His own failure to prepare and respond efficiently to this pandemic. Here was the president just a few moments ago. Tragically other nations put their in the w. H. O. And they didnt do any form of ban and you see what happened to italy and what happened to spain. You see what happened to france. W. H. O. s guidance had failed to control their borders at a very crucial phase, quickly up leashing unleashing the contagion around the world. That was a mistake or perhaps they knew. Im sure they didnt know the gravity. Coronavirus has killed more than 32,000 americans. Its a sobering reminder of whats at stake as this president casts about for someone besides himself to blame. In defunding the w. H. O. Yesterday trial accused them, saying they were too trusting of china. The w. H. O. Willingly took chinas assurances at face value and took it at face value. And defended the actions of the Chinese Government and praising china for the socalled transparency. But lets be clear. It was donald trump donald trump who praised the chinas socalled transparency in a tweet in january. There it is on the screen. Likewise, he praised the w. H. O. For working very hard and very smart in february. And that was after after his china travel ban. But in his search for a scapegoat, he would rather us forget that he defended china and the w. H. O. And he took chinese president xi at his word and he denied any concerns about a coverup. I spoke with president xi of china, and hes working very hard on this. China is very you know, very professionally run in the sense that they have everything under control. We just sent some of our best people over there, World Health Organization and a lot of them are composed of our people, theyre fantastic. Are you concerned that china is koovring up no, china is working very hard. Theyre in touch with our World Health Organization. Cdc also. Were working together, but the world health is working with them. Are you still satisfied with how president xi is handling the coronavirus . I think president xi is working very hard. Donald trumps decision to halt funding to the w. H. O. Has been widely rebuked. Youll be surprised to hear. The American Medical Association warned of wide ranging ramifications. The u. S. Chamber of commerce of all people said that the move is not in u. S. s interests. Bill gates said its as dangerous as it sounds and Speaker Nancy Pelosi said this decision is illegal. And will be swiftly challenged. Tonight, donald trump said the latest data shows the country has passed the peak of the new coronavirus cases and he will announce guidelines to reopen the economy tomorrow. While he said companies and state governors will reopen, he threatened action if he disagrees with the decision. Well, the federal government and if were not happy well take strong action against a state or a governor if were not happy with the job that the governor is doing well let them know about it. As you know, we have very strong action we can take including a closedown. We have the right to do what we want but we wouldnt do that, but no wed have the right to close down that theyre doing. Nope. Im joined now by gretchen whitmer, the democratic governor of michigan. Do you have any idea what hes talking about, that donald trump claims without any Constitutional Authority that he has the right to quote close down if he doesnt like what a governor is doing regarding the decisions they make to reopen their economies. You know, all i can say is that we governors, democratic and republican alike, are communicating with one another. Sharing best practices. Listening to our medical experts. Thats whats going to drive these decisions. The worst thing for our economy would be to just pretend like nothing had happened the day after, you know, this these stay at home orders are lifted. Go back to you know, life as usual and then have a second wave that would be devastating. We have to be smart and we have to be data driven and making decisions that phase in the reengagement of our economies. We have to make the judgment on the ground. Thats in the purview of the governors. We stepped in and issued the stay at home orders and were the best and the only ones with the authority to determine when its right to lift them. Theres been a lot of options to choose from, but one of the most outrageous this president say in what he believes is his authority. This is donald trump talking about federalism and what he thinks it means. Were letting the governors do in their states pretty much what they want. We have a thing called the constitution. Which i cherish. Number one. And as you know, i want the governors to be running things. They cant do anything without the approval of the president of the United States. When somebody is the president of the United States, the authority is total. And thats the way its got to be. Your authority is total. Total. Governor, he says we are letting the governors pretty much do what they want. He says the governors need to be running things through him. He says the governors cant do anything without the approval of the president of the United States. And says that his authority is total. That is not an old clip of hugo chavez, that is donald trump. What do you make of his belief that he is essentially your boss . Well, bullies hopes you know, desires, they dont mean anything right now. What is important is science. And facts. And understanding that this is a global pandemic. We need to stop pitting one another against each other whether