Reporting. The new plan comes as frustration builds with protests erupting in several states over the ongoing stayathome orders. Some Health Experts are urging caution in moving too quickly to try to get things back to normal. Were right now at flattening the curve but what we ultimately want to do before we consider any relaxation of any kind of social distancing measures would be to actually decrease the curve, see a steady decline in the curve to almost zero. Our nbc news team is here and ready to go. Stephanie ruehl is following the new unemployment numbers. Garrett haake is at a food bank in dallas, hans nichols at the white house and Eric Mclaughlin out west in seattle. Stephanie, ill bring you in to start things off for us. Lets talk about the grim unemployment numbers, what they mean in the overall picture of the u. S. Economy this morning. Listen, eamon, theyre not good news but theyre also not a surprise. Were expecting a wave of more layoffs from businesses that have been able to allow their employees to work from home, even theyre now facing layoffs because their businesses have completely lost demand. This is obviously why the president and really people across the country want to open back up for business, but you said this a moment ago, Health Experts are urging the president to take pause. Heres the thing. Its not just Health Experts. The president has spent the last 24 hours with Business Leaders who you bet your Bottom Dollar want to reopen, but not without mass testing. Not without ensuring that their employees and of their customers will be safe, because as bad as these numbers are, right, were topping over 20 Million People in the last month, that are now on unemployment, the numbers will be significantly worse if we willynilly go back out to work like this was a snow day and dont put the necessary precautions in place, so yes, 20 plus million is a terrible number but if we say the remedy for this is lets med head on b out there, a bigger number would hurt us economically and physically. Steph, your thoughts on one thing. I mentioned this last week and talked about the stock market and how it was rallying on a day that the unemployment numbers were so high, and you and others pointed out a lot smarter than me, a lot of it has to do with how the Federal Reserve acts in all of this. Jerome powell the chair came out several weeks ago, gave an exclusive interview to the today show, last week a streaming q a with the brookings institution. What is it that the fed needs to do in all of this to continue to tell the markets things are going to be all right down the road . Is there anything that they continually should be doing . Okay, well heres the thing. One of the factors with all of these people being on unemployment, as bad as it is, its i dont want to say a positive sign. The reason people are home is because theyre listening to what were telling them to do, stay at home, shut the business down, right . So you know that there will be jobs on the other side. What the fed is doing, however, is basically saying and taking major fed action to pump money into this system, to ensure that banks can keep lending. Theyre basically trying to say lets freeze the economy, create a time machine to get you through this on the other side. Now getting you through this means your business is temporarily shut down so thats what the fed is doing, but that still means people are home but remember, all those people on unemployment, the good thing is theyre getting those unemployment benefits, getting cash in the door. Time will tell if that works. Lets cross over to Garrett Haake with the on the ground perspective at a food bank in dallas talking to real people with real issues. This is not about numbers, its about peoples lives, garrett, so many people out of work and that is leading to a surge in demand for food. Reporter yes, eamon t speaks to the extraordinary need for communities at north texas, seeing lines of cars waiting to be served by the food bank. On a normal weekday, might expect 300 families to come to this mobile food pantry in dallas. Today were expecting to see at least 2,000. The National Guard is here, they will run this food bank until noon or until they run out of food to deliver to people. Thats a very real possibility. The food bank has been slammed and its not just for the families they typically see. Theyre seeing a surge of new need here as the ceo of this particular food bank told me yesterday. Take a listen. One day last week 70 of the people that came through their food pantry requesting access to food had never been there before, and so were seeing people that have never, ever had to go to a food pantry before and they dont know where to access the food pantry. Reporter eamon, this is how it works in the age of coronavirus. People come in with their offered essentially how large their family is, what they need written on the windshield and National Guard soldiers drop the boxes directly into the trunk. Theres no contact, no discussion, not even windows rolled down. Just another incredible sign of the times that we are in here in dallas, texas, today. Also a very painful one to watch, as well. Lets cross over to hans nichols at the white house this morning. Hans, obviously the president yesterday trying to address all these concerns, the unemployment numbers rv numbers, the economic numbers. Central to all of this remains testing. The. The has another busy day today talking to lawmakers and governors about what is expected to be announced on a new federal guideline to try and ease some of these stayathome orders. What do we know about how thats going to play ought, if at all . Reporter the Conference Callerinchief will likely get more information from the house