Data we have, which, again, we dont know if all that data is right, certainly not worldwide but based on the data we have, were experiencing the largest outbreak in the world right now and we just had our worst day yet. Nbc news counting more than 273,000 cases in the United States more than 6900 deaths from the virus. In the hardest hit state, new york, this is the scene in brooklyns largest hospital where 32 coronavirus patients are now being treated in an area that normally only has 17 beds. And the number of coronavirus cases is rising quickly. So were now in the Critical Care area of the emergency department. Everyone thats in here today is here due to breathing problems, almost uniformly from covid. Were seeing such a large increase on a day to day basis on a number of patients presenting in Critical Condition requiring really all the resources that we have to provide in order to help them. Obviously seeing a large number of critically ill patients. More than ive seen in my career. Not only do they have coronavirus but their diabetes is out of control so its particularly hard and were learning how to do it, how to manage. How concerned are you about the days, the weeks, the months ahead . I think were in for a significant period of seeing a lot of very, very ill patients and this is going to put a strain on the system. Weve opened up new icus, intensive care unit, new medical units to accommodate for this increased demand of patients coming in so ill. Virus is spreading across the country and because of this spread to different places, Everyone Needs the same things, right . Personal protective equipment like masks like you saw those Front Line Health Care workers wearing and lifesaving supplies like the ventilators those patients were on. Because the federal government just refuses to take the lead and organize a coordinated federal response, there is this unfolding disaster right now in the accusatircusatiorquisitiorr this is an n 5 mas 95 mask. This is it. I was 70 cents before this started 95 mask. This is it. I was 70 cents before this started95 mask. This is it. I was 70 cents before this started95 mask. This is it. I was 70 cents before this started. Its now as high as 7. Because states across the country need the same stuff, there is an insane battle playing out with states bidding against each other and also sometimes against the federal government and the Trump Administration is only making this worse by distributing many materials not directly to the states, but to the private sector. So this product that were moving is primarily commercial product that would enter the commercial system and be distributed through financial business transactions between hospitals and these distributors. Just to clarify, that explains why states say theyre bidding like theyre on ebay because the supplies are going to the private sector and they have to go there to get supplies. Thats normally how things work, right . So im not here to disrupt a supply chain. Not here to disrupt a supply chain . The supply chain is already very disrupted and because of that, states are being forced to go through all kinds of shady middlemen. Here is the New York Times today. There is bedlam in the mass market as profiteers out hustle Good Samaritans can scams and price gouging in a time people are most at need. Like price gougers after a hurricane charging 10 or 15 a gallon of gas but they tend to get arrested and publicly shamed and the District Attorney does a press conference. Many are just getting rich in this insane market while people are dying. And our federal government is letting it happen. But its worse than that. The Trump Administration is explicitly advocating responsibility there. Yesterday the president s soninlaw not an epidemiologist distributing lifesaving materials from the federal stockpile is not the federal governments job. The notion of the federal stockpile was supposed to be our stockpile, not supposed to be state stockpiles they use. So were encouraging states to make sure they are assessing the needs, getting data from local situations and then trying to fill it with the supplies that weve given them. I would encourage you, when you have go v nvernors saying the federal government hasnt given you what you need, have you looked within your state to be sure you havent been able to find the resources . Oh, have you checked first . Did you hear what he said there . It is our stockpile according to jared kushner, our stockpile. Who is our . Who . Jared and ivanka . Their personal stash . Not the states . The federal government is constituted by the 50 states. In fact, the literal did i haef who the stock belongs to, it was said until yesterday, no longer says it today because amidst the pandemic, the Trump Administration is laser focused on stopping they had time to rewrite the website to retroactively claim the soninlaw was accurate. Were facing an enormous challenge here and what we need is our federal government to lead. Nbc news spoke to a dozen experts who said the trumped administrations lack of a unfied coronavirus strategy is going to cost lives and frankly, it already is. Today, new york used its Emergency Alert system, the ones that push out to your phones to ask Health Care Workers to volunteer to help the fight against the virus. It is that bad. And as new york governor andrew cuomo, the patch work system where everyone is fending for themselves is only making things worse. When florida has a hurricane, what