Mumbled something through the mask. I couldnt understand what he was saying. So i took off the mask and he said, i do not want to die alone. Frankly, were tired and there is nobody to be able to do our jobs. If you want to live, stay home. My god. Dont open up this country. It needs to be closed until at least june. Please. Those are just some of the voices from medical workers on the front lines thanks to the video diaries in the epicenter of the citys battle with coronavirus. Welcome to tuesday. Its meet the press daily. Good evening. Im continuing the special coverage of the coronavirus pandemic. Were roughly 30 minutes away from the scheduled start of todays White House Task force briefing following the president s meeting with new york governor andrew cuomo. While were waiting to see if cuomo decides to speak at the white house itself, we do know he just finish that had meeting and called in to msnbc to give his headlines from the meeting. He told my colleague Nicole Wallace that it was productive. He said the president was receptive to his concerns that the federal government needs to give more help with funding and testing. He said the president did not test for new york reopen on any kind of time line. As President Trump publicly pushes other states to ease restrictions, there are kernels by some that some of these governors may move too quickly. Georgia is a prime example. Georgia is allowing gyms, barber shops, tattoo parlors and Bowling Alleys reopening. Subject to certain social distancing restrictions, it is under clear what that means in practice. Because if youre like us, youve gone through many of those businesses we just tallied there. Depend on people being in very close contact with one another. Thats hard to do tattoo in a social distancing area. The governors actions would appear to be in defiance of the white houses own guidelines which recommend states have more robust testing and Contact Tracing programs set up before they begin the easing of some of these restrictions. In georgias case, less than 1 has been tested for the virus. Theyre still reporting hundreds of new confirmed cases every day as you can see on the screen. And the number of confirmed deaths per day has been jumping around. But yesterday was one of their deadlier days. They dont really have that 14day period of decline. Some mayors say in georgia, they were blind sided by the move. Well speak with the Atlanta Mayor in a moment. In addition to georgia, South Carolina and tennessee are also allowing some number of businesses and retail shops to reopen. Theyre all, yes, in the south in red states which speaks to an uncomfortable political divide in this country on the virus right now. A clear majority and an overwhelming percentage of democrats more worried that the dangers of reopening too quickly while republicans are more worried about restrictions being kept in place too long. With roughly 800,000 confirmed cases and more than 43,000 deaths nationwide, we have an emerging debate about Public Health being waged along partisan lines. There are no easy ways for leaders in this country to balance Public Health with the economic costs. With peoples lives and livelihoods both hanging in the balance. But complicated matters further, trump up for reelection. To give you a sense of where his head was at, last night he used the virus as reason to tweet that hes suspending all immigration. Joining me from the white house as we await the White House Task force briefing, with us, for a scientific perspective, a virologist. Let me start with the president meeting today with Governor Cuomo. You know, the face to face do we think this will persuade the president to take over the Testing Program in this country . You know, chuck, it is hard to tell. I suspect well get more clarity in about a halfhours time when this Task Force Briefing kicks off. I was particularly struck by what Governor Cuomo told our colleague in the last hour. He said it was his idea to come down here to washington to have this face to face meeting. Governor cuomo is among the most sophisticated communicators. Clearly believed there was something he could convey in person that he couldnt on the phone or Via Video Conference xxt it was this notion that the federal government needs to step up and help alleviate the supply chain issue connected to the overall testing quagmire. Governor cuomo has articulated the underlying problem here so well. He said yes, President Trump is right when he says states are responsible for the testing. Governor cuomo said the states regulate the labs but the labs buy critical components they need to conduct tests from national manufacturers. And the resources are finite. Thats where the federal government can come in to help. It shouldnt be that governor larry hogan, governor of maryland, is having to do it directly with stouk acquire 500,000 test kitts. But you heard in the interview in the last hour, he believes, hopes, anyway, that President Trump heard him out. The question is, will the federal government disrupt the supply chain, to use the phrase they used a couple months ago. And they said they didnt want to do that when it came to alleviating the issue getting supplies and ppe out to hospitals. There is something to Governor Cuomos thought process. Going to trump, going to his office, he likes that. He likes the idea of paying him some respect. One other thing before i move to the science, how quickly, is there anything serious to this immigration tweet or was it something for the base to consume. Senior Administration Officials tell us this notion of suspending immigration had been under consideration for a while. But that the president s late night tweet last night, im