We may have more still to endure. We have to open our country up. We have to get going. We have to open our country up. Using the great advances of science. What do i know . Im not a doctor. Im not a doctor, but i have common sense. And our instinctive compassion to heal. If it does help, great. If it doesnt help, we gave it a shot. What a contrast from leadership. There you have Queen Elizabeth talking about a common cause, and then you have donald trump, who had an unscheduled press conference yesterday evening. For what reason, few people really know. Because if you break down what the president said, and a lot of people have been analyzing it over the night pretty much nothing of news. Nothing new. Nothing noteworthy. The president attacked a governor in personal terms, for no reason at all, actually. Its the last thing you want to do at a time of crisis. He continued to push an unproven drug, whose efficacy on this pandemic is still unknown. He has his hack, Peter Navarro, running around, breaking up meetings, where white house officials, dr. Fauci, is trying to help you and your family, trying to prepare you and your family in the hospitals that you and your family may have to go to. Peter navarro is actually throwing documents. Heres a hack who doesnt even know economics. Hes the one responsible for all of our trade wars, and now hes going in and yelling at dr. Fauci, claiming he knows i mean, this seriously is the death of expertise. Yeah. This is when the idiots have been exposed for who they are in the time of americas greatest needs. Last night, the president attacked a governor, he pushed an unproven drug, and then he continued, saying that the buck doesnt stop here. I must ask, mika yeah. What did america get out of Cable News Networks running a twohour rambling press conference, where he says the same exact things every time . If you think about the amount of time that he gives, even before the questioning, to an unproven drug, when we have ventilator shorta shortages, when we have testing shortages. I mean, dramatic testing shortages in the president s hometown county where maralago is, palm beach county. And you also have the numbers spiking up across the nation. We have a crisis of hospital beds, not only in new york city, but im worried about Rural America, where the rural health cares been ravaged over the past decade by continual cuts in medicaid by republicans. Were in a crisis, and hes continuing for, what, the third week now, to push an unproven drug. Why is msnbc, why is cnn, why is fox, why is any Network Running these press conferences where he keeps talking about an unproven drug that might work for malaysia, might work for lupus, doesnt work for this . Well, therell be dr. Fauci constantly dr. Fauci wasnt allowed to answer. He wasnt allowed to talk. Donald trump got on Television Last night, and he was just stalling, according to reports. He said he liked the good ratings. He likes getting out there because a lot of people watch. Joe watched him say nothing. Dr. Fauci wasnt allowed to talk about what he feels is important to say about this drug that the president keeps pushing. A lot of people would say, follow the money. Theres got to be some sort of financial tie to someone somewhere that has the president pushing this repeatedly. More importantly, he had dr. Fauci and dr. Birx, which most people i think we can universally agree are trying to slow the spread or trying to cop t contain this virus, are trying to save american lives. We are looking at our worst week yet ahead. Right. Theyre trying to save american lives, and he has them scrambling for 90 minutes to prepare for a twohour News Conference. Hes going to exhaust his toptier so he can get his needy camera time. So he can get out there and riff, quite frankly, ill l illiterately. Saying things that arent true, going off script. By the way, i have to ask, who wrote that script . It was as if an eighth grade politics debate team wrote it. It was pathetic. We are this a place right now where the president is getting in the way of progress and taking time away from the team that is supposed to be helping us get out of this crisis. He wasted our time and theirs. Well, and he did it, Jonathan Lemire, we have aps Jonathan Lemire with us. Again, everything you heard, the president has his catch phrase. , during the campaign, it was, believe me. Believe me. There have been articles written about how when he doesnt have anything else to say, he goes back to these catch phrases and loops. Hes done this with the drug especially. Hes done it with so many other things. Its kind of like the perfect call, which well get to later on. In this case, i moean, he just sounded foolish. Unfit not just for the presidency but unfit for any job anywhere. I dont care. His biggest hacks can come forward today and try to defend that performance. Of course, theyll do the what aboutism with joe biden. Hes not president. Donald trump is president , and he sounded unfit and foolish. He rambled around for a couple of hours. Only difference is mika talked about how dr. Fauci was not allowed to say what he was feeling about the drug. What he knows. But its not feeling. Its donald trump who keeps saying the same thing over and over and over again about this drug. Which is, i dont know. I dont know if it is going to do anything. What do we have to lose . You could say that about dandelion and raindrops. Sprinkle dandelion rain drdrops. I dont know if its going to help. I dont know. He admits he has no idea whether this is going to work or not and, yet, he keeps rambling on about this drug. He keeps rambling on about personal fights with governors. He keeps rambling on about how nobody saw this coming. Its such a lie. Hhs secretary azar last year in 2019 was asked at a conference, what keeps him up at night. He