Let me begin with asking about the president , his performance so far in this pandemic. How is he doing . Guest dan to that question you have to acknowledge this is a very difficult situation that no president would find easy and the federal government was always going to have to go through some mobilization, being overwhelmed by a crisis and rising to it. The question is how are they doing at that and obviously there are weaknesses to the response we have seen from the white house and i think above all there has been a certain kind of dysfunction where there has been an unwillingness to confront some of the top or realities of this crisis, or at least to acknowledge them publicly. In a lot of ways the federal government has mobilized and certainly the country has, where people are willing to put their lives on hold in order to respond to a Public Health crisis. Unwillingnessome to confront basic realities at the top and still now we are seeing the system overwhelmed in such a way that people are not inking strategically about what the next step has to be, how we gradually return to normal has to be the question that policymakers are dealing with. Understandably we are seeing policymakers trying to confront the minute by minute pressures they are facing, so things like the failure of testing early on has made it very difficult to come back and try to get on top of this problem that this is a challenge that would be a massive problem for any president. It is not a function of just this particular white house. Is a packageponse well in excess of 1 trillion, perhaps totaling close to 2 trillion, the largest package in american history. This is a crisis, an emergency. We also have a 23 trillion debt. Guest there needs to be a massive response, given the Economic Cost of the social distancing and the shutdown of our Service Sector that we are going through. The question is, is that response geared to enabling the next phase . Ultimately we are trying to find a way to live relatively safely with this virus for some time until there is a vaccine, until we have a better grasp of its characteristics and are able to handle it. The question policymakers have to ask themselves is having taken a hard pause and needing to do that for some time, how do we gradually resume our natural life anyway a way that is sustainable . That means the kind of package congress is looking at needs to look at enabling this pause to be sustainable to helping people keep their place in our society, upping employers retain their workforce so people are not fired or lose their jobs. Helping the economy hold on for a matter of what will be weeks and then gradually enabling people to return to the economic and social life. The package that congress is passing that looks to be passing earlier in the week does some of this but i think it is also somewhat confused between that and a traditional stimulus. This is not a situation for traditional stimulus where the goal is to spur economic demand. There is nowhere for that demand to goal right nowhere for that demand to go right now. Be helpingeds to employers hang on and then gradually enabling a resumption. A hard pause and a soft return is how we have to think about this. Then yous the goal, have to give a pretty mixed picture, a pretty mixed grade to the packages that have been passed so far but there will be more to come. Host let me ask you about a caller we had in our first have, katie works in maryland and she is now out of a job as restaurants across the country are shut down. She is a waitress, dependent on that to pay her rent, her car insurance, her automobile payments each month. What does she do, and people like her in the short term . Guest unfortunately a lot of people in our country are going to find themselves in this situation, at least temporarily while everything is closing down. First of all there is some help she can find by going to her State Government. Maryland has been distinctly helpful. Governor hogan and the State Government stick government have been helping people deal with creditors to make sure you dont find people being kicked out of their homes or coming under credit card debt. They will also be some help from the package that is likely to pass in the coming weeks but i think it is on people like her that the federal support needs to be focused. The United Kingdom has enacted a package of responses that includes what they call job retention. In return for employers not firing their workforce, the government is taking over paying 80 of the salaries of that workforce during the Public Health emergency. At significant cost, the National Government is helping sustain payrolls. That support is provided through employers rather than around them, having lost your job. That would be expensive but what we are doing is expensive too and i think we have to think about how to take on the problem we face in ways that allow people to hang on. At the same time, this period has to be weeks and not months. We have to be finding ways, Public Health and economic ways to start returning gradually, carefully to our National Life and start allowing people to work again, allowing schools to open again. That has to be done in a way that helps us gain control of the Public Health situation. That means it cant be done for a few more weeks. Hospitals are going to be going through a very difficult period in the next few weeks but once that begins to decline, the goal has got to be to return to normality and i think at this point, the discussion in washington is not focused enough on that as the goal. Ust yuval levin is joining from his home in maryland. We will get to your phone calls and you can send a text message at 202 7488003. I want to share with you this headline from the Washington Post to go to my earlier question on the president and his response. U. S. Intelligence reports from january and february warning about a likely pandemic. This