Which is far less than the rate from last week. About 20,000 new cases were reported pushing the total well over 1. 5 million americans. Back at the white house, President Trump made a very surprising announcement yesterday telling reporters he has been taking the drug hydroxychloroquine to protect him from the coronavirus. That is despite the fact that there is no proof that this drug works. But there is proof we can increase the risk of a heart attack. The Trump Administration has also signed a 354 million deal putting a startup Pharmaceutical Company in charge of creating the countrys first strategic stockpile of drug ingredients. The idea is to cut americas dependence on other countries for getting those ingredients. And finally, the president says the World Health Organization must make substantial improvements or risk losing u. S. Funding for good. He sent a letter late last night accusing the organization of being too cozy with china and blaming w. H. O. For costly missteps in the fight against coronavirus. I want to go straight to the white house where my colleague carol lee is standing by. Carol, help us understand this because the president already suspended funding for the w. H. O. , but now hes saying he can end it permanently unless they make big changes. Right, steph. Hes ratcheting up his criticism of the w. H. O. And not only saying that he could withhold funding permanently but that the u. S. May also revoke its membership of the World Health Organization and essentially in this letter that he wrote to the director of the World Health Organization, accused the organization of being having a china virus, of not handling the coronavirus pandemic properly, and said that he would need to see very specific steps taken to show, to demonstrate there is no china virus within the World Health Organization, within the next 30 days. Now its a little light on specifics and said the administration is in negotiations with the World Health Organization on a possible way forward. But it doesnt really outline exactly what the World Health Organization not having china virus or demonstrating that it doesnt have a china bias would look like. So we dont know. We know Kayleigh Mcenany just spoke to us a little bit ago and said the letter speaks for itself and that basically the white house will be looking for china bias at play as it basically looks through what the World Health Organizations handling of the coronavirus was. Particularly in the early days, steph. Well, to her point, the letter does speak for itself. And in that letter, it shows december and january dates, which means during that period of time, these risks were known to the white house and told to President Trump. And that is the exact same time period that the president was saying its a no risk to the United States. In late february he said the 15 cases are going to go to zero. So how does he critique the w. H. O. When during that time period, the president was denying that it was ever coming here . Well, this is part of what weve seen from the president , particularly really ramping it up in the last few weeks where hes blaming the World Health Organization or china for not responding early enough, not disclosing enough information. Really to distract from his own handling of coronavirus, the pandemic which has come under fire as he campaigns for reelection. So, you know, this is i think were going to see more about not only the World Health Organization but also particularly about when it comes to china. I think this is a white house looking to take some steps to demonstrate its unhappiness with china. They feel thats a good political issue for the president , that hes on strong footing when hes attacking china, and, you know, all of it, again, designed to distract attention away from his own handling of coronavirus early on and try to focus on elsewhere. Particularly china, which they think is a political winner for them. All right. Lets switch to hydroxychloroquine. The drug already debunked by Health Professionals who say its not used as a preventative against the coronavirus. The president has brought it back into the news cycle, and heres what he said. The frontline workers, many, many are taking it. I happen to be taking it. I happen to be taking it. Hydroxychloroquine . Im taking it. Hydroxychloroquine. When . Right now, yeah. A couple of weeks ago started taking it. Why, sir . Because i think its good. Ive heard a lot of good stories. If its not good, ill tell you right. Im not going to get hurt by it. This is the drug that rick bright was urging the administration not to promote and it cost dr. Bright his job as the head researcher at the nih. What gives . Well, and also, steph, as you know, the fda said that cautioned against anybody taking this drug unless theyre in a hospital setting and really a number of Health Officials advising President Trump have warned of the potential side effects about from hydroxychloroquine. But, you know, the president the main takeaway from this is that the president is far more concerned, possibly, about getting coronavirus than he has let on in recent weeks. The reason white house officials tell us that he has decided to take this is potential exposure to coronavirus from when his valet tested positive