface minutes after he was tested. none of us know if we have it. we only know what our last test result shows. and if you are not mike pence, if you are like most of us, you have never been tested. and you have no hope of being tested because donald trump and mike pence are doing nothing to get you tested. mike pence has no symptoms, but he gets tested all the time. because, you know, it's just nice to know. and i have had no symptoms, and i'd like to be tested. it's nice to know. but i have no chance of being tested. it's now looking like i'll never be tested unless i get some convincing symptoms, and that's true of all of you. you won't be tested unless you get symptoms. dr. anthony fauci said today, in effect, you will never get tested just because you want to get tested like mike pence wants to get tested. he said that that's just not part of the strategic approach. so that's another fauci contradiction of trump. >> anybody that wants a test can get a test. that's what -- >> i will just say that we -- >> that was donald trump lying seven weeks ago. here is what dr. fauci said today. >> when will everybody who needs to get a test be able to get one? >> yeah. i like the word you use, jake, when you said need because a lot of times people say i want a test, and it's not part of the strategic approach. but needing is important. everyone who needs a test according to the way we're approaching the identification, isolation, contract tracing, keeping the country safe and healthy that hopefully we should see that as we get towards the end of may, the beginning of june. jake, that's what i'm being told by the people who are responsible for the testing. i take them for their word. if that doesn't happen, i'm going to go to them and say what happened here? why didn't it happen and how can we fix it? >> dr. fauci is so confident that that goal will not be met that he already knows what his lines are going to be. he already knows what he's going to say to the people when they fail to meet that testing goal. why did that happen? how can we fix that? so far, the only thing you can rely on about coronavirus testing in america is that whatever the trump administration says is going to happen will not happen. as rachel maddow has been thoroughly reporting, meat packing plants have become one of the most unsafe places to work in america in the age of coronavirus. and just as one worker lawsuit against a meat packing plant's unsafe conditions was making progress in court, donald trump sided with his big campaign contributors in the meat packing industry and issued an emergency order tonight ordering meat packing plants to stay open and working. that probably means that workers who are exposed to the unsafe conditions in those meat packing plants will have no right to sue their employers and the republican governor of iowa is saying tonight that if any workers decide to choose their health and safety over their jobs, then they will not be eligible for unemployment benefits in iowa. if that kind of cruelty sounds un-american to you, it is. cruelty towards workers was the norm in this country 100 years ago, but francis perkins guided democratic governors and then democratic president franklin delnor roosevelt toward more and more protections for workers in the workplace. the progress was imperfect as progress also is. but the american thing to do, the right thing to do was increasingly protect workers' safety and workers' rights. but the sad truth is that has never been the republican thing to do. but trump republicanism is not just a failure to embrace worker safety. trump republicanism is an embrace of cruelty from caging children at the southern border to doing absolutely nothing to protect the safety of airline workers from covid-19 to ordering workers at meat packing plants in effect to go back to work in the plants that are being overrun with coronavirus. and if they don't go back to work in those unsafe plants, trump republicanism means that they get nothing, no unemployment. trump republicanism will make sure that those workers cannot afford to buy the food that they used to produce if they don't risk their lives by continuing to work in those meat packing plants. that is a cruelty level republicans did not reach before donald trump showed them new levels of cruelty. joselyn hall is an emergency medical technician at north well hospital in new york. this interview was conducted for nbc's "dateline." >> as a health care provider on the front lines, i am greatly concerned for a second wave. we don't know much about this virus. there is too many uncertains, and i would like to think that while the majority of the public doesn't really understand how terrifying this has been, i would -- i would like them to think that they want themselves and their families to stay safe and to ride this out so that one day we do have the opportunity to go back to some level of normal normalcy. >> leading off our discussion, a former senior aid to joe biden. and the director of the harvard global health institute. i want to go to the point that joselyn just raised in that video, which is the second wave and her fear of the second wave. what can you tell us about what we know or have a right to expect might be coming in a second wave. >> yeah. so, lawrence, thanks so much for having me on. i think most of us believe that there will be a second wave, almost surely. the big question is will it come in the fall? can we keep our economy and our lives reasonably intact for the summer and assuming that we do our -- we play our cards right we can get through the summer okay? we're going to see a resurgence of this disease in the fall. unfortunately it will coincide with a resurgence of the influenza virus which always comes in the fall. i think we have to gear up for a tough fall and winter ahead. >> and, doctor, to dr. fauci's point today about testing, he just is throwing out the idea that we will ever get to a point where if you want to get tested you can be tested. he's limiting it to the definition of people who need to be tested. and he's saying we won't be able to test everyone who needs to be tested until at least june. >> yeah. you know, this has been the fiasco after fiasco after fiasco of this administration. it's really been stunning. you know, we have been hearing for months that we're doing enough tests. everybody knows we're not doing enough tests. and the bottom line is we are shut down because we failed to get testing in place. we remain shut down because we still haven't gotten testing going. and if we do not get testing figured out, if we're not testing at least a half a million people a day, we will not be able to stay open after we open up again. so i don't understand why the administration has not made this priority one, two and three, but they haven't. and so here we are. >> and, ryan, there is absolutely no indication that this administration is going to do anything to push testing. >> no. as a matter of fact, there is every indication they're doing just the opposite. in fact, yesterday there was much hype about a so-called new administration announcement on testing. all that announcement was was basically, hey, we should have a plan for testing. i hope someone thinks of one and the proposed goal in that nonplan was roughly the level of testing we're doing now, which is less than half the number of tests that was said we needed which is on the lower end of which many people think we need. so there is no question that we are in the mess because we didn't test in january and february when we could have isolated chains of transmission and traced those contraacts. if you hear people say, hey, we're going to open now and we'll get the tests in late may or early june as dr. fauci said today with the caveat he put on it that you noticed, that's just a formula for disaster. you can't open and then test. we need to test and then open. >> we have had over 20 meat packing plants in the country have to shut down because of outbreaks of coronavirus. we have had over 20 deaths from those plants already. what is your reaction to the president's in effect order that those workers keep going to those plants, instead of leaving it to the plants themselves to make their own decisions about when it is safe to operate and when it is not safe to operate? >> yeah. i think this is extremely shortsighted. and of course extremely harmful from a public health point of view. look, you can't -- an executive order will not override biological reality. and if you force people into situations that are unsafe, people will get sick. they will die, and people then -- and those plants will run out of workers, and they will have to shut down. so it is much better to be proactive, to give workers a break, to test workers before they go in and make sure you have safe working environments. there is no kind of way out of this. an executive order doesn't override the infectiousness and the lethality of this virus. and, ron klane, does it mean the workers there will not be able to sue employers who have been maintaining in many cases some extremely dangerous working conditions? >> lawrence, i mean, people today read "the jungle" to remember a time when workers were treated like human production bits, when they were tossed aside, allowed to give up their lives and their limbs to produce meat. 100 years from now people will watch your monologue from this show to get a sense of what this time was like, where the president of the united states will not produce anything we need to fight this virus and today said he would use it to make workers work against their will in these meat packing plants without adequate protection and try to strip them of their rights to access to courts to get that protection. this really is a return to the horrible practices of 100 years ago of treating workers like machines, like cattle, like whatever you want to call it in a time when we need that president to use that authority to fix our health care system, not fix the meat packing plans. >> thank you both for starting us off tonight. really appreciate it. >> thank you. >> thank you. coming up, there is news on a vaccine being developed in england. we'll get to that later in the hour. and stacy abrams will join us next. ohio's presidential primary conducted mostly by mail was completed tonight. stacy abrams wants to see much more voting by mail in the election in november when her name might be on the ballot for vice president of the united states. stacy abrams will join us from georgia where the governor allowed some businesses to open over the objection of stacy abrams. that's next. ext. [squawks] only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ we do things differently and aother money managers, don't understand why. because our way works great for us! but not for your clients. that's why we're a fiduciary, obligated to put clients first. so, what do you provide? cookie cutter portfolios? nope. we tailor portfolios to our client's needs. but you do sell investments that earn you high commissions, right? we don't have those. so, what's in it for you? our fees are structured so we do better when our clients do better. at fisher investments we're clearly different. at t-mobile, taxes and fees are included. and right now, when you switch your family, get four lines of unlimited for just $35 dollars a line and taxes and fees included. so what you see is what you pay every month. check it out at out t-mobile.com/4for35 georgia's republican governor decided that this is the week when georgians should go to the movies, go to their local movie theaters and watch a movie. the governor allowed local movie theaters to open this week, but the movie theaters know better and they are staying closed. they will stay shut down in georgia until at least july. hollywood is not distributing any new movies to any movie theaters anywhere in the country and netflix has more subscribers than ever. stacy abrams called governor kemp's decision to allow certain businesses to reopen, quote, dangerously callus and deeply incompetent. and joining us now is stacy abrams. she came in second in the race for governor in georgia in 2018 after georgia republicans used voter suppression tactics to block turnout of democratic voters. thank you for joining us tonight. i want to begin with your reaction to the governor and your state allowing the reopening of certain businesses, which obviously doesn't mean that those businesses will necessarily reopen and risk safety. what has been happening in georgia so far? >> fortunately, very few people are taking advantage of this very untutored decision by the governor. we are the eighth largest state in the nation, but we have the 14th highest infection rate, topping 23,000 as of this week. we have the 7th slowest and lowest testing rate. meaning, we don't even know how many people are sick. we are one of the states that has chicken processing plants. we have already had 4 deaths at processing plants that will now likely balloon because they don't have access to the adequate protections they need. what we are hearing across the state is that we're not ready to reopen because our people are not safe. luckily businesses like restaurants and movie theaters are saying no, but my deep concern is the number of workers who are being forced back to work by employers who know that in a right-to-work state if someone says no they can be fired from that job. these are low wage workers who face risking their health or livelihood. that's a choice no one should be forced to make. >> what would be your guidelines about deciding when georgia could begin to allow some places to reopen or reopen schools? what kind of progress would you have to achieve in georgia to allow that? >> we'd have to follow the facts and follow the science. that means that we have the ability to test. georgia is a populus state, more than 10.5 million people. we have one of the lowest testing rates, so we don't know what we don't know. number two, we have a broken public health infrastructure. if people are tested, there is not necessarily somewhere for them to go to be treated. we have nine counties without a single physician, and we have a number of counties without access to hospitals. and, so, i would ensure that we have the public health infrastructure that we need. third, we need to be able to do contract tracing. that is something that we're just starting to hear about. but, again, it only makes sense if we have done the testing necessary and have the treatment available to help the people we need to serve. last friday i held a call with hundreds of georgians to talk about what was happening in the hardest hit part of our state, and what i heard there is what is true across the state. we are not ready to reopen. >> you're on everyone's short list for joe biden's possible running mate, including, i'm sure, joe biden's short list of running mates. would you accept the vice presidential nomination if joe biden offered it? >> i've gotten this question a number of times since 2019, and i appreciate it. and i try to always be honest with my answer, which is that of course i'd be willing to serve. but let's be clear, this is joe biden's choice. he has a smart team, and he has done this job. he knows what he needs in a partner. he knows what he needs to do to serve to not only win the election but to govern this country. i know that he's putting together a process that will serve him best. i have been clear because i believe in being honest with my answers, but this is his choice and he's going to follow the process he decides. >> i want to talk about something president trump said today because, first of all, it is worthy of your response anyway. but there is a distinct possibility you could be on a vice presidential debate stage with mike pence and he will say something like this, no doubt, that you would have to respond to. let's listen to the president explaining why he said we were going to go down to zero cases of coronavirus in this country. let's listen to this. >> today the u.s. hit a grim milestone of one million cases of the coronavirus. back in late february, you predicted that the number of cases would go down to zero. how do we get from your prediction of zero to one million. >> well, it will go down to zero ultimately. when it comes to cases, we do much more testing than anybody else. we're going to show more cases because we're doing much, much more testing, double anything else. if you add everybody else combined, that would be a number, and it will be at the appropriate time. it will be down to zero, like we said. how do you respond to that? >> donald trump has lied to the american people more than 600 times about covid-19, about his response and more importantly about his understanding. and the reality is that he has caught t cost tens of thousands of lives and absolutely put people in jeopardy because of his incompetence, chaotic leadership and his absolute inability to tell the truth. anyone who stands next to him and nods pathetically as he lies to the american people about injecting clorox into their veins, anyone who would say that that is the right way to lead does not deserve to have the job. and donald trump has proven time and again that he is unequal to the task of leading our country. that's why i'm so excited about the opportunity we have in november to elect joe biden. >> mike pence went to the mayo clinic today. he broke their rule. refused to wear the mask. everyone else there is wearing a mask, the people that work there, the other politicians who were with him, including the governor. we have all seen politicians visit hard hat sites and put on the hard hat when necessary, do different things. donald trump's very fond of wearing his red hats in different places. what was your reaction to mike pence setting that national example today of walking into a medical facility and violating their rule by not wearing that mask? >> it reminds me of what happened in brazil when the president went to a protest and coughed. people are pretending they don't understand what's happening, but they know what they see. they know the disregard that's not being shown for protocol but for people. it is disingenuous to have someone say they're a leader when they refuse to take responsibility for the people they are in charge of, and the reality is that mike pence did that because he was trying to play to an audience of one. the man who has ruined our co country in a moment when we needed his leadership the most. his predecessor understood that we have to build a global health security network. they built that network, and donald trump and mike pence broke it. and any attempts to prove they are imper vous shows americans they do not care who we are and if we survive. >> joe biden won the ohio presidential primary tonight and he won it largely almost entirely by mail. almost all of those ballots were mail-in ballots, which seems perfectly reasonable in the age of coronavirus. you'd like to see many more mail-in ballots in november. >> absolutely. we know that vote by mail is safe. it's accessible. but it is also bipartisan. governor mike dewine and i don't hardly agree on anything. but he provided vote my mail. larry hogan in maryland will make sure there is vote by mail with postage