Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal 03162020 20240713

Effect of thec coronavirus. Well take your calls and you can join on facebook and twitter. Is next. State, and local response to the covid19 coronavirus ramped up over the weekend. Last night, the two leading president ial candidates faced off in a debate dominated by of the virus. We will spend the first 90 minutes, hour and a half talking about those developments, the response to the coronavirus, your thoughts on what you are theing and reaction to debate between joe biden and walk Bernie Sanders. Lines for democrat, 2027488000. Epublican, 2027488001 independents and others, 2027488002. Texts as well, 2027488003. Tell us your name and where you are texting from. On twitter we are cspanwj and it is facebook. Com cspan. Copingted in how you are with the restrictions and the measures in place or coming in place across the country and states. We will have to hear your thoughts on that and about the debate last night, what you hear from the candidates in particular on coronavirus and other issues. We will play you some of that debate. Where we are in terms of the reach of the covid19 coronavirus, this is from the Johns Hopkins page done by their center for system science and engineering at Johns Hopkins university worldwide, total confirmed cases, 169,387. Total deaths, 6513. Recovered, 77,257. U. S. , 3774 cases. Total deaths, 69. Total recovered, 12. The most number of deaths in washington tate in Washington State followed by california and new york. 2027488000 for democrats. 2027488001 for republicans and independents and others, 2027488002. A greatly reduced debate in terms of the audience. There was no audience and the moderators as well. Joe biden and Bernie Sanders faced off in a democratic debate. Here is the reporting from politico. First pandemic era debate distills the choice of biden versus bernie and both were asked about the restrictions, what they would do with the response to the coronavirus. Here is some of what they said. [video clip] what i would do is what we did in our administration. I would call a meeting of all the experts in america dealing with this crisis. I would sit them down and do exactly what we did then. What is it we need . Listen to the experts. With all due respect to medicare for all, you have a singlepayer system in italy. It doesnt work there. It has nothing to do with medicare for all. We can take care of that right now by making sure no one has to pay for treatment, period, because of the crisis. No one has to pay for drugs because of the crisis. No one has to pay for hospitalization because of the crisis. That is a National Emergency and how it is handled. It is not working in italy right now and they have a singlepayer system. We are in a position where i would bring together leading experts in the world. Instead of doing this in the United States and piecemeal, sit down and do what we did before with the ebola crisis. What is needed . And have one voice like we did every day we met in the situation room, laying out we lay out overall for all the nations what is the best proposal and how to move forward. In the absence of that, governors are making sound decisions doing the best they can buy going out and Getting Health Care experts in their communities and states to move. It should be directed from the white house from the situation room, laying out in detail like we did in the ebola crisis and we beat it. Dysfunctionality of the Current Health care system is obviously apparent. There are people who hesitate to go to the doctor. You have a maze of regulations. If this is my income, that is my income, can i get it . Can i not get it . Trump only exacerbates the crisis. When we spent twice as much on health care as any other nation, one might expect we would have enough doctors all over the country. One might expect we would have affordable prescription drugs. One might expect we are preparing effectively for a pandemic that we are ready with the ventilators, the ic use. Debate. Re from the fed cuts rates to near zero, virus toll sores. Soars. Huge sumsuld inject a by snapping up 200 billion over the coming months. The remarkable sunday afternoon action, a drastic move under reflected the imminent peril reflecting presenting the Global Economy. Who has beenmp, vocal in his criticism of the fed, praised the Central Banks ought to assure the American Public food supply would not be affected. A top official added i am not going to say the lab testing issue is over. Here is more on what President Trump had to say sunday afternoon. [video clip] we are learning from watching other countries. This is a very contagious virus. It is something we have tremendous control of. Very important, young people, people of good health and groups of people are not strongly affected. Elderly people that are not well or not well in certain respects are really a dangerous group. We have to watch them, protect them very much. We have to watch over them and protect them because they are rolled herbal. Vulnerable. Host you can text us at 2027488003. Lets go to our republican line and hear from matthew in pittsburgh. Good morning. How are you today . Host fine, thank you. Caller as far as the debate goes, i have been republican most of my life, but after watching this Current Administration, i have decided to vote democrat. It doesnt matter who the candidate is. I think anybody can do a better job than what is going on now aftery the Current Crisis three days of grocery shopping, i can tell you i have four or five bruises and i have watched fellower of occasions americans with total disregard for anybody but themselves. I have watched people clean out shopping carts full of toilet and bread. Ggs it is simply amazing. Did you get did you fill your shopping cart . Caller i bought what i normally need for my wife and i, nothing more. I may have bought a few extra things, may be some beans and carrots. I can make soup and stock and sauces, things like that. Nothing i normally would not buy. People my nextdoor neighbor bought 45, i think. Host let me go back to your original comment. I assume you voted for the president or supported the president because of the current their response to the coronavirus, you would support either joe biden or Bernie Sanders . Caller correct. I did not vote for the current president. I did vote for hillary clinton. I am a different kind of republican. I am more of an eisenhower republican. We appreciate you calling in ont a reminder to call the line that represents your views. The independent line, eric, welcome. Caller hi. Out here in california, the governor declared certain things. I live with two 80yearold individuals. I am 58. I work that cvs. Front hearing how the lines are emts and doctors and nurses, but that is not the truth. The front lines are people who work at pharmacies because that is where sick people have been. I spent the last couple weeks being breathed on and sneezed on and coughed on. Issued no policy as far as posting at our store as to social distancing or even covering if you are coughing. I called the health and safety line yesterday about the issue and the reason they have not is because it is common knowledge. I am going to be self isolating with my family. I just cant believe how much the ball has been dropped. Host how long have you worked for cvs . Caller a little over three. Ears i brought these issues up. Basically the store we work at, we posted warnings for spacing yesterday and also as far as covering up that is because i asked them to. I had them printed at the store. The fact that cvs health has not implemented a policy to warn people where taco bell is sending out emails telling people what their policy will be, but cvs has done nothing. To georgia ando hear from scott, republican line. Caller good morning. How are you . Host doing fine, thank you. Caller i just wanted to try to lend a little levity. Ust noticed how the press i watch a lot of msnbc and as i watched that, listening to what they say gives me anxiety. It is over and over playbyplay pointing out all the things that have been done wrong. This is a black swan event. That means it is unpredictable and that means you could not have been prepared for it. When you point out all these things as you are in the heat of battle because we are in a crisis, you dont really have all the facts. I am hearing all you have heard is test, test, test, you should have had more tests. This is not being talked about study ine was a massachusetts that shows a lot more of the contagion has been asymptomatically c people. It was a probability of low symptomatic contagion. It is being spread a lot more by people. Atic there is not enough tests for 150 million people. If the media is really interested in the people of the United States, give problemsolving advice, do not do the same thing you have done for the last two years where all you do is point out what somebody has done wrong, it doesnt help us at all. We need information to make decisions and the government needs to help us, but we need to help ourselves. Host we go to california to hear from the democrats line. Earl. i name is i am very glad Interest Rates have been dropped. I am currently applying for a home loan so i can get into the market and take advantage of the low prices of stock and a lot of my friends in california are concerned about the high cost of living and they are thinking of selling their property and moving somewhere else. I dont know where they would i know a lot of people who are renting or thinking strongly of renting because of the high cost of moving somewhere else because of the high cost of rent. Host do you think the slowdown will delay efforts on your part . Are you concerned the market may not be there when things clear up and you go to apply for the loan . Caller i already applied for it, so it should be coming any day. If i kick myself because i did i amin the bottom still significantly ahead of the there isi understand this thing called a market land owner, you go to Charles Schwab and tell them i want you to buy one of these stocks whenever that one of them hits a certain mark goes down and then you bu y. I am expecting there to be a serious number of corrections between now and april 15 because people will have to sell stock. Host the Vice President , mike pence, leading the Coronavirus Task force for the white house and daily they have been running briefings late in the afternoon at the white house. A picture of the wall street journal with the headline u. S. Warns most americans to stay home. Dr. Anthony fauci warned it a few months before life returns to normal. He urged people to work from sociald prevent distancing. He suggested a 14 day lockdown. 14 day lockdown in the u. S. With chuck todd on meet the press. W you hising to sho comments and he was asked about that later in the day. Here they are. [video clip] i think we should be overly aggressive and get criticized for overreacting. Have you made this point of view known inside the as manager should inside the administration . Yes. They listen and generally go with what we say. I meant everything i said this morning on the shows. To protect the American People, we consider anything and everything on the table. You will see advanced and updated guidelines tomorrow. They will address some, but not all the questions and concerns. We look at this and we will do everything we can to make sure we safeguard the health and wellbeing of the American People and that means everything and anything, we will consider. Can you give us some examples . You say everything and anything, like what . No bars, no restaurants . That could be. Concreteu give us more now you must know what it is. I dont want to jump ahead of the guidance. Let the guidance come out, we will be here every day and i will answer the question after the guidance, i promise you. Host part of that briefing on twitter. A tweet from karen who says when trump says the virus is under tremendous control while governors are shutting down schools and events, i will continue to ignore the potus and listen to professionals. Michael says anthony ouchi is is the point man. The Mainstream Media tries to play gotcha when he is on. Lets hear from William Jefferson township pennsylvania, republican line. Think all this flap about coronavirus is overblown. I think the media loves it because they dont have to look for other stories. All you hear on the tv and the radio is coronavirus, they are closing the schools down here. I think it is an overreaction and it is ridiculous. More people died from this wind loop. Get real. An overreaction, are you taking the advice to stay close to home . Caller i am going to church, doing the things i usually do. Host did your church have a service yesterday . Caller yes, they do. They have mass every day and i was there on sunday. They are taking precautions, which is normal, necessary. Lets not get crazy. That is what we are doing. Host in salt lake city, utah, democrats line. Caller i seem to be a news addict and i think in times like this, it pays off. Have reached two conclusions one is that we should rely on our scientists for advice and guidance through this bad thing and the other thing is i am trumand of president when he took over the white , he walked in the oval wooden i dont how to describe it, sign and painted in black letters on top of that with the sign it said. He buck stops here host do you feel like the buck is stopping at the president s desk now . Caller no. Host why not . Caller i think he might have some psychological problems and it seems to me he has a difficult time accepting responsibility for anything that happens or doesnt happen. I wish he were a better leader, but i dont think he is doing his job and that is all i would like to say. Host kevin is next. Caller good morning, bill. It is good to see you. The response to the coronavirus, i think it is too early. At least put some time in between host i apologize, kevin, but we are losing you, the phone is fading in and out. The debate happened in washington between Bernie Sanders and joe biden. A report from reuters, biden gets backing from u. S. Largest u. S. Teachers union, the Democratic Front runner getting the backing of the National Education association, the Largest Teachers Union with 3 million members. Joe is the tireless advocate for Public Education and the partner that students and educators need. Joe biden addressed the issue of who he would choose as a Vice President. [video clip] if i am elected president , my cabinet, my administration will look like the country. I will appoint pick a woman to be Vice President. There are a number of women qualified to be president tomorrow. I would pick a woman to be my Vice President. Host we will go to john in connecticut, go ahead, john. Thank you for taking my call. I saw the press conference at the white house yesterday and trump talks about the Federal Reserve and he says we have control of the virus and pence echoes what he says and then you see the cdc dr. Say it will get worse before it gets better, what is going on in washington . I think the American People