through that week of may 7th. And he said at that time he wasnt really worried. He didnt spend that much time with him but, obviously, thats not the case, steph. All right. Thank you, carol. I want to dig deeper into this. Lets bring in dr. Richard besser, the former head of the cdc and current president and ceo of the Robert Wood Johnson foundation, the largest Public Health philanthropy. And ashley parker, reporter for the washington post. Doctor, the biggest risk here, the president , who is a Senior Citizen and has taken heart medication, is taking this potentially dangerous drug or that the rest of the world sees him take it and we rush out to buy it . You know, it would be wonderful if there was a silver bullet, something magical that could prevent this. But there isnt. Its following the advice of hand washing, keeping away from other people, Wearing Masks when we go out thats going to prevent this. And i really worry that people hearing this are going to think that this is something safe to do. And its not. The fda has warned against people using this drug. It can have side effects. Its a drug that has uses in medicine for malaria and lupus and another worry is people will have a run on this drug thinking it will provide them safe protection where it wont and people who really need the drug for other conditions may not have access to it. Well, then doctor, what do you make of the letter that we saw from the white house doctor, shawn connolly, that said he and the president concluded the potential benefit from this treatment outweighed the relative risks . Even if its not a silver bullet, it sounds like hes saying, eh, worth the risk. Whats the truth here . Yeah, i mean, Everybody Needs to make their own Health Decisions and hopefully will do so in consultation with their Health Care Provider. 28 Million People in america dont have a Health Care Provider and that becomes really challenging when you see information out there like this. But if you do have a Health Care Provider, talk to them. Talk to them about your own health. Talk to them about, well, is there evidence that this prevents potentially coronavirus . And theres not. Outside of controlled trials that are trying to address some of these questions, it is not a safe Health Decision to be taking this drug. Please have those conversations before trying to get this drug in any way. Then if the answer is, talk to your Health Care Provider, ashley, i want to understand who exactly is the president talking to . Lets listen to more of what he said. I was just waiting to see your eyes light up when i said this, when i announced this, but, yeah, ive taken it for about a week and a half now. And im still here. Im still here. Can you explain, sir, though, what is the evidence that it has a preventative effect . Here we go. Heres my evidence. I get a lot of positive calls about it. I get a lot of tremendously positive news on the hydroxy, and i say, hey, you know the expression ive used, john . What do you have to lose . Ashley, whats going on . Who is he talking to . Who is telling him its a good thing . Is he winking at the drugmaker . I dont get it. You know, as weve reported, he was talking to a lot of nonmedical experts, these sort of friends and confidantes in his outer inner circle. His personal lawyer, Rudolph Giuliani had been pushing hydroxychloroquine to him. Laura ingraham had come to the white house, made a special oval Office Presentation about the value of the drug. Early on, i think its tapered off a bit but fox news in general, a lot of the hosts had been talking up not all of them, to be clear, but some of them talking up the benefits of this drug and he was watching that on a sort of cable Loop Feedback cycle. So he was hearing from people but not necessarily the medical experts that the doctor just referenced who you would want actually to have this conversation with. Reminder, he was hearing that from the fox news host wore also urging people to get back out there and get to work, yet theyre hosting their shows from the privacy of their own homes. Doctor, i do want to ask you about this development from moderna, this new potential vaccine. People seem to be overjoyed about it. Whats your take . Well, its good news, but im very cautious. This is a baby step in the production of a new vaccine. What they found was in eight people that they developed antibodies, immune factors that in a test tube killed or prevented the growth of virus. And thats good. It was safe in those eight people. But this is so far from having a vaccine that we can use. It needs to be tried now in hundreds of people to see, is it safe . Do other people mount these antibodies . We have yet to answer the important scientific question, do people who make these antibodies, are they protected from future infection . Thats being studied but thats so critically important because if the vaccine makes those antibodies but those antibodies truly dont protect you, then we still have a long way to go. So its encouraging news, but, you know, i worry theres a lot more hype going on here than there is true hope given how far we have yet to go. The stock market certainly likes the hype. Ashley, i want to talk about the man who is in charge of operation warp speed. This guy was