said the pandemic. The pandemic, of course, is what keeps us all up in this room at night. That a pandemic is coming. Everybody saw this coming in the science world. Last week, i got secure keward saying everybody knew it was coming in january. In this Washington Post article, december 21st, cdc drops reports for hhs after getting information about the virus from wuhan. January 3rd, formal notification of covid19 from china and the cdc. This is from the Washington Post article yet. Two days later, u. S. Spy agencies warn trump in early january of an outbreak in the president s daily brief. January the 3rd, cdc chief relays distributing news to hhs azar, disturbing news. Same day, the 3rd, azar shares the chinese virus notification with the white house and the National Security councils. All of this by january the 3rd. January the 6th, the cdc offered assistance to china, who turned to down that offer. The same week, hhs convened an Interagency Task force on covid19 with hhs secretary a r azar, cdc head, and fauci. 8th of january, cdc issued a public warning about the coronavirus. On the 14th of january, hhs assistant secretary cadillac begins drawing up plans to implement the defense production act to fight the virus. Jonathan, i could go on practically every day of that month. Things are happening. This is on the 14th of january. He is drawing up plans so the president can use the defense production act. Of course, that has been an ongoing fight. He scribbles one word, jonathan, on his notebook. Coronavirus. This is on january the 14th. My god, two months later, i mean, its coming up on three months later, it is still a mess. No testing. Two months after that, it was still chaos when it came to the defense production act. Three months later, we still the president actually announced yesterday Something Like 1,500 tests. 1,500 tests that were released by abbott in a country of 320 Million People. Yeah. Thats not good. The catch phrase is, from the president about the drug yesterday, were, ive got a good feeling about this, and what have you got to lose . Well, for some americans who take this drug, if its not approved, they could lose their health. There are side effects. It is not about having a good feeling about this. Thats what dr. Fauci has been strie tro trying to stress. Its the science. Its going through the Rigorous Testing Program to make sure this drug, which is effective against malaria and other things, can also be effective to treat the coronavirus. We simply dont know yet. Lets back up a little bit about that briefing. There was no briefing scheduled for sunday night. The white house schedule came out saturday evening, said it was not listed. Sunday morning, aides told the reporters, nothing on the schedule. In fact, the afternoon, they issued a lid, which is to pull back the curtain a bit, is youre not going to see the president today. Telling reporters there wont be any public events. As the day goes on, according to our reporting, the president got antsy. He told people that he loves the spotlight. He knows he gets good ratings. Sunday nights, against 60 minutes. He wants to preempt 60 minutes and talk to the nation. Hed seen Governor Cuomo deliver his briefing earlier in the day. Though reporters were told there wouldnt be one because it was palm sunday, the president decided to offer one. Same time, mind you, joe biden was doing a virtual town hall about the coronavirus. Perhaps a little president ial counterprogramming. Reporters were hurried back to the white house. They attended the event. As we saw last night, there wasnt much in the way of news. A lot of president ial bluster. A lot of answger when pushed abt the timeline. The issues you highlighted in the terrific Washington Post story. Also my colleagues at the Associated Press had an article about how the government ordered bulk orders of rhe i respirators and masks in the middle of march. When my colleague asked the question in the final question of the day, the president snapped at him and ended the briefing. They remain in a defensive posture, explaining how they were so slow to move on the crisis though there were warnings for months. The president s inner circle was trying to convince him to act, mobilize the federal government, do something about it. So were looking at potentially 100,000 to 200,000 people dying and looking at projections in the best of times. The president last night, once again, joe, taking three to four hours of his toptier teams time to work on his camera time. So he can go out and get attention and deliver absolutely nothing new. These people standing on stage. Dr. Fauci, dr. Birx, and the other members of his Team Standing out there for hours. Having to present something to the press, which meant they had to prepare something for the press. It was all a complete waste of time, quite frankly. Time being used to save lives. Time that was not used last night because the president needed attention. Even when theyre in these meetings. Even when theyre doing their jobs away from the cameras, theyre getting distracted by idiots like Peter Navarro. Navarro actually has the nerve to throw down files in front of dr. Fauci, saying that this is proven science. That he knows what he is talking about. Navarro is yelling at fauci. Also, the Washington Post article talked about how these Health Care Professionals, who were scrambling to save our lives, will be in the middle of important work, and theyll get a call from jared or somebody else saying, hey, wouldnt it be great if we could have oracle helping us out . Remember the brilliant idea about how google was going to do things with walmart park lots . Its all nonsense. Its not working. Theyre not letting medical professionals and Health Care Professionals do their jobs. Lets bring the u. S. Editor of the Financial