Closes in on 15,000. The nations epicenter, new york state, also recorded its highest number of deaths in a single day, 779. At 151,000 confirmed cases, new york state alone now has more cases than any other country, except, of course, the United States. There is, however, a glimmer of hope. The number of hospitalizations in the state continues to decline. Governor andrew cuomo says it is a sign that the social distancing measures are working. We are flattening the curve by what we are doing. If we stop what we are doing, you will see that curve change. That curve is purely a function of what we do day in and day out. Its not a time to get complacent. Its not a time to do anything different than we have been doing. We know now, for sure, that the mitigation that we have been doing is having a positive effect. But you dont see it until weeks later. Remember, this past weekend, all of us got up in front of this podium and mentioned that this was going to be a really bad week. At the same time, we were saying we would hope wed start to see a little bit of a change in the daily hospitalizations, intensive care, and intubations. We need to keep mitigating. We know that this is something that is a strain on the american public, but it is just something that we have. Not only the only tool, but its the best tool. If you go back to listen to dr. Fauci throughout the entire process, hes been predicting what was going to happen. He predicted this would be a bad week, bad couple of weeks, but we might possibly start bending the curve. Still, if we could put up that chart again that shows 431,000 cases in the United States right now. Of course, you talk to any Health Care Providers from the beginning of this crisis, they certainly have been telling me and other email offline, you can usually multiply whatever numbers you see by seven, eight, nine, even tenfold. So if we have 431,000 cases in america, actually, were, i think every scientist, every medical expert that has been studying will tell you were over a million cases easily, probably in the 2, 3, 4 million case range. That said, you cant look at those numbers, you cant look at the deaths, you cant look at where we are and not go back to donald trump saying that, you know, back in january that january 22nd, oh, we only have one case from china, and weve taken care of it. Its under control. Later saying, there are 11 cases. The end of february saying, we have 15 cases. Soon, itll be down to zero. I dont think a federal government, i dont think a white house has ever been as wrong as this president and this white house has been. Its not really fair to say this white house. Because we have found out over the past week, whether it was peter navarro, whether it was deputy nsa, there were people warnings came from all over. Harsh warnings. The cdc started getting information together last year on december 31st. But here we are. Yesterday, of course, the absolute worst day when it came to deaths, but some signs, as dr. Fauci said, some signs of hope that at least this first wave, we may be flattening the curve in this first wave. Yeah. You can add in the intelligence agencies of this country, which warned the white house and warned Public Officials that this was happening in china and it was coming to the United States. Of course, those warnings largely ignored by the white house, unfortunately. The good news that we hear from dr. Fauci is that the National Death toll number, he believes, will be lower than they initially expected. When they came out, he and dr. Birx said it could be between 100,000 to 240,000 americans dead from coronavirus. It stopped us in our tracks. He said because of social distancing, and now because were doing things we should have been earlier, the number could be lower. Same in new york city. The number of hospitalizations is down. The death number is, again, staggering. 779 yesterday. If, the governor says, we continue on this path. Of course, the danger is people see the numbers and see hospitalizations down, its getting better. If they stop behaving the way weve been behaving the last couple weeks, which is responsively and distancing socially, that it does work. Thats the bottom line. Any doctor you ask says this does work. Jonathan lemire, we talked a little yesterday about places the president has looked to assign blame. Governors, they should have been ready with their own ventilators. The World Health Organization now. He has a sense that this is bad and worse than he said it was going to be, and hes looking for people to blame. Thats right, willie. It is a deliberate strategy. We see this from this president. It is accepting no responsibility and giving no inch. We saw its a playbook hes used before. Most notably, of course, with around the events that led to his impeachment. The phone call with the ukrainian leader in which he pressured that Foreign Government to investigate a political rival, joe biden, a call that made other republicans queasy at the time. The president , of course, referred to it, and always has, as a perfect call. Were seeing the same thing here. We wrote i wrote on this for today. He has cycled furiously through scapegoats, places to assign blame. Democratic governors, most notably. Of course, after biting his time about china for quite some time, because he didnt want to offend xi jinping as they hammer out a trade deal, he turned his broadsides toward beijing, accusing them of holding back information. He accused the Obama Administration for not keeping the cupboard full, which was not factually correct. He attacked joe biden as being part of the effort. The last couple days, hes going after the World Health Organization. It is a deliberate strategy for trump and trump allies. These have been fanned out to the rnc, influential republicans, to allies on the hill and, of course, to some members of the conservative media, happily picking that up. We now have a white house that is restaffed. Chief