told, caught immigration officials off guard. That you had a white house official scrambling now to finalize this executive order. To have it go under legal review. That it might not suspend immigration policy, there could be carveouts for workers deemed essential, that it doesnt change anything because immigration has already decreased dramatically as a result of the pandemic. Broad travel restrictions imposed across the board. Visas have been suspended so the president is formalizing something that in essence could be a quick political play to the energize his base, to focus immigration which as you know his Signature Campaign issue. On. All right. Let me move over and get the analysis on the science of what georgia is doing in particular. The reason i want to focus there. It is pretty clear the guidelines that the white house set out last tweak move from phase one to phase ii to phase iii, georgia has not met those guidelines and theyre going with this anyway. I know where you are about whether this is the right decision. How do you tell workers . I would say it is a case by case issue. Every Grocery Store needs to examine how they do their business. What is their flow of traffic . Each lane being a traffic lane one way and going the other way, that way. That way you can maintain social distancing and keep your business open as well as limiting the number of people they have in the business at a time. The same will be true for barber shops. You listed barber shops as one of the businesses opening friday. That will have to be one of those businesses where both the client and the barber themselves are wearing ppe. So that will be a different process than it normally has been. And i imagine some things will be off the menu for a while like straight razor shaves and things like that. These businesses will have to do a case by case review. I imagine, i hope that at least some of the resources will come online for each business. How they should best go about doing their business safely but it will be a case by case basis and each business will be different. This is a lot faster. Even with the federal guidelines opening, with the different 14day phases. That was considered aggressive. This would in my opinion beheimer aggressive. What georgia is trying to do. So well see the results of that in approximately two weeks of what that will do. Speaking of georgia, the cdc is in atlanta. And Robert Redfield said the following today. Ill read this to you and give you more context. There is a possibility the assault of the virus on our nation next winter will actually be even more difficult than the one we just went through. When ive said this to others, dr. Redfield says, they put their head back. They dont understand what i mean. What hes saying here is the idea that well have to deal with two respiratory viruses at the same time. The regular flu and this. And that this could make the winter much worse. Absolutely. In some ways we like to reference the flu when we talk about this, and then we criticize President Trump when he does so. When you look back at the 1918 influenza and the pandemic in 1918, there was the first wave of the pandemic which happened in the spring time just like were having now with covid19. Kind of mild, not that many people died. A number of people died one that many. It went away during the summer but then came back and ravaged the fall. Up to 50 Million People died with that pandemic in a little over a year. So there is the possibility that could happen with covid19. And they can always be worse in that second wave. Plus, what you just said. Combining with it other normal seasonal viruses. If we happen to have a particularly bad flu fall, or flu season this next fall or regular cold season this next fall, that could be particularly bad when you combine it with covid19. One other point, i said it will be making a flu shot a patriotic duty on that front. Thank you both for getting us started with the news and facts of the day. Joining me now, the mayor of the largest city impacted by the virus. The mayor of atlanta. Madam mayor, thank you for joining me. The thing that caught me off guard when i read about this yesterday, the governor made this announcement before calling you and letting you know about it. Because in here, this would supersede any order of yours for the city. Have you and the governor spoken since . If so, do you have any sort of working relationship on how to do this Going Forward . So the governor and i worked together regularly. We speak regularly. Thats why this was even more surprising that we didnt receive a call. Not just from the governor. He is the governor so certainly, hes very busy. But perhaps even from a member of his staff to let us know that this was coming and give us an opportunity to ask questions and discuss what it means for our communities. And not just as the mayor of atlanta but also, the mayor of augusta, georgia. The mayor of savannah, georgia. Al banny, georgia, our biggest hot spot in the state also didnt hear from anyone in the governors team. So it has left me with more questions than anything. I dont understand the rationale and the science and data that the governor used to make such a big decision. Is there any reason he wants this to be equal across the state . Did he explain why he doesnt want to give regional or local leaders like yourself the power to do something stricter if necessary . Reporter so the governor quite often references local control which has been very help envelop ma , helpful in many ways. We didnt have statewide guidelines and it was very frustrating because each city was making its own decision. As mayor of atlanta, we were very aggressive in shutting down