Faster than anything else we can do. Some positive news from California Governor Gavin Newsom yesterday. Two weeks ago, he announced the first statewide stay at home order in the United States. It appears to be paying off. Good morning and welcome to morning joe. It is friday, april 3rd. Joe will be back on monday. Along with willie and me, we have editor in chief of the atlantic magazine, jeffrey goldberg, former treasury official, and morning joe economic analyst steve rattner. And historian and author of the sole of america and rogers profession eal of the presidenc jon meacham. Well dive into the latest numbers. The cases of coronavirus across the globe have now topped 1 million. The u. S. Added almost 30,000 new cases yesterday, with the death toll now approaching 6,000. New york state added more than 9,000 cases yesterday, totaling more than 92,000. More than half are in new york city. The death toll there increased by 188 last night to more than 1,500 total. Hospitals are stretched so thin that city paramedics have been told Adult Patients who are in cardiac arrest and cant be revived in the field should not be taken to the emergency room. If you can imagine that. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said last night that he has enough ventilators to last about six more days. Here he is on msnbc last night, driving home a proposed solution that hes been pushing for some time now. The one Silver Lining here is not every place in this country gets hit at the same time. Right . Theres going to be a different curve for the disease in different areas, depending on when it started. Those curves will have a lag. Why dont we devise a National Strategy that moves with that rolling apex, if you will . I need roughly 30,000 ventilators, which i cant get. But i only need 30,000 ventilators for two or three weeks. At the top of my curve. Lets be smart. Lets go help this place when that town goes over its curve, then well go to the next, then well go to the next. Otherwise, youre saying to every state, every locality, you must be prepared on your own to handle this. Where we are now, 50 states all trying to buy the same equipment from china, and then the federal government comes in with fema, trying to purchase the same equipment. This is not the way to do it. And the simplicity is what makes it so tragic, frankly. Because we dont have a piece of equipment, someone is going to die . Because we dont have staff, someone is going to die . How did we get to this place, in this country . One other somber note, Funeral Homes are also struggling to keep up. A Brooklyn Owner tells the Associated Press that his company is equipped to handle up to 60 cases at a time, but hes now handling 185, saying, quote, this is a state of emergency. We need help. Willie . Meanwhile, a Senior Administration official is telling nbc news the white house is expected to announce a new advisory, a National Advisory, that americans living in coronavirus hot spots should wear cloth face masks. Officials say the expected move is aimed at reducing the risk that the virus could be spread by people who are infected but do not show any symptoms. Initial cdc guidelines advised americans against Wearing Masks unless they were Health Care Workers or if they were already infected. During yesterdays white house briefing, President Trump said the advisory would not be mandatory. I think theyre going to be coming out with regulations on that. If people want to abide by them, frankly, i dont think theyll be mandatory, because some people dont want to do that. But if people want as an example, if people wanted to wear them, they can. If people wanted to use scarves, which they have, many people have them, they can. In many cases, the scarf is better. Its thicker. I mean, gedepending on the material, its thicker. They could do that if they want. Recommendation is coming out. Well see what that recommendation is. But i will say this, they can pretty much decide for themselves right now. Is the guidance coming out, and when . Yes. When, sir . In the days ahead. Were currently working through the task force, seeking consultation advice from the cdc, our Top Health Experts. Well be bringing forward the guidance from the cdc the next several days. Just remember, its not a substitute for everything that were asking people to do. The most important thing is the social distancing and washing your hands. We dont want people to get an artificial sense of protection because theyre behind a mask. Because if theyre touching things, remember, your eyes are not in the mask. If youre touching things and then touching your eyes, youre exposing yourself in the same way. New york city mayor bill de blasio yesterday, by the way, announced he was recommending, and his government was recommending, that new yorkers do wear a mask, as well, following the lead of los angeles, which made the recommendation a couple days prior. President trump announced he is expanding the defense production act to Push Companies to make protective masks and ventilators needed to fight the coronavirus outbreak. The order authorizes the head of fema to acquire as many n95 masks from the company 3m as deemed necessary. The act is expected to also help six manufacturers, like ge and medtronic, secure supplies needed to make the lifesaving machines. In a white house statement, President Trump says the order, quote, will save lives by removing obstacles in the supply chain that threaten the rapid production of ventilators. Mika . There are new questions as to how the white house arrived at its projection this week. That up to 240,000 americans could die from the coronavirus. According to the Washington Post, while leading disease forecasters, Whose Research the administration used to reach its conclusion, said they dont challenge the