from shane harris, and a team of Washington Post reporters. Quote, u. S. Intelligence agencies were issuing ominous classified warnings in january and february about the global danger posed by the coronavirus while President Trump and lawmakers played down the threat and failed to take action that might have slowed the threat of the pathogen slowed the spread of the pathogen. The intelligence reports did not predict when the virus might land on u. S. Shores or recommend particular steps as Public Health officials should take. The spread of the that in china and warned chinese officials seem to be minimizing the severity of the outbreak. A virus that showed the characteristics of globally circling globally circling pandemic. Despite the constant flow of reporting, trump continued publicly and privately playing down the threat of the virus posed to americans. Lawmakers too did not grapple with the virus in earnest until this month as officials scramble to keep citizens in their homes and hospitals bracing for a surge in patients suffering from covid19. This reporting, blaming both congress and the president. Guest i think there was certainly an enormous degree of avoidance early on, a sense that this will pass, that this wont happen. At some levels there have been passed warnings about these kinds of challenges. I worked in the Bush White House and we confronted the possibility of avian flu at that time which thankfully did not happen but there were a lot of preparations made in that period and it was taken seriously. Tended President Trump to rely on hoping this would not happen. There is no question that when this began there was going to be some period of being overwhelmed and needing to mobilize. We dont keep in reserve thousands of icu beds or the kind of response that would be needed but once it was clear that this would be coming, there was a need to begin the oval is asian and there is no question the United States began several weeks too late. There is no question other tes in the west the question in assessing the governments response is has that mobilization and response happened in a effective way and the country has shown a willingness and ability to disconnect, to move to a kind of social distancing situation where schools were closed, workplaces were closed but while that is happening, our government needs to milk needs to be mobilizing in a massive way, it needs to be building Surge Capacity in hospital systems, needs to be leapfrogging the testing question and moving to a different approach to testing where we use blood tests to get a sense of who has antigens to this virus, who has been exposed to it. Let us where our response things to be right net that is where our response needs to be right now. Host you write that the Trump Administration has never been prepared for this type of disaster, saying the staffing structure around the president has always been too flat and chaotic. You wrote, the problem is not that our government was not fully prepared for the swift global spread of this virus or even that it made serious mistakes as a result. The problem is that upper reaches appear to be overwhelmed by choice. Guest this has been a problem from the beginning in the trump the timestion, that when we most need our president to function well, times like this, times of crisis, the administration has to prepare for those moments by building a staffing structure that is capable of bearing the burden of an emergency, moving information in an effective way, formula and questions for president ial decisions in a clear way. That has always been a problem in the trump white house. The staffing structure is very flat. There is not a clear hierarchy or chain of command. The chain of command that does exist has never been trusted by the people within it. They have always been people who have gone around trying to reach the president. There has been a tendency to ignore president directives, something we saw in the mueller president ere when the orders something his senior staff thinks is unreasonable, they just ignore it. That could be a good thing if they are averting trouble but in a moment like this where decisions have to be made under intense pressure, they are not ready. They have not built a functional decisionmaking system and we are paying a price for that now. Host let me share you a moment share with you a moment that has been getting a lot of press, the Daily Briefing on friday with Peter Alexander and this from the president. [video clip] i am not being overly optimistic. I sure think we ought to give it a try. There has been some interesting things happening, very good things. Lets see what happens. We have nothing to lose. What do you have to lose . What do you say to americans who are scared though . Millions who are scared right now. What do you say to americans who are watching you right now . I say you are a terrible reporter. That is what i say. That is a very nasty question. That gives a very bad signal that you are putting out. The American People are looking for answers and they are looking for hope and you are doing sensationalism, the same with nbc and comcast. That is really bad reporting. You want to get back to reporting instead of sensationalism. Lets see if it works. It mightnt it might and it might not. Who knows . I have been right a lot. Host that was the president and nbc reporter jason alexander. That was on drugs being discussed to potentially treat the pandemic. Your thoughts . Guest there is no defending what happened. There are two things happening that should not be going on. One is the president talking about a set of malaria drugs that may or may not be effective. He could certainly talk about enabling the fda to try this. What he is basically saying is people with symptoms should take these drugs and i think the president in particular, because the power of that office and the bully pulpit he has needs to be