Patient flowing into the emergency room day after day, hour after hour. Its mass casualty incident that just wont stop. I said the firpent the firsts of my night intubating and chest tubes. Some are turning around and that incredibly reassuring. We begin tonights show once again what life is like for the medical staff of the front lines of this fight. We i think its important for you to see it every day. Im chuck todd continuing on msnbc breaking News Coverage of the coronavirus pandemic. We are starting with todays White House Briefing at the white house. Could be different. Its a rose garden setup right now. We expect the president to announce a second task force he says will be focused on reopening the economy. Im curious to see who the members of that task force are to challenge every level of government right now is trying to wrap its arms around. How do you safely reopen parts of the economy amid a Global Pandemic without a vaccine or reliable tests . As if that challenge isnt daunting enough, in addition to managing the virus, officials also have to manage the president. Right now, he appears to be angry and defensively playing loose with the facts as he looks toward november. The briefing yesterday, President Trump falsely claimed he has the absolute and, quote, total power to reopen states. A complete reversal from his own recent insistence that the states were the ones responsible for shutting things down. In a new interview with the Associated Press the nations top Infectious Disease expert dr. Anthony fauci said how unprepared we would be to open the country. He told the a. P. This yet. Quote. A vaccine still may be a year to a year and a half away. That is a lot of no unknowns, folks a Conference Call yesterday with governors, the White House CoronavirusTask Force Coordinator dr. Deborah birx reportedly said we should have one 3 million tests these past three weeks just in state labs but the actual number of in those state labs was just 200,000. Why is that . A lot of it has to do with supplies. Colorado governor Gavin Newsome announced their framework to e social distancing to measures and said its too early to talk about a time line because their Public Health infrastructure is not where it needs to be. Translation . Testing. Its a case all over the country. We surpassed 25,000 confirmed deaths and more than 600,000 confirmed cases and new york city revised death count to include an additional 3700 people presumed to have die from the virus which means the city has passed 10,000 deaths and some of these are folks never got to a hospital, dead on arrival, things like that. Here we are with no rway to answer the basic questions who hat virus, who might have some level of immunity from getting it again. Oh, by the way, where is the virus today . Thats what we dont know. We always seem to know where its been but not where its going. Bottom line we wait for todays briefing at the white house. Federal, state, local lords find themselves navigating two unpredictable forces. One is the virus and the other is the president. Joining me now is one of the east coast governors joining forces to coordinate coronavirus reopen plans is governor phil murphy. He joins me now. Governor murphy, let me ask this question this way can you imagine youd be doing this if you had a partner in the federal government that you were more comfortable relying on . Good to be with you, chuck. Listen. I think its and both to be honest with you. I dont think its you either go a regional path or you only go when the president says its okay to go. I think youve got to find Common Ground between both of those realities. We are the densest state in america. We sit in the densest neighborhood in america. We shut our states down in harmony. It makes sense, particularly as you rightfully point out in your introduction, there is a lot of Health Care Infrastructure that we need before we can have the confidence to reopen, particularly around testing and Contact Tracing. So that seems to me to be a reality that we live with. An equal reality there is no replacing a robust federal government role. There just isnt. And we need both. We need both a strong neighborhood and we need a strong federal government playing that existential role over the federal government can play. Youre not known as a preliminary bomb thrower so im curious. If the president says i want to reopen the country and the economy on may 1st and i need you, governor murphy, to reopen. Too much of our industry goes through new jersey. I need you to reopen. What would you tell him you needed before youre willing to reopen . By the way, the president knows new jersey well. This is one of the state yes, he does. He knows particularly well and personally. Id say, first and foremost, chuck first of all, in our state and i think our region, we need to have cracked the back of the curve. We need to be coming down very rapidly towards very little, if any, incremental infections. Id say as a general ask for what we would need, we would need the largescale Rapid Testing in place that we dont have now. We just need that and i think we all agree with that. We need to know you know, once you eliminate Community Back in the back door and the only way that cant happen is if youve got reliable largescale testing that you can get results on quickly, and then have a Contact Tracing quarantine plan you can followup just as quickly. It seems to me you cant have