do we do . We get in the trucks, everybody drives down to florida. New york is in crisis. Help new york. And then pick up, decamp and go to the next place as this rolls across the country. Joining me now, someone with extensive experience coordinating large scale disaster relief, retired Lieutenant General rustle who served as commander as joint task force katrina. Lieutenant, lets start with this big logistics question, something youve had experience with, you had experience with in the aftermath of katrina. What is your reaction to hearing the news we have this market, we have middlemen and the u. S. Government and the u. S. Department of defense facilitating this sort of private market full of middlemen and bidding wars . Always knew that the government would favor certain contractors, but i didnt know it was enabled by them but based on what the admiral said last night, i never knew in my 37 years in uniform that the government, a facility of private companies by bringing stuff, handing it over to them so they can sell it back at a higher up to seven times the price to the states were giving the money to buy, ive never heard of that before and i think mr. Kushner mentioned, i dont believe he know what hes talking about. Hes totally clueless as to when hes talking about. General, it seems to me there are significant logistic l capacities within both the department of defense and the federal government broadly to take more of a leadership role in this very fraught supply chain right now. Is that correct in your estimation . Absolutely. And the president reluctantly signed and executed the defense production act which could have been working now for, what, seven, eight days ago he signed it reluctantly and then did not execute it . And now weve got u. S. Companies who are duriduring that period did not make their product specifically to handle problems in new york, no new orleaew orl washington. Selling it all over market to the highest bidder. We did not execute the defense logistics as it was intended to and as a result of that, you got u. S. Companies, quiunited state companies bargaining for the highest bidder and sometimes out bidding fema or in some cases fema out bidding them. It is like the saturday morning flea market trying to figure out how to get supplies and it would be one thing, chris, if the system was working. It not working. The doctors and nurses across america every morning on the night shows, theyre saying its not working. And to stand up and defend it and say we got it, we got the air bridge, come find out the air bridge is bringing stuff here and giving it to private companies to sell back to the highest bidder. That is a gross injustice for the intent of what the federal government should be doing and im telling you, fema got some good people in it but something politically has happened to pull strings at fema and changed the way their Standard Operating Procedures on the website say they are supposed to be operating. Something is terribly wrong and i hope the president get this fixed because its going to put our nation further and further at risk as this thing get worse before it get better. They need to fix the supply chain and my recommendation to him is give the department of defense a larger role in managing these supplies and getting them where they need to go, have the National Guard put two noncommissioned officers or lieutenants in every hospital. Get the count. Report that to the governor and get how many days of supply in each hospital and get some discipline in the system and every piece of pee ppe or equipment come into the country is them taking control by the government and handing it over to the military for distribution as described by the National Command authority. That is a very, very different picture than what we have here of more similar to what happened when you were in katrina and able to get supplies into that raviged city. Wear your mask. Think about the nurses. Go god bless you. God bless. Joining me now on what more needs to be done, nevada governor. Are you experiencing firsthand this sort of crazy bidding market for these needed supplies . Well, there is clearly a shortage of supplies. Im on regular Conference Calls with the Vice President s task force and the president and couple weeks back, he told us to go out and buy it on your own. They couldnt supply and fill our needs and weve taken that advice seriously. We set up a task force and raised private money and supplementing with state money, 6. 5 million. The private side raised 10 million and they got the charger going and finding ppes around the world to buy and procure for nevada. Your state obviously is a state im sorry. Wait, say that again. You said youre bidding against who . Bidding against other governors and the federal government. There is a limited supply of these materials. Everyone is kind of going to the same suppliers. Some have more and some have different ones. We used to pay 60, 70 cents for is now 6 , 7. You have to get it. Its a priority for me, my front line responders, nurses and doctors have the ppe going into those rooms. I have a private group in a week raised 10 million to buy on the open market ppes that we need and thats the avenue were going and making our own testing kits. I couldnt get testing kits. Were assembling our own in our state lab. What is the status of the outbreak in your state . I know that you recently have a lockdown order and youre a state where a disproportionate