the city. And then ultimately, other metro cities followed us. So what that has meant is that we have more than half the population in the Metro Atlanta area but less than half of the infections in the state. What also happen, ill give maconbibb count as an example. One of the hot spots in the state. They were not aggressive in shutting things down and we now see whats happening on the back end. To the extent that there has been any relief in our state, it is because of the decisions we made to close our city and the surrounding cities. So i am extremely concerned that with some of the highest asthma rates in the country right here in atlanta, that if this comes back around, it will come back with a vengeance. What do you expect are atlanta residents to do on friday . What i would say to atlanta residents, as mayor, my power does not super seed that as governor but i have the power of my voice. I am using my voice to encourage people. Follow data. Look at the science and the Health Care Professionals and use your common sense. This virus has not gone away. We have nearly 20,000 infections in our state. Nearly 800 people have died. Our numbers are not going down. And simply because we have hospital beds available doesnt mean that we should work to fill them up. I am asking people to please stay home. Avail yourself of the services that we have through the city. Whether it is through our food program, our Small Business loan program, we need to as government leaders step up and give people the incentive to stay home. There is nothing essential with going to a Bowling Alley in the middle of a pandemic. Im curious. You hear in washington, d. C. Theyve tried to coordinate particularly because of so many shared borders. Im curious with you and the leadership of surrounding counties. Gwinnett, cobb. How many have you been acting together and how much has there been unilateral Decision Making just in the atlanta region . Well, one of the things did i. Ive been listening very closely to information that i received from dr. Del rio, one of the leading Infectious Disease experts. I called for for at least a phone call to hear what i was hearing. And i believe that when other leaders got that information. That they would make decisions in the best interests of their communities and thats what they did. They heard from dr. Del rio and we began to see other municipalities, some led by republican leaders, so this is not a partisan issue. They made decisions on close their municipalities down. It is extremely concerning that we dont have input in our local communities. Im hearing from restaurants that they will not open. They will not put their people at risk. But you have people who are torn. When you fill out an unemployment application, the question is asked, have you refused to to go work . So people are concerned that they wont have any financial support. But also, that they are putting their health at risk. Have you spoken with the governor today . I have not spoken with the governor today. And i can say, ive not reached out to the governor today. I will do that over the next day or so. But i have not spoken with him. Thank you for coming on and sharing your perspective on whats going on. Stay safe and stay healthy. Good luck out there. Thank you. We are awaiting the start of the White House CoronavirusTask Force Briefing. Once it begins, well of course bring it to you live. Were also keeping our ear on senator Mitch Mcconnell speaking now. Were expecting to hear from House Speaker pelosi, democratic leader Chuck Schumer in a few moments as well. Find out whats in this deal. They struck a deal. The congressmen did exactly what we expected them to do. Eventually agree on another funding package for this Coronavirus Relief bill but it is sort of an adenied up. And will it last more than two days . Well find out. When taking a break from everyday life is critical to everyones health, there is one thing we can all do together complete the 2020 census. Your responses are critical to plan for the next 10 years of health care, infrastructure, and education. Lets make a difference, together, by taking a few minutes to go online to 2020census. Gov. Its for the wellbeing of your community and will help shape americas future. 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. Welcome back. A deal to provide Small Businesses with more billions of dollars in loans could be on President Trumps desk by the ends of the week possibly sooner. Minutes ago the senate pass ad short term bill by unanimous consent. They reached the deal this afternoon. Most of the nearly half trilliondollar measure would essentially replenish the Small BusinessPaycheck Program which randal out last week. It would also go toward hospitals and extended testing. None right now would go toward state and local governments. Republicans need to work with us to give their states the help they need. They should be eager to do it. Secretary mnuchin committed and the president tweeted today that they will support state and local funding in the next round of legislation. We should have passed support for state and local governments, democrats had see to it that it gets done in the next package. Steny hoyer said to return to the house thursday morning. The vote in the house will get interesting once they pass this bill, then they vote on creating a remote ability to vote remotely. With me now, the Ranking Member of the Senate Intelligence committee which made a little news today. I want to focus on this deal here. I have to say, watching this for the last week, we knew we were going to get here. It seemed like it was awfully stupidly pain tofl watch politically as we got here. I think we all realized we w