the confidence to reopen without that kind of infrastructure. You know, governor, its not lost in me that in your backyard where i think Johnson Johnson headquarters are in your backyard you probably have some of the brilliant scientists in the world working on this stuff, yet, for all we know the best Antibody Test may be invented in and around the princeton area. Why is it we cannot scale up this testing issue . Is it swabs . How much of it is material . And how much of it is actual physical people . I think its all of the above, chuck, honest. I think the good news feels like is feels like innovation is bursting at the edges and please, god, some of that hits and hits quickly. A lot of good work, for instance, going on on at our State University rutgers. I think its both physical material that we are light on as a nation. Its the personal protective equipment that somebody needs to have on them to protect them as they are taking the test. And its Health Care Workers. You know . We are a constant struggle. We have expanded testing as dramically as any american state and, yet, we are not remotely near a universal testing reality. We have constant struggle between Health Care Workers we can put toward testing and those that we need to put forward clearly toward increasingly the past number of weeks toward health care. So i think its a combination of all of the above, frankly. Look. I have not met an elected leader that is setting a deadline. The public has to understand what is realistic. What is realistic in the next three months for residents of new jersey . I think, chuck, the reality is the next few weeks of the balance of april, perhaps spilling into early may, we are going to be at the high pitch of the war that we are in. I think may, right now, based on what we can see and this completely relies on adherence to continued social distancing. So im screaming out to folks in jersey, i know its frustrating, i know its taking a lopping time, please stay home. Because its working. And if we then we sort of have a may which is not as highpitched in the fight as april, but its still sort of a challenging month. I personally think in the warmer weather, we could begin to find our footing. Assuming, again, we have got the Health Care Infrastructure especially broadscale testing that we need to give us that confidence. So i think this is, you know, a june or july, much better reality if we keep doing our part especially staying at home right now. That sort of the way i try to tell my kids. If we do our part now, maybe you can touch the ocean in july and if we do our part maybe football season starts on time but we have to our part now. Thank you, governor, for sharing your views and your information on what is happening in new jersey. Much appreciate it. Stay safe and healthy. We continue to wait for the Coronavirus Task force briefing, my colleague peterson alexander and moderator of Washington Week joining me is bob. Peter, ill start with you. What is the reopening Task Force Look like and why is it separate from the current task force . A good question. We are about to find out it seems like more what the task force will look like but appears to be a fluid situation. The president im told by Senior Administration officials in the briefing that will take place tonight will introduce some nform the reopening the country council. There was reports that ivanka trump and Jared Kushner would be on it and the president said they wouldnt be on it. He said it would be Business Leaders and doctors. I think they want this will focus more on the economic efforts going toward including names like larry cud low and Steve Mnuchin than dr. Birx dr. Fauci. This is the challenge the president faces right now. He says he wants it to happen soon. Easter was aspirational, and now may 1st is the date the president wants to hit. Its not clear what the Public Officials are advising him if that is a possibility. Robert costa, we are used to a lot of people around this president try to slowly guide him to something more realistic. But they know they have to let him scratch and itch. He clearly wants to do something on may 1st. What is the realistic itch that people around him know that hes got a scratch and they want to try to let him do they think will be the less harmful to the situation at hand . Ive been reporting this all day with my colleagues at the post. Its clear they all believe that President Trump is gunning for may 1st. The question what does may 1st look like in their view . They are talking about reopening the country in phases and feel like they may have some political cover by certain states. You look at Governor Greg Abbott of texas, for example. Announced last friday, without much fan fare, he is signing an executive order this week with guidelines about how he is planning to reopen texas. So the thought is if President Trump doesnt feel like he is isolated, out on a limb, and some of his aides and business friends will feel a little more comfortable but its interesting to watch this task force today, based on my reporting, a lot of ceos dont want to be a part of it because of liability reasons. This fthings happen, resurgence of the virus they dont want to be to the task force saying we were with the president on that decision may 1st or whatever the date is. Peter alexander, i know both governors kate brown and Gavin Newsome today laid out plans without a date. You know, can