very careful about what he is telling people to do in this situation, to know what the risks may be. Layught he was offered a up question, an easy question from a reporter, what do you say to people who are scared . The president has a responsibility to speak to the country, to give people a sense that people are taking action, but the government understands the problem and is doing something about it, and rather than offer some reassuring answer, the president says that is an intelligent question. It shows you in part the ways in which the pressure is getting to this president. No president would find this easy but you have to recognize the responsibility you have in that office in a moment like this. Put aside concerns about your own image, put aside concerns about partisan politics in a moment like this and try to speak to the country as its leader and offer some reassurance and offer a sense that responsible action is being taken. In that particular incident for instance, the president clearly failed to do that. Host lets get to your phone calls. Carol in texas. Caller good morning. Thank you so much for everything you are doing and everything that everyone in the country is doing. My question is, i am on disability but it is a small check. A few months of the year, i worked seasonally at a ski resort. Is there anybody thinking about People Like Us . All i want tof stress what you said the beginning you said at the beginning which is thank you to those in the country who are taking extraordinary risks and burdens to help keep going. Is paying a price in different ways and we should recognize that. To the situation you are describing, there is some help that will be coming from the legislation begin considered in congress and i think is very likely to pass that will offer some direct support, some cash help to american families. That, in terms of Seasonal Work, it. Is a real challenge the question is how long are we going to be in a situation of a complete shutdown like this. Some kinds of Seasonal Work will be possible as we go forward into summer and beyond but obviously the challenge of Seasonal Work in this period is going to be very difficult to do anything about it. Even help that is offered through the employer system if we were to do Something Like what the british are doing, we have confronted Serious Problems for people who are Seasonal Workers and are not on the payroll at this point. That is a concern that will have to be taken up in further legislative action that is going to keep coming through the course of this crisis. I wish you the best and i think the problem you face is certainly one that legislators at the federal and state level are going to need to think about more as they take further steps. Host next up is ryan from california. Good morning. Are you with us . We will try one more time for ryan. Go ahead. Caller i have a comment. There is an article has not been read about a professor. He helps the minister of health in italy. Quote,aying, this is a the way we code debts in this country is very generous in the sense that all people who died in hospitals with coronavirus are deemed to have died of coronavirus. On reevaluation by the National Institute of health, only 12 of deaths have shown a direct casualty from coronavirus while 88 of patients could have died of other things. They had too many other ways to die because they were old. We are not talking about the age rate at which people are dying. The death rate is a big thing. We are over exaggerating it. We are destroying our economy because of false numbers. It is as low as the flu or lower because the flu in america has killed more people this week, just last week then corona has in the last four months. Fakehis is fake mood news and is a hoax of the media and you are perpetuating it. You personally need to be held accountable. Host with all due respect, how do you tell that to the more than 26,000 americans who are dealing with this virus, to the people across europe, those who have died . Guest what about the people caller what about the people who die of Car Accidents or the flu . You are not even putting it in the context of what i said. Dieof these people, do they of older age or is it the coronavirus . In italy, that is what they are saying. You are fear mongering. Anyone could have a cold, anyone could have the flu, anyone could die of anything at any given moment. Host why is congress now about to pass up to 2 trillion in relief . Why is the president holding Daily Briefings . Why is there a Coronavirus Task force if this is a hoax . Caller it is not because of the death rate because the death rate is lower than what is being talked about. The media is perpetuating host stop. We are not perpetuating anything. Im going to hang up on you. The pace of what we are seeing is absolutely different. The notion that the fatality rate is what it would have been without this is absolutely false. Yes older people are dying but we need to be protective of older people. They have been subjected to a novel virus that is causing them in normas Health Problems and it is increasing the fatality rate dramatically. What we are seeing in hospitals in italy and unfortunately we will begin to see it here is the overwhelming intensive care units overwhelming of intensive care units in ways they are not equipped to handle and we are now trying to build capacity to handle. It is going to be in the normas challenge and it is it is normas an in enormous challenge. We are not being lied to. Us taking it seriously. Host what is the message in your book and how do you apply that to what we are dealing with right now . Guest the book of course is written before this crisis began but it is a book about the condition of our institutions, corethe ways in which institutions of American Life have trouble keeping their integrity and Holding Together in the last several decades and i do think there were a