This is not a shortterm situation. This is not a long weekend. This is not a week. The timeline, nobody can tell you. It depends on how we handle it. But 40 , up to 80 of the population would wind up getting this virus. Harris we do have breaking news now. We knew this was coming. The defense secretary esper giving in update on the federal response to the coronavirus pandemic. Watch. We continue to keep our Service Members, civilians, and family Members Around the world informed on the guidance. Today we are elevating the pentagon reservation status to help Protection Condition c, charlie. This limits the number of action points to the pentagon and increases the amount of personnel who would tell a work among a few other things. Tomorrow we will publish updated gowns on elective surgeries as you look for ways to bring resources to focus on covid19related treatment. In general, it is important that we all continue to employ protective measures including good hand washing, proactive medical screening, and social distancing. This can dramatically decrease the risk of infection and slow the spread of virus. The United States military remains wellprepared to defend the nation, although we have scaled back some of our major exercises, routine training continues across all services te our forces maintain a high state of readiness. I entrust our commanders to make the best decisions for their units as they balance Mission Requirements with health protection. Im proud of our Service Members and dod civilians who have answer the call around our great country. I want to thank you for their contributions. By working together we will defeat this virus. Im confident our nation will come back even stronger. Thank you. We are going to go to the phone lines. Hi, thanks for doing this and im back to everyone in the briefing room. Mr. Secretary, two questions. One, can you provide Additional Details on the number of field hospitals and other hospital units that the u. S. Military is making available, and when and where you think they may go . Secondly, what impact do you think some of this is having on readiness . Can you just give us an assessment of what impact you are seeing so far on readiness both in the United States and in war zones . Thank you. Thanks. We have a number of hospitals and medical facilities, expeditionary medical facilities, across all three services. We have put on what we call prepare to deploy orders, five such units that will be prepared to deploy. We will take a resource guidance from fema. But right now i anticipate sending a hospital to seattle and a hospital to new york city, and beyond that, once thats confirmed, we look to sending to other places. As necessary we will continue to alert units to prepare to deploy and deploy them as appropriate. With regard to readiness, we have, as some of you know, 133 military personnel who have contracted the virus. We are taking great care of them, watching him closely. Ive had a chance to talk to several of them, to check on them. As this virus ramps up and spreads, we will obviously see more and more impact of persons in our ranks. Im confident that, while it may have some impact on readiness, it will not affect our ability to conduct our National Security missions both at home and abroad. So im very confident in terms of the fitness, the health of our forests and the commanders ability to make sure they manage our resources and our people. Keep in mind, ive always outlined three priorities. Number one, protecting our people and their families. Number two, insuring and safeguarding we have our Mission Capabilities available to us. Briefly, supporting the whole of nation government effort. Jennifer griffin . Hi, jennifer. Hi. Secretary esper, last week we heard the army had excess capacity to test. About 16,000 tests they could run a day. But they are running at a very small amount. White isnt the military helping the civilian labs with testing to ease the back load . And if i could as quickly a question about afghanistan, why did secretary of state pompeo feel the need to go out to afghanistan . From your perspective, is that socalled peace deal in jeopardy . And has he slowed the number of troops coming out of afghanistan . I dont want to get too much into afghanistan today. I want to speak about coronavirus. But i spoke to secretary pompeo earlier today. Hes obviously over there to try and keep the process moving forward. Otherwise he will be coming back, im sure he will speak to it more broadly once he returns to the United States. On your first question, ive already forgotten with the first question was. About testing. Testing. We have 16 labs available. We can test at least 16,000 per day as our throughput. I dont know where that number came from. I think we are up to 6,000 in terms of capacity. The issue is test kits. As more of those come on board we can test more. We have offered, again, those services up to the interagency to provide testing as we have excess capacity in our labs. And if my numbers are wrong, somebody will clean up afterwards. But i think thats the last time i was briefed, those were roughly the numbers. Courtney . I just want to be clear on the field hospitals. The ones going to seattle and new york city, you expect them to move out to speak . I want to clarify so there is no confusion there hospitals