numbers validity, white house officials refused to explain how they generated the figure. And they have not provided the underlying data so others can assess its reliability or provide longterm strategies that lower the death count. Three white house officials tell the post that some of President Trumps top advisers expressed doubts about the estimate. There have been fierce debates inside the white house about its accuracy. The post reports that a Task Force Meeting this week, dr. Anthony fauci told others that there are too many variables at play in the pandemic to make the models reliable. Saying, quote, ive looked at the models. Ive spent a lot of time on the models. They dont tell you anything. You cant really rely upon models. The cdc director and the Vice President s office have reportedly also voiced doubts about the projections accuracy. While a Columbia University epidemiologist, whose models were cited by the white house, tells the post that his own work on the pandemic doesnt go far enough into the future to make predictions akin to white house fatality forecasts. Jeffrey goldberg, a couple of things. As were, as everybody is looking for answers and trying to get numbers on masks and supplies getting to hospitals and hot spots around the country, and gauge how many cases, the bottom line here is that the one thing that works is the one thing thats being put upon the American People. That is this physical distancing, social distancing. It is being proven to have worked in california. The governor of california clearly listened to top scientists. We know for a fact he was on the phone with top Health Policy experts and decided to shut down the state and certain cities the earlie earliest, and the numbers are bearing that out. We have hot spots in these horrific situations in places like new york city right now. The only solution right now, the only solution that we have on the horizon is social distancing. Isnt the issue right now, as the economy crumbles and america is being brought to its knees, what is the timeline for real testing across the board, and what is the time liline for a vaccine . Those are the two things that could lead us out of this, and we have absolutely no answers so many weeks into this crisis. Well, you know, it is interesting. Underlying the call for social distancing, underlying the call for hand washing and Everything Else, is a deep desire and need for leadership. Stable leadership. It doesnt have to be genius leadership. It has to be stable leadership. You have to get a sense from the top that they have a plan, that they understand the needs across america, not state by state, but across america, and that they are executing. What were missing right now, a couple of things. One is a feeling that were getting it straight from the white house, getting straight information. Even if it is bad, unpleasant information, that theyre talking straight. The other is a sense of a unified plan. If you listen to Governor Cuomo at the top of the show, and listen to President Trump, i think you can see i think this is a fair conclusion that they project confidence and leadership and stability in very different ways. Ultimately, this is i mean, if it is true that this is a war, as donald trump argues, and that he is a wartime president , we have to have nobody is going to be able to predict the end of this, but you have to be able to tell the American People, look, this is what were doing on ventilators. This is what were doing on surging material to hospitals. This is what were doing, x, y, and z. We just whipsaw all day long, from different conclusion to different conclusion, with strange sort of things on whether the president is popular on facebook. Und under everything is the leadership question. I want to ask you, jon meach meacham, about the state of tennessee, where you live. There is a stay at home order for tennessee, following slowly the states of florida, georgia, and mississippi, which came online yesterday with those policies. What is your view and the snapshot of what it looks like in tennessee right now . These are places i think, perhaps, over the past couple months thought this was maybe a new york story and it might not visit nashville and memphis and east tennessee. What does it look like right now there . Yeah. I think it mattered enormously that dolly parton got involved, honestly. Yeah. She gave 1 million to vanderbilt. I mean, shes the real governor. That helps. Honestly, it sends a signal that this is serious. Our friend tim mcgraw is doing, you nknow, daily songs from his living room. People who have cultural influence are taking it seriously. I think that begins to help a climate of opinion that, to go to jeffreys point, you know, were in the midst i remember thinking at the beginning of this, i hope i dont have to say this but, in fact, i do. We have a partisan pandemic. It depends on where you live and what channels you watch, whether you trust certain facts and data. To a large extent, and this sounds overly grand, i know, but i think it has the virtue of being true, as Henry Kissinger used to say, enlightenment is on trial here. The facts and data that shape human decisions, because they are objectively true, that is something that is now very much under assault. I think it absolutely begins at the top. The other thing i hoped at the beginning of this is this would not become a per accepetual or referendum on this particular president. See the previous point. It is simply a fact that he is not communicating coherently and universally truthfully about what we face. It is very curious. Hes become this antifederalist figure from the 18th century, right . Suddenly, states rights. He loves, you know, the idea of, somehow or other, the border between my state and kentucky and mississippi and georgia and