Leadership. I am frustrated at a lack of urgency. I am frustrated at our inability to be heard as scientists. Those things frustrate me. ticking the physical world still is in charge. Ive spent, you know, 30 years trying to get people to understand that physics and chemistry matter, that you cant spin them. They dont negotiate. Looking back, mother earth was starting to clear her throat and make herself heard. Pthe highest temperatures since records began. And then a pandemic bringing with it the tragic loss of 300,000 lives worldwide and counting. ticking im lesley stahl. Im bill whitaker. Im anderson cooper. Im scott pelley. Those stories, tonight, on 60 minutes. ticking this portion of 60 minutes is sponsored by progressive insurance. Save when you bundle auto, home, or motorcycle insurance. Visit progressive. Com. Pelley Jerome Powell shook washington, wall street and the world this past week when he warned the pandemic crisis threatens lasting damage to american prosperity. As chairman of the Federal Reserve, powell is among the most powerful people in the economy. He acted swiftly in the sharpest collapse since the Great Depression, but he fears congresss initial three trillion dollar bailout will not be enough to save a generation from low growth and stagnant incomes. We asked chairman powell how high unemployment will go and how long it will take to see a recovery. He spoke to us this past wednesday after a blunt speech that gave markets a shove. Mr. Chairman, i just got a push notification on my phone dow tanks more than 500 points in wall street selloff after fed chair warns economic recovery will be prolonged and bumpy. You knew that was coming. Eewatching him. Uths, tarkets his speech wednesday was a warning and a prayer. He raised the specter of a prolonged recession and weak recovery if the federal government doesnt use all its power to support business and workers. Powell i was really calling out a risk that i think is an important one for people to be cognizant of, the risk of longerrun damage to the economy. And really, the good news is that we have the tools to limit that longerrun damage by continuing to provide support to households and businesses as we get through this. Pelley what metrics are you looking at here hour by hour, day to day, to divine what the future is going to be . Powell the thing that matters more than anything else is the medical metrics, frankly. Its the spread of the virus. The realtime Economic Data that were seeing is just a function of how successful the social distancing measures are. So, the data well see for this quarter, which ends in june, will be very, very bad. Therell be a, you know, big decline in Economic Activity, big increase in unemployment. So what were really looking at is getting the medical data, which is not what we usually look at, taken care of so that the Economic Data can start to recover. Pelley congress has already spent 3 trillion on relief. But another three trillion, passed friday by house democrats, is a dead letter in the senate amid a partisan debate over how much to borrow. Trump were in no rush. Were no rush. Pelley talk of slowing the economic response is among the reasons powell is speaking tonight. Hes a republican, appointed by President Trump. Powell congress has done a great deal and done it very quickly. There is no precedent in post world war ii American History thats even close to what congress has done. And the question is, will it be enough . And i dont think we know the answer to that. It may well be that the fed has to do more. It may be that congress has to do more. Pelley as this period of time grows longer, what begins to happen to the economy . Powell theres a real risk that if people are out of work for long periods of time, that their skills atrophy a little bit and they lose contact with the workforce. Longer and deeper recessions tend to leave behind damage to peoples careers. The small and medium size businesses that are so important to this country, if they have to go through a wave of avoidable insolvencies, you haveyouve lost something there thats more than just a few businesses, you know, its really the job creation machine. Keeping people and businesses out of insolvency just for maybe three or six more months while the Health Authorities do what they can do. We can buy time with that. Pelley i was speaking to a former official of the Federal Reserve who said, vshape recovery, off the table. Theres no chance. Powell well, i would say the main thing is to get back on the road to recovery. And i think that can happen relatively soon, likely to happen in the second half of the year. Thats a reasonable expectation. After that, the path is going to depend on a range of things. Its very plausible that the economy will take some time to gather momentum. Pelley we spoke to powell in the Federal Reserve boardroom. The Washington Headquarters was otherwise silent its staff working from home. The building dedicated in 1937 by f. D. R. , was, itself, a depression era project to create construction jobs. The fed is the source of all u. S. Currency and it regulates the economy by setting Interest Rates. In the depression, it was given vast power to lend money in an emergency. It used that authority for the first time in the 2008 collapse and for the second time, nine weeks ago. Has the fed done all it can do . Powell well, there is a lot more we can do. Were not out of ammunition by a long shot. No, theres, theres really no limit to what we can do with these lending programs that we have. Pelley in march, as the dow collapsed 8,000 points and credit markets began to freeze, powell called an emergency meeting on a sunday. He cut Interest Rates to near zero, and, in partnership with the treasury, the Federal Reserve offered