better get more truth from washington and shut this country down and get through this virus. Host are you saying you feel like there is a different message from President Trump and the rest of his team . Talked up the Federal Reserve and he saw him running off the stage. The American People need a real president , not a fake president. Host we played the comments of joe biden last night on who he would select about his cabinet and more broadly, specifically he would select a woman as president. Here is what Bernie Sanders had to say. [video clip] in all likelihood, i will. It is not just nominating a woman, it is making sure we have progressive women and there are progressive women. My strong tendency is to move in that direction. California,et in good morning. Caller good morning. I am an africanamerican woman and i voted as a democrat all my life. I have never voted for a republican candidate for president. This year, for the first time in my life, i will not be voting for either democratic candidate, biden nor Bernie Sanders. That is because after listening to the debate and previous debates, it is clear to me neither candidate has a specific agenda that addresses the needs of black americans. For that reason, i will be voting democratic down ballot with respect to president and congress. I will not be voting for gil cisneros who won his election by only 10,000 votes, so it will likely, this time, go back to kim, who ran against him. That is my comment, listening to the debate last night, it was all about open borders, nothing about addressing the specific needs of africanamericans with respect to the racial wealth gap. Host you would not vote for either democratic candidate, who would you vote for or would you avoid voting for president . Caller high will avoid voting for president. I cannot vote for president reduction int of snap benefits, a whole host of things he has done with respect to the environment and disability benefits, i cannot vote for President Trump, but i cannot vote for the Democratic Candidates either. It is one of those things, i hate that i am in this place, but i cannot do it. Host john in South Carolina on the democrats line, go ahead. Caller hello . Host you are on the air, go ahead. Caller i am a bit worried about how the government is using their authority to control the people. The firstainst amendment and they are trying to 50trict people to less than people in assembly. Dont you think we should be worried about how countries are shutting down entire populations . Story the the cdc recommends no events of more than 50 people. The cdc calling for the cancellation of in person events of 50 or more people for eight weeks to try to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, the Agency Issued new guidance as governors across the country directed bars and restaurants to close down with the exception of business. R delivery arizona, ohio, and other states shuttered school for a few weeks. I want to show you in the Financial Times paper this morning about how things are being handled a flavor of how things are being handled in europe. The headline says millions of european stay home as spain and france follow italys path. The streets of spanish cities were deserted, people are only permitted to leave their homes for specific purposes such as buying food, traveling to work, or tending to a vulnerable person. They will be enforced by police and army with violators likely to be fined. Bill is from michigan, republican line, good morning. Caller good morning. I think i am going to respond to the coronavirus. I believe President Trump did Everything Possible to head this thing off. China wasnt very forthcoming. They were infected long before the world knew about it. You cannot make test kits if you do not have a sample of the virus. Obviously, what is going on is something similar to when the japanese bombed pearl harbor. The Car Companies switched over from making cars to making stuff for the war and they did it quite quickly. Sure, it put them behind the eight ball a little bit because you cannot do that until they did what they did and it is the same thing with this virus. I think he has done everything he possibly can and every day he is coming up with new ideas from his experts and other governors around the country. Cuomo has a lot of good ideas to stop this from killing thousands of people. Democrats brag about all of europe, nobody pays for health care, it is all free. Their Health Care System is not doing them a whole lot of good , ist now in spain or italy it . We have the best in the world and when you have the best, you have to pay for the best. That is my comment. Host that is bills thoughts in michigan. In the new york times, it is going to be just fine, trump on the virus. President trump made his Public Comments about the coronavirus january 22 in a Television Interview from davos. Are theirked trump worries about a pandemic at this point . Not at all. It is one person coming from china and we have it under control. The seriousness of the virus was becoming clearer and trump faced a series of choices. He could have taken progressive spread. To slow the he could have urged americans, especially Older Americans to take precautions pretty could have used the powers of the presidency to reduce the number of people who would get sick. He did none of those things. I reviewed all of his public statements and actions over the last two months and they show a president who put almost no priority on Public Health. His priorities were different, making the virus sound like a nuisance, exaggerating his response, blaming foreigners and the obama administration, blaming claiming the situation was improving and tried to cheer up stock market investors. It was fitting his first public andents were from davos cnbc. Chaz from isla, independent caller. Go ahead. Isla, independent caller. Go ahead. Caller i want to respond to the recent two callers. It is surprising how uninformed americans are and the fact we think we are overreacting and dont realize the contingent contagion rates is three times greater, drastically greater and that we are more concerned about our right to assembly then we are about our grandparent dying or about the young people in the hospital and an older person in the hospital having a hospital employee having to choose who gets a ventilator. We are choosing who lives and who dies. I think we are so irresponsible horribly unsympathetic to the situation going on. We need to be more responsible and make a better decision to stay home. I coach and young people in the yologe ages right now, the and lets go travel are making such irresponsible decisions and people who are more willing to go out and do things and everybody concerned about High School Sports being canceled. We are probably a month away from having to stay in our homes and being fined if we leave our house and the sooner we take better actions and measures our president has not been willing or Strong Enough or intelligent enough to do, the sooner this gets better. That is all i want for our country, for this to get better and we have to make harsh action now. On theas this put a halt season whatever you are coaching or the school you are affiliated with . Caller we were in North Carolina for National Championships and told thursday night prior to competing that the meat was canceled and at home, i have 23 seniors who found out their Spring Season and final season of their career has been canceled and to try and have that conversation is challenging. Host . What sport . Caller track and field. Host can you tell us the college . Caller university of dubuque in iowa. They have been trying to mitigate the situation and i have been impressed with their communication trying to help and everyone of us who has gone on a spring break trip or competing outside of the state, we have all been on a 14day self monitor and i think they are an incredible job trying to help, haves i sit at home and time to research, i am amazed at the level of irresponsibility and ignorance of people with regard to this. Host you pointed out seniors especially will not have their final season, what has been your message to them . Caller we did a zoom Conference Call yesterday and the biggest challenge i apologize if i cry on air because i am trying to deal with this myself. They have to understand this is totally out of their control and not the way in which they expected their career in terms of competition to end. The biggest thing i told them is i love them and i miss them and i do not want it to end this way. The nca has given some relief, so those students who can afford to come back would compete next year, but that is not a feasible reality for many, especially activision three where we are not paying a scholarship to do this. The biggest thing i want them to understand is we have to realize there is a very important civic and social responsibly we have and unfortunately, sports organizations and School Districts and universities and colleges have been leading this charge rather than our federal government because they do not have anything in place to handle this. I have been impressed and proud of even professional sports organizations and School Districts and colleges and universities and the ncaa for making swifter action and taking steps to slow down the spread of this virus so that we can save lives and work towards getting back to life as normal sooner and so i wanted them to understand there is a lot more to this and something a lot bigger than a season in this situation we cannot control. Understand there is more at play and bigger things at play. Host appreciate you sharing that with us. Thanks for calling in. We will hear from scott next in arizona. My phrase for the commanderinchief, my terminology for everyone living throughout this globe. I am a retired military officer. I handled early warnings for tothern core, which extended 700,050 troops. Calledant general franks an operational pause when we had the 4 day ground war because he could not determine the core. Ine trace of seventh the firsthe punch of gulf war. We need an operational pause. When i was at fort knox, kentucky, as a civilian working for the army, i was doing a. Etwork migration testing host do you see a broader role for the military in this coronavirus outbreak . Absolutely. We have the ability to allow medical professionals to practice their skills, demonstrate proficiency and show the world and our taxpayers that the billions of dollars when you add them up over the years, which have become trillions and we have extended aid, that money went somewhere. Lets show if we can do it in foreign nations, we can do it on our own soil. Host appreciate you calling in on this monday morning, getting your thoughts on the federal, state, and local response to the coronavirus outbreak in your reaction, some of your thoughts on the debate last night. We are are carving all of our coverage, all of the briefings, coronavirus,org including the breathing Late Afternoon that featured Public Health on sunday talking about the next phase in testing for the coronavirus and here is what he had to say. [video clip] we believe we have created a model based on Public Health and the fema system that can be used for drivethrough or walkthrough. Each of these podbased units can screen 2000 to 4000 individuals a day for testing with all the appropriate effective gear and back end and linkage to the Health System including testing. We know we have the logistics to do that and the materials to do that. This is federally supported state led efforts. Want dozens of Public Health Service Officers to work in protective gear to test. They need supplies like protective gear, swabs, logistical supports. Other states only need a fraction of that. They may need the personnel, but they need the knowhow and template and they gear we surprised we supply. , the ber of states we are focusing on two important groups. The groups that can be the most impacted this is important for two reasons. We have to take care of Health Care Workers and responders. When America Needs them, they need to be healthy to provide the care we deserve. If they feel they have a risk of having contacted coronavirus, we test them so they cannot spread that in longterm care facilities where the elderly are. And the second group would be the elderly. We are classifying that according to risk as those 65 years or age of age or older with a respiratory symptom and a fever of 99. 6. That is a lower number because those who are older do not spike high fevers like children do, so you set the bar a little lower. We do that because we know they are high risk of bad consequences and if they test positive, they could engage with their practitioner, Telehealth Provider or get in the system. Unprecedented progress. You will see these sites rolling out progressively over the week, this is not makebelieve, this is not fantasy. We have developed the model and talk to states and we are focusing on specific locations. Stuffl start shipping tomorrow and deploying officers tomorrow and tuesday and we will see these sites in addition to the ones springing up now. Host that briefing from late yesterday, cspan. Org coronavirus. Stay close to cspan for updates. Your response on twitter, you can also text us. Tozie says this responding an earlier caller, thank you arizona caller, the military must be used and i believe trump will order it. Sean from florida, i think the Current Administration is doing an excellent job with the response, especially when you compare it to other countries of similar populations. The mortality rate seems to be much lower than the mortality rate of the virus in other parts of the world. Steve responding to an earlier caller says this is america where the coach is the smartest washingtoning into journal. He is taking this seriously, trump did not. Somebody has to step up. Thank you, governors. My friend who owns a gun store says gun and ammo sales are up. People expect civil unrest. This is the front page of the money section at usa today, guns, ammo sales soaring, virus fears prompt many to seek protection and we can show you the broader headline about shopping in Grocery Stores. I am sure many of you have experienced this, we thought the world had gone mad. Panic shopping leaves store shelves empty, people waiting. Shreveport, louisiana, independent line. They equated the Health Care System and the problems people are facing in italy on universal health care. Everyone in this country should be covered and have health care. There is no debate in all the rest of the countries that have some kind of universal health care. The only debate is happening in this country. At Yale University that it is beneficial and weamericans, cheaper should have universal health care. We are the only country that doesnt. How it is administrated and the rankings, this countrys Health Care System is not even in the top 10, not even in the top 20 based on the world health organization. There is a lot of problems that withto be done to deal what is happening with the. Eople i think we should be gearing up manufacturers should be gearing