paid, which is even better. it's not simply about making it safe and accessible. it is about making sure those that don't have the option to vote by mail can safely go to the polls early or on election day. if you are disabled, homeless or displaced by covid-19 or if you are absentee ballot did not work, then those are the people who have to show up in person. our responsibility is to remove as many people as possible out of the line, let them safely vote from home because we know this will not be over in november. if we want to meet november's challenges, we have to start planning and investing today. >> stacy abrams, thank you very much for joining us tonight. we really appreciate it. >> thank you for having me. it's been a delight. >> thank you. please come back. and when we come back, safety is supposed to be job one of every airline, but most airlines have done nothing to protect the health of passengers during the coronavirus pandemic or protect the health of the people who work on those airplanes. and donald trump just wants to give the airlines money without giving them orders about how to keep passengers and airline workers safe during this pandemic. you can't go into a grocery store now without wearing a mask, but in most big cities, you can now, any big city, you can board any airliner to go anywhere you want without wearing as maisk. sara nelson joins us next. eed! [squawks] only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ i've been involved in. communications in the media for 45 years. i've been taking prevagen on a regular basis for at least eight years. for me, the greatest benefit over the years has been that prevagen seems to help me recall things and also think more clearly. and i enthusiastically recommend prevagen. it has helped me an awful lot. prevagen. healthier brain. better life. sprinting past every leak in our softest, smoothest fabric. she's confident, protected, her strength respected. depend. the only thing stronger than us, is you. swithout even on yoleaving your house. she's confident, protected, her strength respected. just keep your phone and switch to xfinity mobile. you can get it by ordering a free sim card online. once you activate, you'll only have to pay for the data you need- starting at just $12 a month. there are no term contracts, no activation fees, and no credit check on the first two lines. get a $50 prepaid card when you switch. it's the most reliable wireless network. and it could save you hundreds. xfinity mobile. jorge worked for 11 hours on march 15th. he worked on several flights around the united states as a flight attendant in the days after that, but he was still worried about that flight from rio. he told the l.a. times there were a lot of elderly customers onboard who came from the canceled cruise ships. a lot of them were sick. none of them were wearing masks. jorge spent eight days in the hospital being treated for covid-19. his test results confirming that he had covid-19 arrived on the day that jorge was healthy enough to leave that hospital. he told the l.a. times that it was not until april 15th, a full month after his brazil flight, that his airline called to say there had been confirmed positive cases onboard. joining us our discussion is sara nelson, the president of the association of flight attendants and has been a flight attendant for 24 years. sara, this -- these stories that i have been telling tonight about flight attendants, including death of flight attendants, i think has surprised people in that they just assumed that a business that depends on safety so -- so urgently all the time would have been thinking about how to preserve the safety inside the cabins of these airliners. >> uh-huh. well, from the beginning we have not had the kind of coordinated response that you would normally have from the government to give good policies to the airlines to put in place to stop the spread of a communicable disease at the door of transportation. and of course this has overtaken us, and this is the largest crisis that we have seen in over 100 years, there there are characteristics of this much greater than any other time. but still we have not had the attention to getting the proper ppe and protections and notifications to crew and testing that's necessary to have in place a good plan to stop spread through aviation. and now it is into our communities and it may be very clear in that case that the coronavirus was contracted from that flight. it seems very specific to that. but we also have approximately 100 flight attendants who have tested positive for coronavirus, and it is no longer even -- we can't even say for sure that this has happened at work because it is so pervasive in all of our communities, and flight attendants not only travel on planes but they often take public transportation to work, transit through the airport, hotels, all these touch points where they could be coming into contact with the virus. >> so jet blue now says you must wear a mask to be on a jet blue flight. american airlines is handing out masks, but it is optional whether the passenger uses the mask or not. what should the rules be inside the aircraft? >> look, here's the problem, lawrence. what should be happening is that every single essential worker on the front lines should have an n-95 mask every single day that would actually protect them. that is not even available to our health care professionals, and so what we know from scientists is that we need to make sure that every single person in a public area, and this is guidance from the cdc, should be wearing a face cloth or covering because that's not necessarily going to protect you, but it's going to protect the people around you. and if everyone else participates in that activity, then we're all going to be safer. so there needs to be a mandate from the federal government that all throughout transportation, when you get to that airport door, you need to have a face covering over your face whether that's a mask or some other -- a bandanna or something else, and every single person needs to be required to be wearing that. i want to applaud jet blue because they got out in front and normally these policies and these guidelines would be coming from the government. but absent that direction, they are setting a tone for the industry. and i implore they're call of things around the industry to follow the lead of jet blue and make sure this is standard across the city because we cannot wait one more day to act when this government has totally failed us. >> what about seating on the air kro craft? shouldn't they just exclude that, like we're not selling middle seats anymore at a minimum? >> look, here's part of the problem, is that this crisis came over us so quickly. and of course we have talked many times about what we had to do just to stabilize the industry. but what we also did with that financial package in stabilizing the industry is there was language that said we needed to continue essential service. we needed to get medical professionals to the hot spots to help contain the virus, we needed to move goods and services to all of our communities, but what that also says is that only essential travel should be happening right now. and, so, now, as we're taking steps to try to cut back the spread through aviation because none of this has been mandated, we need to make sure everyone is wearing masks and we need to have social distancing policies on the flight. so this is what airlines can do as well, is not selling seats in specific areas. >> sara nelson, thank you very much for joining us again tonight. we really appreciate it. >> thank you, lawrence. >> okay. and when we come back, scientists in england believe they are getting closer to a coronavirus vaccine, and they do appear to be way ahead of other researchers around the world. the former dean of the harvard school of public health will access vaccine progress next. for what you need! 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[ piano playing ] we will not return to anything resembling normal until there is a vaccine, and the latest vaccine news is from oxford university scientists in england who are racing to develop a vaccine. last month researchers in the united states tested the oxford vaccine on six monkeys. all of the monkeys remained healthy after then being exposed to heavy quantities of covid-19. the vaccine appeared to work in that experiment. clinical trials involving more than 6,000 people are scheduled to begin by the end of next month. nbc news spoke with dr. adrian hill, a leader of the oxford vaccine team. >> if you can have a vaccine in the next six months, it makes the other measures any of us are you ever issing from at the moment, being isolated and not being able to interact more worthwhile if there is an end in sight. and i think there is. we have a good idea of what type of immupty it produces. >> how many doses do you think you will make. >> not millions, probably not tens of millions but ideally hundreds of millions of doses of this vaccine. >> joining our discussion now, dr. harny fine berg, the former president of the national academy of medicine, the former dean of harvard school of public health, the chair of the national standing committee on e emerging infectious diseases. >> what is your reading of the oxford vaccine development? >> it is a very positive development, lawrence. we now have evidence in animals that the vaccine appears to confer protection against the challenge with the coronavirus. that's really promising as a development. keep in mind, though, that there are many steps between now and having a fully demonstrated, safe and effective vaccine that could be used in humans. >> the oxford team had a head start on this because they were working in this vaccine arena before covid-19 actually broke out. so do they -- do they seem like the likely first team to get across a finish line with something? >> well, they are apparently ahead at this moment. they were working on a vaccine against a middle east respiratory syndrome, another covid. so very conveniently, they could take the vehicle that they had developed in order to test that vaccine and reprogram the critical component to match the new coronavirus. since they had already documented a lot of the safety from that earlier vaccine, they were authorized by the british authorities to move more rapidly into a larger human trial for safety. and as you mentioned, very soon for ethicacy or effectiveness of the vaccine. i'm aware of at least three other vaccines, two in the u.s., one in china, that are also being tested at this stage at a more preliminary level in human beings. >> do you share dr. hill's optimism when you hear him talk about getting to what he thinks might be a finish line? he's describing that in months. >> i love the enthusiasm and confidence of any vaccine developer or drug developer. they have to have confidence in their product. experience teaches that many promising developments, whether it's a treatment or a vaccine, do not come all the way through all the tests to the finish line. that's why it's so important that we've actually got a number of candidates that are in process. if we have several effective vaccines, we protect ourselves in a couple of ways. we can avoid eliminating a vaccine and not being able to use anything if one of them, for example, develops a serious side effect down the line. we also have the capacity with different vaccines to gear up more quickly not only to the hundreds of millions of doses that dr. hill mentioned, but to the billions that we will need to protect the global population. >> so you expect there to be, when we get to the vaccine stage, whenever that is -- there will be more than one vaccine on the market? >> with luck, there will be. we will have more than one vaccine that will be in production, that will be demonstrated to have passed safety and efficacy standards, that and would be in production and distributed in the world. one of the most critical things now, lawrence, is before there's a success, the authorities in different countries should work together to ensure that whatever succeeds and however many succeed, we've got in place the agreements, the arrangements to be certain there's equitable sharing of these vaccines around the world. >> dr. harvey fineberg, thank you very much for joining our discussion tonight. we really appreciate it. >> my pleasure. and we have breaking news tonight that is not a big surprise. joe biden has finally won the democratic presidential primary in ohio. that primary was postponed, and most of the voters who participated voted by mail this time. steve kornacki will join us next with news from ohio and what it could mean for the november election. steve kornacki is back, and he's back as steve kornacki the election guy. that's next. we've worked to provide you with the financial strength, stability, and online tools you need. and now it's no different. because helping you through this crisis is what we're made for. ior anything i want to buy isk going to be on rakuten. rakuten is easy to use, free to sign up and it's in over 3,000 stores. i buy a lot of makeup. shampoo, conditioner. books, food. travel. shoes. stuff for my backyard. anything from clothes to electronics. workout gear. i even recently got cash back on domain hosting. you can buy tires. to me, rakuten is a great way to get cash back on anything you buy. rack it up with rakuten, sign up today to get cash back on everything you buy. sprinting past every leak in our softest, smoothest fabric. she's confident, protected, her strength respected. depend. the only thing stronger than us, is you. i want to add my voice to the many who have endorsed you to be our president. just think of what a difference it would make right now if we had a president who not only listened to the science, put facts over fiction, but brought us together. >> there are now 189 days until the presidential election in november. today ohio held its primary election almost entirely by mail due to the coronavirus pandemic. ohio had postponed its primary, which was originally scheduled for march 17th. and joining us now with the latest election news from ohio is steve kornacki at the big board. boy, it's fun to say that. haven't said that in a while. steve, what happened in ohio? what does it tell us about november? >> yeah, it's interesting, lawrence. we haven't had one of these in a while. really this is the last of this kind at all that we're going to have this year, so enjoy this one, folks. what i mean by that is officially the primary is today. the ballots were due today, or at least had to be postmarked by last night. but if you remember back in march when this primary was postponed, there had already been some votes cast for this. they had had in-person early voting going for a while in ohio. they had some ballots that were sent in already. so basically what they said back in march was all those ballots will count, and then we're going to do a mail-in primary in late april. so you've got a mix here. these results here are sort of a mix. some of these votes were cast when this was still a competitive race, when bernie sanders was running against joe biden, and a lot of these votes were cast after bernie sanders dropped out of the race and endorsed joe biden. so exactly which come from each bucket, we don't really know. but this is the last time really you're going to have votes that were cast when this was a competitive race. and, again, biden obviously not surprisingly winning this thing overwhelmingly. there's a chance sanders will actually get some delegates out of this. every single county in the state going for joe biden. and the big question, as you say, lawrence, is what does this mean for november? what does it mean in terms of what our election is going to look like in november because what happened here in ohio where they had to scramble and improvise and basically turn this into a mail-in primary election, a lot of states are going to have to ramp up and do that this november. and they haven't tried it before. administratively they haven't had the scale of mail-in ballots they're going to deal with this year. so there's a question here of how this goes in ohio. does it indicate how it will look in other states? we can tell you there are still some votes to be coming in. you can ignore this number. that's based oftn old math. there are still votes to come in but it looks like democratic turnout is down 33%, roughly 33%. that's the trend right now. about 33% down from 2016. but, again, in 2016 you had a very competitive primary, hillary clinton versus bernie sanders. a not so competitive primary this time. tough to know exactly what this decline in turnout means. certainly they did get a lot of votes here that were cast in this thing. the main 14u issue is this. there were some voters in ohio saying i requested a mail ballot and it never arrived. and the mail was going slow in some parts of the state because of this pandemic. it was running five, ten days behind schedule. i think one thing we're going to find out in the next few days is how widespread was it that people requested ballots and didn't get them? was it a small issue that can be fixed in other states, or was it a broader issue? that's what we're going to learn in the next couple days, lawrence. >> steve kornacki, just great to see you back at the big board. thank you, steve, for joining us tonight. really appreciate it. steve kornacki gets tonight's last word. "the 11th hour" with brian williams starts now. well, good evening once again. day 1,195 of the trump administration, leaving 189 days to go until our presidential election. the president pointed out today there would be no press conference by the coronavirus task force, and he said that at the end of a press conference in the east room. the subject was billed as the american business world, but he waded into the coronavirus nonetheless. the big headline from today was the president saying, quote, this is going to go away. and whether it comes back in a modified form in the fall, we'll be able to handle it. we'll be