its the w. H. O. Or it is the nations governors or its the president of another country. Right now, all of our energy needs to be focused on fighting covid19. As the United States of america. And you have every american in this country no matter what state they live in, thats the kind of leadership that we need. Thats the kind of leadership that i think were seeing at the state level across the country. We governors have incredible authority and incredible responsibility and we are the ones who are going to determine when it is right to open up economies within our states. Let me tell you this. Every one of us is eager to do just that. But we have to be smart. We cant put peoples lives in danger by going too fast or not making decisions based on our ability to test which is still not where it needs to be, our ability to trace those with covid19 and ensure that we have the ppe that we need. The federal government has an Important Role to be sure. They can be helpful on all of these metrics to put us in the position where we can start to think about responsibly and safely reengaging our economies. Yeah, i want to show you some video from today. This was a protest on a michigan street, i believe it happened earlier today. These were people who are protesting the stay at home order that you as governor with the authority to do to issued in your state. And hopefully we can show that on screen now. Some of these people were flying not just trump maga flags but also confederate flags. Here is what Nicole Hannah jones wrote about that. Were getting that video ready to roll. What nicole posted is ask yourself what do confederate flags have to do there it is. Theres the video. What do confederate flags have to do with protesting a stay at home order and why did those who fly the trump flag also fly the flag that honors the former slave owners. It was one of the places they went to after the civil war was over and what do you make of people flying confederate flags on your streets to protest a stay at home order thats meant to save their lives . It was essentially a political rally, a political statement that flies in the face of all of the science, all of the best practices and the stay at home order that was issued. This looks like a lot of people and it felt like a lot of people but in the bigger scheme of things, michigans a state of 10 Million People. The vast majority of whom are doing the right thing. Our hospitals had stepped up, our nurses, our doctors. The average citizen who is staying home or contributing in some way to help people on the front line. Thats the story of really of whats going on here. This group that came together without masks on, passing out candy with bare hands to children who were congregating together, brandishing their weapons, having posters of being antichoice, this was a political rally. It was a political rally that is going to endanger peoples lives because this is precisely how covid19 spreads. Let me just add one more thing. The cars were blocking one of our hospitals so an ambulance literally wasnt able to get into the bay for ten minutes. This is the kind of behavior that extends the need for a stay at home orders, that spreads covid19, that overruns communities and this is precisely the worst thing that could have happened today. Im all for people having a difference of opinion. If people are angry and i know theres a lot of angst and people are feeling it and they want to direct it at me, thats fine. I can take it. But showing up and being this irresponsible is not just endangering their own lives but the abilities to meet the needs of the people of this state who are trying to do the right thing. Yeah. Indeed. Well, hopefully theyll catch on and care about the things. Governor gretchen whitmer. Thank you. Joining me now is ann a on my, field epidemiologist at the Fielding School of Public Health. Jonathan swan, National Political reporter at axios and david frum from the atlantic and former speechwriter for president george w. Bush. The idea of this president there are a lot of us who had severe challenges with the up extensions of authority after 9 11, the question of the Civil Liberties were at the moment after 9 11 but i cant imagine having a president coming out and saying that governors have to contact the white house and get his permission to either have stay at home orders or undo them. The governors work at the behest of the president of the United States. That does not sound like a democratically elected president , that sounds like a dictator. What do you make of the way that donald trump is speaking in this moment . Well, in the year after 9 11, the Bush Administration was very controversial. One of the things that president bush had very much in mind was to create symbolic demonstrations of National Unity to deal with Economic Issues and to work with the states. New york suffered so terribly and that strike was so constant in really a few blocks from manhattan. Washington suffered too with the pentagon and pennsylvania too. And it was such a priority, for the president. And the thing thats so strange about President Trump, these are words. He gets all the odium of looking tyrannical or menacing but nothing actually happens. His main interest of course is in deflecting blame. Looking tough but deflecting blame. But isnt it indeed also this is the dick cheney ill make sure i pronounce it the Chris Matthews way, this is the executive that even after 9 11 that president bush didnt strive for. But this is