alabama, somehow or another, the virus will see a border and go, other, its a republican governor, i wont go there. It doesnt work that way. So i think that people are hungry for direction. I think theyre hungry for coherent information. You can find it. God bless the first amendment. The atlantic has been doing a fantastic job. You know, the institutions that so many of us trust have been doing a great job. But in a crisis like this, you shouldnt have to Freelance Health information. Right. You shouldnt outsource that to the citizens. So my sense is that anything that dr. Birx or dr. Fauci or the Vice President , anything that anyone can do to give a stream of fact amid the per s t perpetual reminders about what he did with china will, i think, serve the National Interest best. Well, lets talk about facts as it pertains to leadership. Jeffrey goldberg, ill throw this one at you. We had a former obama official on the show yesterday, seth harris, who said the president should resign, that this is failed leadership that has put us in a catastrophic position. Pretty harsh statement. But ill ask that you debunk that. We have a government that ordered up 100,000 body bags at this point. They wont streamline. The president will not streamline the dpa to focus on masks and ventilators getting directly to the people who need them. Hes leaving it to the governors. You have california thats doing pretty well in leadership. Started early, and the numbers are going down. Then you have places like georgia, where the governor just figured out this week that there are asymptomatic carriers. I mean, the stupidity level on the highest levels of leadership in states is showing itself during this crisis. And you have the governor of florida just shutting down the state late last night, just late last night, while we are considered to be in florida, in miami especially, to be the next hot spot, to have overrun hospitals and deaths, staggering numbers through the roof. The question is, how is that comment not true . What facts has this president put out during his nightly, weekly briefings that give us some sense of hope, that there is leadership from the top that is going to lead us out of this . Well, let me just be a Glass Half Full kind of guy for a minute, uncharacteristically, and just say the following. It is true that the governor of georgia doesnt have a deep science background. It is true that the governor of florida has, it seems, been negligent in response. But there has been extraordinary leadership shown by governors across the country over the past couple of weeks especially. And that has come about, a, because many of them are very, very good at leadership and, b, its come out because theres a vacuum. Theres a vacuum of leadership. Im not going to comment on whether President Trump should resign or not. I mean, this is not our this is not a surprising experience for us visavis this president. Weve been through three years of crises. The difference between those crises and this crisis is those were mainly selfinflected. Those are things that trump did to himself and did to the country. This is a virus that doesnt care about poll ratings or facebook likes or whatever. But this is not revelatory about this president. The instability caused by a shift, a change in American Power right now, would be something that one would have to consider in thinking through that. All im saying is that we still have, on the federal level, excellent public servants. You have in governors and mayors people, even some who have been a little late, are now fully seized by this. So, you know, all is not lost in the sense of leadership across the country. But jon is exactly right, this is about states now. Its about localities. Its about city states. Its quite odd that were back to the articles of confederation in a period of american history, but thats where were at. Something to think about. As we talk about listening to the doctors and willie . Yeah . Just to follow up on what was just said, something to think about is maybe taking the Governors Press conferences, across the board, live, and listening to whats actually happening in the states. I know were working on exactly how to cover these president ial news conferences. Were dipping in and out, like when the president s soninlaw gets up there, or the president starts riffing, we dip out. Trying to get facts about this is really tough at the highest level. Ive been watching the governors news conferences all day long. I just pull them up live from state to state, and there are a lot of governors who are doing a great job, who have real facts, real numbers, and are really connecting with people in an empathetic way, and it does give us some hope, willie. Yeah. Of course, new York Governor Andrew Cuomo has been given those addresses effectively, the q a sessions and updates every day, that a lot of the National Networks are taking because the story is most acute in the state of new york. As we talk about listening to the doctors, ill say again, dr. Anthony fauci yesterday, starting at 7 00 in the morning with an interview on the today show and ending at 10 00 last night on cnn, said effectively that we should have a national shutdown. The stay at home order should apply to the country. He said, i cant say that. Thats not my job. I understand that there are questions about states rights and federalism and Everything Else. If youre asking me what would be the smartest thing to do, stay at home across the country. But thats up to the president. Thats listening to the doctors, as you say. Lets talk about the financial side about this thats taking an incredible human toll. Staggering jobless claims number crossing as we reported yesterday. 6. 65 Million People claiming unemployment just last week. The week before that, the Labor Departm