this is cnn tonight. i'm don lemon. it's 11:00 p.m. on the east coast. we've got the lathest on the coronavirus pandemic. there are nearly 1.4 million cases of the virus here in the united states. coronavirus death toll in the u.s. now surpassing 84,000. as president trump pushes for states to reopen, he is now putting some distance between himself and dr. anthony fauci. the president saying fauci did not give an acceptable answer when he urged caution about schools reopening and suggested schools in some parts of the country should stay closed the in the fall. and sources at the white house saying the president is privately questioning whether the coronavirus death toll in the u.s. is inflated. fauci testified to the senate yesterday that he is almost certain that deaths from the coronavirus are being undercounted. also the ousted vaccine chief dr. rick bright testified before congress tomorrow and plans to say that the trump administration was not prepared for the coronavirus pandemic and that the u.s. faces the darkest winter in modern history if a coordinated national response is not put into place. joining me now, cnn white house correspondent john harwood and daniel dale. good evening to both of you. john, over 84,000 people have now died from this virus in the united states. the world health organization is warning that it may never go away. president trump is spending his time undermining our country's top infectious disease expert. what is going on? >> what's going on is the president has, himself, psychologically, and he's trying to move his government past the issue of controlling the coronavirus and full bore on to the issue of reopening the economy. the president is running for re-election. he thinks the economy is the key to his re-election, restoring its growth. he also does not want to be blamed for having an economy with depression-level rates of unemployment, millions and millions of jobs lost, gdp apparently going down around 40% in the second quarter. it's a dismal situation. and he's decided that whatever's been done on the coronavirus so far is enough and he's going full on the economy. and that puts him in conflict with anthony fauci and other public health officials across the country who think we are at serious risk of falling back, seeing infections spike, and doing worse long-run damage to the economy later in the year. >> don, here's the president trying to shoot down dr. fauci's concerns about schools reopening in the fall. >> i was surprised by his answer actually because, you know, it's just -- to me it's not an acceptable answer, especially when it comes to schools. the only thing that would be acceptable, as i said, is professors, teachers, et cetera over a certain age. i think they should take it easy for another few weeks, five weeks, whatever it may be. but i think they have to be careful because this is a disease that attacks age and it attacks health. and if you have a heart problem, if you have diabetes, if you're a certain age, it's certainly much more dangerous. but with the young children, i mean -- and students -- it's really -- just take a look at the statistics. it's pretty amazing. >> it's not acceptable for a doctor to raise concerns about keeping children safe at school, or it just align with trump's push to reopen the economy? >> the latter. when he says it's not an acceptable answer, what he means is it's not an expedient answer. donald trump has proven robustly over and over that his principle concern is donald trump. anthony fauci was speaking on behalf of the school children and the risk to them. donald trump does not care about those school children. donald trump cares about what is in his own interest. he was just a couple of weeks ago suggesting people inject themselves with disinfectant to cure the coronavirus. that's why a vast majority of the american people don't believe what donald trump says on the coronavirus and they do believe anthony fauci. so, it's inconvenient for donald trump to have anthony fauci giving his judgment about the risk for students, but that doesn't change the fact that anthony fauci is well motivated here in trying to figure out the best public health solution. >> daniel, you just heard the president suggesting this virus isn't a problem for young children. what are the facts here? >> don, there is truth here but there's important misinformation. the truth is the early data from around the world do show that children are significantly less likely to experience severe symptoms from coronavirus infections than adults are. they're less likely to be hospitalized, less likely to die. so, that's accurate. however, they do die. some of them do need hospitalization. they can also pass the infection to others. in addition, dr. fauci warned us yesterday that these are still early days. there's a lot we don't know when he says we can't be cavalier in thinking we know how this will affect children. to that end, we know 17 states and d.c. are looking into a mysterious inflammatory syndrome that experts think may well be linked to the coronavirus, and that's a syndrome seriously affecting children. children are less affected. they're still affected. they're not immune. >> we're going to get more into the impact of coronavirus in children in just a minute. but the president also talked about testing today. i want you to take a listen to this. >> 10 million, we set an all-time record by far. if you look down here, these are other countries that have not done anywhere near what we're doing. we're double -- if you add them up and double them, we've done more tests, but i can't get the press to print that unfortunately. they just don't want to print it. >> what are the facts, daniel? >> we don't want to print it because it's not true at all. this is an example of this president taking a false claim and making it even falser. he used to say that the u.s. leads the rest of the world combined. that's not even true. now he says we're more than double the rest of the world come buned. that's especially untrue. if you add up a bunch of other countries, again, the u.s. is not number one compared to all of them combined. in addition, the u.s. is not the leader per capita. it's way down the list if you look at tests per confirmed case. and again as i said on this program, the u.s. was slow to get started in its testing which allowed the pandemic to spread further in this country than it did in other countries like south korea that the u.s. has now passed in terms of per capita testing but lagged behind in those crucial early weeks. >> daniel john -- daniel and john, sounds like the same person, thank you both. i want to bring in dr. harvey fineberg. he is the chair of the standing committee on emerging infectious diseases and dr. celine gounder. president trump said it is not acceptable that dr. fauci raised concerns about sending cuds back to school in the fall. are you worried about the kids spreading coronavirus at school? >> any reasonable public health person would be concerned about children as potential spreaders of infection. and with the new evidence about this multisystem toxic syndrome also concern of risk to the children themselves. >> this kawasaki-like disease you're referring to right now. dr. fineberg, another question, a new study out of the fash nal institutes of health is estimates that coronavirus could remain in the air for eight minutes after talking loudly for one minute. does this mean we should be wearing masks out of the home even if no one is around? >> in general, this is a study that demonstrates that talking and particularly certain consonants that spread this virus can in fact produce droplets that can stay in the air for some minutes. this is especially important in closed spaces, in rooms. it's why health workers especially need to have that personal protective equipment when caring for patients. out of doors, it's important to wear a mask to help prevent anyone who is infected from inadvertently spreading the infection to others. but the risk out of doors is much less than it is within a closed indoor space. >> so, dr. gounder, how can you open schools if droplets from talking can stay in the air for eight minutes? >> well, i think we have to look at a few different things. one, do we -- is it safe to even open schools? i think secondly, is there a way to decrease the density of children in a classroom? is there a way to improve ventilation in the classroom? and should all of the children and teachers and staff be wearing masks in these settings? and i think it's one thing to ask maybe a child of the age of 13 or more to wear a mask and to abide by these things. but to ask a 5-year-old to do this i think is going to be a lot more challenging. so, you know, i think there's what is medically advisable and then there's what's logistically possible and what is safe for the general public. >> what about school buses, dr. gounder? i mean, loading kids, unloading kids, the proximity, sanitizing the buses. i mean, there's so many questions. >> well, and the school bus is basically a really crowded environment. you're not going to be able to do social distancing in that environment. the school bus driver, i'm certainly concerned about in that setting. would you be able to open all the windows and vicinity late that way? then there's the risk of what kids are bringing home to their parent, and their parents are the one who we know are at risk. and children, yes, are at risk too. but the parents are definitely at risk and the rest of their extended family. so, to me this looks like a vector of infection in the school buses. >> dr. fineberg, another question for you. this is a new study. it found cases of this -- we were talking about this inflammatory syndrome among children -- appear to increase 30 fold in the bergamo province of italy shortly after the coronavirus spread on to the region. could it be more prevalent than we realized? >> this problem has expressed itself in italy, and frankly it's also appeared now in new york where we had many cases of infection. the exact frequency with which it occurs is not really known mainly because we don't really have a good baseline of the total number of children infected. there are some who develop this syndrome without ever having previously ever shown the symptoms of being infected with coronavirus but now develop this syndrome and have had the infection. so, it is a real problem. the exact frequency remains to be determined, but something to be very concerned about. >> dr. gounder, cnn has learned that the cdc is prepared to learn doctors about this mysterious inflammatory syndrome that infects children that is believed to be linked to coronavirus. your hospital has been dealing with some of these cases. what are you learning about this illness? >> so, kawasaki's is basically a disease of two different pathways. it's the immune system is out of control, is attacking the body, and it's also a disease of inflammation of the blood vessels. and that description is not just about kawasakis in children. it's really what coronavirus looks like in adults as well. so, it's really a spectrum of disease, and this particular syndrome in children is part of this whole spectrum of covid that we see in people in general. so, it's not surprising that we're seeing this, but it is very concerning that we're start rg to see this in children too. >> all right. thank you both. appreciate it. we'll see you soon. and be sure to watch mlb commissioner rob man frin, activist greta thunberg and more. they're joining anderson and dr. sanjay gupta for a new coronavirus town hall. make sure you tune in for that. it's going to be interesting and informative as well. 48 states in the process of reopening while experts are warning the coronavirus may be with us forever. the united states postal service is here to deliver your mail and packages and the peace of mind of knowing that essentials like prescriptions are on their way. every day, all across america, we deliver for you. and we always will. you try to stay ahead of the mess. but scrubbing still takes time. now there's new powerwash dish spray. it's the faster way to clean as you go. just spray, wipe and rinse. it cleans grease five times faster. new dawn powerwash. spray, wipe, rinse. i'm a talking dog. the other issue. oh... i'm scratching like crazy. you've got some allergic itch with skin inflammation. apoquel can work on that itch in as little as 4 hours, whether it's a new or chronic problem. and apoquel's treated over 7 million dogs. nice. and... the talking dog thing? 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(♪) tonight the coronavirus death toll in this country surpassing 84,000. that as 48 states are in the process of reopening. erica hill has more. >> reporter: shopping, restaurants, the beach. signs of pre-covid life returning as experts warns the virus itself may be here to stay. >> this virus may become just another endemic virus in our communities. and this virus may never go away. >> the cdc preparing to alert doctors to a new inflammatory illness in children possibly linked to covid-19 which could present weeks after the virus. >> we just have to remember we have more to learn about the virus than we have yet learned. >> reporter: new york state is now investigating more than 100 cases, prompting new questions about what school could look like this fall if children can return to the classroom. >> probably smaller classrooms, more distancing, teacher probably wearing a mask. >> i have 39 kids in my classroom one year. how are you going to socially distance 39 kids? >> reporter: across the country grocery prices rising to their highest levels in nearly 50 years. new cases in georgia and south carolina, two of the first states to reopen, mostly flat over the past week. south dakota posting some of the highest spikes along with arkansas and delaware. new orleans, once a major hot spot, allows some businesses to return this weekend. restaurants to told keep customers' act information for 21 days to aid with potential contact tracing as the push for a measured approach continues. >> opening up prematurely just sets us up for big outbreaks which will force us to shutdown again. if you care about not being shut down, we should really let science drive how we open up safely. >> washington, d.c. extending its stay-at-home order today through june 8th. colorado's tourism office asking out of state visitors to stay home as miami beach plans to open more than 1,600 businesses and restaurants. >> every day we keep businesses closed it prolongs the suffering of the families working in these establishments. >> reporter: arizona and florida. >> major league soccer may have their season in orlando, do it. we want to have you here. we want to have the basketball practicing again. we would love to have the major league baseball. >> reporter: new cnn polling shows americans are split on whether players should suit up. locally, some players are experimenting with socially distant baseball. >> it's weird. >> yeah, it doesn't feel normal. >> disinfectant in the dugout, distant umpires and fans. weird but worth it. erica hill, cnn, new york. south dakota governor threatening to sue native american tribes for setting up check points but the tribes say this is what they need to do to protect their community. so, we're going to talk to the president of that tribe next. ♪ another work from home day in the books. time for a [whistle] charlie, cocktail? 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>> she -- i really feel that the governor needs to really have a serious consultation with the tribe and not try to dictate to us as tribal leaders what is in the best interest of our people but rather listen and support the tribes because we live here. we know our people. i've been born and raised here. and nobody -- we involve our spirituality within our actions. and that's what helps lead and guide us. and, you know, that has got us through history to today. and so we incorporate a lot of our traditions with the decisions that we make as tribal leaders. so, you know, my advice to her is to really sit down and take her lead from the tribes, listen to us, and support us. >> how are you conducting these checks because governor noem says that you're keeping essential workers from moving freely. is that true? >> no, sir, that is not true. we have a system, a process, that is set up that anybody that is providing services or business here on the reservation, there's a permit process so that they can freely move through those check points. and so that comes from the secretary of the oglala sioux tribe. she process those applications and i sign off on the final approval and we ensure that the leadership or their departments or their functions, their leadership or their functions are the ones that reach out to the tribe to send us a list of the times that we can be expecting them, whether it be 8:00 to 4:30 or 24 hours a day so that they don't run into those stopping mechanisms where they have to answer the questions, the health care questions. >> you and leaders of the cheyenne river sioux tribe say medical resources are very limited. an outbreak would be devastated. the closest icu, hours away. is standing your ground a matter of life or death? >> indeed, sir, it definitely is a life or death situation for us. right now here on the reservation we currently have four ventilators that is being provided through the form of the indian health service which is a treaty obligation of the united states to provide us that health care. i reside amongst 30 plus tribal members that reside -- correction, 30,000 tribal members that live here on the reservation. we have 45,000 enrolled members, and we have a service to each and every one of those individuals. but how is four ventilators going to really assist if this pandemic or this virus hits the reservation? and a great majority of my membership suffer? and right now we currently have positive cases here on the reservation and they're not requiring those intensive medical procedures at this moment. but if you look at our -- one of our southern relatives, the navajo nation, indian health service, the united states government has a treaty obligation to them as well. it's very fearing for me as a tribal leader because i have an obligation to look out for the health and welfare of every enrolled tribal leader. >> this conflict comes at a time when the governor refused to issue an official stay-at-home order and south dakota's new covid cases are on the rise. there are now more than 3,700 cases in the state. do you worry about this virus, that it could get out of control? >> i definitely -- you know, all of our tribal programs, all of our treaty obligations that the united states government has to the first nation's people, the indigenous people, is already underfunded. our roads, our infrastructure, our ambulance program is underfunded. we're short staffed. every -- every opportunity the government has, they give us less than what they are required to give us. >> president bear runner, your tribe on monday issued a three-day lockdown on the pine ridge reservation saying that at least two people there have recently tested positive for covid-19. do you have the tests and manpower to contact trace, to prevent an outbreak that you need? >> we need more. you know, we need more funding to purchase those tests. but right now indian health services is currently declaring what they have in order to begin these contact trace tests. and with these two individuals that tested positive, it's very unfortunate that they went through our -- we don't know. we don't know where they've been. we don't know -- and with our jail systems, with the close contact, with the underfunding and the shortage of housing here on the reservation, there's some homes where nine families live in one home. so, we don't even have -- we're trying to quickly establish quarantine sites for these individuals. and yorks y and, you know, it's causing us to quarantine one home, and our homes are in cluster housing. so, i fear as a tribal leader that if this pandemic gets out of control and we don't get a grasp on this immediately, that, you know, we may have to quarantine a whole entire community which would be hundreds of people. if we had the resources, we could really narrow this down per individual. >> well, president bear runner, we appreciate you joining us. thank you so much. please be safe, okay? >> yes, sir. i