the thing that bill barr, that dick cheney this is what they believe in. No . Well, no advocate of unitary executive the unitary executive theory argue within the executive branch there are one executive. No one ever thought that the president sub seems all the 50 other sovereignties of the states and of the territories. So this is from a theoretical point of view its an attack on traditional conservative ideas, authority of the states is concurrent with the federal authorities and its blow hardism. If the governors are accountable to the president , and the failings that are happening at the state level are the president s fault. It cant be both be true but everything bad that happens is the governors fault and if you feel so strongly, you have so much control over the governors why arent you testing at the states. Jonathan swan, can i ask you in your reporting, do you know of a single governor maybe some of the red state governors that are willing to call donald trump, call the white house and ask for permission, whether theyre going to close or open their states . That a thing that governors are do, that theyre going to ask Donald Trumps permission after what to do with their states populations . No. They arent. I think that what is going to happen sooner rather than later and potentially sets up quite a dangerous clash is youre going to have President Trump tell people its time, we have been closed long enough. We cant be closed forever. And we need to open up. And in whatever formlation that he releases it. Whether its staggered, you know, geographically or whatever. There are going to be some governors who like the governor you just spoke to who do not agree with his general thrust. You then get a situation where its not about powers. Its about the power of the bully pulpit and his rhetorical power and theres a lot of people in each of the states who listen to every word that President Trump says and they will be out on the streets protesting in the ways youre seeing now. But you multiply that by when President Trump turns the corner and starts to push for reopening. You could see some very troubling scenes in some of these states. Because he does have tremendous rhetorical power. And i think we get too bogged down in the legal argument which is sort of irrelevant, i think. Its much more about his audience and what theyll do. Let me play a congressman who represents indiana. Here he is talking about which thing is more important. Getting the money back flowing or human lives. It is always the american governments position in the choice between our way of life as americans and the loss of life of american lives, we have to always choose the latter. It is policymakers decision to put on our big boy and big girl pants and say this is the lesser of these two evils. Its not zero evil, but its a lesser of the two evils and we move forward in that direction. If ayn rand were still alive she would say the exactly same thing. Ann, in the real world, isnt the way that this is supposed to work is that we have a robust enough regime of testing so that we know who is at risk, who has had it, who has antibodies for the virus and is safe to send back to work and who is not. Isnt that the way it really should work and if thats the case then we dont have enough testing. Well, joy, exactly. Heres the i think what. We are not where we need to be with testing. We are not where we need to be withppe or the equipment we need. We are not able to trace the contacts and to be able to make sure that we have available to us what we need to do to reduce spread of this virus. Weve learned over time here as money of us who are epidemiologists working in this field have known that pandemic preparedness has been very, very poorly funded, underfunded. For a very long time. And now were paying the price. This is not just an issue of economics. This is of course an issue of human life and politics as somebody who has spent my entire career working in places like the democratic republic of the congo where i have been for more than 20 years, running studies on ebola and other diseases, epidemics and politics are inextricably bound and intertwined and often get in the way of epidemic response. We have seen it in other countries, were seeing it here now. This is an unfortunate truth but what we do know is that we have to put american lives first. And one of the things that is very concerning to me is this idea of defunding the World Health Organization speaking of putting lives first. If we defund the World Health Organization, we are going to be doing significant damage not only globally but right here as we have learned we are as safe as any other place in the world. We are all interconnected. And we must have the World Health Organization being able to manage this epidemic in other places. Yeah. Well said. Ann, thank you for saying that. Jonathan swan, david frum are staying with me for a little bit longer. Coming up, the primary focus right now at the white house is not the pandemic, its Donald Trumps political future. Stay with us. Its Donald Trumps political future stay with us it means being there for each other. Thats why state farm is announcing the Good NeighborRelief Program we know our customers are driving less, which means fewer accidents. So state farm is returning 2 billion dollars to auto policyholders for the period ending may 31st. And well continue making real time decisions to best serve you our customers. 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