more than 3 trillion in lending to banks, businesses, cities and states. With that assurance, the credit markets, essential to daily business, began to function again. Fair to say you simply flooded the system with money . Powell yes, we did. Thats another way to think about it. We did. Pelley where does it come from . Do you just print it . Powell we print it digitally. So we you know, we as a central bank, we have the ability to create money digitally and we do that by buying treasury bills or bonds or other government guaranteed securities. And that actually increases the money supply. We also print actual currency and we distribute that through the Federal Reserve banks. Pelley but, by law, chairman powells Federal Reserve can only lend money that must be paid back. Congress, he believes, should spend money to expand its historic bailoutafter all, he says powell this is not because there was some inherent problem, a housing bubble or Something Like that or the Financial System in trouble, nothing like that. The economy was fine. The Financial System was fine. Were doing this to protect ourselves from the virus. And that means that when the Virus Outbreak is behind us, the economy should be able to recover substantially. Pelley and what sort of support, in your view, do you think the congress would want to consider . Powell i dont give them advice on particular policies. But i would say, if i may, that policies that that help businesses avoid avoidable insolvencies and that do the same for individuals. Keep workers in their homes, keep them paying their bills. Keep families solvent. Pelley among the options extending the increase in Unemployment Benefits which expires in july and supporting powell believes trillions in additional federal debt could be paid down over decades. Powell the u. S. Has been spending more than its been taking in for some time. And thats something were going to have to deal with. The time to do that is when the economy is strong. When unemployment is low, when Economic Activity is high, thats when you deal with that problem. This is not the time to prioritize that concern. We have the ability to borrow at low rates. We have the ability to service that debt. And i would say this is the time when we can use that strength to our longer run benefit. Pelley what economic reality do the American People need to be prepared for . Powell well, i would take a more optimistic cut at that, if i could, and that is this is a time of great suffering and difficulty. And its come on us so quickly and with such force, that you really cant put into words the pain people are feeling and the uncertainty theyre realizing. And its going to take a while for us to get back. But i would just say this. In the in the long run, and even in the medium run, you wouldnt want to bet against the american economy. This economy will recover. It may take a while. It may take a period of time. It could stretch through the end of next year. We really dont know. Pelley can there be a recovery without a reasonably effective vaccine . Powell assuming theres not a second wave of the coronavirus, i think youll see the economy recover steadily through the second half of this year. So, for the economy to fully recover people will have to be fully confident and that may have to await the arrival of a vaccine. Pelley if an effective vaccine arrives, millions of doses are likely well over a year away. This month, President Trump pressed states to reopen without a vaccine or adequate testing. Trump well, i feel about vaccines like i feel about tests. This is going to go away without a vaccine. Its going to go away, and its, were not going to see it again, hopefully, after a period of time. Pelley chairman powell says Vaccine Development is highly uncertain and until then, Major Industries will suffer. Powell the parts that involve people being in the same place very close together. Those parts of the economy will be challenged until people feel really safe again. Pelley sporting events, theaters . Powell i would think those would be very difficult. Pelley airlines . Powell itll be quite challenging for them. Lots of the rest of the economy though can move can move ahead. But we cant fully recover because those other parts of the economy matter. We cant fully recover though until people feel confident that theyre safe. Pelley you are an enormous fan of the washington capitals. When do you think youre going to be comfortable going back to a game . Powell certainly no sooner than next season. Generally, public sporting events, public concerts and things like that, those will be among the last things that can be resumed. Pelley most states are taking early steps to reopen even though the u. S. Lacks the Testing Capacity experts say is indispensable to success. If the economy reopens and the infection rate surges, what then . Powell the government would have to reintroduce the social distancing measures. And you would have another downturn. And that would be bad for confidence. So thats a risk we really want to avoid. You know, the virus hasnt gone away. The reason that cases have gone down and are declining is because people have been in their homes and not in their businesses and not out among crowds. Pelley powell told us the economy will shrink dramatically in the second quarter, april, may and june at an annualized rate of around 30 . This past week, the Labor Department reported a total of more than 35 million americans had lost their jobs so far. The Unemployment Rate will be historic. And your people are projecting what, 20 . 