Governments slow response to deal with and prepare for the worst Global Pandemic in probably 100 years. Dr. Fauchi said earlier this week the lag in testing was , i fact a failing. Do you take responsibility for that . No, i dont take responsibility at all because we were given a set of circumstances, and we were given rules, regulations and specifications from a different time. You said that you dont take responsibility but you did disband the White House Pandemic Office and officials that were working in that office left this administration abruptly. So what responsibility do you take to that and the officials that work in that office said that the white house lost valuable time because that office was disbanded. What do you make of that . Well, i just think its a nasty question because what weve done is and tony had said numerous times that we saved thousands of lives because of the quick closing and when you say me, i didnt do it. Point of fact he did do it. His white house did it. Trump announced a set of probably necessary measures to cut regulatory obstacles to get testing up to capacity but as of today, the u. S. Still only tested 18,000 people total. Thats quite a bit up, almost double from last night but we are still way, way, way behind almost every other comparable nation in that regard. In fact, look at this. Trumps own former fda head, this is a Trump Administration official was calling for the actions like the ones being taken today to be taken six weeks ago and not in some private back channel, on twitter where anyone can read it. The rest of the showcase in the rose garden today appeared to be a bizarre and cynical attempt to pump up the stock market. Trump came out 30 minutes before the markets closed and proceeded to introduce and hype up ceos from who is who in big americans brands, target, walmart, cvs that saw stock markets skyrocket and promised google has 1700 engineers working on a website to facilitate testing and that appears to be a lie. They dont. Theres a Pilot Project from an Alphabet Company that might test out. Speaker nancy pelosi emp fiea sau e said testing, testing. The package includes two weeks of sick leave and three months paid family and medical leave, which is probably not enough, definitely not enough but a good start. They are at least tangible deliverables. The problem is that all the important stuff or most of the important stuff trump was offering today is essentially vaporware. Advertised but not in stores yet. Thats the stuff that matters. Like we need more tests. More ventilators, more cape b d capabilities to help sick people. They dont care what will be available. The virus doesnt care about salesmenship or p. R. So the Public Health crisis, the very real one in the u. S. And across the world continues to unfold. Things are severe, extremely severe. In the u. S. There are over 21 00 cases and 49 deaths. Oh we only passed the 1,000 case mark three days ago. Italy is probably the closest estimate to the trajectory were on. Today was italys worst day so far. Italy had 2500 new cases just today, 250 new deaths today, more than 1200 people died and these numbers are unnerving because it looks like if we continue at our rate, the u. S. May be in the same place. Here in the u. S. , state and local officials continue to fill the leadership vacuum left by the white house. So far 17 states closed Public Schools so has washington d. C. And los angeles and the nations second Largest School system. Well talk about that later in the program. They are rolling out horrible te mobile testing. Seattle has been particularly hard hit. The Washington Post reports one study at seattle shows quote under the worstcase scenario the number of active infections will exceed the number of beds by a large margin in the next two weeks. Here is the thing. We still just dont really know how bad things are because of the lack of testing, what epidemiologist call surveillance of the virus, but the state of washington that knows it has a very severe outbreak on its hands is taking dramatic steps to stem the bread of the virus. The King County Court postponed jury trials for a month. The seattle Childrens Hospital halted all elective surgeries, today governor jay inslee ordered all schools closed until april 24th. Glove knovernor inslee joins me. I know youre under tremendous pressure and stress there. Give us a read on how things are in washington right now. Well, theyre obviously extremely challenging. Weve gone from about 160 cases four days ago to 568 today. So we see right now this trajectory is troubling and extremely rapid and the demands that we be aggressive and bold and robust in our efforts to reduce the transmission rate. So today i did close all of the schools, Public Schools and colleges in the state of washington. Weve also now extended our ban on gatherings of people of any size across the state of washington and we did that to get ahead of this wave. Weve concluded we needed to do this statewide rather than county by county because of this very, very Rapid Transmission rate. So the thing were most focused on right now is building our Surge Capacity in our medical system to build the beds and particularly the ventilators. Im particularly concerned about the ventilator stock and looking for an opportunity to manufacture them much more rapidly so they will be there when unfortunately, we think well have thousands of people in need in the next several weeks. So i would describe this as very challenging but its like my dad used to say, when youre going through hell, keep going and thats what were doing in the state of washington. You just talked about Surge Capacity. Can you talk to me now, the big fear for everyone right now, part of the reason its shutting entire countries down is that you have happen in one of our areas like seattle, what would happen in italy or wuhan, the medical system over run. Whats your capacity now in the icus . Do you have the personal protective equipment for health care personnel, the n95 