part of your economy state is depending on tourism. Depending on large groups of people congregating in buildings and a type of thing we dont know when were going to be able to do again. Yeah, we really issued the stay at home order over two weeks ago. We reiterated in a different way this week and made people notice, maybe. Almost three weeks ago, i closed all the schools in nevada. We turned off all your viewers, we shut down the las vegas strip. Its something i never contemplated. Put over 200,000 people out of work. We instituted different procedures. We banned groups of ten or mor , gathering together and social distancing. I called up the National Guard to help us in the facilitating of these regulations and well continue to do more and more and more to get people to stay in their homes and to practice responsible protocols and stop this disease from spreading. A lot of governors ive talked to have talked about the test kits you have to assemble yourself and the sort of very inconsistent supply of testing across this country. Do you feel like you have an adequate sense and the Public Health officials that are advising you of eyes on the virus . That you have a sense of how big the outbreak is and where it is and where you are in the epidemic curve . Well, i think we have a sense of where were at but its not any consistency in supplies with test kits. Ive had known. It been consistent at zero along the way. I have had local businesses that have businesses in china that donated 2,000 test kits he flew over here. We bought them on the open market and are assembling some of our own fda approved to continue testing. One of the reasons our moore bitbi morbidity rate is higher, we cant do the testing. We can only do the worst of the worst. We havent reached anywhere near our apex. Were weeks out from that. We need to do more to lower the curve. We need to get people to practice responsible distancing and staying at home and that works. Its proven to work. And were going to continue to do that. Governor Steve Sisolak of nevada. You fanaticize about Different Things that happen when were through this, one is going out to dinner, one is it will be nice to go to vegas when were through this. Im looking forward to that day. Let me tell ya something. Were recommending every Single Person in the United States to come to vegas when this is done. Were going to need your help. Let me tell ya. Im sure you are. I didnt want to make the decision to put 200,000 hospitality workers out of work at the flip of a switch. Well come out of this together. This virus cannot spread on it own. We can only spread if we allow it to by having social interaction and thats where we need to stop and get everybody to take it more seriously and well be in much better shape. Thank you for this opportunity and god bless the First Responders and folks on the front line. Amen. Be well, governor. Good luck. Next, were learning more about the many failures of the Trump Administration in the led up to the pandemic including shuttering a pandemic Detection Program two months before the pandemic and that reporting with the reporter that broke it right after this. Ing with the reporter that broke it right after this Colonial Penn can help. Hi, im jonathan, a manager here at Colonial PennLife Insurance company. And with Coverage Options starting at just 9. 95 a month, you can get a whole Life Insurance plan to help close that gap with a benefit check paid directly to your beneficiary. Its cash they can use right away, and generally, its free from federal income tax. If youre between age 50 and 85, Coverage Options start at just 9. 95 a month. And the rate is locked in, so it can never go up. There are no medical questions. 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Something that they can use wherever they are. We care about keeping you safe. At verizon, we are here, and we are ready. We are open 24 7 online, so you can keep managing all you need from home and through the verizon apps and verizon. Com. Almost a year ago, the president s health and Human Services secretary alex aczar said quote, people ask what keeps you most up at night in the bio defense world . Pandemic flu of course. That is part of what is so maddening about the situation we now fanld oind ourselves in. What is playing out right now is almost precisely the scenario, down to a coronavirus from china leading to mask and ventilator sho shortages that has been predicted by expert after expert after expert for years inside and outside the government. Today the Washington Post is reporting back in september of 2018, the Trump Administration received detailed plans for new machines designed to, guess what . Turn out millions of protective masks at high speeds during a pandemic because everyone knew during a pandemic there would be a shortage. The Trump Administration decided not to proceed with making the machine. Trump administration has either ignored warnings, failed to prepare or gutted the institutions doing the predicting. Here is the latest example of that. L. A. Times reporting two months before this Novel Coronavirus began in china, the Trump Administration ended a 200 million pandemic Early Warning programg th called predict. The program trained and supported staff in 60 labs including a lab in wuhan china that detected coronavirus. Im joined by the author, medical reporter for the los angeles times. What can you tell us about this program . How did it work . So this is a program