up to provide the things we need like respirators, test kits. That is one thing we really need to focus on, getting more people tested. I think we should have street testing and pretreatment for people who get sick and ill. I dont think we even know the thetion of people effect it is having on this dont have ase we large swath of people tested. We are one of the richest countries in the world and we have the least number of people tested and one of the largest is about asand that much as i want to say about this whole thing. Host greg in pennsylvania, republican caller. Caller yes. I am amazed at listening to the viewers. I have been waiting now for 20 plus minutes to get on. Nobody mentions china so far and i watched earlier and nobody did. Howink the issue here is politically correct everything has been spun. Why dont you, when someone says the coach a couple people supported the code from iowa who said people are ignorant. That is a ridiculous comment. People have positions, they have opinions, they are not ignorant because they dont agree with you. Maybe he is ignorant as far as i am concerned. Lets focus on what we have got to accomplish right now. Do i think the government has been perfect . No. Have they been good . Yes. Who is responsible for this . China. You have not covered not you, personally, but cspan, the doctor who exposed this, he is dead. The story that the Chinese Government knew about this a month before they told anybody else, and the fact they are accusing the United States army of starting this virus. All ofront page first of the Washington Times morning, the u. S. Battles lies about the virus origin. China, russia, and iran team up to spread a toxic propaganda. China, russia, and iran are flooding the Global Information space with false claims about the coronavirus according to u. S. Officials who say one of the biggest lies is that the virus is a u. S. Bioweapon was brought to china by u. S. Army personnel is the latest in a surge of propaganda aimed at undermining americas image on the world stage. Beijing, moscow, and tehran are using a vast web of social media accounts, fake news outlets, and statecontrolled Satellite Media to promote false claims by academics and government officials to blame washington for the crisis gripping most of humanity. Statead of a Key Department counter Disinformation Office said u. S. Officials are ramping up efforts to counter lies about the coronavirus that were first seeded first seeded by russia in january. In the cnn debate between the two Democratic Front runners, Bernie Sanders senator sanders said this about china s responsibility chinas responsibility. [video clip] we have got to learn you cannot lie to the American People, you cannot be less than frank about the nature of the crisis. What bothers me very much is you have a president of the United States today, mr. Trump, who is praising china for the good work they are doing when, as you indicated, they were lying to their own people and allowing that virus to move much more aggressively than should have been the case. I dont think this is the time to be punishing people. Now is the time to be working with china, they are learning a lot about the crisis and we have got to work with them, with the world health organization, italy, countries around the world. If there was ever a moment when the entire world is in this together, has got to support each other, this is that moment. Host don next in florida. Caller this debate thing where these bribe taking candidates are there is totally counterproductive to the idea that just people described in the constitution do not exist. Half of the population struggles to get from payday to payday and at the beginning we say the majority of the population does not exist and cannot have political existence. We ought to have a bifurcated convention. Host sarasota, florida, republican line. Yes. R i am confused about how joe biden can be running for proident when he committed or whatever it is. I am nervous, that is why. Host that is okay, go ahead with your comment. Caller anyway. I think we need to be more selective in our candidates running for president. Hey need to be scrutinized people that commit these crimes and get away with it and then have the nerve to run for our. Resident is abominable this should never be allowed in our country. Also, i think we need term limits for congress. I dont think they should ever be allowed to be giving themselves raises when people are struggling from paycheck to think trump i also is doing an excellent job despite the democrats. The man has had this country that is allrbly and i have to say. Host independent line in pearl river. With the lastur caller. I think the democratic debate was a joke last night. Either of the two candidates are totally not for the people. That is not why i called. I called because if we can implement government to dictate to us to not assemble and this and that and shut down restaurants, i am in the service industry. You are affecting millions and millions of people. Lyftnders, waitresses, etc. Rs, how people who live from paychecktopaycheck are going to survive . I applaud President Trump for his efforts and all that, but when you start shutting down left and right businesses at a certain time, you are affecting bigtime people. Little people who are the backbone of this country. Host host the u. S. House is coming back into session, what we expect will be a pro forma session. There are aspects to the legislation they passed on friday, the first congressional response to the coronavirus outbreak that the house has to complete. The house coming in at 11 00 a. M. Eastern live on cspan and. He u. S. Senate taking up the senate in at 3 00 p. M. Eastern and our coverage on cspan 2. Zach was talking about waitresses, service workers, here is a story. New york city orders a nightlife shutdown while bars, restaurants go takeout only. Calling from california, democrats line. Good morning. Good morning take this virus seriously. We dont have all the information on this. People who are going to run around and do their regular routine or what they can do are pretty selfish. This could get to the point of where we need hospital machines, ventilators, hospital workers where i have heard we are going to have overcrowding of hospitals potentially. You know it is serious if casinos in las vegas are shutting down. They are shutting down casinos in las vegas, it is serious. Onthe people out there, err caution. Be patient and see what happens. Not ass a big hoax or bad as everybody says it is, give it a week or two and see what happens. I think Everybody Needs to err on caution. Host bobby on our republican line, good morning. Thisr i am wondering when virus started, why didnt they start doing something then . Why did they wait until now . What is your thinking on that . Why do you think the federal response was not as quick as you would like . Caller well i was going to vote democrat, but i am going to vote republican now because they were more concerned about impeaching donald trump than they were this virus. This started a month ago over in china. It dont make sense. Host some analysis this morning from a political analyst for the Washington Post who writes this, the headline says the pandemic is altering politics, but this debate sounded like all others. For much of the debate, it seemed like business as usual. Both candidates no everything is changinging because of the spread of coronavirus. It is one of the disruptions of daily lives to tens of millions of americans. Questions about the leadership offered by President Trump. The setting alone spoke to the extraordinary changes the coronavirus is forcing on everyone. The debate was scheduled to be held in phoenix before a live audience. Sanders and biden met each other at studios with three moderators, but no audience. It was a throwback to the first president ial debate of the modern aero win john f. Kennedy whenichard nixon era john f. Kennedy and Richard Nixon met without any audience. [video clip] i did not. I never voted i voted to protect it. With paule debate ryan for the presidency. Look at what i did. Will you acknowledge your campaign took out of context that exchange between paul ryan . Are you saying put a fact politifact is wrong . They are wrong on a lot of things. Why are they wrong on that . Answer my question and i will answer yours. Were you on the floor talking about the need to cut Social Security and medicare and veterans programs. I did not talk about the need to cut any of those programs. Go to youtube, it is all over the place. I am surprised you can defend you can change your mind on it, but you cannot deny the reality. I want to ask you about something you wrote in 1996. You are a member of the house and wrote an oped that said it is clear we will have to make adjustments in Social Security taxes and benefits. Why are your past comments any less relevant . Adjustments i advocated and have advocated for years is among other things increasing the cost of living living. You are not going to find me calling for cuts to Social Security. Byht now, we determine looking at inflation for the general population rather than segregating the higher cost seniors are paying for prescription drugs and health care. Thats what i was talking about. Others were with the effort that included cuts to Social Security raising the retirement age, i formed along with people like barbara boxer, the defending Social Security caucus went 20 of our seniors are trying to get by on 13,000 a year or more we are not going to cut Social Security. Host part of last nights cnn debate. Your thoughts on the federal response to the coronavirus, reaction to the debate as well. 202 7488000 for democrats. 202 7488001 for republicans. And for independent and others, 202 7488002. You can also send us a text at 202 7488003. We will get your calls and comments in a moment. The u. S. Senate expected to take up the coronavirus legislation passed late on friday covering the u. S. Senate for bloomberg is Steven Dennis who joins us this morning. Stephen denis, we mentioned a short while ago that the house actually has to wrap up some work on the bill. Its not a complete package. Tell us more about that. Guest there is talk of the need for some kind of technical corrections. Keep in mind this bill was sort of written on the fly friday night in the midst of daylong negotiations between Speaker Pelosi and treasury secretary steven mnuchin. They passed it shortly after it was unveiled on mid night. Many ocean set on saturday there would need to be a technical correction. Gettingte is waiting on a technical correction in the bill. Something like a technical correction can be handled by a few folks in the House Chamber with unanimous consent provided nobody objects. So we are going to see what will happen there. Even if that happens, even if they deliver the bill to the neede chamber, you still senators to agreed to pass it today. Its not clear thats going to happen. Host tell me what changed in majority leader Mitch Mcconnells view on this legislation. A week ago it appeared majority leader was dead set against taking up that legislation, did not like what he was seeing. What changed . ,uest what he had been saying the administration is going to need to, with an agreement with Speaker Pelosi. So the senate was not a huge part of this negotiation. It was involved but it was not the main part of the negotiation. The administration got behind it , Mitch Mcconnell on friday expectssically said he the majority of the senate to want to act quickly on this legislation. Since then senator ron johnson on saturday said he did not like the paid sick leave provision in this bill so he is suggesting moneyifferent route to people who have to stay home because of coronavirus. If there are objections like that and Senators Press them, that could delay passage of a bill for a number of days. , i think thes of passing a bill this week are extremely high or even in the next day or two. The final product, it is not guaranteed to be exactly what passed the house. If the Senate Changes that would require the house to then turn around and passed it by unanimous consent for bringing the house back. Host it would not be absolutely necessary that the house would have to return but certainly there were some 30 republicans that voted against that legislation and the house on friday night. Guest i think about 40 republicans. A number of them complained it was very rushed, that there was no cost estimate yet. There are a lot of people who dont like particular provisions of this bill. Its got a lot of different provisions. It has eight to states, workers. This mandate doesnt apply over businesses to businesses over 500 people. Some big businesses dont have to comply so there are folks on both sides who want to amend this thing. Chuck schumer on saturday said theres going to be a lot of people with great ideas. Lets deal with that in the next bill. Mitch mcconnell has already said the senate wants to do more. A lot more for the economy. Especially given the situation with markets and the fact that a lot of states are closing down their shops and closing down their bars and restaurants. Airlines have cut back dramatically on their schedules they are warning about profits so theres a lot of talk of an economic rescue package that would probably be much bigger than this one. This one is very targeted. While it is not cheap, it would be in the tens of billions perhaps over 100 billion for this package depending on how many people claim this benefit. Trillion dollar level like we saw back in 2008 and it is not does not have the payroll tax cut the president wanted which would also be much bigger. Theyre still going to be a lot of work to do. All this is happening at the same time the cdc is saying you should not have gatherings of more than people. The senate is 100 people. A lot of them are Senior Citizens and dick durbin yesterday urged mcmichael Mitch Mcconnell to pass all these bills by unanimous consent so senators are not getting on air lanes and a lot of people are not taking risks to come to the capital. Host your story at bloomberg. Com. You must be burning the midnight oil posting this morning at 4 00 a. M. Risks being slowed by a few gop senators concerns. In terms of the next step legislation the senate may take, do you think the senate will take the lead this time around given the house likely will be out this week . Guest guest its really going to depend on what happens when the senators convene tonight. If they continue to stick around tomorrow and have their usual lunches, the guidance last week was that this was going to be a thatl week for the senate normally means coming in monday night and leaving thursday early afternoon. So youve got several days. I think senators are going to want action. I think that is the problem is theres so many different ideas and so many different interests at stake and so many folks being told not to come to work. Its going to just be very challenging to write that next bill. Host if there any talk at all if the house or senate the house is out on their disreport. Is