mastks and ventilators and beds you need now . We have them now, just barely. The question is we want to make sure we have them in several weeks. Give you some sense of the scale of this. We have about ten, 11,000 beds in the state of washington at any one time but if this trajectory continues by early may, you know, we could need another 5,000 beds so you need a 50 Surge Capacity. Wow. Thats a fairly conservative estimate. So this is an enormous challenge. The good news is we have a good plan for this, but like any plans, we need to be flexible and we need to be really calling frankly for a lot of volunteers because not only do you need the beds, you obviously need the medical personnel, the physicians and the nurses. So one of the things were doing is looking to bring people out of retirement and bring people from other states so weve waived some of the licensing rules to get more of the practitioner and obviously, we need the equipment. Like ventilators, i think ventilators, if this continues unabaded will be the thing we have the most concern about. Thats why we as a state have gone out and looked at our ability to buy ventilators and not just rely upon the federal stockpile. I was a little concerned and weve had good cooperation from some of the agaencies and mike pence has been helpful to us. They waived rules to get our testing going faster. Theyve helped waive a few things for unemployment compensation. So some of these agencies are working well with us. I was a little concerned, i dont know if its accurate. We worked closely with, im concerned that we need a little more umph from the federal government to increase the ventilator capacity. Well be way too close to a critical situation if we dont acquire those quickly. Where are you on testing . You mentioned ramping up testing. You have a lab out front on this. Ive talked to a bunch of people over the past day that say in the epicenter of one of these outbreaks, in someways testing becomes just not a priority. People the priority is caring for the ill and you contract the virus if you contract the virus but thats what you got to do. Where are you on that scale . Well, weve been fortunate because we were ahead of most all of the states of building our own Testing Capacity in our state public lab. So in the early days, we did have adequate capacity to test the samples that were coming in in a timely fashion. Now we got set back a little bit because as you know, there was a glitch in the original kit sent from the federal government but we came up with our own system and we were in pretty good shape in that regard. Right now, we continue to be in fairly good shape because the turnaround time, i just checked on this this morning is from 28 to 24 to 48 hours. Were in pretty good shape. We want to continue to build that capacity both for diagnostic purposes and for demographic purposes to figure out where the hot spots are. But a lot of this is, you know, people have anxiety. They want to know whether they have the disease. We understand that. So yes, we should continue to build our capacity that is happening. We now are bringing in some labs and i talked to the Vice President the other day. He asked whether we could actually assume some of the federal responsibility for validating the new systems of testing that the private labs are bringing on and i think were going to be able to do that to help the federal government get that job done. We have enough excess capacity in our public lab to do that so i hope we can help out in that regard. So what i would say right now is my biggest concern is the medical Surge Capacity. Thats what were really focused on to not get in a situation where we dont have enough ventilators and people not being able to breathe. Thats what were focused on. You mentioned, obviously your state had one of the first indications of community transmission. There is dna analysis to suggest that the virus had been there for five weeks before it was discovered. Do you have internal modelling that lets you get a sense of the scope of what is happening independent of the confirmed cases which we know is not an accurate measurement of whats happening . Yeah. Yeah. We do have and were fortunate. Weve got some of the best gwinneg genetic doctors in the world and we have modelling that can take the known test and genetic situation to figure out where they are and do a projection of what you have Walking Around in the streets undiagnosed and were fairly confident unfortunately, its in the low thousands at the moment and if you do the projections on that, you know, we think this doubles every week and so if you assumed at the beginning of this week we had 1,000 or 2,000, that means by mid may, if you do the projections in a modelling, you maybe have 60,000 plus by mid may. And if you look at the mortality rates, youre talking about, you know, potentially 2,000 pa tall fatalities by mid may, and that doubles the following week. This is why we have to be so focused on building medical Surge Capacity in all its. You need the bed. You need the building. You need the personnel and equipment like venld ltilators. We assessed the capacity. The army corps of engineers can come out with dozens and dozens of beds. We may be calling upon the army to help us in that regard but even that will not be enough. Weve all got to focus on this nationally and one thing i would say, i would say any local leader, we got to put our shoulder on that starting tonight. All right. Governor jay inslee that was really informative and i thank you for taking time. You bet. Wash your hands. I will. I want to bring in congresswoman alicia, democrat from michigan and former cia middle east analyst and assistant acting assistant secretary of defense under president obama. So my understanding is here is my understanding of the play. A deal was struck between nancy pelosi and Steve Mnuchin now everyone is waiting to see in the gop caucus if the president tweets a thumbs up so they can vote for it . That is my understanding. Yeah. That were literally waiting to see sort of white smoke from the white house via tweet and then until and unless we see that tweet, were not going to have a vote from the republicans. They dont want to vote until they see how he thinks about it. To be clear, this has been negotiated with the Trump Administration. Nancy pelosi negotiated with treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin in the president s administration, is that right . Thats my understanding. I was in with the speaker yesterday when she had to be interrupted to take secretary mnuchins call. I know theyve been working this really hard. I hope were on the brink of a deal and i hope it works tonight. What do you think of the package . I mean, listen, i think, you know, this would be the second package that weve done in a week. The first one that we did 8. 