Times in. I want to talk about Great Britain in a second. As we go through the timeline the Washington Post lid out, azar, who had gotten the information in the beginning of january, when they were all getting together and meeting, and the Intel Community by january the 5th or 6th were warning the president in his daily briefings, tried for two weeks to get the president s ear. He finally got a phone call with him on the 18th. It was the 18th of january. Azar finally gets to talk to trump about covid19, but trump decides, instead, to taalking a the pandemic chrwhich, by th way, hed be warned about in his daily briefings the presidenpresiden president since january 5th or 6th. The president decides to berate azar, his hhs secretary, who is seese pra desperately trying to tell the president this, that he is angry at him over the hhss attempts to limit vaping. It had backfired on him politically. Azar said the president dismissed him as alarmist, and the secretary was so worried, thhe couldnt get the president s attention, that he was asking an associate, how do i get him to Pay Attention to this . This is serious. Well, you know, you keep going through this list. You have the president , on the 22nd, saying that hes not worried at all. We have it totally under control. It is one person from china. It is going to be fine. Thats when he was in davos, in his ivory tower in davos on january the 22nd. Sp then, of course, on the 23rd, as china is completely shutting down wuhan, and also not cooperating with us, blocks the u. S. Lab from obtaining virus samples. On the 24th, this is when donald trump said, january, were still in january, by the way, friends, trump offers lavish praise on china and its president. Saying, quote, china has been working very hard to contain the coronavirus. The United States greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency. It will work out well, in particular, on behalf of the American People, i want to thank president xi. He praises chinas transparency january the 24th, when it is china that will not give his own Administration Health officials the information they need to prepare for this virus. Soon to become a pandemic. Its just absolute chaos. The president is in nevernever land for 70 days, and americans are dying this week, in large part, because we werent prepared. Yeah. I think, you know, the opportunity here to point out the difference in political systems. China spent weeks denying this virus. Penalizing people blowing the whistle on it. Then not sharing information, key information, about the serums, et cetera, with the United States. Trump did the same thing. He wasted critical weeks in denialism. He sidelined people who were blowing the whistle on this. He refused to listen to the intelligence agencies and the federal scientists, as well as secretary azar. The fact that a couple of woeek after that timeline that you were reading out, joe, that he banned flights from china, is the one thing that he keeps pointing to. To say, look, in the words of sean hannity, this is one of the greatest acts in human history. Most extraordinary piece of exaggeration ive heard. Theres a lot of competition in the last few weeks. But, in fact, that ban wasnt fully applied. We know 40,000 americans did come from china during the month of february and march and helped spread this panogen in seattle, chicago, and elsewhere. So the idea that this one flight pan, this sole action, in the absence of any other, steps to prepare to stockpile, as the ap reported very well. The idea that this is the president ial leadership that helped prevent a pandemic in the United States is grotesquely wrong. America is approaching the point, if the curves continue as theyve opinibeen continuing, t mortality rate where one in five global proven deaths to coronavirus would have taken place in the United States. Already, were approaching about a quarter of all global tested infections, are in the United States. Were the other side of the world to china. Were not getting thoesz numb t in most of asia. Theyre happening in europe and the United States. Increasingly, the United States is the epicenter of this. Well, and theres underreporting, whether youre talking about china or the United States. Doctors, nurses, Health Officials all saying the United States is underreporting the amount of deaths. China has been doing that for some time. On this china ban, again, going back to the timeline, on january 29th didnt go so well. China banned all flights to and from wuhan. On the 31st, azar followed. There were so many exceptions that hundreds of thousands of people still came in from china. Now, it is interesting, mika. On january the 31st, you had hhs secretary azar pushing the president and Steve Mnuchin for a pan for flights from europe. Mnuchin and trump both said no because they thought it would hurt the economy. It would be almost two more weeks before we finally shut down travel from europe. As the president was forcing, again, dr. Fauci and dr. Birx to stand on stange, wasting their time, he went on and on about this drug, hydrochloroquine, pushed it, pulled back on it, and then pushed it. Really took quite a lot of their time talking about it. By the way, the president kept saying, he had no idea if it was going to work. I have no idea. So he has no idea whether it is going to work or not. Yeah. Why isnt he talking about getting body bags to new york . Why isnt he talking about getting ventilators to new york . Why isnt he talking about getting testing across america . Do you know what donald trump said, mika, on march the 6th . He visited the cdc in his campaign hat, and he said, quote, anyone who wants a test will get a test. Yeah. There are millions of americans who want a test. Hundreds of millions. We see the lines. Nobody is getting this is not any