there a chance that they may delay returning longer than just a week in the senate may follow suit and postpone the session . Guest theres a lot of speculation about that. I have not seen a lot of that from senators for members of congress. But if you look around the country, a lot of statehouses are gearing up to shut down. State house i used to cover, the maryland state house, is closing their session on wednesday. Going to come back in may. This is the sort of thing that does not happen so this is a unique circumstance. I think things the way they looked on friday, they look different on monday. Fast. K this is moving so its possible the senate comes back today and makes agreements tonight and agrees to go home. It ought it is also possible they say we need to be here theres too much work to do for us to all go home. Host stephen dennis, Senate Reporter for bloomberg. Bill burck. Com. Thanks so much. Back to your calls and comments momentarily. A couple of texts and tweets. Our text line, 202 7488003. This is from kevin. It trump at the White House Press briefing yesterday talks about the Federal Reserve and saying the viruses under control and then using our president runs off the stage and the cdc says its going to get worse before it gets better. We need a real president jimbo in bakersfield, california. I know im being an alarmist but i keep thinking of stephen kings book the stand with blue oyster colts dont fear the reaper playing on an endless loop in my head. Chris, who says on twitter, we do not have the best Health Care System according to we are not one of the 15 countries in the best health care. Number one, canada, number 15 sweden. The president irresponsible because he did not take action until recently. Roy says the george bush style of economic stimulus is required right now sent each taxpayer a check for 5,000 to see them through to the end of this catastrophe. That would be better than the one point 5 trillion of inflation that was rolled out to the bank stirs. Virginiain montpelier,. Thanks for waiting. Caller i appreciate it. As the dust of the situation continues to rise in a scenario akin to the fog of war, with regards to origin of this particular strain of coronavirus and whether or not it indeed is a biological weapon i assume the broad speculation of the general public coupled with the state of panic that is seemingly sweeping the world has the potential to result in a variety of fully schist opinions. A speech i came across. In 2005. Ihao vidual ch after reading that and having said what i did say after reading the speech it would seem it provides some insight. Usually it is interesting to think the American People have said for a decade or more while china has made some of the statements theyve made that really have not been widely expressed in our press or media. I would implore people to look up the content of this speech his very troubling to say the least and im not indicating one way or the other i have an opinion that is formulated based on the expressions put forth in the media and different places i go to for my information. Im not suggesting anything one way or the other but i think out of all of this it should be a moment where we draw back from deeply held political beliefs and not use this moment as a podium to assert those things that whether or not this was going on we would be rallying forward to begin with. Withe debate last night shanghai joe and beijing burning it was interesting to see Bernie Sanders hearken to something hes been declaring for decades. The premise that universal health care is the solvent that will serve as a balm for the wounds of the world. I find that to be laughable. Im is an insight into my politics with regard to the democrat primary process or the lack thereof. Host brian is next up on the democrats line. Caller thank you very much. I just wanted to say to all these people out here that believe that weve made good , iisions with this pandemic was watching last night, theres a show called it was made in 2017, how the world and come about the next pandemic. They hit the nail on the head. In every aspect of what was going to transpire. Seen this is just the facts. We have seen that it originated in china. Once it got out of china we could see it was headed this way. How it was headed. What did we do . Trump said everything is under control. Its going to be just fine. Dont worry about it. It goes to south korea. Why is it that south korea was able to test over 200,000 people a day . They tested everybody. Not just of people that were symptomatic, which is what we are doing. And also, what italy is doing now. They tested everybody. And they were able to get it under control rather quickly and the reason is, they used the World Health Organizations test. This was the gold standard. Its a German Company that makes the test with officers here in the states. What did trump do . We are not going to use that test. Were going to develop our own tasks. They put a test out, used the task and then they find out the test does not even work. Then they have to go back to the drawing board to develop another test and so now they are doing things now that should have been done weeks ago. He stands up there and says everybody who wants a test can get a test. You tell people were sick, just go to work. President is not serious about something, a lot of the country is not going to be serious about it. So everybody that says hes done a good job, just look at the facts. He wanted to leave the people out on the ship, out in that floating petri dish because he wanted the numbers to stay low. Host we show you the numbers worldwide. Show your we show those to you again. This from the Johns Hopkins university the center for systems science and engineering coronavirus cases worldwide total confirmed case is now nearly 170,000 over 6500 deaths see in the you can u. S. The numbers in the u. S. Total confirmed cases as of this morning. 3774. The total deaths, 69 with 42 of those deaths in Washington State. Hearing from brooksville, florida we go to the republican line and hear from denise. Hello. Caller hello. I wish we would get some interviews of the people that have had this terrible disease and see how they compare it to the common cold or any flu they have had over their lifetime. People are american keeping all this information from us so we can keep this big hysteria going. And im a Small Business person and this is putting almost putting me out of business. Host what kind of business do you have . Caller im an artist and i do outdoor events. All of my shows in florida have been canceled. And this is a peak time of the year for us to make our income. This is a violation of our freedom. It almost is feeling like martial law. Whats going to happen next . Host so lets say there were not they were just suggestions for avoiding crowds, do you think the effect would still be the same . People going we choose not to go to that part show . That outdoor event or that gathering . Do you think because so many jurisdictions, because the cdc has suggested less than 50 people and groups, because of that people are more attuned to it . Understand all this jurisdiction thing. In my local little town we had an art festival this weekend. It went on. I went and talked to the director and i said whos telling you we cannot have these art festivals because they are getting canceled all over the state and she said it was up to Art Committee can make the decisions and we decided it is not that big a deal and theres only read thousand people out of 360 million in the country have it and we dont even know how bad it really is. People came. There was crowds coming. It was a three day show in vero beach. A lot of my friends were there and they were having a great show on friday. The police came in told them they had to pack up and get out of there. Host that was in vero beach he said . Caller yes. If that is not close to making people feel like this is martial law coming down on us, i dont know what is. Host thats denise in florida. Some polling from the wall street journal. The headline says front runner takes wide lead in primary race. Democratic present to primary voters now overwhelmingly back joe biden over Bernie Sanders, a reversal in their standings of just one month ago. The latest wall street journal shows among those who have already voted or plan to do so 61 support the former Vice President while 32 would prefer a vermont senator as the partys nominee or they write the standings are major change from midfebruary when the survey showed mr. Sanders act by 27 of democratic voters and mr. Biden favored by just 15 . The debate happening last night in washington on cnn. Senator sanders asked how he would handle the coronavirus outbreak if he were president today. [video clip] the first thing we have got to do whether or not im president is to shut this president up right now. Undermining the doctors and scientists trying to help the American People. Its unacceptable for them to be blabbering with on factual information which is confusing the general public. Second of all, but we need to do, im glad he is called estate of National Emergency. What weve got to do is move aggressively to make sure that every person in this country finally understands that when they get sick with coronavirus all they will that payments will be made. They dont have to worry about coming up with money for testing. They dont have to worry about coming up with money for treatment. This is an unprecedented moment in american history. I obviously believe in medicare for all. I will fight for that as president but right now in this emergency i want every person in this country to understand that when you get sick you go to the doctor. When you get sick if you have the virus that will be paid for. Do not worry about the cost right now because we are in the middle of a National Emergency. We have to make sure our hospitals have ventilators they need, have the ic units they need. Right now we have a lack of medical personnel and i worry very much that if there is a peak whether we have the capability of dealing with hundreds of thousands of people who may be in hospitals. So we need unprecedented action right now to deal with the unprecedented crisis. From an economic point of view what weve got to say to the American People, if you lose your job, you will be made whole. You will not lose income. If trump can if the fed can trillionrillion 1. 5 into the Banking System we can protect wages of americans. Host President Trump talked about that at the briefing yesterday. Reporting here from politico the headline trump urges no hoarding as coronavirus panic strains Grocery Stores in the shot of an empty produce shelf in burbank, california. Trump administration and grocery Industry Leaders say the u. S. Food supply chain is holding up despite heavy strain amid worries over the coronavirus outbreak which has cleared out shelves of nonperishable foods household cleaners and essentials. On sunday President Trump held a phone call with it Food Industry executives to discuss how they are managing the crisis. Growers have been reducing hours deep cleaning stores and offering disinfectant wipes to shoppers. They are limiting purchases per customer of hand sanitizers, toilet paper and other high demand products and during a news conference, trump said grocery firms urged him to communicate the message to consumers to avoid panic buying. Theres no need for anybody in the country to hoard essential food supplies. To our republican line in new port richey, florida. This is linda. Caller hello. Thank you. Awould like to bring up gentleman, bill gates. On october 18 2019, gave a it,ure on youtube i saw where he was discussing how they were going to have a were herschel over a plan to see what would happen if there was an outbreak. I dont know what type of outbreak. They had that plan. He has been working with the chinese about g5 and he has also now stepped down from his company. Hes no longer the head of his company. That is bill gates. Whos interested in lowering the population. Host marietta, georgia. We hear from bradley. Good morning. Caller caller i want to say thank you to cspan. Also, universal health care to me seems like a National Security issue. Our country can only be safe as long as the weakest link in the chain, a homeless person or whatever, they have health care. If youre rich and have the best health care on the planet it does not matter if the poorest person in the gutter get smallpox, we are all in trouble. Also it seems like an economic disadvantage when you have canada, australia, china, europe , all these places have universal health care and instead the price and everything is dropped on the American Population and operations so i dont see how that can be an effective way to run an economy. Last, this virus is not Donald Trumps fall. We all knew who donald trump was. Hed been around. The fault lies with the republicans and the people who vote for him. Commandment inst the bible says he should not put any other god before i feel the republicans have insistently put their faith a demagogue, doll trump. He could very well be the antichrist. Host the news over the weekend from georgia. Wsb tv from their website president ial primary delay National Guard deployed in georgia over virus fears. The georgia secretary of state said in a statement that in person early voting which began on march 2 will be halted and the election will be moved to may 19 when georges other 2020 primary elections are being held. We go to the democrats, the independent line and hear from debbie. Caller im calling in regards to the press conference yesterday where the president , along with medical expert advised to avoid crowds and such. During that same time, when they are speaking about avoiding crowds and stuff, multiple airports in the u. S. Had hundreds if not thousands of people exposed to the situation that they are telling you to avoid. They make policies but they they make policies before they are able to enforce the policy and have the supplies and staffing to enforce what they are saying. Its a recipe for disaster. Host the st. Peters missouri, mark on the republicans line. Caller thank you for taking my call. I wanted to comment. I think President Trump and his administration, i believe they are doing the best job they possibly can. Just camecular virus upon us like a landslide and slammed our country. I think they are doing the best they can. Iselieve part of the problem some of the news media like cnn and msnbc, they come out and they talk about it, if you listen to them, all they are hammeringashing and donald trump like its all his fault and everything. I truly think they are doing the best they can under the circumstances. I think the American People need responsibility in their lives for this. They talked about hearing everybody say people are living paychecktopaycheck and they cant afford to take off work and their children going to school and what are they going to do. I think the American People need to bear some responsibility in this. And if you are living paychecktopaycheck my question would be why. Its