members, we talk to them at 10 00 and at 11 00 the senate, building up to the call with the governors about guidelines. Now what youre hearing from officials, they want to make sure it opens up in parts of the country where transmission rates are low and where they have Good Public Health infrastructure. But clearly, President Donald Trump, and he said this last night, they think theyre on the back end of this crisis. Listen to how he put it. The battle continues, but the data suggests that nationwide we have passed the peak on new cases. These encouraging developments have put us in a very strong position to finalize guidelines for states on reopening the country. Reporter were working on a fuller list of all the lawmakers the president is speaking with, house members right now, members of the senate at 11 00 this morning. Whats interesting about those calls is that most of these lawmakers, if not all of them are back in their districts and they will have a very good sense of just what the public view is, a barometer for the public mood out there. The president is likely to take that on board, as well as those conversations that he had yesterday, where Business Leaders clearly warned President Donald Trump that confidence simply would not be there, unless you had massive testing across the country. The president didnt budge yesterday at his press conference. Well see today when these guidelines come out how much they rely on additional testing capacity. Eamon . All right, from that lets cross over to seattle, washington, bring in erin, mclaughlin. What a return to normal may look like if things get under way there. Erin, good morning. Give us the perspective of how things might be in a place that has at least believed to have turned the corner. Reporter good morning, eamon. Theres some good news here in seattle. Studies show that transmission rates are down. Social distancing is working and now leaders are looking at ways to reopen the economy without losing lives. Five weeks ago, covid19 ravaged a washington nursing home. A grim warning the Global Pandemic had arrived in the United States. Now the situations improving, and washington is desperate to get back to business. But the disease is still here. Its a marathon. Its not a sprint. We are not really even half way through it, even though we hit the peak. Reporter seattle mayor jenny durkin wants the number of new cases near zero before beginning to open the economy. Maybe the things like the construction industry, certain parts of it, people can come back to work, because they can socially distance. We dont want to trip over each other. Reporter good news for contractor todd sicai. Seattle Housing Market is super hot, so its been devastating. Reporter in washington state, construction is not deemed essential. Sakai paused 16 projects and laid off 12 employees. Social distancing is a natural fit for the construction sector. Yes. Its not that you can have three people here, it doesnt work that way. At the job site, its okay to have that distance and doesnt feel weird. Its just always been. Reporter social distancing is not easy for restaurants. Durkin says theyll be among the toughest businesses to reopen. Were trying to figure out how to do this every week because everything changes, all constantly. Reporter at laredos bar managerer ronald dino is planning for a new normal. Taking out tables, allowing less people in your bar. The minute this gets back to normal it doesnt mean our business is going to get back to normal. We understand that its going to be a slow process. Reporter until then, its takeout only, including margheritas to go with your tacos but dino fears that model cant last. I dont think its feasible for any restaurant to just do takeout. Its too tough costwise. I think for a lot of places, you know, two to three months is everybodys breaking point. Reporter the nations first hot spot searching for balance between the breaking point for business and keeping people safe. Governor jay inslee says the economy will likely reopen in phases in reverse order to the shutdown. For example, large gatherings were first to shut down, likely last to come back online. Eamon . Erin mclaughlin live seattle. President trump threats to unilaterally Adjourn Congress. Senator chris coons joins us to talk about what would be an unprecedented move by the president. 17 bodies are found in one of new jerseys largest Nursing Homes hardhit by covid19, going so far as to store a body in a shed because of the overwhelming number of deaths. Well take you live for the latest. Shouldnt you pay less when you use less data . Now you can. Because Xfinity Mobile gives you more flexible data. You can choose to share data between lines, mix with unlimited, or switch it up at any time. All on the most reliable wireless network. Which means you can save money without compromising on coverage. Get more flexible data, the most reliable network, and more savings. Plus, get 200 off when you buy an eligible phone. Thats simple, easy, awesome. Go to xfinitymobile. Com today. Happening as we speak, President Trumps hosting a Conference Call with house lawmakers. Hell be talking to senators next hour a select few of them i understand, this as the president is threatening to invoke a never before used president ial power to Adjourn Congress, a move he says he would take in order to fill Administration Vacancies that would otherwise need senate approval. No president has ever tried that and the odds of it happening according to politico are so small they are hard lly calcuab. We need them anyway but especially need now because of the pandemic, we are going to do something id prefer not doing but i will do if i have so. Joining me democratic chris coons of delaware serves on