of staff mark meadows has moved in. He has changed the communications division. On a quit note, the new press secretary, kayleigh mcenany, saying she was a fox contributor, she was actually just a frequent fox news guest. Were seeing an onslaught from the president. It all stems from the podium. This is where he turned the james s. Brady Briefing Room into a rallying stage. Could be ohio, could be like he is in pennsylvania, like he is in north carolina, where he is spinning, not trading with facts, sparring with reporters, and he is disseminating untruths. But, you see, the thing s its not working. You can look at any series of polls that have come out. Those briefings are actually hurting him. Because when people go to a trump rally, they make that decision themselves. They understand hes not going to be telling the truth. They understand theyre going into an arena, and theyre going to be having their own special little thing, where he plays the greatest hits, they cheer. They say, make America Great again, and everybody goes home happy. Here, he is speaking to a general audience. He is lying. He is revealing himself every day to be incompetent. Hes got too many quotes. Hes got too many actions. Hes got too many things, mika, that hes done over the past two or three months that reveal him. I was just laughing when jonathan talked about his lackeys in the media, online, who are trying to defend him. Theres nothing to defend. Theres just nothing to defend. There are too many quotes. There are too many lies. There are too many obvious mistruths. I said it a long time ago. The pandemic doesnt understand the art of the deal. You cant b. S. A pandemic. You cant negotiate with a pandemic. You cant bully a pandemic. You cant sort of skirt the edges of the truth with a pandemic. It is what it is. It aint what it aint. And it is not, it is not susceptible to spinning from either donald trump or his legions of lackeys. You cant negotiate, and you cant spin death. You just cant do it. New signs from the west coast give hope that new infections may be leveling off. Several states announced this week that they are sending ventilators to new york, since their need is now less urgent. A little over 1,000 ventilators will be dispatched from california, oregon, and Washington State. According to several reports, a Field Hospital in seattle is being dismantled and will soon be returned to fema so it can be deployed to another state with more significant coronavirus needs. Washington was one of the earliest and hardest hit states by the pandemic, seeing over 9,000 confirmed covid19 cases, and nearly 400 deaths. Willie, were going to be talking about how these expert projections are going to go down. About a week ago, i tweeted out, looking at the death rate in california, looking at the infection rate in california, specifically San Francisco. From the beginning, i thought new york and San Francisco were going to be the hardest hit. I think most people believed that. But the numbers just werent coming out of california. I said, wait, are we really getting to 240,000 or 100,000 cases . One of the reasons i questioned that was because of what an incredible job the governor of california has done from the very beginning. The mayor of San Francisco, governor jay inslee. They all acted quickly. Thats why i think, in large part, one of the reasons, if we dont get to 100,000, 240,000 by august and, again, i must say this, in the first wave. The pandemic of 1918 had two waves. In the first wave, in large part, it is because of the great leadership of those west coast governors and west coast mayors. I was texting with an emergency room doctor from seattle last night. Funny you mentioned that. He said, our leaders is to be applauded. He has no political skin in the game. He is literally running in and out of the e. R. Every day. Washington state was the canary in the coal mine for the United States. The one nursing home in kirkland, washington, 37 people died. You said, wait a minute, what is going on with coronavirus . From that moment forward, Washington State took this very seriously. They now, as you pointed out, are shipping their ventilators to other states. Theyre taking down a Field Hospital, much the way that new york is building a Field Hospital in central park. Seattle had built one near the football and baseball complex, where the seahawks and mariners play. Theyre taking it down because they dont think theyll need it. Thats because they took the early steps. One thing to look at, today, well see this jobless number. Every thursday, weve been getting this jawdropping number. Its going to be worse than last week. Remember, we saw 10 million over the last two weeks, unemployment claims. This week is going to be worse. Why do i bring that up . As Jonathan Lemire and others pointed out, the president is entertaining the idea of opening up portions of the economy again. What that means exactly, we dont know yet. We know he wants to do that. If he sees another massive unemployment number, which he is going to see, theres going to be increased pressure from people around him to say, hey, weve got to get the economy started again. Were cratering here. He may feel that pressure. Thats the danger, if he decides he does want to open parts of the economy. We could see this outbreak all over again. Willie, they have to be so careful. You were talking about seattle. We could talk again about jay inslee in Washington State. We could talk about gavin newsom taking early steps. But you read the New York Times today, and read about these genome studies that have been done by hospitals in new york city, and they, once again, indicate the importance of moving early, of acting early. Because most of the cases in new york, in an awful lot of the cases, studies are showing, came from europe and didnt come from china. You had the Deputy National security adviser, pottinger, begging the administration in late january