not how much money you make but more importantly its what you do with the money that you are not putting money away for savings or some type of emergency like this i truly feel they are not doing their part. Brandnewr drives a chevy tahoe probably a 50,000 vehicle. Andy says he has absolutely no money or cannot afford daycare and things like that for his children and im like youve got to be kidding me. Host i want to remind you that Coronavirus Task force, they will be holding a briefing this morning at 10 30 eastern, two hours from now. Look for that live on cspan. You can also follow it on cspan radio in the cspan radio app. In florida on the republican line. Caller thank. , he thoughtp is everything was a hoax to begin with. And he has cut so many things, trying to send us back 50 years. The thing i like to ask you, have they ever found the parents awaye children he took before . Host joan, im not exactly sure what youre referring to. More ahead on washington journal. We will focus in our next segment on the economic effect, the Economic Impact of the coronavirus outbreak and the federal response. Members of the centers for american progress. The latest news from the fed chair as washington journal continues, next. We are asking voters what issues should the president ial candidates addressed. Media bias because no matter what network youre looking at with the exception of a handful, theres rampant bias and they are dishonest about it. They tell you they are giving you objective information when it is not. That is wrong in my opinion. The most important issue in 2020 is raising the minimum wage. I know too many people that have to work multiple jobs to make and meet and cannot support their families. I think that needs to change. One of the many issues i like to see is people addressing the issues and fulfilling campaign promises. There are many candidates that are fighting over this is my agenda leaves of the people i want underneath me. This is the program i want. This is where the money is going, these the things we would like to address. Protecting where our food comes from and some of our vast commodities particularly in utah. The issue thats most important to me in campaign 2020 is the overwhelming threat Artificial Intelligence poses on our livelihood. We really cant predict how dangerous its going to be. I think the most important issue for me is how the candidates tend to address growing encroachment of china. Specifically in the pacific. My country recently switched allegiance from taiwan to china. That is concerning especially with some of the things we are hearing coming out of mainland china. I would like to see somebody see candidates i would like to see how candidates intend to address that. Voices from the road on cspan. Washington journal continues. Journalre on washington , we are joined by two economists to help talk about the economy. The Economic Impact of the coronavirus. We want to ask you both, first the move by the Federal Reserve yesterday to lower the Interest Rate to reduce more money into the marketplace, what did you think of that. What did you think of that . Guess the idea was to inject with quiddity into the market and apparently the market did not react very positively. Ive been seeing whats been happening this morning. A big drop of 4 . I think right now maybe the liquidity problem may not be the main issue. Pretty sure it is not the main issue. Neededhat might be very but right now it was too soon. Host host when you say liquidity problem what does that mean in laymans terms . Veronique it means injecting capital into the economy. People want to continue doing. Usiness and have needs they have access to funds to do so. Host in response to your comment about how the markets are doing, stocks and bonds yields plummet after the fed slashes rates area Andres Vinelli, whats going to settle investors . Have two bignk we uncertainties. The first one is we dont know exactly the medical nature of this virus. That is unsettling investors. Uncertainty,ing what will the government exactly do about this . Once we are little more clear about this that about these issues, we will figure out a way to carry on with life in a normal way and that will settle investors minds. Host in terms of a legislative solution are there lessons to be learned from how congress and the federal regard the federal government responded to the financial crisis of 2008 that may be applicable here . Very good this is a question. This is nothing like the kind of recession potentially. I dont know if we are officially into a recession but this is nothing like what weve seen before. A traditional recession comes from the reluctance of people to spend money because they dont have it and are unemployed or because they worried theyre going to lose their job in the future so they are not spending. They are saving their money for harder this is not what we have right now. We have low unemployment still. We have low Interest Rates. , we have aunts really booming economy. The problem we have has nothing to do with the kind of things the monetarys are looking at when they were designing tools to respond to recession. What we have right now, we have a situation where basically people are not consuming, not because they dont have cash, but because they dont want to go out and get sick and infect other people, or get sick themselves. This is unique. During a recession you have Government People putting money into peoples pockets to try to give them incentive to consume. Host like in 2008. Veronique what you have here is governments limiting consumption. It does not mean that there arent people who need to have money in their pocket. We should not do it to stimulate the economy. We should do it as a safety net, emergency safety net measures because there are people who are going to lose their jobs as a result. There are people right now who cant stay home because they dont have paid leave and doing everything on a very targeted basis is important. It should not be done in the name of the economy for now. Lets talk about it when we have a more traditional recession. Host host too early for the broader response but more targeted response to individuals affected by this . Andres i think veronique is right. We do know a few things from what we did during the financial crisis. We know it works. Things that are less powerful. Believe in a big response. I believe in a response that happens as quick as possible. The good news is that we are getting there. I think congress is getting through that. The administration is slowly but surely getting there. I think veronique, you are right in that this one is different. I believe their approach is a very good approach in the sense this is a Public Health emergency. Its about people staying at home and not being able to do stuff and we have to support peoples health. That actually requires big bucks. Its a lot of money. We need to be ready to spend it but its more of a social safety net. A Public Health emergency. There are things we can do with the economy. At this stage its about people carrying on with normal life. Its not about dollars and cents and the economy. Believee if you spending can actually have an impact on the economy and that was the growing theory into thousand nine with the recession , one of the things economists are saying is the way you spend the money is important. It needs to be timely. If you do a lot of these measures to early at the time when the problem is not to put money into peoples pockets so they will hire people off the unemployment line to go do some jobs, if you do that too early its counterproductive. We have learned a lot from past recessions about what we should do and not do. There is a role for talking in the future about responding to a recession. Theres no doubt this Public Health issue will and already has economic consequences. We have to be careful about what we use and when we use it because it may not work at all. Morningr guest this veronique de rugy and Andres Vinelli, focusing on the Economic Impact so far of the coronavirus outbreak. We welcome calls and comments. 202 7488000 for eastern and central time zones. 202 7488001 for mountain and pacific. Following up on the 2008, hank paulson had an opinion piece over the weekend, how the 2008 facecial panic can help coronavirus. He says notwithstanding tensions between the parties between the branches, it may be necessary to give the administration Broad Authority and flexibility to act within parameters and oversight structure set by the legislature. When facts change on the ground. More authority to the executive. Under spinelli . What do you think of Hank Paulsons idea . Andres i think the administration has not responded very well so far. Theyve been very slow. Their priorities have been wrongfooted by trying to cut snap for instance. Trying to cut social safety nets. Among other programs may have been cutting medicaid. So there is lack of trust about priorities. What i think we should do, representatives should make a lot of effort to come up with the right measures. They should be big, quick. Its ok to have some government discretion, especially in the the financial area. We need to make sure they have the resources to inject that liquidity veronique was talking about. If banks are suffering because of this, if banks are not able to give Small Businesses credit lines, we need to make sure there is money for that. For that kind of financial stuff, yes. For basically social expenditures, snap and all of that, we need congressional overnight congressional oversight. We need to make sure the money is going to the people who need who areost, that people sick are not going to work. There is a bill out there in congress right now that was approved by the house that basically says that everyone will get paid sick leave. The last thing we want is for people who are sick to show up at work because they dont have a regular paycheck. But there is a huge loophole. A loophole that people close to the administration that says thats as if you have more than 500 employees you dont need to for medical leave. Arnold schwarzenegger used to say that as a loophole that i can drive my hummer into. Very bad so we need to fix that right now. Veronique the restriction on snap and medicaid were not done as a response to the crisis. They were prior to veronique but it is the mindset andres but it is the mindset. Veronique it is important. We can discuss whether it is a good idea. I think it is a good idea to take care of the most vulnerable right now and do it on a temporary and targeted basis. I think that is important because they are the ones with less leeway. As for the paid leave thing, i agree with you that it is completely it is very strange. When you look at 75 of americans, all workers with paid sick leave, it is like three out of four. A significant amount. Thosehese People Companies have already programs designed to respond in cases like this. Out . Ive them an means are not the people who need it. What you need is to address only 40 of parttime workers and hourly workers have paid sick leave. Right now i think it is appropriate to keep sick people at home. So you target on these people who do not have it. Host we will get your calls and comments. I want to play both of you the comments from jerome powell, the fed chair. This was an audio only briefing for reporters on the reduction in Interest Rates. Heres what he had to say. [video clip] 1. 5 Percentage Points bringing that rate to a quarter of a percent. The discount window plays an Important Role in supporting liquidity and stability in the Banking System and we encourage me demand for credit from household and businesses. To make the discount window more effective we will also offer discount window loans for periods up to 90 days. Because of the importance to the u. S. Dollar in the Global Economy strains and markets for borrowing and lending dollars overseas can disrupt financial conditions here in the United States. To guard against such disruptions the Federal Reserve maintains swap lines with five major Central Banks. When dollar funding pressures emerge abroad though Central Banks can contain the pressures in their jurisdictions and prevent them from impeding the flow of credit here at home. U rugy,air veronique dewa do you think this is a good response to that . Is it or too early for measures like this . Veronique really above my area of expertise, the monetary side of things. I think as long as it is targeted to smaller businesses and households its possibly a good response. All i can say is the stock whetherponse is this is a good policy or bad policy. Ive seen it in other areas. Sometimes im skeptical. In this case it did not seem to like it. I do not know why. I think it is maybe because this is not what they needed or maybe it is the fact that we already have low Interest Rates and lowering rates further at this point is not necessary. Im not exactly sure. Something apparently people thought was not working. Host host we will get the calls in a moment. The question is tengion legislation the senate is developing target industries life of the cruise lines or whatever, relief for those industries. Is it too early for that kind of measure . Focus i think we should on the most vulnerable type of people. People who are going to likely suffer from staying at home without a paycheck, without knowing whether they can show up in the hospital and a big bill will show up two weeks later. Those are the problems that we need to address right now. Making sure people have Affordable Health care. They have it, that there is free testing, free treatment for coronavirus or anything related to that. That if you stay home theres a paycheck that will show up. If not there is some kind of government check coming your way. We need to make sure Small Businesses have assurances that the government is there to lift them up. To help them out through the storm. That banks are able to lend money knowing the Federal Reserve and the government is backing them up. Thats the priority. We do not know one thing we learned from the financial crisis, you do not know where the problems will be in the economy. Talking about bailouts and things like that, its too early. Things will happen in unexpected ways. We dont know what this thing exactly is. Right now we need to help people. Administration, one of the directions the administration is taking, its a good direction, we cannot overlook the importance of the role the private sector is going to play in this recovery. The Public Health one and the economy one. The fact that he said he would get rid of some of the red tape that is hindering innovation, hindering the ability to put out tests for everyone, this is a good thing. Allowing companies to be more innovative to come up with a vaccine, these are important steps. I think if we are going to be spending money we need to put it in Public Health. Public health, meaning making sure Health Professionals have what they need. That Health Professionals are protected first and foremost because if they are sick we have a problem. So theres a lot of things that need to happen