appreciate you. my people appreciate you and this opportunity. thank you. >> thank you very much. next more on the story we have been following for you, the shooting death of ahmaud arbery. his football coach speaks out next. there are so many toothpastes out there, which one should i use? try crest pro/active defense. it neutralizes bacteria for a healthier mouth than even the leading multi-benefit toothpaste. crest. with td ameritrade tools, and help from pros. it's almost like you're training me to become an even smarter, stronger investor. exactly. ♪(rocky theme music) fifty-six straight, come on! that's it, left trade right trade. come on another trade, i want to see it! more! ♪ 80s-style training montage? yeah. happens all the time. ♪ roundup for lawns is here to put unwelcome lawn weeds to rest. so, draw the line. roundup for lawns is formulated to kill lawn weeds to the root without harming your grass. roundup brand. trusted for over 40 years. as the investigation into the shooting death of ahmaud arbery continues, those who love him feel the pain of his killing every single day. tonight i want to talk to coach jason baun, ahmaud's football coach in georgia. i'm so sorry for your loss. i know you were there last night as we were doing the interview. so, we really appreciate it. ahmaud was one of your players. i know you want people to know more about him than that horrible tape. tell us about ahmaud. >> ahmaud was a great soul, great smile that lit up a room. ahmaud had a beautiful gift that teaches him to relate. some kids you love on a little bit more. ahmaud, he could sense when you're having a down day or the lesson plan wasn't going to right. he would always do something quirk ki or weird to lift your spirits up. he used to love to imitate me all the time. if i was in the hall trying to look real serious, he would come sit beside me and say kauch vaughn, i'm you today just to put a smile on my face. just a wonderful soul. >> how hard is this for you to see all these tapes coming out? i mean, the one where ahmaud stops and walks into this open construction site, looks around, and the day that he was shot, people are drawing all kinds of conclusions. but you know him best. what do you want people to know who might have had the impression that he was doing something wrong here? >> oh, man, i mean, every man knows that pivotal time in their life when they're around 25, you know, your life starts to change. you start to think about family and marriage and different things like that. you know, a light bulb goes off in your life. he was 25 years old. he's a hometown kid. he has his girlfriend also from brunswick, just a hometown story. and we knowing ahmaud, he probably stood in that house. you see him stand there stand still. he's probably standing there imagining how his wife can one day be, him and his girlfriend at the time just visualizing how life can be. i'm a southerner, so when houses are under construction all the time, we walk into houses all the time. maybe it's just a southern thing. we just do. even houses in my neighborhood now. i clearly wouldn't do it now. but it's just -- it's just something -- you know, people just kind of do it around here. >> yeah. you know, he was -- nobody's perfect. he was not a perfect person, but you say he was a good person. >> awesome person, awesome person. you know, unlike what roddy's lawyer said, glynn county has great teachers here who care about their students and their education. that's just a falsehood. that's probably not the falsehood you're going to hear from roddy's lawyer. but we loved ahmaud. maude used to run. he'll stop. he'll play basketball with the kids until they got tired and then go off on his run. i talked to a lady in her community and her morning routine was to walk her dog. he would see ahmaud every morning and she realizes now she'll never see that smile again. she'll never see him nod his head as he jog by. he was just a key part of our community. >> what do you make of -- you mentioned roddy. listen, we don't know what he's involved -- his attorney said he's not involved. and you mentioned the interview that he did here on cnn and his attorney saying talk about the teachers and the school system and that he had a high school education, that he -- what did he say -- he was a mechanic. basically, anyway i'm not get sboog that. but what do you make of him bringing up ahmaud's history or past and all of that? >> i think it's very interesting that a lot of times in cases like this, people begin to question the past of the victim instead of -- >> let me ask you -- why i'm saying that. i'm saying that because i read a post of d.l. hughley. he said he is a suspect in his own murder. those are his words. and i thought that was very profound. again, i'm not saying it was a murder, but he was gunned down on video tape. but go on. that's why i'm asking that, coach. >> oh, yeah, i completely understand. but i mean, i guess when you put lives together, you just try to -- you just try to throw and string everything along with it. the ahmaud campaign has been vocal against the attempts to attack his character. the fact you have to bring up something from eight years ago which had nothing to do with what happened on that day, i mean america has seen that tape. and on that tape, out of all the gentleman on that tape, the only one that was a law-abiding citizen during that time was my football player, he was the only law-abiding student during the time on that tape. >> coach vaughn, i said to you last night to keep these young people close and take care of them. i'm going to say that again to you, and take care of the family. and send them our thoughts. and thank you so much for what you're doing. thank you for appearing on cnn. >> no problem. >> and for speaking out for this young man. thank you. >> yeah. >> thank you. >> you're welcome. awe family confront at their home. they say a group of men, some armed, came up to their door like a, quote, lynch mob, demanding their teenage son answer questions. that son and his mother join me next. as homes become schools at&t has created a $10 million dollar fund to support distance learning tools, curriculum and resources to help educators and families keep school in session because the key to keeping kids learning, is keeping kids connected. yeah, i'm done after this meeting. we're just going over how people who switch to progressive can save hundreds. hey mara! - yeah jamie's the guy running it. - mara, you're not on mute. i once had to fake jury duty to get out of talking about his yogurt preferences. mara, you know you're not on mute, right? oh, there's a mute button? yeah, that's flo! the one who looks like she'd smile while she sleeps. flo: i always smile. mara: that's why i said that. a north carolina corrections officer is out of a jobs, facing misdemeanor charges after he and about 14 other people allegedly harassed a black teenager they mistakenly believe was involved in a girl's disappearance. 18-year-old daniel shepard and his mother say some of the men were armed. joining me now is monica shepard, dameon shepard and their attorney. glad to have you all of you on. dameon i'm going to start with you. bring us back to may 3rd, please. what happened that day? >> around 10:00 i hear some very loud banging on the door. so, me being the person i am, i run to the door without checking, without hesitating because the type of neighborhood i live in. i was expecting someone to come to the door banging like that looking for help. i opened the door without hesitating. as soon as i open the door i'm in shock. i see people with guns and there's an officer standing in front of me and he's the man that came into my house. so, all of it was wild. >> what was going through your head when you first saw these armed people at your home? you said it was a lot, but what were you thinking? >> i was thinking okay, why are people here? what is going on? i just -- i hope they're not here to going through my head. >> monica, when did you realize that something was wrong? >> when i came out of my room. like he said, it was -- it was around 10:00, a little after, and i was asleep. and i heard the banging on the door, as well. i looked out of my window, which was facing the front of my house, and i saw a group of people. all caucasian. and i saw the long flashlights. when i come out of my room, into the living room, damien already opened the door. and i noticed that they were trying to force their way in, and he was trying to close the door on them, to keep them from coming in the house. >> what happened when the group, monica, realized that they were at the wrong home? >> well, they were apologetic. they were saying that they were story. but, by that time, of course, things are transpired from the time that i got to the door and to the time they realized that they're at the wrong house. and we were all -- damien and i were bother upset and afraid. >> yeah. so, james, listen. the -- the former sheriff's deputy, who harassed the shepherds, jordan kidda, did an interview today with the "port city daily." his family was there, too. i want you to take a listen to how he described the incident. >> so we went to the address. a discovered this guy was not there. he did not live there and he did not live at the address. there was no accusations. there was no argument. there was no -- there was no reason for us to be angry. or no -- it wasn't about racism. it was about looking for our -- >> what's your response, james? >> well, first and foremost, i've seen that statement. i've seen the comments their attorney made about the comments i've made, which i am aufrpdoff by, obviously. but, the fact of the matter is, in this state, within this story, they say the county sheriff's department was involved in this process. and what's just unacceptable, on so many levels, is that this is a group that's taken the law into their own hands. going out into the community, and terrorizing people. whether they realize it or not. i mean, when you walk to a black family's door and you have a gun. you have the sheriff's outfit on. you have a gun on your side. and you're backed up by people with a shotgun, an assault weapon, what the heck do you think is going to be the response? there is no excuse. they can -- they can say whatever they want to. there is, absolutely, no excuse for that behavior. you just -- i mean, we live in the united states of america. if you've got something you're worried about, then you turn to the police officers, sheriff's department, whatever, but you don't take the law into your own hands. and that's what they did. they cannot back away from that, any way, whatsoever. and it's disgusting. it's just -- we cannot live in this country that way. it's too much going on. i agree that racism is a terrible problem, that we need to come together the way the white community has come out in support of the shepherd family afterwards has been great. but it doesn't make up for what happened that night. made a horrible, horrible mistake. >> before we run out of time. monica, here's what the kita family wants to say to you and damien. >> i mean, i feel like we would just want to speak to them, family to family. you know, father to father, mother to mother. this was not about racism. we are not racist. we're good people. >> will you sit down with them? >> don't have a reason -- well, i can't really say that i'm at a point where i can sit down. and i never said anything about there being racism issues. you just don't come to people's homes, with guns, and try to force your way into their house. and they kept pointing at my son, saying, you know, accusing him of being the individual that they were looking for. and, you know, the bottom line is, you came to my house with guns and you were trying to get in my home. so whether it's -- it's an issue of breaking the law. >> yeah. it's just interesting you have to -- you know, these people who are -- the people in georgia with the guns, who are -- you know, and, then, you got the people here with guns, as well. when all you have to do is call law enforcement if you have an issue. thank you, all. i appreciate you joining us. please, keep us updated. thanks, so much. >> thank you very much, don. >> thank you. >> appreciate it. >> i have some breaking news i want to tell you about. federal agents, tonight, seizing a cell phone belonging to senator richard burr. chairman of the senate intelligence committee. that is according to the "los angeles times," which reports a law enforcement official says it's part of the doj's investigation into the senator's controversial stock trades, as the coronavirus first struck the united states. cnn has asked senator burr, his attorney, the doj, and the fbi, for comment. and we will keep you updated on this story, as we get more information. again, this is being reported by the "los angeles times." thanks for watching, everyone. our coverage continues. i know for every pizza i deliver that's a trip that family doesn't have to take out of their house. it relieves stress off of me to let me know i'm doing something good for the community, not just papa john's. i'm a talking dog. the other issue. oh... i'm scratching like crazy. you've got some allergic itch with skin inflammation. apoquel can work on that itch in as little as 4 hours, whether it's a new or chronic problem. and apoquel's treated over 7 million dogs. nice. and... the talking dog thing? 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pay back of a debt incurred 173 years ago when the chocktaw nation sent help to starving people in ireland during the irish famine. tonight, the navajo nation is suffering the highest per capita infection rate in america, higher than new york. we'll have that story of pay back for you at the end of this hour. we begin tonight with insomnia, confusion, paranoia, irritability and hallucinations. those are just some of the well-known and commonly experienced side effects from the drug that the president of the united states said he is taking today and has been taking for two weeks but that side effect list doesn't help us prove that donald trump is actually taking the drug since he exhibited those characteristics for many years. he's a self-confessed insomniac who has never had a good night's sleep, and as for hallucinations, yes, he invented obama gate when he claims to be taking this hallucination inducing drug, but he invented fairy tales about former president barack obama's birth years ago. but he decided today is the day, today is the day to tell reporters that he is taking hydroxychloroquine. >> you believe you were retaliated against because you raised concerns about hydroxychloroquine? >> yes. i do. i believe my last ditch effort to protect americans from that drug was the final straw that they used and believed was essential to push me out. >> that was dr. rick bright last night on "60 minutes" after he testified last week to a house committee that the trump administration was dangerously pushing hydroxychloroquine into wide spread use without supervision and that the trump administration was trying to rush on to the american market supplies of hydroxychloroquine from factories in foreign countries like pakistan that have never been inspected by the fda and certified safe enough to manufacture a drug to american standards for the american market. it was the source of the drug that troubled rick bright the most. when donald trump claimed today to be taking hydroxychloroquine, it came at the end of a confused paranoid hallucination about dr. rick bright that the president performed for reporters. donald trump began by calling dr. bright quote a phony whistle blower and then donald trump rambled through some lies about dr. bright and then to win the point on hydroxychloroquine, donald trump decided to say this. >> i happen to be taking it. i happen to be taking it. >> hydroxychloroquine? >> i'm taking it. hydroxychloroquine. >> when? >> right now, yeah. couple of weeks ago started taking it. because i think it's good. i've heard a lot of good stories and if it's not good, i'll tell you right. i'm not going to get hurt by it. it's been around for 40 years for malaria and lupus and other things. >> note to viewers, donald trump is a pathological liar. i've been supplying that note to viewers on this program since 2011 when donald trump first started talking about president barack obama's birth certificate but especially worth a reminder tonight because people need to be warned when they see the president of the united states say i'm taking this drug and i think it's good, people should know that it's entirely possible that he is not taking that drug. it is entirely possible that he is claiming to take the drug as a political defense against a scientist who has lodged professional complaints about what the trump administration tried to do with that drug, that the president wants to insist is safe for everyone, everyone. if the president started losing weight, that could add some credibility to his claim that he is taking the drug because loss of appetite and weight loss along with diarrhea, vomiting and stomach pain are also side effects of this drug and hydroxychloroquine can cause real problems, deadly problems for people with heart issues. it does interact with cholesterol reducing drugs and hydroxychloroquine goes straight into breast milk, so it's not for everyone. you know, the trump white house is feeling pressure when they put out a written statement after the president says something ultra strange on tv and tonight, the physician to the president put out a rare public statement under the subject heading hydroxychloroquine. and that statement does not say that the white house physician prescribed the drug to the president and the statement does not say that the president is actually taking the drug. it just says after numerous discussions, he and i had regarding the evidence for and against the use of hydroxychloroquine, we concluded the potential benefit from treatment out weighed the relative risks. okay. that's what you concluded and so what? did you then prescribe the drug? if you did prescribe the drug, in what dose did you prescribe the drug? none of that information is there. that leaves nancy pelosi worried about donald trump. >> as far as the president is concerned, he's our president and i would rather he not be taking something that has not been approved by the scientists, especially in his age group and in his, shall we say, weight group, morbidly obese they say. >> the stock market had a good day today, not because of anything the president said. it was considered a good day for the stock market in the middle of the economic depression america and the world are experiencing and that good day was provoked by the market's reaction to a development on the vaccine front. "the new york times" reported the news this way. the first coronavirus vaccine to be tested in people appears to be safe and able to stimulate an immune response against the infection, the manufacturer moderna announced on monday offering a glint of hope to a world desperate for ways to stop the pandemic. a glint of hope. it's easy in these times to overreact to a glint of hope, a glint of hope is a tiny amount of hope but it is hope. and this glint of hope