being being dumb i provided by hhs. I dont member what they are called, but there hospitals and sense of beds, bed space, things like that. Those being provided to seattle and i forget the other location. It might have been to art, as well. We are looking at providing our field hospitals, which include the hospital, the equipment, and medical professionals, and my aim is to get them out this we week. Seattle and new york city are the places, we just need fema to validate that. Keep in mind, they are the u. S. Government Central Place for handling requests and validating them and prioritizing them. So thats important. That was my notion as would be moving out this week. Can you give us more detail about changing the health Protection Conditions, exactly what that means . I think a lot of us here have been talking about how many people actually working in the building right now, prior to that. And where you expect that number is now and where it will go. We can get you those numbers on who is working in the building. I think its down considerably, maybe 60 something percent if not more. Again, im working off of numbers i was given last week. There does come with it additional measures. We talked about limiting the number of sites, some screening as we could go to medical screening in terms of temperature testing as people come in. Theres another action that is loolooked at. It would be swiping as they come in. Theres a number of things, we will put out more information today. There is no intent whatsoever, barbara, to limit the access of the press. We want to keep the building open certainly for essential personnel and media. We will go to the phone lin lines. Harris im missing a lot of this news conference. Do you hear me . I hear you. Thank you very much. The president yesterday talked briefly about the hostage. Could you talk about that . Did you say hostage . Yes, the hostage. We had a young lady, a Young American who was the victim of a Violent Crime in honduras, i believe. She has been returned to the United States. Out of respect for her and her family, for our privacy, we will leave it at that. Ive already answered your question. Harris weve been watching the defense secretary mark esper taking questions now. They are doing questions by phone, so on and so forth. You are the Associated Press go first they are. Its an interesting format, because of course they are social distancing in the White House Press briefing. But what we are getting on top line of all of this is just how much more coordinated through the National Guard and other areas of the federal government we are seeing things come together today from the defense secretary. Also, i mean, you heard our own Jennifer Griffin asking about a question. Can they be helpful in terms of testing kits, the military . What other kinds of support are there . A lot of good, rich detail in this conversation. There is a backdrop to all of this, and it is always who pays for what the hour tax dollars on capitol hill. A natural segue to go to Congressional Correspondent chad pergram. Chad, im reading and some of the notes you are sending that its getting kind of chippy like a bad hockey game on the senate floor right now. Somebody just called for social distancing . Some senators i know senator Susan Collins is upset. She is saying the answer from the democratic colleagues delay, delay, delay. Will they get a deal done . There is verbal open brawling on the United States senate floor right now, harris. Its been a long time, probably about 25 years, since ive seen it devolve this badly where you have senators from both sides yelling at one another. Because there is so much frustration over trying to get this coronavirus bill through. Theyve been at each others throats in the past hour. We think we are going to have a revote on that failed procedural vote last night, to start debate on the still unfinished coronavirus bill at around 1 30. Here is the Senate Majority leader mitch mcconnell. Heres the way it works, colleagues. We have been fiddling around, as the senator from maine pointed out for 24 hours. Senator from West Virginia has the floor. I know where youre coming from on this. We have a little different opinion about this. I think my friend from West Virginia. I think the colleagues will benefit from understanding where we are. Democrats continue to negotiate with the secretary of the treasury Steve Mnuchin and has director of legislative affairs, eric yuan. Chuck schumer, the democratic leader, continues to say they are close. But republicans their majority need democrats, 68s in this vote there are 53 republican senators but they are now down to 48 because of quarantines. That is why democrats continue to argue that there needs to be a universal agreement between democrats, republicans, the white house, and the house of representatives. Here is chuck schumer. We are very close to reaching a deal. Very close. Our goal is to reach a hopeful,n confident. Heres what Susan Collins said on the floor a little bit ago. She got up in the grill of chuck schumer. She said disgraceful, that he objected even to her being able to speak. Unbelievable, is this what weve come to . John thune, republican whip, said the countrys burning. This a lot of consternation appear about the health of senators. Weve heard all of these guidances about