before we start thinking about bailouts. Worryrstand that theres in the economy. United announced it was going to proactively its employment. This. Hear more of right now, lets see where we are. Lets see how americans do in flattening the curve for this thing. Theres so much we dont know. Host we will start in omaha, nebraska and hear from terry. You are on the air. Caller good morning. I know its not the president s fault, but at one time the president said it was no big deal. They have not said it lately but at one time they said the u. S. Was the richest country in the world. Why poornderstand cant take off their job or Something Like that because like i said they said at one time that it was the richest country in the world so i want to know talk about that please. Thank you. Host thank you. Veronique theres a lot of and i think that now everyone seems to be relatively on message and giving good information about this crisis. It comes to actually giving lower income people jobs, we are a very rich country. Right now the priority is to make sure people dont get infected. It does not mean people should people cannot go to work. There are people who are going to have to go to work. We need to make sure that people dont get infected and people who are sick stayathome. The issue is quite different than demanding that everyone work or creating incentives for everyone to work. This is where it is so different from the past. We need to make sure those who are sick stayathome and those who have to stay home can weather this storm and the ones who are least likely to be able to do this are lower income people and this is why there is somewhat of a focus on them right now. Closinge of the places our retailers. Wall street journal has a piece, retailers temporarily close stores in the u. S. , abercrombie , Urban Outfitters among several that they mention in the article. Closing the stores, people obviously are not out spending money. Oft are the signs in terms recession that we should be mindful of here . Inres does a lot of delay this type of information. The data that we economists follow on a daily basis, it is delayed by its nature so the numbers will not look bad for a little while. What we have is sort of indicators like the fever. We dont know what the underlying cause but we have indicators that show us fever. Stock markets going down or the price of oil going down. I kind of stuff points to everything going to be big. We dont know for how long but basically the economy is taking a pause for good reason. We need to stay home and follow what Public Officials are saying. A big decrease in activity for the economy. We dont know for how long. Hopefully a few weeks. The challenge will be how do we restart it but a big lesson from all of this is that we need to be prepared from a Public Health perspective. Make sure that everyone is sure that you can go to the doctor and get a reasonable bill for treatment and all that. Thats the missing link we were not prepared for this because our Public Health system is not up to par. Host gregory and sherman oaks california. You are on the line. Caller hello. The parallels between the current coronavirus emergency and the slow motion but ultimately far more threatening andate crisis are startling barely commented on to my great surprise. Our socalled leaders in the Republican Party starting with President Trump have called oath of these emergencies a hoax and in both cases have delayed action to address each of the , but time that action could affect the best possible results. In one case starting some three decades ago and in the other case starting some three weeks ago. The huge is locations and pain this viral emergency is creating and will create can produce significant longterm value if the reduction in Carbon Emissions already caused by the virus emergency and if the many basic changes we are now learning to live with in particular learning how to live without flying in jet planes are intelligently locked in so that the new ways of living that we are doing now can translate into the way we save our planet, which will turn into a bigger emergency and we need to look at both of these crises through the same lens and look for the ways in which we respond to the Current Crisis in ways that will help us address the far more threatening and ultimately horrific climate crisis. Say ue i was going to [laughter] andres i think gregory is absolutely right. The analogies, its very appropriate. Climate change is equally as deadly but it happens very slow. Unfortunately the president has been in denial for both. Every time he is asked about these issues he focuses on the stock market, which is the wrong instinct. We should focus on people and threats to our way of life. The coronavirus and Climate Change, in different ways, do threaten our way of life. We need Decisive Action and leadership. Corona is more urgent. More on that today. Both are threats that need to be addressed with real government policies. Host one other ways the president has been responding, hes done this sort of throughout his presidency. He gathers together Industry Leaders and yesterday speaking at the white house talked about Grocery Store owners and Food Companies not the u. S. On a Conference Call with the president , sort of a different model for the president to do. How effective do you think the president can be and getting industries onboard and cooperate in a period like this . Tell. Que its hard to weve never had this before. Of the things we dont want is we dont want supply chain to be completely cut off. We dont want food did not actually be available in stores. I think he is being proactive it sees here and trying to what ideas are out there and what the Grocery Stores and Industry Leaders in that field need in order to make sure this does not happen. Apart from that im not really sure. Mike you are on the air we will get to you. This is chris in louisiana. I want to ask a question. One question specifically. Every year their selection we flu come type of around. Is that a government conspiracy or what . I just really want to know. Host mike, there you are. Hello. The biggest problem we have with all of the americans out here is the Interest Rates on our credit cards. If you want to help the lower income or middle american, you need to pass a law that places like chase and citibank cant charge more than 5 . They are charging up to 30 on people. It is almost criminal. The most they should charge for the next two years is 5 . Torybody right now is going the store with their credit cards. If you lose your job, youre going to use your credit card. If you want to help people, make a law. Dont let these people rob the American People. Host he is talking about credit. Prices as well, we are seeing shortages in Grocery Stores, how concerned are you about prices being jumping quickly . Guest i want to be careful there. I think we should be mindful of price gouging as a general matter. Tople should not be able charge astronomical fees on credit cards, but also prices on basic goods. That is something the government can do. Is somethinghanism that works very well most of the time. Signal scarcity, so we want to be mindful not to mess too much with the price system. Price gouging, we need to do something about it. Especially in finance, the caller is right. But in general with basics like sanitation items anything related to treatment, we want to make sure the government is very vigilant. General price controls, broadbased price controls are more difficult. Host in terms of credit card interest, that is not an issue that is new to this crisis. Do not useful this moment to make permanent changes. That are completely unrelated to this crisis. That it is important first to show that this is not about politics, this is not about using this emergency as an excuse to do things we have wanted to do all along. Everything we do should be on a temporary basis. As for price gouging, when you , it tells you this is the big difference with 2008 where people could not sell their inventory. People actually do not have inventory right now. The increasing prices is really mostly the product of an increase in demand. I think talking about price theing and talking about government needs to intervene is the wrong thing to do. Remember, prices are important in our economy. One of the things they do is as prices go up, a lot of people who are buying simply because they are worried may it may actually slow down how much they are buying and stockpiling. That is a positive thing. The other thing is as prices go shiftpital resources towards producing things that are now extremely profitable. This is why you see Companies Like sharp, the tv company, making facemasks. Distilleries are making hand sanitizers. They are doing it mostly for charitable reasons. Them are going to end up selling it. As supply increases, prices go down. Say,ally have to increasing price is a reflection of people jacking up their demand of something very suddenly. In it becauseue it is an important signal. They be the most important signal we have. Host we are talking about the Economic Impact of the coronavirus outbreak in the government response. Guests, veronique de rugy from George Mason University and Andres Vinelli from the center of american policy. We are not a breaking news network here, but the stock markets opening this morning. This is cnbcs page this morning, stock futures drop hit limit down even as fed slashes rates, the s p 500 Exchange Traded funds are down 10 . We welcome your calls, your comments on the Economic Impact for you. What does this mean in terms of your own individual Economic Outlook . To beverly in st. Petersburg, florida. Caller good morning. About then is Economic Impact on Small Businesses you were talking about earlier. Smalle a lot of restaurants here in st. Petersburg. The Restaurant Owners do quite well. My daughter is a student. She works as a waitress at one of these highend restaurants. When you talk about relief, how do you know that the money from the government or, how do they regulate that money from the government is going to actually get to the lower end of the Small Business people like waitresses or busboys, or somewhere around that angle . How do they regulate that and are they going to regulate that so not just the Restaurant Owners that are making a living, that their employees are getting it. Not like disney who can pay them. Host Andres Vinelli. Guest what i am supporting is that the government should cut a everyone everyone, including children. Say from about a thousand dollars apiece, i think physically it is a check that would go to everyone. That is something we have done in the past and it worked well. By now, we have made studies that showed what happened there. That is money that goes into peoples pockets and goes to basic necessities of life like putting food on the table, paying the mortgage, paying the bills, that is a proposal that many people who are experts in the area are coalescing around. There are conservative professors, people that used to be in george bushs administration, people who used to be in the obama administration. It goes directly into peoples pockets. Guest i would put a caveat on this. Like generality principle, it makes it simple, but in this particular case we are going to have a lot of needs. It on awe should do means tested basis. Where it iscus on needed the most. That is lower income americans, especially those who have to stay home and are hourly workers. We need to target everything we do so that we can be in there for the long run. There are scarce resources, and this is as bad as people some people say it is going to become a we are going to have to be there in the long run and adapt to different policies. That is the only caveat i would put to your policy. Host let me add that i asked guest i agree with that. That would be ideal. The lower half of the distribution, the people who are more likely to be in a fragile situation. My only concern is that do we have the . Time to do that . The Social Security administration and the irs and the v. A. , all of them have to cross their databases. It might be difficult to do. [indiscernible] host you come from different points of view at times, but what is in general the record of the federal government giving assistanceke this, like this over a period of time . It has happened in other periods of time, what in general is the record, has it helped . Guest in general it is not the best way to help the economy but it is a great way to provide an emergency safety net function, which arguably is the role of government. The president cut checks to people this is not a good way to stimulate the economy. Host after 9 11 . Guest at the beginning of the financial crisis. This is not the way to stimulate the economy. It put many in peoples pockets, but it is not a way to change incentive to invest and save. Much bangt have as for the buck. A lot of people talk about fiscal stimulus but what they are really talking about his safety net policies. These are two separate things. There is a role for the government to do it despite the when itefit analysis gets temporary and targeted. Host georgia, this is harry. Say i would like to thank you for cspan i would like to say that the gentleman whose idea is to send checks out is more in line with what i would like to see. When the Federal Reserve cuts the discount rate 2. 5 at the , householdsto. 