comes from a tiny number of people who have received this experimental vaccine eight people, exactly eight people have shown a positive response to this possible vaccine. the company developing this vaccine is now proceeding to a second phase of tests involving 600 people and a third phase in july involving thousands of people. "the times" reports if those trials go well, some doses of the vaccine could become available for wide spread use by the end of this year or early 2021. moderna's chief medical officer, dr. tal zaks said in an interview, we're doing our best to make it as many millions as possible. as of tonight, there are now 1,518,041 confirmed cases of coronavirus and as of tonight, this country has suffered at least, 91,172 confirmed deaths from coronavirus. and leading off our discussion tonight is dr. harvey feinberg, the former president of the national academy of medicine, the chair of the standing committee on emerging infectious diseases requested by the white house in response to the coronavirus. nicholas kristof is with us, pulitzer prize winning columnist for the "new york times", and editor in chief of "the recount." dr. feinberg, let's start with the glint of hope about this vaccine. what is your reading of the report? >> it is a glint of hope. it's the first stage of testing a vaccine and the demonstration there is a dose that is both effective in neutralizing antibodies and safe for the few individuals who have taken it provides a glint of hope that this could be a vaccine that ultimately will prove to be effective. >> and dr. feinberg, i assume when you're dealing with a sample of eight that those people are chosen at this stage because they are perfectly healthy people. they wouldn't have any kind of cardiac issues or any -- you wouldn't have anyone pregnant taking that vaccine at this level of the test and so i assume these eight people are not representative of a cross section of the larger population that has all sorts of complications that they might bring interactively to a vaccine? >> that's absolutely correct. and this very first phase of early testing, the individuals involved are typically young, healthy individuals with no known illness that could be affected by an unknown vaccine. these are very special subgroup of our population, not yet at all representative of those who would be the ultimate recipients of a vaccine. >> and dr. fineberg, let me get your reaction to what the president said for about two weeks he claims that he is taking hydroxychloroquine. >> if he's taking hydroxychloroquine it is not based upon any clinical evidence of effectiveness. the clinical studies so far that have examined hydroxychloroquine in patients with advanced disease have not been at all promising. it is possible that this drug could be an effective drug if used early or perhaps even as a preventive but that's rather challenging to demonstrate and to presume that it is effective is really misplaced confidence. vitamin d may be effective. vitamin c may be effective. statins we take for cholesterol may be effective. there are a lot of possibilities. this drug has no more reason for confidence than any others and it's not yet established at all that it's safe and effective as a preventive. in fact, from the 40 years experience using this drug, we can predict that if enough people who have no reason to take it do take it, there will be side effects. there will be complications due to the drug that could have been avoided. >> nic kristof, i imagine in your travels you have taken anti malaria pills. it's generally a short-term course. you start a couple of days before you go to malaria zone, you take it throughout that time and for about a week after you leave the zone. the notion of taking this pill every day indefinitely is something no one's ever heard of, because no one has done it. and here ahe's the president announcing let's all do it. >> when president trump says that people have been taking chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine for 40 years, now, it's true many people took chloroquine, i took chloroquine but people moved to other anti malarials in recent years and as fda warned, it is associated with heart arrhythmia and when you have an obese 70-year-old president with high cholesterol, it's not an obvious thing to do and not the behavior to model for the country. the president should be modelling wearing masks, not modelling taking hydroxychloroquine. >> john heilemann, rick bright's complaints all surround not all but most of them surround hydroxychloroquine and so there he is on "60 minutes" last night getting pretty big audience as "60 minutes" usually does and the next day and that's when donald trump decides i'll tell everyone i'm taking it so i'm living proof that it's great. >> yeah, i mean, he was watching last night. he was tweeting about "60 minutes" in close to realtime. i was on with nicole when the news broke and my gut at that moment is stronger now than it was then, he's not taking the drug. i don't think we'll ever know but the president, as you pointed out for years now, pathological liar, lies about everything, lies about things for no reason. he has a good reason to lie about this. he's made a fool of himself talking about medicine throughout this pandemic. any time he's opened his mouth about medical, the truth, the science, the medical community slapped him around. sometimes he made a giant fool of himself talking about disinfectant and putting lights in our bodies. in this case, other times he was rebuked when he said this was legit at the outset and rebuked by the data ever since and now on "60 minutes" something he pays attention to because the tv ratings are high, this is about his reputation. this is about him telling the most obvious lie and the fact that his doctor has written this letter that doesn't actually say that he is under this prescription and taking it. it in fact, dances around it with the language you read is just, i think, more powerful circumstantial on top of the instinctual evidence that he's just talking about this, he's not taking the drug and doing it to salvage what is left of, which is next to nothing, of his reputation on this topic. >> the white house press office is putting out the word to reporters yes, the doctor did prescribe it and donald trump is taking it but the doctor had a chance to put that in writing and he didn't and so this question of is he really taking this drug, which would be inconceivable with any previous president, revealing they're on prescription drug is kind of -- it's unsolvable. we'll really never know is he actually taking this pill. >> yeah, i'm agnostic on that question. but look, the "washington post" has said that trump so far has made 18,000 false or misleading statements. 18,000. so this may be 18,001. as you say, we'll never know. what ultimately is important is the fact that whether he's taking it or not, he's modelling behavior to the rest of the country that is dangerous, that can get other people in trouble rather than modelling behavior like mask wearing that could actually save lives. >> and john, we saw a trump supporter at one of these public protests around the country about the way things are shut down kind of chasing a television reporter who wanted to stay socially distant from the protesters and the protester said i'm taking hydroxychloroquine, i'm taking hydroxychloroquine. apparently in that protester's mind believing he was therefore immune and couldn't possibly be infected and therefore, the reporter had nothing to worry about. it more than just mirroring trump behavior out there. it's taking it and taking it even further in public places than donald trump does. >> of course. you know, and the -- this is one of the many unintended consequences of the presidency -- idiocy on stuff like that, and as this entire pandemic has taken on this all too depressing and familiar red, blue culture war kind of quality to it, the notion that people who are trump devotees out there in the country, they are now not just not wearing masks because trump doesn't wear a mask, they're taking this notion that not wearing a mask is a political statement and that if you wear a mask that you're a liberal ninny who is falling for this kind of great hoax in the same way as this kind of hydroxychloroquine thing is now going to become an article of faith this is the miracle drug and we'll see all kinds of behaviors flowing out of this with culture war character. there is discussion now down in texas about having the state republican convention and banning masks at it. not just saying you don't have to wear a mask but banning mask at state republican convention. it's that thing that comes out of this behavior by the president. >> dr. fineberg, quickly before we go, what would you say to americans tonight who are thinking about taking hydroxychloroquine as a preventive? what are the risks they could face? >> i would say wait for the results of the clinical trials that are under way. at present, if you take this drug, you're taking an untested, unproved drug that does have side effects that could harm you. that's what i would tell them. >> dr. harvey fineberg, nick kristof, john heilemann, thank you all for starting us off. >> thank you. republicans and democrats are demanding more information into the announced planned firing of the state department inspector general who was reportedly investigating why the trump administration bypassed congress to sell billions of dollars in weapons to saudi arabia last year. former nsa inspector general joel brenner will join us next. facing leaks takes strength. so here's to the strong, who trust in our performance and comfortable, long-lasting protection. because your strength is supported by ours. depend. the only thing stronger than us, is you. yeah, i'm done after this meeting. because your strength is supported by ours. we're just going over how people who switch to progressive can save hundreds. hey mara! - yeah jamie's the guy running it. - mara, you're not on mute. i once had to fake jury duty to get out of talking about his yogurt preferences. mara, you know you're not on mute, right? oh, there's a mute button? yeah, that's flo! the one who looks like she'd smile while she sleeps. 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"the retur"drafting"ing" "the return of the slide job" "ripping the wall" "gas-n-go" "bump-n-run" "the return of loud" "nascar is back, and xfinity is bringing you the best seat in the house." friday's take out the trash day in the white house historically, friday nights are when white houses often put out news that they don't want people paying much attention to as they drift into the weekend where they might avoid news coverage. late friday night, president trump notified congress of his intention to fire state department inspector general steve linick. the law requires a 30-day notification of the firing of an inspector general. today nbc news learned that steve lynnic was conducting an investigation into secretary of state mike pompeo's decision to green light billions of dollars of arms sales to saudi arabia against the will of congress. that is in addition to an investigation underway by the inspector general into secretary of state mike pompeo and his wife's use of state department personnel for personal errands. he's the fourth inspector general to be fired or replaced by donald trump in the last six weeks. needless to say, that's a record. there is a pattern of politically motivated firing of inspectors general. today donald trump says he knows nothing -- he knows nothing about the person he wants to fire. >> i don't know him. never heard of him. they asked me to terminate him. i have the absolute right as president to terminate. i said who appointed him? they said president obama. i said look, i'll terminate him. i don't know what's going on other than that but you'd have to ask mike pompeo. >> never heard of him. but i'm firing him. because he was appointed by president obama even though as inspector general he issued an extremely negative report on secretary of state hillary clinton's failure to use the proper state department email system while she was secretary of state. joining our discussion is joel brenner who served as inspector general of the national security agency under president george w. bush and the head of the u.s. counter intelligence in the office of director of national intelligence from 2006 to 2009, senior fellow for international studies. thank you very much for joining us. once again tonight on another inspector general story. we've really never seen anything like this. this sequence of just firing every inspector general that takes any kind of step in donald trump's way, but this response by the president we haven't seen, which is i have no idea who this is. i never heard of him. what is your reaction to the reporting on this intent to fire? >> what fairy tales are coming out of the white house. in each of these cases the inspector general has done exactly what he or she was supposed to do, serve in a non-partisan way and report honestly about shenanigans going on in the executive branch. what your listers really need to understand is that the president is not just attacking several igs. he's attacking the entire institution of inspectors general. he's attacking the idea that the congress has the power under article 1, section 8 of the constitution to enact laws necessary and proper to see that the laws are carried out. that important clause not only applies to the congress' ability to see that its own functions are carried out but also see that the functions all across the government are properly carried out and that's why the statute, which is 42 years old provides for persons to be appointed who are -- let me read this to you -- without regard to political affiliation and solely on the basis of integrity and demonstrated ability and certain relevant fields. what the president obviously believes and said on other occasions is that everybody in the government owes him personal loyalty. personal loyalty is not one of those requirements that the statute sets forth, quite the contrary. the president is really saying to the congress, you can't put somebody in the executive branch who i can't completely control and will tell you anything that i don't want you to know about. and that's why people regardless of whether they like this president, regardless of whether they are republicans or democrats ought to be concerned about this because whoever's ox is being gored now, it's going to be the other guy's ox that is at risk later on. do you want a government that operates to the rule of law or don't you? if you do, you need to be concerned about what's going on right now. because it's -- we've never seen this before and it's bad. >> and needless to say, if there is a new president inaugurated on january 20th, if joe biden is the next president, these things are going to be investigated. if mike pompeo thinks he'll get away with whatever he was being investigated for, it's not -- 12 months from now you could be getting an inspector general report that is full and complete on exactly what these matters are about and could be very condemning of secretary pompeo. >> yeah, when you fire an ig you don't bury an issue, you put a spotlight on it. you would have thought secretary pompeo would have understood that. this issue of what looks like, we haven't seen the evidence yet but is reported by "the post" may be a new version of iran-contra. if we see something like that again, it's not going to disappear by firing the i.g. not only is the evidence going to continue to get compiled by the i.g.'s office, but there will be a congressional investigation. for sure. so this issue isn't going to go away but that's why i say it's not just a question of the particular issue that's involved here, lawrence, it's the status of this institution, which was put in place after watergate because we were at that time in the '70s dealing with a president who thought if he thought something was legal, president nixon, it had to be legal and we saw the results. congress didn't want it. it wasn't just democrats who wanted it. it was the whole congress wanted it regardless of what party they were. that's what's at stake right now and it's quite serious. but i don't think, you know, if you look at -- put it a different way. we have the congress' institutional prerogatives at stake here and we have a senate majority that is unwilling to stick up for its institutional prerogatives. i've said before, i mean, the senate majority are acting like lap dogs asleep underneath the president's sofa. this is -- >> well, i got to say, at least mitt romney has objected to it. at least there is one republican. former inspector joel brenner, thank you for joining us tonight. we'll want to hear from you again on this. we really appreciate your time. thank you. >> you're welcome. and when we come back, as rachel and i discussed senator amy klobuchar will join us and i'm going to try that question that rachel suggested about the vice presidency. we'll see if we can trip up senator klobuchar on that tough question. we'll be right back. ... hold on one second... sure. okay... okay! safe drivers save 40%!!! guys! guys! check it out. safe drivers save 40%!!! safe drivers save 40%! safe drivers save 40%!!! that's safe drivers save 40%. it is, that's safe drivers save 40%. - he's right there. - it's him! he's here. he's right here. - hi! - hi. hey! - that's totally him. - it's him! that's totally the guy. safe drivers do save 40%. click or call for a quote today. safe drivers do save 40%. special delivery ♪ saturpain happens. aleve it. aleve is proven stronger and longer on pain than tylenol. when pain happens, aleve it. all day strong. and ask your doctor about biktarvy. biktarvy is a complete, one-pill, once-a-day treatment used for h-i-v in certain adults. it's not a cure, but with one small pill, biktarvy fights h-i-v to help you get to and stay undetectable. that's when the amount of virus is so low it cannot be measured by a lab test. research shows people who take h-i-v treatment every day and get to and stay undetectable can no longer transmit h-i-v through sex. serious side effects can occur, including kidney problems and kidney failure. rare, life-threatening side effects include a buildup of lactic acid and liver problems. do not take biktarvy if you take dofetilide or rifampin. tell your doctor about all the medicines and supplements you take, if you are pregnant or breastfeeding, or if you have kidney or liver problems, including hepatitis. if you have hepatitis b, do not stop taking biktarvy without talking to your doctor. common side effects were diarrhea, nausea, and headache. if you're living with hiv, keep loving who you are. and ask your doctor if biktarvy is right for you. and my side super soft? if you're living with hiv, keep loving who you are. yes. with the sleep number 360 smart bed, on sale now, you can both adjust your comfort with your sleep number setting. can it help me fall asleep faster? yes, by gently warming your feet. but can it help keep me asleep? absolutely, it intelligently senses your movements and automatically adjusts to keep you both comfortable. so, you can really promise better