25 . Powell therere a range of perspectives. But those arethose numbers sound about right for what the peak may be. Pelley 25 is the estimated height of unemployment during the Great Depression. Do you think history will look back on this time and call this the second Great Depression . Powel no, i dont. I dont think thats a likely outcome at all. We had a very healthy economy two months ago. Our Financial System is strong. You have governments around the world and Central Banks around the world responding with great force and very quickly. And staying at it. So, i think all of those things point to what will beits going to be a very sharp downturn. It should be a much shorter downturn than you would associate with the 1930s. Pelley you expect the Third Quarter to see growth . Powell its a reasonable expectation that therell be growth in the second half of the year. I would say though were not going to get back to where we were quickly. We wont get back to where we were by the end of the year. Thats unlikely to happen. Pelley in terms of the workforce, mr. Chairman, who is getting hurt the worst by this downturn . Powell the people whore getting hurt the worst are the most recently hired, the lowest paid people. Its women to an extraordinary extent. Of the people who were working in february, who were making less than 40,000 per year, almost 40 have lost their jobs in the last month or so. Pelley what gives you hope in this dark time . Powell . We have highly industrious people. We have the most dynamic economy in the world. And you know, were the home of so much of the Great Technology in the world. So, in the long run, i would say the u. S. Economy will recover. Well get back to the place we were in february; well get to an even better place than that. Im highly confident of that. So, i think were going to need to help each other through this. And we will. ticking Norah Odonnell dr. Rick bright is the highestranking government scientist to charge the federal governments response to the coronavirus pandemic has been slow and chaotic. He says it has prioritized politics over science, and has cost people their lives. It has cost dr. Bright his job. In april he was removed from a top position in the department. Of health and Human Services, and transferred to what he considers a position of less stature and responsibility. Dr. Bright has filed a whistleblower complaint running over 300 pages. President trump has called rick bright a disgruntled employee. In congressional testimony on thursday, bright claimed the government retaliated against him for telling the truth about the depth of the crisis. Our window of opportunity is closing. If we fail to improve our response now based on science, i fear the pandemic will get worse and be prolonged. Odonnell until a month ago, dr. Rick bright led barda, the Biomedical Advanced Research and development authority, a federal agency to which congress has handed more than five billion dollars to fund Vaccine Development, new antiviral drugs, and badlyneeded medical supplies. What is bardas mission . And how does it fit in the response to a coronavirus like this . Rick bright we focus on chemical threats, biological threats such as anthrax, nuclear threats, radiological threats, pandemic influenza and emerging infectious diseases. Odonnell he still speaks in the present tense, but rick bright isnt running barda anymore. The reasons trace back to the very first days of january, when he heard of a new coronaVirus Outbreak in wuhan, china. Odonnell when did you first realize that this virus might be different . That this was the big one . Bright well, i have been trained my entire life to recognize these outbreaks and recognize viruses. I have a ph. D. In virology. I knew that all of the signs for a pandemic were present. A novel virus, infecting people, causing significant mortality and spreading. So all the signs were there. It was just a matter of time before that virus then jumped and left china and appeared in other countries. Odonnell in early january when you were concerned about this virus, were other government officials on alert . Bright i believe my concerns were shared by other scientists in the government. And i believe the n. I. H. Was also moving very quickly to start some research in developing a vaccine and starting a Clinical Trial for an antiviral drug. What struck me though was my sense of urgency didnt seem to prevail across all of h. H. S. Odonnell bright says that lack of urgency started with the boss of his department, health and Human Services secretary alex azar. He recalls a meeting azar chaired on january 23rd to discuss the coronavirus. Bright i was the only person in the room, however, that sai were going to need vaccines and diagnostics and drugs. Its going to take a while and we need to get started. Odonnell you were the only one to raise that . Bright yes. Odonnell in your complaint, you said that secretary azar was intent on downplaying this catastrophic threat. Why would he do that . Bright you know, i dont know why he would do that. Odonnell President Trump was also downplaying the threat. He saithis a event i chary mpwe te r ntrol. We have very little problem in this country at this moment, five. Bright remember, the entire leadership was focused on containment. There was a belief that we could contain this virus and keep it out of the united states. Containment doesnt work. Containment does buy time. It could slow, it very well could slow the spread. But while youre slowing the spread, you better be doing something in parallel to be prepared for when that virus breaks out. That was my job. Odonnell bright says he was wellequipped to do that job because just five months before the new virus emerged, his and other key agencies had concluded an exercise titled crimson contagion, premised on the exact idea of a fastspreading virus originating in china. What did crimson contagion teach you about fighting pandemics . What were the lessons . Brigh