to cut off travel coming in from europe. Steve mnuchin and donald trump, as we learned in the Washington Post article this past weekend, refused to do that. They refused to do that because they thought it would hurt the economy and it would hurt the stock market. Well, now we know. Those were an extra two, three i think it might have been a month. I have to check the exact dates. But because they didnt listen to the Deputy National security adviser and continued having the flighting coming in from italy and the rest of europe, you know, so much of what new york is dealing with now has to do with those european travelers. Yeah. That was an interesting bit of research that was in the New York Times. We think so much about china, but a lot of this came from europe. Youre right about that. The good news is, as doctors and Public Health officials will tell you, is theres still time for these parts of the country that havent been hit if they adhere to social distancing and all these things that dr. Fauci and dr. Birx told us yesterday are working and will bring down the death toll in this country. You need the president to lead from the top on that and say, hey, this is working. Were going to continue this for a while. Its painful, but in the long run, itll be better than the alternative. Jonathan, id ask you what kind of pressure the president is feeling about opening the economy. We know it is his instinct. He wanted it open by easter, backed off of that. Who around him is saying, hey, mr. President , this jobs number today is going to be bad. Its time to get this economy cranked up again . I know he feels the pressure, and he probably feels it in his own gut. No question. In fact, i think its been almost underreported, how close he was to reopening the economy at that easter target day. Hes played it down, claiming it was more of an aspirational date. He had really fallen for the symbolism of an American Economic rebirth on easter sunday, which is, of course, this coming sunday. Wanted to pull the trigger on it until he was talked out of it after being shown in a dramatic Oval Office Meeting by dr. Fauci and dr. Birx, spreading maps across the resolute desk, saying how bad the death toll could be. Thats even with the social distancing guidelines in place for most of the country. This is something thats still with a significant debate within the west wing. The president is pushing for a reopening of the economy. In part, because connected to what we talked about a few minutes ago, his efforts to spin this, deflect blame, have not worked. The trump playbook of shifting, of denying and deflecting and blaming others has not played out. Its being reflected in the polls. There is a push to change things. Obviously, they have one eye toward november, toward reelection. If the economy continues to falter, and theyre watching the numbers carefully, there is going to be renewed push from the president to try to push forward. As i will say as a final point, were already seeing chatter in the conservative media that may 1st, may 1st should be the day where most of the nation goes back to job. Even though a lot of the Health Experts suggested that is still far too soon. Well, of course impossible. Where you want to get your information is from the protrump media. Because they have been so spot on. Deadly accurate from the beginning of this process. Why listen to medical advisers . Please, please, get your health advise from the protrump media. And watch another 200,000 americans die. No. We dont listen to the protrump media because they listen to his lies, recirculate his lies, and the numbers are tragic. I was checking the numbers on the european travel. This is important. The two studies that have been made by mt. Sinai and nyu school of medicine have remarkably similar conclusions. When the coronavirus started circulating around in february, most of the genomes point back to europe and not china. This is why thats important for future leaders, to understand the importance in pandemics or epidemics of moving quickly. The end of january, as i said, Deputy National security adviser pottinger asked all european travel be closed down. End of january. Donald trump wasted a month. Actually, up to five, six weeks. Actually, because he was worried about the stock market, kept, kept open travel from italy, travel from europe, until march the 11th. Thats when the european ban finally came into play. During all of that time. Weve been asking all along, why was new york disproportionately hit . Again, we thought San Francisco, los angeles, seattle, which had more commercial ties with china, lets say, than the east coast. Youd think because of travel. It was actually europe that hit hardest, according to these two new studies that are out. It hit hardest when it started circulating in midfebruary. In large part, probably because, once again, the advice of somebody inside the white house, in january, was ignored. So Jonathan Lemire has been writing about the blame game and how this president has constantly, every day, tried to every day shift the game on the w. H. O. , or this or that, or the liberal media. Theres some basic problems this time in terms of this scandal versus all other trump scandals. Number one, if your child or your spouse or your parent is ill, doctors become your lifeline for information. Matter. You want so much for that person to get better. This scandal, this botched prep for this pandemic, this one has called for all americans participation. Everybodys life has been uprooted. Children are not in school. People cant leave their homes. It has called for our participation. In some respects, some of the numbers are going down because of what americans have done for themselves. So, unlike any other trump scandal, because everybody is so invested in this, and everybody is so involved, you know, making the moves to stop the spread, people are compelled to read about it. People are compelled to