the cdc in the office of the attending physician here the capital, yet one of the only groups in the country who continue to meet for lunch, mind you, together in the same rooms, where the Senate Republican conference. Rand paul of course has tested positive. As i mentioned, there are several other republican senators who were out. The democrats were using social distancing and connecting their meetings via conference call. Just before he came on the air, rand paul put out another statement. He says, for those who want to criticize me for lack of a quarantine, realize that i would not have been tested and i would have still been Walking Around the capitol. They had pretty frank thinks to say about rand paul sitting in these lunches. Now they want to ask why they needed to get together. Continually, granted they were using social distancing, spreading out the harris thank you, chad. We will get reaction on all of this from the white house in a moment, as well. Assistant to the president , director of the office of trade and manufacturing, Peter Navarro will join me at the bottom of the hour. For now, an opportunity that is rare, and right on time. Governors in 50 states as well as washington, d. C. , activating the National Guard. Weve been telling you about this this hour, and you heard defense secretary esper talking, too. The president called up the guard and the three hardest hit states. California, new york, and Washington State. The president s action means the federal government will pick up all of the tabs from all three of those states when it comes to deploying their National Guard. Usually there is a 70 25 split. States picking up the smaller portion. The president now is saying the federal government will absorb the entire cost. General joseph lingle, chief of the National Guard bureau, is with me now. Air force general. I know that you wanted to first hear from secretary of defense, and then talk with us life. We are so appreciative of your time. When did you hear that is new that we need to know . Harris, thanks so much for having me on the show today. I just wanted to make sure that i heard the secretary, and he is engaged in getting all military capabilities, particularly enabling the National Guard. To get to the point of need in the 54 states, territories, and the district of columbia. I believe youre in the process of moving out to do that. As of today, i think in the port and that everybody know, and every single state, everywhere across this nation, across the territories, puerto rico, virgin islands, guam, and the district of columbia, that their National Guard and their states are focused to the degree they can to mitigate the covid19 response and do what they can. Individually, in each state. Go ahead . Harris no, i was just going to say, general lengyel, in what way specifically is the military part of our response . We are seeing a lot of video right now. And we know, because we have new rochelle here in new york, they have the National Guard, first in the nation. They were doing everything from passing out meals i mean, they were the backbone of an operation here. It felt like having family in some areas. How will we see them . Yeah, in many cases they are family. The National Guard, they are not all mustered on camp bases. They live in the communities. As the governors call them up they go to work. So they are doing everything from supporting tenting operations, supporting testing, setting up facilities, doing transportation, logistics, other medical services. In some cases youve seen them in some states, volunteers who normally run food banks, they replace those with members of the National Guard to make sure that the fundamental social services, other things not necessarily always military skill set, can be done and are doing by having National Guard men and women there in the states under command and control of the governor. Harris as a former leader of military and our nation, you know, im wondering, general lengyel, how the configuration of america versus virus will lean on the military in general. What is your thought on that . I think, from our perspective, in the guard, if you are going to design a military component that was going to help the system, the all of america approach, you would design the National Guard. They are going to use, to the degree weve talked many times about some of the medical capability that is in the military. When you take it out of the reserve component, keep in mind, all of our doctors and nurses, are medical conditions, physicians. There is a cost to pay. If you take them away from that and he remobilized them inside the National Guard. They will do other things. They are already doing they are not necessarily medical personnel, they are helping with implement in the drive through testing sites in 12 states. They are manning those up and helping implement and speed the rate at which we can get the test data and get people aware of whether or not they are covid19 positive. Harris general lengyel, it is so great to get your perspective on things and exactly how the National Guard will help out. We appreciate your time, we hope you will come back and update us again, sir. Thank you. You bet, harris. Thanks, any time. Harris a sobering assessment of covid19 in the u. S. 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