the appropriation, Foreign Relations and mall business committees and vice chair of the ethics committee. Thanks for joining us this morning. Let me first get your reaction to how democrats are prepared to respond in the event the president tries to Adjourn Congress to get the nominations through. Well, eamon, rather than picking fights with congress, forcing all of to us go look at a very obscure provision of the constitution that has literally never been invoked and could not possibly work the way the president is imagining it would work, instead of picking that fight with us, i think our president should be working with congress to make sure that we are delivering the urgently needed funding to support Small Businesses, hospitals, our health care system, and our state and local governments. Democrats in the senate have put forward a plan that would do just that. We should be taking it up and passing it today. Ill remind you, hes got a lot of vacancies among his Senior Leadership because he loves to fire people who disagree with him. Our president has a penchant for shoving out the door cabinet officials or senior advisers whose advice he doesnt want or like. He actually floated the idea of firing dr. Fauci the other day, retweeting a suggestion from someone that dr. Fauci should be removed because he was offering suggestions that ran counter to the president s narrative. So rather than picking fights with the World Health Organization in the middle of a Global Pandemic or with the congress citing an ancient and never before used provision. Yes. I think he should be working with us and we should be working across the aisle to get a package passed promptly that will put more money to support a balanced approach towards helping us recover from this pandemic, and reopen our economy when thats safe and possible. Okay, let me pick up on that point. Democrats and republicans still have not agreed on how to replenish the paycheck protection program, which as you mentioned helps Small Businesses. That is about to run out of money. Where is this senate in negotiations as of this morning . We have more unemployed americans. I believe 300 out of the 350 billion set aside for that have already been spent as of wednesday and yet no movement on it, on the senate. There have been some preliminary negotiations between senator mcconnell and senator schumer but the Democratic Caucus believes strongly that the road map for Going Forward is the bill we passed two weeks ago unanimously. That bill had desperately needed money to support Small Businesses and large businesses, but also resources for our hospitals and for our Health Systems and for our state and local governments. Senator, why not do those two separately . All with a record loss of resources. Sorry . Let me jump in on that point. Why not do those two separately, get money quickly to Small Businesses, many about to go bankrupt and then once that money is done, once that bill is done, focus on the issues that democrats also want done, more money for hospitals. Do you not believe youll get that money and thats why the democrats want to tie it all in together . Yes, and two points if i could. Here in delaware, ive been hearing from lots of Small Businesses and nonprofits, that they werent able to get in the door. They werent able to get their applications in for this paycheck protection program. Im on the Small Business committee. I enthusiastically support the ppp. Ill remind you the sba has less than two weeks to get this money out the door and theyve had lots of challenges in partnering with banks and making sure the money gets out and gets out quickly. Democrats are trying to modify the program so that this next 250 billion that republicans are pushing for, we can make sure that some significant portion of it goes to the smallest businesses and nonprofits, sole proprietors and goes through things Like Community banks and Credit Unions and Community Development financial institutions. We have a small package of modest modifications to this ppp that frankly if accepted, i think would be a great path forward. I havent had an update this morning on how the conversations between senator schumer and mcconnell are going but senator schumer is proposing very reasonable modifications to this ppp program. We should take them up and pass them, but im also, eamon, hearing from hospitals, particularly our rural and medicare dependent hospitals that they are struggling financially, and that in order to keep their folks at work, in order to get access to the testing and the ppe that should be delivered from our federal government through a coordinated response, they need resources as well. Theres no reason we cant do both. Okay. There is a simple package the democrats have put forward that should be taken up and passed promptly. Let me switch gears for a moment as a member of the Foreign Relations committee, i want to get your reaction to reports that the u. S. Government is investigating the possibility that the coronavirus originated in a chinese laboratory. Nbc news has not confirmed reports about the investigation and our reporting that not being the case. General mark milley had to say this theres a lot of rumor and speculation. Weve had a lot of intelligence take a hard look at that and i would say at this point its inconclusi inconclusive, although the weight of evidence seems to indicate natural, but we dont know for certain. Is the senate looking into this . Is this something you think your committee and others should be probing . Have you gotten any briefings on it . I havent gotten any update from the Foreign Relations committee. I do think that if you listen closely to the chairman of the joint chiefs, that was a very careful statement, where hes s