President Trump be satisfied with laying out the plans to reopen the government in phases and just say we dont know what date this plan starts . Maybe it starts may 1st . Maybe its may 15th. Maybe june 1st. This is the plan we are going to use but we dont know what date we get to start the plan. You make a good point. One of the things ive tried to drill down with the president in these briefings. What exactly is the sort of standard for you to say youre comfortable reopening the government . We heard that in simple terms from Gavin Newsome in california today. You have these governors on the east coast and the northeast specifically. The wes nt coast now making theyre plans. President trump said its coming but not doing this. The briefing we witnessed yesterday is focused on the politics of this as he is about the Public Health. He really appears enjoyed in some form this feud as andrew cuomo said earlier today, the president seems to be spoiling for a fight after yesterday. He claimed he had total authority to sort of dictate, declare when those states that he said he was going to leave to them, when to shut down and now he is claiming he has the sole power to reopen them. I was speaking with one of his former officials earlier today about the tweet he posted where he described, he referred to mutiny on the bounty, that movie e good oldfashioned mutiny every now and then is exciting and invigorating thing to watch. I asked this former official, you know, why he would talk in those terms, almost describing this as a game when there are more than 23,000 americans dead, more than approaching 600,000 americans who have been sickened by this illness . This official described it as an unnecessary foot foul. But perhaps the president put it best when he was here yesterday and said, i dont mind controversy. I think controversy is a good thing. He almost views every day as its own war. He later back pedals as he did later today saying, no, no, no, i dont believe in partisanship and rely on the governors to do the right thing. Unnecessary distraction to say its lacking any constitutional claim of basis. Bob, you know, the other thing im curious about here with the president is he didnt like the social distancing orders, then his poll numbers went up. Suddenly, he was comfortable. Now his poll numbers are going down and now he is looking to pick fights. It feels like that isnt a coincidence that this is, you know, donald trump sort of a political day trader at times, right . He is always worried about a shortterm fix. What can i do to solve todays problem . How much of that is this . He looks at his flagging poll numbers suddenly and says this isnt working, i better pivot . Part of the refrain in the white house among my top sources he cant resist doing these briefings every day two hours. Doesnt have the opportunity to do a political rally. So its scratching the itch for that. Its also trying to have his grievances out in the open with members of the press. His frustration with his poll numbers. Even though when he sees the poll numbers about his performance he is not going to stop doing the briefings because he figures he has no other outlet and a source of a confidant i was talking to today. You see the white house trying to get him a little more constrained on the data but as we all see he is going to war with the gomvernors and saying e has total authority. The problem some republicans have told me that many of these governors, democrats and republicans, whether its Gavin Newsome in california and larry hogan in maryland, they have credibility and going to war with them is not like picking a fight in the brady briefing room. Youre picking a fight with somebody who has political capital. Its not members of congress. Look at easier to beat up on congress than individual governors as well. Peter alexander and robert costa, thank you both. Sorry we had to figure out how much time to manage the president when managing the pandemic is hard enough. That tells you how just shocking at times some of this behavior is in the middle of what we are all dealing with. The White House CoronavirusTask Force Briefing is set to begin any moment now. When it does, we will wribring to you live and. Ahead, test questions. So many experts have questions about the virus and the test themselves. We are digging into the known unknowns next ext wont be a new thing. And it wont be their First Experience with social distancing. Overcoming challenges is what defines the military community. Usaa has been standing with them, for nearly a hundred years. And well be here to serve for a hundred more. Gimme one minute. And ill tell you some important things to know about medicare. First, it doesnt pay for everything. Say this pizza is your part b medical expenses. This much about 80 medicare will pay for. Whats left is on you. Thats where an aarp Medicare Supplement insurance plan, insured by Unitedhealthcare Insurance Company comes in. 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Its not just about testing sick patients for the coronavirus burbut all we are to do right now but testing others for antibodies and its potential immunity. Questions the experts dont know the answers to. Here is what dr. Fauci told the Associated Press today. Quote. Joining me now is infectious decease specialist dr. Amesh. This is what is frustrating, doctor, me for a lot of us the last couple of weeks which is that there is a lot