3 billion was just to sort of get going on research for a potential cure but really for treatment. Which hopefully could come in a couple months and start pushing out some of the equipment that we know everyone needs. Today the bill that were looking at is really about just some relief for families, particularly workers who are furloughed or not being able to work. Making sure there is worker compensation. Making sure there is family leave and sick leave for people who dont have it. Just allowing people to do the basics that cdc is asking them to do and then well have to do a third package, honestly. Well do something my guess in the next ten days about the economic recovery but the package to me is something thats important because we want to feel that were moving out on something. People need we just heard the governor, you know, Washington State is leading on this and youve heard him, what he needs, that takes money. We want to push it out tonight. So the schedule is everyone is waiting around in the capital and if the president tweets approval, then you can waive the rules and move it quickly to the floor and vote for it but no one can leave until the president tweets that he likes it . Yeah. I mean, were waiting to be called to the floor. Its not the first time. It wont be the last time but that is what we are doing. You said Something Interesting because my next question is will you get another bite of the apple here . You said there will be a third package. I worry when i speak to members there is mismatch of peoples understanding of the scale where this might end up and the scale of where it might end up. How are you thinking about it . Who are you talking to to get your head around as a member of Congress Might period we might be entering into . Sure. So maybe it because im a former cia officer and pentagon official, i really believe in r early systematic prudent planning. Our governor in michigan took some very dramatic action. I thought that was extremely prudent to close all schools, declare an emergency very early before we had even a dozen cases in the state. And what she was trying to do is stem the flow and the spread of the disease so that were not in a situation that poor Washington State is in now. Im talking to her. Shes calling regular meetings with the delegation but informative for me today, i got on the phone with 75 leaders from across the district, fire chiefs, sheriffs, just everybody and we went through i talked about the appropriation that we did last week and whats coming down the pipe. But then also what were trying to get done today, more importantly heard what they need from us. It mirrors what you heard from the governor in Washington State. Testing, testing, testing. Particularly for Health Care Workers and First Responders, they want to know they will be able to be tested if they need a test. They also are public serve vanlvanl serve vanents and dont want to infect because because they cant get ahold of a test. Equipment, ventilators and in michigan, masks, gowns, basic stuff. So our governor is working really, really hard and asking us to advocate at the federal level. Then of obviously, we have a problem with child care. Schools are out. We have a problem with businesses. Weve been talking about how well get Small Business administration loans to folks who are seeing a repeat of 2008 and cant last more than a month in some cases without taking in some kind of money. So theres stages to this. And i think the most important thing ive heard to be honest is people are looking for real clarity in leadership. Again, from my time at the pentagon, just be clear, be consistent, take action, move. We want to see you moving and compassion. Have empathy for what people are going through on the ground. Thats what people are looking for is a firm clear hand. Final question and its a question on politics, which are not the most important thing here but everything you do is political. Youre in a swing district. Youre a freshman member of congress. My sense from talking to you is that this is not a tough vote for you. Like, this stuff is not tough for you in a political sense right now. You right . There might be votes that are tough. This is not one of them. No, getting assistance out to our states and local authorities, no. I mean, thats not a tough vote and i got to be honest with you, i am deeply invested in the success of this administration on this issue. Right . We all should be. Im not going to spend time criticizing donald trump. Do i love everything hes doing . No. Am i invested in him succeeding because thats how well get through this . Yes. Thank you very much. Thanks. Everyone wants to know where is americas trajectory with the coronavirus headed . How long will this last . Well talk to the experts where we are compared to the countries that have gone before us and where were going next. E gone bd where were going next noises noises its the easiest because its the cheesiest. Kraft. For the win win. You work hard for your money. Stretched days for it. Juggled life for it. Took charge for it. So care for it. Look after it. Invest with the expertise of j. P. Morgan, either wit