5 and businesses cannot go to the discount window. Only banks can do that. Happened, thethis banks got all the money. What they did with the money is sure up their capital position. They did not loan. Money toof getting had givent, if they 800 billion to the american endlation at the end to the last recession, we would have had that money lined up with the banks, but the people would have got something good out of it too. Guest what i would want to add is that we know by now when bush i think it was 300 to people , there are studies that showed that helped kickstart the economy. We call that the multiplier effect. Multiplier ofgest all the financial crisis. It means we get a little more bang for our buck. People tend to spend the money they get on necessities. Guess what . Small businesses get that consumption. People are buying goods. That kickstart the economy into gear. I think this is something that will help the economy get moving. It is not only something that is the right thing to do, it is the right thing to do from a sanitary perspective so they stay home. Eventually this will kickstart their economy into people spending their way out of this problem we have. Host lets your from rancho cucamonga, california. Caller good morning. With veronique de rugy, she mentioned not to make duee new policies permanent to its effect in the future. I just want to mention that when and toook the government ,he economy after bush left they implemented some type of benefits for contractors for hire new personnel. They had some credits to hire more people. They have a credit of 5,000 for every employee that works 80 hours or less. [indiscernible] that law should be abolished. Host i will let you go there, you are fading out but thank you. Veronique de rugy. Guest right now, this is not the problem. Even if you give money to employers or you change the rules for employers, consumers are not coming. The problem is not the inability to hire people, it is the fact that consumers do not want to go to restaurants, bars, they do not want to go to malls, anywhere. The problem is not a traditional recession problem. It may come to this. That said, it is unclear whether it will come to this. Whether this is just a temporary we are going to see a spike of unemployment that is temporary but as people resume consumption, companies are going to be able to rehire. I think measures that keep or allow companies to hoard their labor, keep their employees on ff, will allow to pick up allow for the economy to pick up faster. We have to be careful to treat this as if this is a great recession. The problem so far is not unemployment, not the unwillingness to spend money, in fact, people want to spend money. They want to spend money on hand sanitizer, and they cant. Birthday iss thursday, and her Birthday Gift is i was going to take her to a nice restaurant. I am on the fence. On the one hand i want to support this restaurant, and on the other hand i am on the fence. These are the concerns right now. This is not your traditional runofthemill recession. Again, the truth of the matter is economists who have studied recessions, they do not have a ton to say about what does or does not work in this particular case. Host can i ask you about another term that has come up . Supply chain. Ittalked about how important is to many industries. Specifically, the grocery industry. How soon before that becomes a problem . Those industries, those employers in the supply chain of the u. S. Economy are limited in who they can bring in, how much they can produce . Guest it is going to depend on how much labor there is. Sign that there is no there really we have kicked in the supply chain side of the problem. Reallye to this everyone is sick or does not want to work because everyone is afraid by the way, a lot of restaurants are closing mostly because they want to protect employees and consumers. It is possible we are going to limitedery stores go on work cycles. So far, we do not see this. Depending on how the crisis evolves, it could be they wont come to that. Host . Your thoughts . . Guest many things going to supply chain. Right . , the president has waged an erratic war against china on the trade front. Taxes, a tax on certain items. Any tax at this stage is another problem for the supply chain. One thing the president could do temporarily quit this trade war on chinese goods. That will help the supply chain shift and heal and make sure the flood of goods and services keeps coming to consumers. That is something concrete, it could be done in less than 24 hours. Guest and he could do it unilaterally. I would get rid of all tariffs. You can be sure that sooner or later all of the other countries will do the same. Even if they say it is just temporary. I think it would be harder to bring it back when the economy is trying to recover, but that is something i agree with. It could be done unilaterally. The president could just say, thats it. Host maryland. Senior and all you hear is if there is a choice between a senior and a younger person, the younger person gets treated first. We are on a limited income. We cannot afford to stockpile. When the president gave his speech, he included everyone but seniors. I feel like we have no value. Our lives have no value because we are not productive, so he wants to take care of everyone else. What about us . Think if i could say, i first, there is a Public Health concern that is very real. The talk about flattening the curve is precisely to protect the population that is the most at risk. That is seniors. I think the average age it changes all the time. Host 65 and above at this point. Guest lets be clear, everything that is done in terms of Public Health is trying to protect mostly the elderly population. Not that anyone wants to get this. Maybe seniorshink are less mentioned in terms of this the financial aspect is because most receive Social Security and other forms of payments that will not go away. That is a good thing. I think that is the reason. It is not that no one cares, it is mostly that reason. It is true that increasing prices and things in the shortterm, things that are essential could be a hardship. Government kicks in some cash to lower income people and people who need it. That may be of help. Host the usa today, there Health Special section today, their headline, u. S. Hospitals will run out of beds if rates rise. John in wisconsin. Caller i wanted to comment about something. The stimulus is not a problem. Obama went through the stimulus, so did gerald ford and roosevelt. We have a history of stimulating the economy to get it going, so ive no problem with that. The problem i have is our president. He says he does not have the virus, but i dont believe that. I believe he has got it, but he wouldnt tell us anyways, wouldnt he . He lies about everything. Host good news on the vaccine front, the Associated Press reporting Coronavirus Vaccine trial starts today. The first participant in a Clinical Trial will receive an experimental dose monday. The National Institutes of health is funding the trial. It is taking place at Kaiser Permanente here in washington excuse me, Washington Health Research Center in seattle, washington. Phoenix, christine. Caller good morning p good morning. Kind of the target for this virus. Response isow that kind of like throwing them to the curb, saying that because they are vulnerable and such a drain on resources Social Security, medicare. Of shucking a way that problem . Host do you think it was a slow response by the administration . Guest right now it is evident that is the case. There was denial, politicization , but the past is now the past. We need to send in the experts. We need medical doctors in front of this emergency. We need people who actually know about disaster relief. We need to shore up good problems like socials good programs like Social Security and medicare. Make sure those type of protections are there for people. We need to mail checks. I think mailing checks will go a long way in ensuring confidence, making sure that people are not falling through the cracks. It is a way to empower communities to rally around our Senior Citizens, and everyone who is in a situation. We will be able to get through this, but it takes leadership from congress, the president and his administration. We need to assume this is a real problem, not a hoax, and good action will follow. T market watch reporting is bonding say the elderly are the first for screening. We will get a couple more calls. Alexandria, virginia, this is philip. Caller good morning. Colors r previous thisous callers said parallels Climate Change. The movement of the north pole is creating Climate Change. Scientists also save treated the ice age 10,000 years ago. People need to start addressing the scientific aspect in truth. It is not political, and it shouldnt be political. An issue with coronavirus that parallels that from a stance of finding the truth. We only find that over a period of time. Whether it is scientific, or what you do individually to help yourself or your fellow american. That is the important aspect. Waiting to see what happens. What are some of the economic signs youre trying to keep an eye on as the crisis continues, as businesses are closed . The problem with Economic Data is there is always a delay. Lag unemployment numbers, consumption numbers, are people still buying . They may not be buying in restaurants, but they may be shifting consumption online. Lets see where it goes, see how Small Businesses are doing. Lending numbers, requests, all of that stuff. These are the kind of things we are going to be looking at going forward. Now, i will be looking at the progression of this disease. Know. Is a lot we dont thent to know whether it is worst case scenario, or whether we are somewhere in the middle, or whether it is something the Health Care System can handle. And where do we place in terms of other countries. Arby and a better place then European Countries are we in a better place then European Countries . When we know more about this and the kind of impacts the Health Issues are going to have, and how it is going to affect americans, no matter who they more about theow Economic Impact. Host here is jim in brownsville, oregon. Caller i am a senior and i have lost about 30,000 in this market. Worryingot what is me. What is worrying me is why we are not looking at the cause . When you think about it, i heard the president say he takes no responsibility. I agree with him because when you have the House Republicans e and the Senate Republicans o totally put a blind eye to what russia was doing and what our experts said that russia would continue to do. Polled byave puppets strings, they are responsible. Why isnt congress and the senate the Republican House and republican senator looking at what russia said . This is election time. Is going tothat she interfere in our election . Why are we ignoring that . Why are we ignoring the fact that russia has not stopped trying to affect the outcome of our elections . Host i appreciate the call. We will go to jeff in vienna, virginia. Caller good morning. Somehow i was thinking this would be passed on to the way i look at it, almost most of americans they pay 75 of their income towards mortgage and credit cards. If you want to stimulate the economy, [indiscernible] host youre breaking up there, jeff. Get final thoughts. That at thisk stage, uncertainty is still there. The most important thing to do is if you are told to stay home by health authorities, we need to do that. We need to adhere to health. Should that people who not be staying home are people from congress. They should be making good decisions to give the necessary resources for Public Health, for emergency. Extending unemployment benefits. Whending medical pay people stay home or when people care for other folks and making for that safety is there medical doctors, nurses and all of the people treating patients. Maybe listen to ideas like the ones we bounced around today. Bout sending everyone a check helping Small Businesses. We should try and keep calm. Andres and veronique de rugy. Guest thank you for having us. Guest while pleasure. Host a quick note about the breathing briefing from the president s task force, that is set for 3 30 eastern. We will continue with your calls and commons. Your reaction to the governments response so far to be coronavirus and also your thoughts on the debate. The cnn debate between joe biden and senator Bernie Sanders. 202 7488000 for democrats. 202 7488001 for republicans. All others, 202 7488002. We will be back here in a moment. We are asking voters what issues should the president ial candidates address . Issue that is important to me in the 2020 campaign is media bias. No matter what network you are section with the the exception of a handful, there is a handful of by stray they tell you they are giving objective information when they are not. That is wrong in my opinion. Tothe most important issue me is raising the minimum wage. I know too many people who have to work multiple jobs just to make ends meet. I think that needs to change. I would like to see people addressing the issues and fulfilling campaign promises. There are many candidates that are fighting over one another. They should say this is my agenda, these are the people i want underneath me. These are the people i want to institute. This is where my money is going. These are the things i would like to address. Some of our vast commodities, particularly in utah. The issue that is the issue that is most important to me in 2020 is the overwhelming threat that Artificial Intelligence poses on our livelihood. We cannot predict how dangerous it is going to be. I think the most important issue for me is how the candidates intend to address the growing encroachment of china, specifically in the pacific. I was born out of the pacific we switched allegiance from taiwan to china. That is concerning, especially with some of the things we are hearing, coming out of mainland china. Orould like to see somebody see how candidates intend to address that. Voices from the road on cspan. Washington journal continues. Host up until 10 00 eastern, your calls, comments, texts and tweets on the u. S. Response to the coronavirus. I would also like to hear your thoughts if you saw the debate or read about the debate between joe biden and Bernie Sanders. They talked a good deal about the response the coronavirus to the coronavirus. For democrats, 202 7488000. For republicans, 202 7488001. For independents, 202 7488002. You can also send us a text. That is 202 7488003. We can play some soundbites from the debate. The president watched it. He is tweeting. He said i most say must say, that was a boring debate. Biden is lying. Nothing happened. I saved Social Security and medicare. I will not be cutting but they will. Be careful. One of the president s tweets this morning. We talked about the economy with our two previous guests at the new york times, watching the opening of wall street. Wall street tumbles despite the feds response. They say that stocks on wall street plunged on monday, following Global Markets downward. After an extraordinary move at by the Federal Reserve, aimed at showing up confidence, it instead spark more panic. Investors were confronted with weak economic readings from both china and the United States. The Worlds Largest economies. Retail sales, Manufacturing Activity and the first in the first two months of the year slumped by more than economists had expected. Manufacturing inactivity in new york, new york state collapsed by the most ever in a month. You can read more at nytimes. Com. The recession is already here, say economists. A wicked cocktail for world growth warned a former imf chief. Hascall me economy fallen into a recession due to coronavirus and the dramatic reaction to limit its spread. As the virus spread from china to the rest of the world, economists no longer feel they have to wait for data to confirm the world is in recession, even though official forecasts remain more optimistic. Lets get to your calls and hear from brad in lilly, kentucky. Go ahead. Caller good morning. I think it is important to look at i feel that trump is probably doing the best he knows how and can do. Decades, u. S. Ew and corporate elites have been selling the country out to china, which has put them in a place where they are able to germs. Ture super we have modernized the chinese economy through our corporate sellout. Look, china became the most favored nation status within the wto in 2001. That was a clinton plan, passed under bush. In between 2001 and 2011, 2. 