sleep? not promise. prove. and now, save $1000 on the sleep number 360 special edition smart bed, now only $1,799. plus, free premium delivery & setup when you add an adjustable base ends monday. the senate had their opportunity during the impeachment trial to hold donald trump accountable and perhaps avoid a lot of what we're seeing right now but they either didn't have the political will, the courage or the backbone to hold him accountable, and so here we are. yet another watchdog has been fired for doing his job faithfully performing and executing the duties of his job, which is disgraceful. >> congresswoman vel demmings. joining our discussion is democratic senator amy klobuchar. thank you for joining us. >> thank you, lawrence. >> i want to get your reaction to this announced intent to fire the state department inspector general. >> it literally made me sick to my stomach. and furious. you had a situation, your last guest the former inspector general pointed out he's done this, this is the fourth person. the inspector general for health and human services, for the intelligence agency and the person who should have been the inspector general for the pandemic work and now of all things, the state department right at the time when he is doing a critical investigation regarding the arm sales to saudi arabia, something for which there was strong bipartisan support against and so to me, this is the rule of law. i cannot divorce what's happening with the pandemic, with the basic idea that there is simply a bigger spotlight on donald trump's flaunting of the rule of law. that is what's happening. that's what the congresswoman was referring to, and i think it is on all of us not just the democrats in the senate and i'm glad that we saw mitt romney speak out and recently chuck grassley, but we need to see more. and there must be an investigation as elliott and bob menendez called for. this must be an investigation to this. he cannot continue to flaunt the rule of law. >> it certainly is the house will be able to conduct some kind of investigation but with republicans controlling the committees in the senate, it's not clear what will happen there. if mitt romney had enough seniority to be a chairman of foreign relations, i think we would see investigation because this is what he said about it. he quickly got this out on saturday saying the firings of multiple inspectors general is unprecedented. doing so without good cause chills the independence essential to their purpose. it is a threat to accountable democracy and a fissure in the constitutional balance of power. it's hard to believe, senator klobuchar, that there aren't dozens more statements from republican senators but that's the world we now live in. >> exactly. they cannot go around carrying copies of the constitution and talking about the rule of law and their respect for the rule of law if they allow another friday night massacre. they cannot allow this to continue, and we just keep pushing them, and i think it's an argument for this coming election why it's not only important to make sure we have someone of decency in joe biden in the white house but why it is important to take back the senate so that the senate is that oversight body that it's supposed to be, so that we do our jobs instead of as mitch mcconnell has had us do this week, vote on judges and judges only. are we taking on the package that we just saw from the house? no, we're not. are we doing something about helping the states so they don't go into bankruptcy as the president has suggested? no, we're not. in fact, the head of the judiciary committee suggested that he's going to have a hearing on the relationship between president obama's administration and russia. president obama. that is what they're doing. and so this lack of competence and this lack of compassion isn't just in the white house right now. it's come over and poisoned the united states senate. >> senator klobuchar, could you stay with us across a commercial break because i have a really tough question about -- i'm not going to tell you what it's about but rachel suggested it to me -- >> you think i maybe didn't hear what that was? i might -- >> gee. >> it was on -- that's okay. >> all right. okay. well, you have some time to think about it. >> i'll pretend i didn't hear it. >> we'll be back with senator klobuchar after this break. are most uncertain, we turn to the most certain thing there is. science. science can overcome diseases. create cures. and yes, beat pandemics. it has before. it will again. because when it's faced with a new opponent, it doesn't back down - it revs up. asking questions 'til it finds what it's looking for. that's the power of science. so we're taking our science and unleashing it. our research, experts and resources. all in an effort to advance potential therapies and vaccines. other companies and academic institutions are doing the same. the entire global scientific community is working together to beat this thing. and we're using science to help make it happen. because when science wins, we all win. ibut that doesn't mean ayou're in this alone. and we're using science to help make it happen. we're automatically refunding our customers a portion of their personal auto premiums. we're also offering flexible payment options for those who've been financially affected by the crisis. we look forward to returning to something that feels a little closer to life as we knew it, but until then you can see how we're here to help at libertymutual.com/covid-19. [ piano playing ] iit's not "acceptable oor nothing." and it's definitely not "close enough or nothing." mercedes-benz suvs were engineered with only one mission in mind. to be the best. in the category, in the industry, in the world. now, get 0% apr financing up to 36 months on most models and 90-day first-payment deferral on any model. mercedes-benz. the best or nothing. we know you're always at univethere for them.x, that's why our advisors are always here for you. learn more at phoenix.edu. and senator amy klobuchar is back with us. as we all know, joe biden said he's going to choose a woman as his running mate. we all assume you're on the short list and rachel suggested that i ask you this very difficult question, which is would you be ready to take over the presidency if called upon instantaneously? >> you know, i think many people would be ready to do that, but the person that i want to see as president is joe biden, and rachel, in fact, was involved in the debate itself where she asked me many, many questions. i think i did ten national debates. i made my case. the person that came out of that primary with my support in the end was joe biden and i think what we should be asking ourselves, lawrence is how will he be different than donald trump? and how will he take on the challenges of the country in a much more compassionate and competent way? the first thing is he loves people. he loves this country. he's going to care what happens to those nurses on the front line and grocery store workers and to the truck drivers who are out there and the first responders. he's going to have a plan, not just for the short term, which we're trying to push right now to help the states and to get our businesses open in a smart way, but also for the long term. listen to what jerome powell today said or this weekend ahead of the federal reserve. he said that's going to take a long time to get ourselves back and we know that so we need leaderships that thinks for the long term and someone that's actually willing to take on those issues of job training and making sure we've got a national service plan and making sure our non-profit sector and our businesses and people are back to work and a national testing strategy. that's not just something you do in a day. that's something you do with a cabinet. that's something you do with a team and that's something that you do immediately that you get into office and he can hit the ground running in those first 100 days that are going to be so critical. so, see, i had a long time to think of the answer to your question. >> you did. so chairman powell, and it's so striking what he said because he's a conservative chairman of the federal reserve said something we never heard from a fed chair and he is saying that already the government, congress, fed pumped more money into the economy than ever in history. you've delivered more money to workers to companies than ever in history but he's saying it might not be enough and you have to do more and his bottom line is this very simple three-word sentence that you've never heard from a fed chair, keep families solvent. keep money going to families. how do you do that? >> what he suggested was bold action. he's basically saying they have done what they can do and will continue to do that at the fed but have limited powers and it's our job to make sure number one, unemployment remains strong and we understand the states can't do it all, that number two, we keep supporting our businesses, particularly our small businesses going into this. that number three, i will say that an interesting pair of bernie sanders and mark warner are leading a bill and i'm a co-sponsor to help people and pay people so they keep working at their jobs, so that they keep being part of the work force in those jobs and in those workplaces. so there is so much more we can do in terms of making sure that our economy just gradually comes back in the right way, but that also making sure people don't go bankrupt all over the place. we're already seeing some of it but we can't let everyone in the country go bankrupt and the states go bankrupt. we have a job to do. instead, as i said, what is mitch mcconnell doing? four judges this week. where is the pandemic bill? they passed it in the house, why aren't we starting hearings on it? because he's too busy with his own agenda. >> thank you for joining us. appreciate it. >> thank you, lawrence, great to be on. >> thank you. when we come back, we'll get a report on the navajo nation with the highest, the highest per capita rate of coronavirus infection in america. higher than new york. that's next. at cancer treatment centers of america, treating cancer isn't just what we do, it's all we do. and now, we're able to treat more patients because we're in-network with even more major insurance plans. so, if you've been turned down before, call us now. i don't have to worry about that, do i?are irritated. harmful bacteria lurk just below the gum line. crest gum detoxify, voted product of the year. it works below the gum line to neutralize harmful plaque bacteria and help reverse early gum damage. gum detoxify, from crest. - [female vo] restaurants are facing a crisis. and they're counting on your takeout and delivery orders to make it through. grubhub. together we can help save the restaurants we love. ♪ we could never do what they do. but what we can do it be a partner that never quits. verizon is the most reliable network in america. built for interoperability and puts first responders first, giving their calls priority, 24/7. we do what we do best so they can too. because i trust their quality they were the first to have a vitamin verified by usp... ...an independent organization that sets strict quality and purity standards nature made, the #1 pharmacist recommended vitamin and supplement brand on a walk in northern ireland years ago, the great statesman and peace maker john hume summarized irish history for me in one sentence when he told me the irish never forget, and the english never remember. the long memory of the irish people is at work once again tonight as contributions have been pouring in from ireland to the navajo and hopi families covid-19 relief fund. many of the irish donors specifically mentioned the donation made by the choctaw nation to a similar fund in 1847 that was set up to help feed the starving people of ireland in the midst of what was called the great famine. "the irish times" reports cassandra begay, a member of the navajo nation and one of the team organizing the fund-raiser, burst into tears as she told "the irish times" of seeing the donations flood in. we noticed that we were getting a lot of donations from ireland, so we were wondering why. sorry, i get emotional talking about this part, ms. begay broke off. and i learned about what the choctaw did for the irish people, and it was so beautiful. the navajo nation, which has one of the strictest stay-at-home orders now has surpassed new york and new jersey for the highest per capita infection rate in america. there are now 4,071 confirmed coronavirus cases and 142 confirmed coronavirus deaths in the navajo nation, which has a population of 173,000 people and includes parts of arizona, new mexico, and utah. the total land area of the navajo nation is about the size of west virginia. the international group doctors without borders has sent a team of nine medical professionals to the navajo nation. the first congressional district in arizona is a huge land mass that includes some of the navajo nation and is represented by irish-american congressman tom o'halleran. in last week's hearing when whistle-blower dr. rick bright testified about the trump administration's failures in dealing with the coronavirus, congressman o'halleran said this about the navajo nation. >> this fallacy that only urban areas are impacted is -- and that it can't spread very fast, 16 people died yesterday. and, in fact, on a per capita basis, this currently has more cases than any state in the country, and yet this hot spot is still not being addressed in the appropriate way. more resources are needed, and they're needed now, and they were needed more than a month ago when we started trying to get this done. >> joining our discussion now is bleu adams, a navajo business owner. she's the co-founder of the volunteer group protect native elders, which is distributing relief to native communities. tell us what the situation is that the you're finding as you tour these reservations and the places where this suffering is occurring. >> first of all, thank you for inviting me to the program. i would like to speak on behalf but not necessarily for my community. what we're finding is just a terrible need for support and advocacy among our communities. what we really want people to understand is the reason why covid is spreading at an alarming rate and the death rates are so high is just the lack of infrastructure regarding access to electricity, access to water, and also broadband internet. we're having a hard time disseminating information because the cell service isn't the greatest, and i think broadband saturation is only at 8%. >> what about communicating all the necessary precautions? without broadband, i imagine that just getting the proper precautions described to enough people is a challenge. >> absolutely. absolutely. but we are trying to come up with innovative solutions. recently we've partnered with the navajo nation shopping centers, which has the leases for most of the grocery stores, and that's one of the biggest hubs for communities. and us partnering with them allows us to hand out small bags with hand sanitizer, fabric masks, and also include information on how to keep themselves safe and healthy and how to use the sanitizer correctly. >> what are your biggest needs now? >> really my group is really focused on the hand sanitizer. because we have a lot of community members that don't have running water, it makes it extremely difficult to wash hands repeatedly when they're already rationing their water. so hand sanitizer is one of our largest needs. it's really hard to come by, and it's getting very expensive. and then advocacy of course. allies at the federal level that can help maybe with the water rights. we have issues with our water rights, so advocacy, education. you can educate yourself. there are so many grassroots organizations on the ground working to help combat the coronavirus, but really access to water and hand sanitizer are our greatest needs at this moment. >> bleu adams, thank you very much for joining us tonight. we'd like to have you come back and tell us what progress you're making. thank you very much. >> absolutely. and thank you. >> bleu adams gets tonight's last word on behalf of the navajo nation. "the 11th hour" with brian williams starts now. ♪ the empire state building tonight, defending those on the job, protecting those who are not. the colors of the fdny and ems high above the city. well, good evening once again. day 1,215 of this trump administration. 169 days until our presidential election. tonight our country leads the world in coronavirus infections and in deaths. our death toll tonight stands at 91,172. candidly as we struggle with ways to illustrate that number, think of it this way. picture 581 boeing 737s loaded with passengers. think of the death toll from the loss of 581 boeing 737s and all those souls onboard. that is our current death toll. this was the day we learned the president is now taking president is now taking hydroxychloroquine, an unproven drug in the fight against coronavirus. that means he's going against the advice of his own government's medical professionals. trump says he's tested negative for the virus, so he seems to be doing this as a preventative measure. >> the frontline workers, many, many are taking it. i happen to be taking it. i happen to be taking it. >> hydroxychloroquine? >> i'm taking it, hydroxychloroquine. >> when? >> right now, yeah. a couple of weeks ago, i started taking it. >> why, sir? >> because i think it's good. i've heard a lot of good stories. and if it's not good, i'll tell you right. i'm not going to get hurt by it. >> did the white house doctor recommend that you take that? is that why you're taking it?