on the board of moderna until last week. He was supposed to sell his moderna Stock Options to avoid any conflict of interest, but that hasnt happened yet. He didnt give the directive until yesterday. The options wont be sold until today and the stock went up over 20 yesterday off of this news. Where is the office of legal and compliance in this administration . Anyone who joins any form of the administration has to fill out that big 12pager that goes through every possible conflict of interest before theyre in that role. Now i get it. This is operation warp speed. You have to get that person in the job. Hes in the job, didnt sell the stock yet. Any followup beyond hes going to sell today and make a profit given yesterday the news . I believe hhs said he was going to donate what he earned in that period to cancer research. You know, of course, people would have to follow up and make sure he actually does that. One thing that was interesting to me was there is not a lot of internal pressure to answer your question in this white house to do so. This is a white house that has, for instance, seemed to ignore the hatch act on many occasions, but he did seem to ultimately bow to outside political pressure. There are a lot of people including senator warren who are saying this is a tremendous conflict of interest. He has overseen the federal government search for vaccine. Hes going to be deciding which private Companies Get federal funding. He just resigned from the board. He owns stock in moderna. He has to divest. He ultimately did seem to bow to this public pressure that was not necessarily coming internally, although maybe not as quickly as some people would have liked to have seen. Listen, hes an absolute expert. He may be the perfect person for the job. But being without conflict of interest is obviously important. Dr. Besser, ashley, thank you so much. Coming up theres urgent need for relief for American Business across the board. So on the corporate side, just a portion has been given out. Were going to find out where is it going from the guy overseeing it, next. Plus, new details coming out about the firing of another Inspector General by President Trump. What is Congress Going to do about it . Ill be asking republican kevin brady. Tempurpedics mission is to give you truly transformative sleep. So, no more tossing and turning. Because only tempurpedic adapts and responds to your body. So you get deep, uninterrupted sleep. 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Lawmakers are expected to ask about the 3 trillion in aid passed and what more needs to be done to keep our economy afloat. This comes as the commission tasked with overseeing part of the c. A. R. E. S. Act released its first report. Revealing the Treasury Department has handed out just a very small bit of the 500 billion relief fund. Garrett haake is on capitol hill with the latest. Garrett, what can we expect when the senators gavel in remotely next hour. This will be interesting because its an entirely remote hearing. But i think youll see two things. On the oversight front youll see questions about what steps the fed has taken to help in this crisis and what steps they could still take. On the Treasury Department front, you can expect a lot of questions about the 500 billion that were largely set aside at secretary mnuchins discretion to try to help out troubled companies. Why is that money not being spent very much so far, and what are the plans to use it most effectively to help workers . I think the other part of this that will be interesting is the forward looking part. What do these officials think needs to be done in a next legislative package . Heres a free question for any of the senators on the Banking Committee or any of their staff. Treasury secretary mnuchin is in a meeting right now with Mitch Mcconnell and the Vice President about potential next legislative steps. So what does the administration think the senate needs to do next . The Republicancontrolled Senate has said they want to sit back and wait a little bit before they decide what their next steps might be in terms pafsing more relief. That conversation is happening as we speak, stephanie. And it might be interesting to see what the thinking is behind those closed doors. Without a doubt. Garrett, thank you. I want to bring in barat, a member of the Congressional Oversight Committee and one of the authors behind that report detailing how the Treasury Department has been handling the relief money. Your Commission Just came out with a report. What is the most important thing you found . I think one critical point is that, yes, its true that very little of the money has been spent so far in these lending facilities. But already the mere announcement the treasury and fed plan to use the money in particular ways has had a huge effect on the market. The stock market since the day of the announcement back on april 9th has gone up. Its back to basically where it was at the beginning of march. And the cost of borrowing for big corporations has gone way down since that announcement has come out. So what i think youre seeing is that so far the program is working very well for Big Companies and for bigtime investors. Who its not working very well for, so far, is smaller busine