7 million american jobs went to china. And 2013, that11 china poureds, more concrete than the u. S. Did in the 20 century. It iswould not be where today without our corporate elites selling the country out. You can see the effects of that all across america. Host back to the stock market for a second. A tweet from cnbcs jabers. He said this. The dow opens and falls 2200 immediately. It shuts down again. Minute reopen after a 15 pause. He tweeted this 15 minute halt. He tweeted this about 30 minutes ago. I would like to suggest that instead of only looking at the downside of this terrible situation, that may we should of it make what good o we can. People have been forced to go working for the past 50 or 60 years and were taken out of homes and go to work. One person working could not support a family. If we are going to be at home, lets use this time to clean out the closet. Lets paint the bedroom. Lets do the things that we can do in our homes. Fix our cars, clean up, straighten up, get to the yard work. In other words, dont just take it as a negative. No, we cant go visit our friends. Lets do what we can do within our families and enjoy that time together, which we have never been able to do for the last 40 or 50 years. Host ok, bill. Lets go to mark next in hyannis, massachusetts. Hi there. Caller good morning, bill. Thank you very much. One thing that i have been wondering about is and i just went out this money to get some coffee for the first time this weekend. I went to starbucks. It doesnt seem to me that the retailers are taking a stand and trying to protect their workers and their customers. Of the biggest corporations in america. Just for some of the viewers and listeners, the press conference that trump did the other day, i did not know this at the time, the one where he was shaking everybodys hands, i guess everybody behind him, he was the ceo of target. The ceo of cvs and maybe walmart and some other fortune 50 companies. They are changing their hours to restock their supplies. Supplying gloves for their workers. Masks for their workers . And telling the consumer that they will protect you and sanitize things . This is weeks upon weeks. We understand that stock is down and that you are facing times. Do you want people to show up at your store . Into the went starbucks. Were the workers wearing gloves . Did any of them have masks . They look petrified. They were not wearing masks. They had changed their routine and pushed the tables together. I dont know because i dont sit down and chitchat. Maybe they are not allowing customers. Host i am reading that starbucks is not does not want customers to sit in their stores. Thanks for that. Two rivals take on the coronavirus outbreak, other topics came up, including immigration. Vice President Biden was asked if he would commit to doing things differently than the obamabiden air. Era. I said it took too long to get it right. The president got it right by aca and moving on an immigration bill as well. The fact is we had a vote on the immigration bill and bernie voted against it. Had he voted for it in the past, we would already have 6 million undocumented citizens as i speak right now. I will send to the desk immediately a bill that requires access to citizenship for 11 million undocumented folks. Number one. Number two, the first 100 days of my administration, no one will be deported at all. From that point on, the only deportations will take place are commissions of felonies in the United States of america. To be clear, only ferlands felons get deported and everyone else stays. Yes. It is about making sure we can be a nation of immigrants as well as a nation that is decent. Host back to your calls. Haywood, california, we hear from charlie next. Charlie in hayward, california. Caller i am confused. I have seen indication that we are using antibiotics and the production of ethanol. Is that being important or somethingh e imported are is it something we are making domestically . Host i dont know. Perhaps one of our listeners or viewers can chime in. Alexandra from the independent line. Caller good morning. I want to first say that i am a woman of color. I support Bernie Sanders. This is why i support Bernie Sanders. He is the most honest one that was on the stage and still there. Bernie sanders is an honest man. What i am mostly disappointed in his the africanamericans who did not Pay Attention to Bernie Sanders and put their vote in the wrong district wrong direction. I am very disappointed in some of my folks for not voting for Bernie Sanders. Bernie sanders is the best candidate. Learn the truth about Bernie Sanders. That is all i have to say about that. Montana, tom,ip independent line. Caller yes, i would like to suggest that someone who listened to him, tell President Trump to be quiet. He lies so much and when you make statements he makes statements, he confuses people badly about the coronavirus. If he is interested in benefiting americans, which i dont think he is, i think the only thing he thinks of is the bottom line for his own businesses and he does not care about human life. But, if you have any concern for the American People, you would shut up and not confuse people. Host ok. California, we hear from robert. Go ahead, republican line. Caller this is robert. I am not impressed with either candidate. Debate. Ith their their arguments are just cliches. Oliticians host robert, youre on the air, go ahead. Caller politicians make promises that they dont keep. Trump has been the only one who kept his promise. In the 80 years i have been around. You onrying to get to the last segment and wondered why, as suggested, why dont we protect the elderly and let the rest of the economy continue on . Quarantine . Mit the caller limit the quarantine to the elderly, which is what it affects and let the rest of the economy go on. Put kids back to school, people let us know and what really is the coronavirus just another virus that people get over . Evidently that is true. It is something that we will have to deal with in the future. But, we dont have to shut down the whole world just to keep it from spinning. Let it go. Covid19, one of the steps the white house has taken, reported over the weekend from politico, temperature text for people around trump. They have video from outside the white house. On theas guidance briefing by the task force and guidance for reporters to be in every other seat. Press briefing room. You can actually see the labeling. Every other seat for the briefing. We want to take this opportunity to let you know that that briefing, todays briefing is set for 3 30 eastern. We will have that live on cspan , also on cspan radio and all of our coronavirus coverage, if you missed the one late yesterday, of vice President Trump and his team Vice President pence, trump and his team, that is available online. Imports with, virginia. Caller whats going on . This coronavirus, why didnt they take the municipalities and give each house and home of 14 day supply, tell them to stay home for 14 days in certain municipalities and see what that does. Say ok, its going to work, lets do it all over the country. Host do you think they will get to that at some point . Caller i think so. Right now, what they are doing aint working. Victoria, texas on the republican line, ohland. Caller is this bill . Host yes it is. Caller i have three things. The first one is statistics. Day in 100 people per the United States. This is a low figure, they get killed in car accidents, everyday. 100 people. We also have at least 30,000 a year that die from the common flu. Ok. That is true statistics. Check it out. Cdc is just is the a bureaucracy, because they cannot cure the common flu. I dont know how in the world they are going to do corona. Out. Has brought them the people can see what they are going to do. They will have to do something to be in a bureaucracy. Have two thing is, we democrats running for president. Communist and the other is a crook. I cant tell the difference between either one of them. Stand on how many people die in the United States a year. It aint put on the television set. God bless yall, take it easy. Host let me ask you about your comment about the cdc. Who do you trust for Health Information . The National Institution of health, the cdc . Who . Caller i kind of trust my state. We have some doggone good doctors in texas. We have Emergency Rooms and clinics. Host what are they saying to you, what are they saying to texans in terms of limiting exposure or closing down schools and things like that . Caller we are doing what they say to do. Lets just go ahead and do it. But, they better come up with a cure. Year, minimum, die from the common flu that tells me they are not doing their job up there. Like a bureau cap it is bureaucrat, it is like the fbi. I appreciate you calling in. University,opkins they are tracking the disease worldwide, the number, u. S. Cases, 3774 cases. , there ares in texas 77 out of that 3774 in the u. S. To marshall shoals, alabama. We hear from teresa, next. Welcome. Teresa, you are on the air. Go ahead. Theer my question is for Small Businesses and the stimulus coming through or trying to be pushed out. Childcare workers, daycare and sometimes entertainment like the domestics will it reach out that far for those businesses that had to shut down due to the coronavirus . The cdc has recommended that groups of under 50 should be groups of 50 or more should be avoided. Groups bigger than 50. What has been the guidance from your state officials in alabama . Caller is shutting down larger groups. Host yeah. To gina in mixed sippy gina in mississippi. Caller hello. Thank you for taking my call. Host you bet. Caller i dont have anything profound to say this morning. Sick of thei am so trump bashing and hating from the democrats. They are really embarrassing themselves at this point. That i doke to say think it is a huge overreaction compared to all the other deaths we have in the country, every year. I am more suspect about what is going on with the entire world. It is not just the United States. Is taking these precautions and everything. That is really all i had to say. Thank you very much. Host a number of you are probably working from home or working remotely. If your organizations allow that. The headline at usa, is the internet ready for a Remote Workforce . Coronavirus is putting remote work to the test. Companies are implementing policies that encourage employees to work from home as a number of infections rises. As the number of people depending on Home Internet connections rises, Service Reliability and download strength are more viable valuable than ever. N. N is uncertain companies typically have high band and internet lines that can power large swaths of employees. But, with everyone working at home, it is uncertain these companies will be able to keep up with the residential bandwidth demand. Usa today is where you can read more. Betweente last night the two leading democrats, Bernie Sanders and senator former Vice President joe biden. Studios in at cnn washington. No audience there and just three moderators. The issue of Climate Change came up earlier in our program in an earlier segment. Here is what Bernie Sanders had to say on the transition from carbonbased fuels. We have to invest in an unprecedented way. In an unprecedented way. We were talking about 13, 14 showing dollars. That is a lot of money. I have been criticized for that. I dont know what the alternative is if we are planning for the future of the planet. We have to be dramatic. Dramatic is massive investment in wind. Energies inable general and Research Develop and. We have a lot of old buildings. We can put millions and millions people to work, mated our making our Buildings Energy efficient. Moving our Transportation System to electricity. About is a talking massive, unprecedented investment. That is what the Green New Deal is about. I supported it and i will fight to implement it. Host a couple more calls before we wrap up this morning. To philip in silver spring, maryland, democrat line. Caller hello. Host hi there, go ahead. Caller i am an employer and my concern is that people dont understand that when employees go on unemployment, the company or the boss has to pay a higher rate. It is like your car insurance. You dont use it, the rate is very low. You start using it and the rate goes up exponentially. It takes years to get the rate back down. Myconcern is when i put workers on unemployment, is my rate going to go up as a result of this . How it works. People dont understand that. How many employees do you have . Caller right now, we have three. Host what kind of work . Caller furniture restoration. Host have you shut down operations . Caller we have not . I am asking this question more in a way for everybody else. We are not seriously affected by it. There is some concern because people dont want us coming into their homes right now. I have been told that by couple of people. They dont want people coming into their homes. Host thanks for calling. Americans hit the pause button on life is there headline. The matter of days, coronavirus pandemic has reshaped american society. Work, worship, concerts, sports, gatherings with family and friends, the embrace of loved ones. I want to remind you that we will have a briefing. We will bring it to you from the white house. The Task Force Briefing is set for 3 30 eastern. They held one late yesterday afternoon. President trump kicks off the briefing. Here is some of what the president had to say, yesterday. Pres. Trump we are learning from watching other countries. Contagious virus. It is incredible. It is something that we have a control over. Very important to young people, people of good health and groups of people are not strongly affected. Elderly people that are not well or not well in certain respects, a dangerous group. We have to watch them and protect them very much. We have to watch over them and protect them. They are very vulnerable. Our resource for the briefings is cspan. Org coronavirus. Lets go to brenda in wilmington, North Carolina, on the republican line. Caller hi. I guess you want me to tell something sort of brief. The president make all of these promises that he can help people when they are unemployed because their company has been shut down or because they are unemployed and they need money and income and they dont have any. I have not heard anybody give any numbers as to how you get started or who you call. Host brenda, i appreciate your calling in this morning. Usope you all can join tomorrow for washington journal at 10 00 a. M. Eastern. The center coming in later. We hope to see you tomorrow morning. Have a great day. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] announcer 1 the white house scheduled a Coronavirus Briefing this afternoon at 330 eastern time. We will have that when it starts here on cspan. The house will be meeting at 11 00 a. M. For further work on the bill to add lastminute changes that did not make it before legislation was passed on the floor early saturday morning. Small business groups are also not happy with the bill. It requires up to 12 weeks of paid leave to workers. You can read more online. In house gathering in today about an hour for what was supposed to be a session, they are trying to finish the coronavirus bill. Senate gaveling in at 3 00 eastern time