it feels terrible. is that really being a friend? and i'm not saying you, specifically. you understand what i'm saying. you know what i'm saying. >> i totally understand. and, you know, the only word i can use is just hurt. it all hurts. we didn't have the plan -- this show planned the way it unfolded. i just -- we just couldn't let williams go. i mean, he was saying what you and i have heard. you know, you have a heard in your own heart. i've heard from so many people that i love that they're so afraid that it's going to be them, it's going to be their kid. and white people roll their eyes like, come on, man, this only happens once in a while. it doesn't have to happen that often if, every time it happens in your mind, it seems to go unanswered in terms of why it's okay. so we kept him on just so that people could hear how scary it is for someone to watch that, and think -- >> but that's -- that's a problem, chris. it's not that it happens. it happens a lot. we just don't see it. we're just seeing from the video. this is -- this is the reason that colin kaepernick was taking a knee. and then, people were upset and the president of the united states having the nerve to call him and others who were standing up for this sort of injustice, to call them sons of bitches. this is why people are standing up so it doesn't lead to this. so that you aren't sitting at home saying, oh, my gosh, i can't believe this. look at what they're doing to this man. this happens all the time. this is why he was doing it. and the nerve and the gall of people to say oh my gosh, stop doing this, i want to enjoy my football game. think of that now, in this context, and how selfish that sounds and how you might feel if that was your loved one on the ground. and there were people who have been protesting this all along and have been fed up for years, and they are trying to get your attention by something as respectful as taking a knee at a football game. yet, you can call them sons of bitches. but, then, you look for an excuse for this police officer in minneapolis saying, well, there must have been something that led up to this. the guy must have been resisting. clearly, this just can't be the act of a police officer. of someone who is supposed to be protecting the community. yes, it is. people who continue to look for excuses. well, where's the rest of the video? where is the rest of it? wasn't he resisting? he must have been doing something terrible. he shouldn't have been in this position. maybe he should have been complying. how many more excuses do you need to make before you examine yourself and say, okay. maybe i need to wake up a little bit, and take a good, long look at what -- what i've been doing. maybe i need to understand or realize that the environment that this president has trafficked in can help to lead to these sorts of situations. where people think that sort of behavior, meaning the people who are doing these things, the people who are calling the cops on people, falsely, in central park. the people who are chasing people down the street in georgia and killing them. that you may begin to think that your actions are normal. that you may begin to think that you, as a preeminent voice, can do things that are inhumane to other people and it will be accepted. the game is giving it away. the one in central park said i'm calling the cops and going to say this black man did something scary to me knowing the cops would come and probably be on her side, not his. according to the witness, he looked him in the eye. he told the police officer, hey, stop it, you're going to kill the man. the cop said nothing. maybe shouldn't be on drugs. gave the game away. that is the gain. we can do it and we can get away with it, and no one is going to tell us -- no one is going to tell us otherwise. we're not going to go to jail for it. maybe i'll lose my job. i'm going to keep my pension, though, because guess what? the police association is going to fight for me. that is what has been happening in this country for years. and that's why the black lives matter folks are out there. and that's why people are protesting, chris. i'm not condoning people protesting but let me tell you. people are tired of living in a country that's supposed to be free, yet they are occupied. so they are frustrated and they are angry. and they are out there. and they're upset. you shouldn't be taking televisions but i can't tell people how to react to this. i don't know how it is to live, under those circumstances, in those neighborhoods. i do live in harlem. but i am lucky enough that i have this job that keeps me protected from many of those things. other people don't have that. i'm sorry to keep going on and on. but this is how you and i talk. and this is how we continue to talk. and i think that every person out there, listen, if you are black and you don't have a white friend, get one. and tell them what's on your mind. and if you are white and you don't have a black friend, then get one and let him tell you what is on -- or her -- what is on their mind. because that is the only way we are going to solve this. it is not incumbent upon black people to stop racism. to stop this. it is incumbent upon people who hold the power in this society to help to do that. to do the heavy lifting. and guess who that is. who is that, chris? >> white people. i don't talk much, but when i do, i make it count. i think that the protests make sense. i don't think you can process the anger without them. now, you start committing crimes and it's a riot, that's not protesting. but at the same time, i remember what dr. king said about this and i understand it's not easy to keep emotions in check, when nobody seems to be keeping them in check when you are the victim. i get it. what hurts most, i think, in this particular fact pattern other than duration is why the hell were the other cops standing there doing nothing? nobody is trained to put a knee on a throat. >> because it's not about training. it's not about police training. it's about the way we have been trained, in society, to react to those things. it is okay. now, imagine if that was an 18, 19, 20-year-old white kid on the ground. do you think those officers would be doing the same thing or acting the same way? >> that's the troubling question. that's the meme that's going around right now with the black kid on the ground saying hello to the white guy in camo with the ak47 and mask who was protesting in michigan. when it's white people with guns and they're out and they're angry. >> didn't see any of that. >> everybody's civil. >> spitting in police officers' faces. yelling at police officers, armed. armed, with heavy weaponry. didn't see any of that. did you see anybody with their foot on anybody's neck? >> you've heard of people make -- make it a joke. but it's funny because it's tragic and sad. if black people said let's all go out and get guns and start to protest, that would be the fastest change of gun law culture in this country. >> yeah. >> if you started to have african-americans buying up ar-15 s or whatever you want to call them going out and protesting legally, with legal weapons, you'd see a change in the laws and that's sad. >> yeah. and if you see a black man, who has this platform, a television show, who has the gall enough to tell you how it is. guess how many people are going to call him racist and a race baiter? >> who cares? >> check out my social media feed and see what happens. >> you say when's real and, look, you're not getting it from a second source. you lived it. >> i don't care. go for it. i really don't care. you can save it or you can put it out there. i do not care. i am -- i am so frustrated. listen, i'm not even -- i've got to talk about the big story, as well, that's happening in the news and that is coronavirus. but i am so sick of, as a person of color, especially a black man, as my actions, my thoughts, whatever i do as being seen as more aggressive or somehow sinister just because of the shell that i am in. i am sick of it. i'm sick of having to monitor myself. because of this body that i'm in. it is exhausting. it is mentally and physically exhausting. and that is how people of color feel in this country. and you know what? i love you for listening to me here on television and i love you for doing it in person. so thank you. >> i love you. you're a gift to me, as a friend, and you're telling people what they need to hear. and you're telling them because you do care, as much as anybody i know. >> thank you, chris cuomo. i'll see you soon. >> love you, brother. >> love you, as well. this is cnn tonight. i am don lemon. and here is -- and thank you for listening to that. this is our breaking news tonight, here, on cnn. this country, reaching a tragic milestone tonight. more than 100,000 americans have died from the coronavirus. 100,411 in the latest count. their families are friends and their neighbors, all americans, all grieving tonight. and the fact is, this didn't have to happen. it did not. experts have said that, if we had only taken this pandemic seriously, sooner, tens of thousands of those lives could have been saved. if this president had taken this pandemic seriously, sooner, lives could have been saved. but on a deeply tragic day in this country's history, didn't have a thing to say. when -- when he arrived back at the white house tonight. but he tweeted, and i quote, this is a quote from lou dobbs, calling him the greatest president in our history. okay. whatever. really? that's what he thinks is important right now? what lou dobs thinks? i mean, come on, give me a break. more and more americans dying from the coronavirus. that is an absolute disgrace. that's this president reaction to one of the darkest days in our history. compare that to the reaction of joe biden. >> my fellow americans, there are moments in our history so grim, so heartrending, a shared grief. today, is one of those moments. 100,000 lives have now been lost to this virus here, in the united states, alone. >> americans are mourning. and our president seems to be having trouble with empathy. having trouble with leadership, as we face a crisis, like nothing in our recent memory, even today. he is refusing to wear a mask. stigmatizing one of the best things that we can all do to protect our fellow americans. and then, there's the president's son, eric trump, tweeting tonight. quote, great day for the dow. that's just vulgar. really. isn't even the world for vulgar. that's what you tweet on the night of the coronavirus death toll in this country passes 100,000. great day for the dow? disgraceful. and what was on the president's mind today as americans are marking this tragic milestone? distraction, of course. he was on a twitter tirade blasting his perceived political enemies. you know what he hardly mentioned at all in the middle of the tirade? the coronavirus. he only managed to show any interest in the pandemic with two tweets. one bragging about how his ban, that wasn't actually a ban, on travel from china. there were restrictions but it wasn't an actual ban. the other, bragging about testing. even though the fact is we still don't have the testing that we need to reopen this country safely. and, despite the fact that he has been tweeting and retweeting all day, tonight he is waging war on twitter. promising an executive order on social media. it is unclear, tonight, what that order will say. but a source telling cnn it is hastily thought of. duh. at the last minute. probably because he thinks it's going to help him to say, oh, my gosh, we're being censored. nobody is censoring you. no one. the president is furious at twitter for what was, frankly, the mildest possible suggestion that two of his tweets, about mail-in voting, are not accurate. i guess the irony is lost on this president waging war on twitter, while tweeting all day. and why is he doing all of this? because we're in the middle of a -- of a pandemic. because more than 100,000 americans have died. because more than 36 million are unemployed. and because, for all of his bluster and bragging, the president just can't bring himself to show leadership. he downplayed this virus, for months. >> we have it under control. it's going to be just fine. >> we think we have it very well under control. we have very little problem, in this country, at this moment, five. and those people are all recuperating successfully. >> by april, you know, in theory, when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away. >> the coronavirus, which is, you know, very well under control in our country. >> we're going down, not up. we're going, very substantially, down, not up. when you have 15 people and the 15, within a couple of days, is going to be down close to zero, that is a pretty good job we've done. >> it is being contained. do you not think it's being contained in this country? >> i'm not a doctor or lawyer. >> well, you just said something that's not true. >> so far, it looks relatively contained. and we don't think most people, i mean the vast majority of americans are not at risk for this virus. >> we're doing a great job with it. it will go away. just stay calm. it will go away. >> some of the doctors say it will wash flow, it will flow through. very accurate, i think you're going to find, in a number of weeks. the fda also gave emergency authorization for hydroxychloroquine. i say it. what do you have to lose? i'll say it again. what do you have to lose? take it. it will be wonderful. it'll be so beautiful. it'll be a gift from heaven if it works. >> i said supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do, either through the skin or in some other way. and i think you said you're going to test that, too. sounds interesting. >> the right folks who could. >> right. and then i see the disinfectant knocks it out in a minute. one minute. and is there a way we can do something like that? by injection inside or -- or almost a cleaning because you see it gets on the lungs? >> can you believe that the president of the united states actually said that? that's when those briefings just, i mean, came to, like, a screeching halt. hmm, i wonder why. this president dismissed the virus. everything i'm saying is true. okay? he dismissed this virus. said it would go away in warm weather. suggested ingesting disinfectant might be a treatment. i've heard people in conservative media said he didn't say that. that's not what he said. oh, yeah, he said it. we just played it for you. he promoted and took a drug with the potential for serious side effects. and what did all of that get us? whether a did what did it get us? that is more than 100,000 americans, dead. it did not have to happen. if this president had just been able to show some leadership. instead, he is trying everything that he can, everything he can think of, to distract you from this crisis. but, you know, we talked tonight, and last night, about two major crises in this country. two deadly viruses, really, infecting americans and killing americans. covid-19, racism 20. and with the death toll from coronavirus passing 100,000 tonight, we are grappling with the fact that americans are still dying from racism. still dying from racism. no vaccine for that. for that virus. no amount of social distancing on the street, in our cars. walk in the park that can protect us from that. no amount of social distancing. no mask to keep us safe. but it is time, now, to take off the mask of racism. and come together. white, black, and brown, and say enough is enough. easy words for me to say. can you say that? can you do that? when it may be inconvenient for you. when it may not be in your face. when you don't see video of police officers with their knee on someone's neck. or a woman falsely calling police. or of a man jogging down the street, and someone's shooting him with a long -- with a rifle -- with a long gun, excuse me. and you see his actual death. can you do that? it is time for these deaths to stop. like the death of george floyd. a black man in minneapolis, who died after a white officer arresting him, held him down with his knee on his neck for minutes. minute after agonizing minute, as george floyd screamed, please, i can't breathe. this video, disturbing as it is to watch, doesn't show what led to this arrest, doesn't show what the police described as resisting arrest. and most experts i spoke to said that doesn't matter. tell the story about how it got to that. but when you look at what happened on the ground and how long those officers were on top of him, and that he was already handcuffed and subdued. but it shows us what happened to george floyd. >> please. i can't breathe, officer. kill me. they gonna kill me, man. >> well, tonight, a new video has emerged. we have new security camera footage that we'll play for you. and i'm going to talk to the man who helped bring it to light. we're going to take you, live, to the streets of minneapolis where protestors are out, for the second night in a row. president trump was asked about the death of george -- george floyd today. he didn't have a whole lot to say. >> wondering if you have a comment about the events in minnesota. >> i'm very sad -- a very, very sad event. well, we'they're going to look it and we're going to get a report tomorrow when we get back. we're going to get a full report. a very sad day. >> president later tweeting he has asked the fbi and department of justice to expedite their investigation. but, you know, just really seems to be capable of showing true empathy to victims of two viruses infecting this country. racism and the coronavirus. instead, his words and his actions on both fronts have left this country worse off. how long are we going to stand by and let the death tolls go up? because the terrible fact is more than 100,000 americans did not have to die. with all 50 states reopening, what can we do to prevent more unnecessary deaths, moving forward? that question, for cnn's kaitlan collins and dr. harvey fineburg, next. ancestry...gave us context. this...whole world ...of people ...adventurous people... and survivors. it was interesting to think about their lives... their successes... and...their hardships. i think that's part of what i want my kids to know. they come from people who... were brave. and took risks. big risks. no pressure. [short laugh] bring your family history to life, like never before. get started for free at ancestry.com when visible set out to create the future of phone service... we tossed the stuff that wasn't working. stuff like foot-long bills and fees from nowhere. time-wasting stores, misleading ads, unhelpful help centers. and saved the stuff that was working. like verizon's 4g lte network. plus unlimited data, messages, and minutes. it's a simple system. trim the bad... make the good better... and way cheaper. meet visible. unlimited data on verizon's 4g lte network. just $25 for your first month. join us at visible.com. for america. passing a grim milestone in the coronavirus pandemic. now, more than 100,000 deaths, in this country. and president trump is conspicuously silent tonight. let's bring in now cnn white house correspondent kaitlan collins. dr. harvey fineberg, the chair of the standing committee on emerging infectious diseases both join us. good evening to both of you. kaitlan, how is this president marking, you know, that a short time ago, this country surpassed 100,000 dead americans under his leadership? >> so far, don, he hasn't mentioned it. we did see the president mention we were getting close to the six-digit death toll yesterday but he was only talking about it in that context about how many lives he saved by the measures he he's taken. though, don, we know those numbers actually come from if there had been no mitigation efforts. no social distancing. no mask wearing. no shutdowns. things of that nature. that's what the models were projecting at the time. and the president was here in florida tonight. he was hoping to reach a much different milestone, to see this space launch and of course that was thwarted by poor weather. but as the president returned to washington, he did not speak to reporters about the death toll, on the record, on camera, anything like that. and he hasn't tweeted about it either. so far, he's tweeting plenty of times about twitter. he is retweeting praise from lou dobs, calling him the greatest president ever maybe. but he has not mentioned, so far, this historic but grim milestone that we've reached. >> yeah. where is lou dobs? lou dobs is on fox? where is he now? does anybody know? oh, on the business channel. >> yeah, he is. haven't seen him. don't know. >> okay. so, dr. fineberg, it's been three months since the president insisted 15 cases would go down to zero. and now, there are over 100,000 deaths. this terrible milestone wasn't set in stone. i mean, it could've been avoided. >> 100 days, 100,000 deaths. don, the real question is, what are the next 50 days going to bring? will we have another 50,000 deaths? will we be able to get it down to 40,000, 25,000, 15,000? we don't know what's going to happen with the virus. but we do know what we can do to control its spread. and that's going to be up to every state, every county, every community, every family. to take the steps that are well-established, to reduce the spread of this infection. we need the tests. we need to isolate those who are infected. we need to quarantine those who are exposed. and we need to contact trace to get everyone who's been exposed, identified. those are the simple, but difficult, steps that we all need to take now to minimize the future toll of this pandemic. >> yeah. and what have we learned in all of this? kaitlan, you know, there's -- there's also dr. fauci this morning, who's been imploring americans to wear a mask. he says that he wears one as a symbol of what you should be doing. that puts him at odds with the -- with this president. >> yeah, it seemed like a pretty clear message, actually, to the president. and there have been times in the rose garden where you've seen the president standing there, not wearing a mask. and dr. fauci's right behind him, wearing a mask. and so it's been a conflicting message. and fauci said, on cnn earlier, that he basically wears one as is symbol. so when he is out, it's a sign of respect to other people. and you've seen republicans say similar things. several governors saying please don't turn this into some kind of culture war. a political divisive issue where certain left-leaning people are wearing masks. right-leaning people are not wearing masks. and republican governors have urged the people who live in their states not to take it to that step. and that's kind of what dr. fauci was saying today. he believes it's a sign of respect for people to wear them. for someone like him who is tested of course on a pretty regular basis, as is the president, to wear one. yet, trump, himself, has not worn one. and now, don, you see him going further yesterday saying a reporter is being politically correct by refusing to pull the mask down as he was asking the president a question because the president couldn't hear him. so taking it a step further with that and the biden retweet. mocking biden for wearing one on memorial day, as well. >> this is where we are. thank you, kaitlan. thank you, dr. fineberg. appreciate it. coronavirus reaching every corner of the country, but it is hitting along partisan lines in dramatically different ways. how coronavirus is dividing blue and red america even more. that's next. when we started our business we were paying an arm and a leg for postage. i remember setting up shipstation. one or two clicks and everything was up and running. i was printing out labels and saving money. shipstation saves us so much time. it makes it really easy and seamless. pick an order, print everything you need, slap the label onto the box, and it's ready to go. our costs for shipping were cut in half. just like that. shipstation. the #1 choice of online sellers. go to shipstation.com/tv and get 2 months free. in honor of my dad, who was alzheimer's. i decided to make shirts for the walk with custom ink, and they just came out perfect. - [announcer] check out our huge selection of custom apparel for every occasion. you'll even get free shipping. get started today at customink.com. i don't have to worry about that, do i?are irritated. you'll even get free shipping. harmful bacteria lurk just below the gum line. crest gum detoxify, voted product of the year. it works below the gum line to neutralize harmful plaque bacteria and help reverse early gum damage. gum detoxify, from crest. so with more than 100,000 americans dead from the coronavirus, no state has been spared from tragedy. but red states and blue states are getting hit by the pandemic, in very different ways. let's discuss now. matthew is a professor of economics at stanford university, who has been tracking partnership in the response -- in the response, i should say, to this virus. so -- partisanship, excuse me. so thank you so much for joining us. we appreciate you joining us, matthew. your research team originally thought a health crisis like this would minimize partisanship. but you saw exactly the opposite here. tell me about your findings. what -- what happened? >> yeah. we thought it could, at the beginning. i think there were reports of partisan differences, early on, in responses to the virus and surveys. and one of the things that you might expect is that a crisis like this, where people's lives are on the line, might pull people together. we wanted to see to what extent that's really true using -- we looked at data from gps devices from 40 million or so smartphones. where we could track individual people's movements to see how different are those things really in red states and blue states? >> your data shows that democratic counties experienced far more coronavirus deaths than republican counties. is this a reason republicans have been protesting stay-at-home orders do you think? >> yeah, i think that's a great question because we -- we observe these pretty substantial differences in the extent of social distancing in red and blue parts of the country. but the blue parts of the country have, also, been a lot harder hit. and there have been far more deaths. you think about the places like new york and new jersey, where the outbreak have been worse. those are overwhelmingly democratic places. so one of the main things we wanted to do is try to control for those differences, and see what kind of partisan gap remains, that didn't just due to differences in -- in how hard hit places are. and when we do that, we see some of that gap closes but there is a substantial partisan difference that still remains. >> bloomberg news found that in states trump won in 2016, 23 people lost a job for every one person infected with coronavirus. but in states that clinton won, 13 people lost a job for every person infected. how do you interpret that? and how does that fit with your research? >> yeah. i think it's -- i think it's very consistent, in the sense that the virus that people are experiencing is really different. and, also, the messages that people are hearing from the top, from politicians, from leadership, from the media, are very different, depending on, you know, which channel you tune into. and so, those very different differences could translate into people perceiving the risks differently. people making different tradeoffs and people weighing things differently. and i think research shows that that is true. i would say it also shows that those differences are not as huge as someone might think. so we estimate about 15% difference in the extent of movement in more republican and more democratic areas. that's substantial but it's also not the case. like, if you look at the images on tv of protests outside of state houses and states where lockdown orders have been lifted. and people are thronging bars, in big numbers. that is, also, not really representative of what's going on. most places in this country, red or blue, have done a lot of social distancing. but there is a real gap, and i think it goes back to that difference you're talking about. in just what people have experienced. >> all right. matthew, thank you very much. we appreciate you joining us here on cnn. i want to get some news that's developing right now. cnn sara sidner is, she is in minneapolis. protestors are out on the streets. sara, good evening to you. clashes are continues tonight over the death of george floyd. give us the very latest. what do you have? >> i'm going to give you the scene right now. this is the police department. the third precinct, here, in minneapolis. they have created a barrier around the particular precinct that some of the windows have been smashed in, and they've been battling back and forth with protestors. many of them, throwing water bottles. the police responding with beanies and responding by shooting teargas. but, now, you're seeing all those lights there. you are hearing people yelling at the police with their hands up. those lights are actually the fire department because, just across the street, the auto zone is on fire. so you can really see it is starting to billow. and i'm going to have -- now, those sounds that you are hearing are flash bangs and fireworks. so sometimes you are hearing the flash bangs from police. and many times, you're hearing fireworks that are from the protestors, who are, sometimes, blowing those off near different parts. now, we do not know how this fire started at auto zone. but this whole area here, this whole city block here, has been a hotspot all day. east light street. there. right there. they're starting to -- we're going -- we're going to move back. they're starting to throw mazel tov cocktails. we're going. all right. watch it. watch it. watch it. they're starting to -- mazel tov cocktails. thank you, eric. okay. so what you're seeing is a few things. one, that's teargas. and sometimes, you are seeing the teargas being thrown back at the police after they've already fired it at the protestors. and then, if you look down there, just look down there. you can really see it going. and every now and then, a protestor will pick up and throw it right back at the officers. and so, you are seeing these billows of smoke going over the officers. but you are also seeing that smoke going over the protestors. and let me tell you. there are thousands of people out here earlier today around the police department. they eventually moved them out and down the street. and then, at some point, they started to retreat. the officers began retreating back to the third precinct. another flash bang there. and what you're sort of seeing is this intense emotion blowing up, tonight, here, in minneapolis. really, over this video. but, also, over a long history where people feel, that are out here in the streets, the protestors here, feel that they have never been given true justice from the police department when it comes to cases like this. this harkens back to castile where the -- he says he's been hit. he's -- he says he's been hit. you can see, here, now that -- that is -- that is usually from these. >> bro, i done got shot so many times today. and the police -- listen, man. my name is la roy williams. >> talk to me. la roy, tell me why you're out here. why are you out here? >> first of all, they killed my cousin jamar. so we did this on the north side. second of all, when i came out here, i didn't even know my home boy got killed. he's from texas. third of all, they been shooting me all -- look, i'm talking about all day. >> that is these shots. thank you for speaking with me. these shots. these are some of the things that are being blown off here. and there is a lot of frustration. that are people -- he is talking about the way people feel about the police officers that they don't care about the black and brown community. the police officers, obviously, there are four of them who have been fired, don. and that is, and you know because you've covered these stories alongside me, that is a very fast reaction from the police department. who said, even though the officers initially said -- and you will see a lot of running like this because as soon as the flash bangs happen, you'll see a lot of running. >> sara, listen, we're going to let you go because we want you to be safe out there. so let's continue getting in a safe position. continue to talk over this. so you sara sidner. she is out there in conditions that are not completely safe. she is saying there are flash bangs going off, as you could hear. there's teargas being thrown at protestors. protestors, on occasion, throwing it back to police. mazel tov cocktails being thrown at police officers. and just, mostly general chaos. general chaos going on right now. and if you can see, there's -- here, they are saying hands up, don't shoot, which started during the michael brown incident happening in ferguson, missouri, a few years back. but, again, that is what's happening on the streets of minneapolis, after this man was killed. after a police officer put his foot -- his knee, excuse me -- on his neck for about nine minutes. being pronounced dead. george floyd. 46-year-old pronounced dead at the hospital, moments after he was taken into police custody. so, to continue on that vein, we are going to get back to sara. we want to make sure sara is safe. we'll continue to report to you what's happening on the streets of minneapolis. but, in this vaiein, i want to speak to a local business owner or business owners, who released surveillance video of the moments leading up to george floyd's arrest. that's next. right after this break. don't go anywhere. as homes become schools. at&t has created a $10 million dollar fund to help educators and families keep school in session. because the key to keeping kids learning, is keeping kids connected. the death of george floyd in minneapolis on monday. sparking outrage and protests in minneapolis tonight. we're going to take you back to the streets live and continue to watch that. but this is a -- the disturbing footage captured by a bystander shows an officer relentlessly pressing him into the pavement with a knee on his neck. floyd can be heard telling the officer that he can't breathe. begging for his life. but now, there is security camera footage from a nearby restaurant that's painting a fuller picture of what happened. on the top right, okay, you can see police. they have approached floyd and they are in the process of removing him from his vehicle. a lot of activity is blocked by his suv. but he eventually makes it over to the wall. and then, he sits down on the ground. okay? floyd is then helped, from the ground, and pressed against the wall, while the two officers prepare to walk him across the street. and you can see floyd is distressed, and has a pained look on his face as he speaks to them. he's, then, walked across the street. okay. there he is there helping him up. and he's walked across the street, to another police suv. while one of the officers pulls his vehicle around to the other side of the street, blocking the view. and you'll see all of that happening. okay? but police in their report, and we'll show that to you -- i just want you to see, in this video, what is happening. all right. so they walk him across the street. so, in the report, though, as you can look at this, this is him going across the street. now, lest we're missing something here, don't see much of any resisting. okay? falls down there. they try to help him into the suv. okay. so in their report they say that after he got out floyd physically resisted officers. joining me now is rashad west, and that was his security footage that we just saw. jared brewington who helped him secure and release the footage. you first, the security camera footage came from your restaurant, dragon wok. the fbi is now in possession of the footage. why was it important for you to make it public? >> i feel like we have, as business owners and as a black man i feel like when something like this happens and you get footage that clearly shows he was not struggling with the police it was important to show that part. we always get the chopped up videos that leave out things and have people wondering what did he do beforehand. i figure let's take the footage and make sure it is not cut and show the community he wasn't struggliling. we knew it was extremely important to get it to the right people so it would not be hidden. >> you helped to get the video out there. you felt that time was of the essence because of what might happen with the investigation. tell me what you wanted to avoid happening? >> i wanted to avoid happening what happened with the neighboring businesses that had the fbi come with warrants and secure their dvr and security system. i was alerted when the "washington post" called me thinking i was still the owner of the business there. i had moved on. but i still had ties with the community. when i called rashad and the neighboring business, they said the fbi already had taken the dvr. rashad said the fbi is at his door. i said if you wait for me we can secure the footage and get it to the press to preserve an unedited full extended cut down that time frame. so many times when the things happen the community cries out for weeks where is the video, body cam or a dashcam. in this instance here or local authorities hold that video for so long and it leaves the community wanting toknowwhat is going on and in that is sis know, what are the results. for too long in our community there have been unarmed black men killed by police officers and there haven't been prosecutions. we have had that here. minneapolis has a national audience for a lot of things that are not as beautiful as the number one ranking and parks system. >> i want to get to the attorney general coming up. you both have seen the entire video, right? >> yeah. >> right. rashad, were you there when it happened? did you happen to witness it? you have just seen the video. >> so what happened is that i was alerted. my phone i was going crazy. we were closed that day. it was monday. we were closed. i rushed down there to see if i could at least get something. i did not expect that they were arresting him right in front of the restaurant. he was not struggling. >> did you see the entire thing play out from beginning to end on the tape? >> absolutely. >> did you see any resistance? >> did not see any resistance. >> neither of you. >> no. >> no. >> mr. floyd was set against the wall like we have seen on the video and when he was walked across the street the cruiser did a u-turn and at that point the next vantage point would be the infamous facebook video that alerted the public to his unjust killing. >> we appreciate you guys doing the right thing. thank you and stay safe. >> thank you for having me. >> you are upset about this. thank you sir. next, the chief law enforcement officer of minnesota. i am going to ask the state's attorney general what is next in george floyd's arrest, next. , '? i only see one price on my phone bill. you're on t-mobile, taxes and fees are included. why can't all my bills be like this? i don't know mama. umph! with t-mobile, taxes and fees are included. and when you switch your family, get 4 lines of unlimited for just $35 a line. >> president trump weighing in on the investigation into the killing of george floyd saying that in a pair of tweets he asked the fbi and department of justice to expedite the investigation into his death. let's discuss now with the attorney general for the state of minnesota. thank you mr. attorney general. i have to tell you that the bodycam footage has been released. cnn is bringing that in now. we are looking at it and hope to get it on very soon. have you seen it? are you aware of what it shows? >> don, i looked at every available video that there is but i have reviewed it this afternoon and i think that i consider myself up on what the video shows so far. >> and can you say what is in that video? does it differ in any way to any of the video that has aired or the video that you