Moving on to super tuesday and on to a rivals home turf as prominent democrats float a convention fight with his supporters as the 11th hour gets under way on this thursday night. Good evening once again from our nbc news headquarters here in new york. Im receive kornacki in for brian williams. Day 1,134 of the Trump Administration. Tonight the spread of the coronavirus is taking a further toll on Global Markets while adding to the pressure on President Trump. Today the dow saw its biggest oneday point decline in history, plunging more than 1,000 points. And tonight there are indications of potentially more losses to come. The number of reported virus cases worldwide meanwhile continues to climb. It is now at more than 82,000. And while the majority of cases are in china, the New York Times reports that coronavirus has now been detected in at least 48 Different Countries with case numbers rising rapidly in italy, iran, and south korea. Today the centers for Disease Control expanded federal guidelines to include people with symptoms who have recently traveled to those countries as well as to china and to japan. And japan has decided to shut down all schools for about a month. This in an effort to help contain its coronavirus outbreak. As for the United States, the New York Times reports there are now 60 known cases. One is in northern california, and it is being closely watched. This appears to be the first case involving a patient who had not recently traveled outside of the country and who was not in contact with someone who did. The Trump Administration continues to hear criticism over its response to the virus. Last night the president declared that Vice President mike pence would take charge of the Coronavirus Task force. Tonight trump was back in front of the cameras himself. We have a situation with the virus. Weve done a great job. The press wont give us credit for it. I think its an incredible achievement that our country has done. Were giving whatever other countries need. Were helping them. But we have to run our country too. A lot of people say, why isnt he in china . Well, you know, china has to want that. And other places have to but theyre running it, and theyre working very hard, i will tell you, and were in very constant communication. If we were doing a bad job, we should also be criticized, but we have done an incredible job. Were going to continue. Its going to disappear one day. It could get worse before it gets better. It could maybe go away. Well see what happens. The Washington Post philip rucker, who joins us in a moment, is reporting on the challenges this potential Health Emergency poses for this president and his administration. Quote, trump finds himself grappling with a crisis for which his record suggests he is particularly ill suited to respond. At a time when expertise is paramount, trump has hollowed out the Government Agencies responsible for the tasks at hand. The post also broke the story now confirmed by several outlets of a new whistleblower complaint. According to reports, the democratic of health and Human Services sent more than a dozen workers to greet americans evacuated from the center of the outbreak in china and that they were there without proper training or Infection Control protection. The federal employees were, quote, sent to march air force base in riverside county, california, and Travis Air Force base in solano county, california. It is reported the aforementioned california patient who mysteriously contracted the virus is from solano county. During a hearing on capitol hill today, Health Secretary alex azar was asked about the whistleblowers allegation. To your knowledge, were any of the acf employees exposed to high risk evacuees from china . They should never have been without appropriate ppe. Whats ppe . Thats personal protective equipment. Are you aware it is my understanding that, you know, there was a team as you just confirmed that was sent to the march and Travis Air Force bases, and there was a lot of it was kind of chaotic on the ground. To your knowledge, were protocols followed at all times . Um, i would not accept your proposition that chaotic at all times. I would want to get a report from my team. Im not aware of any violation of quarantine or isolation protocols. Back at hhs headquarters today, Vice President pence headed up his first Coronavirus Task force meeting. Shortly before that session, the New York Times reported that Senior Administration officials will now have to check with pence before they can make public statements about the epidemic. Pence has also named aids hiv expert ambassador debbie burkes, who is also a physician, to the white houses Coronavirus Response coordinator. She joins the Vice President and Health Secretary azar on the front lines of the administrations response to the virus. Today lawmakers seemed a bit confused over exactly who is now calling the shots. With the leadership Going Forward and Vice President pence, whats the interface going to be with yourself, mr. Secretary, between the two of you . Whos going to do what and how do you see a lot of continuity with what weve been doing. I will remain the chairman of the task force, the Interagency Task force. Then we heard this from the Vice President. Im leading the task force. Well continue to rely on the secretarys role as chairman of the task force and the leader of health and Human Services. But weve known each other for many years and worked together very closely over the years, and the president has every confidence in the secretary as i do. Here for our leadoff discussion on a thursday night, philip rucker, pulitzer prizewinning White House Bureau chief for the Washington Post and coauthor along with his post colleague Carol Leonnig of the New York Times be bestselling book a very stable genius. Nancy cook, a White House Reporter for politico. And stephanie ruhle, the host of the 9 00 a. M. Here on msnbc and an nbc Senior Business correspondent. Thank you all for joining us. Nancy cook, let me begin and you and put up for folks the headline of your latest article at politico. Trumps coronavirus conflict science versus politics. You are looking at what is taking place behind the scenes as the administration and this president seek to formulate a public response to this outbreak and potentially here the consequences, of course, weve been discussing. What is happening behind the scenes in in administration . Well, whats been happening behind the scenes for the last few weeks has been a ton of infighting at a time when the outbreak is just getting worse and spreading across countries. So we had what we saw yesterday, which is basically a change in the leadership at the white house as to who is actually running point on the coronavirus. Theres been a lot of infighting behind the scenes with secretary azar. He hasnt necessarily been getting along with folks in the white house. The president has been dissatisfied with the leadership, and thats why he appointed pence to lead the effort last night at that press conference. And then the other thing that weve seen is weve seen the president really try to downplay the concerns about coronavirus and say maybe it would dissipate by the spring. Maybe it wont even come here. But meanwhile career and scientific professionals, some of whom were behind trump at the podium last night, have contradicted that and said that its inevitable that the virus will come here, and its something that americans need to be prepared for. Stephanie, talkingbout the concerns obviously over what scale this coronavirus might have here in the United States, how this could spread here potentially, all of those fears, the administrations response there, theres also the question we mentioned this too of what is happening on wall street this week. The dow is plummeting on a daily basis right now. Record losses in one day today. Theres the question of how long this is going to last on wall street and what the economic ramifications could be there. Its all about uncertainty. The most valuable commodity that exists, whether youre a parent, a ceo, or an investor, is information. Investors are risk managers, so they need to take all of the Information Available to them, assess that risk, and make a decision. You dont just make money in the stock market if things are going well. You could actually make a ton of money when things are going poorly. Where you cannot make money is if you have no idea whats going on, and that is the situation were in. Everything you just said, everything that were hearing about this, even the fact that now officials cannot share give accurate updates without getting approval from mike pence. So if youre an investor and you need to figure out whats actually happening in the world, remember, this isnt its a doomsday scenario and we know its turning into a pandemic. These investors need to understand countries. Countries need to be doing business, and if its a supply chain issue, a personnel issue, or the fact with all of the precautionary measures individuals are taking, were not spending money, remember, its consumers that have been driving the growth in this economy. Consumers arent going to be spending money at a time like this. So from wall streets perspective, theyre saying, i got to hit pause. So it is wall street trying to figure out what the rest of us are. Correct. What the scope of this is going to zbbe. And its really important because people keep saying wall street must know something we dont know. No. Wall street doesnt know. Thats why youre seeing so many investors sell and say lets wait this one out. Fill philip rucker, john mea was on our air earlier. It is a matter of life and death. This is as core an issue as you can get. I always thought a great crisis of trust would be over a Foreign Policy crisis, would be over the president saying something he knew not to be true. This is even more elemental to some extent. You know, philip, this is talked about from administration to administration, the idea of the unexpected, unforeseen crisis that ends up taking center stage, ends up testing the president , ends up testing the administration in ways nobody was expecting. Again, obviously we dont know what the scope of this is or isnt going to be. But is the white house are folks around the white house and inside of it thinking of this in those terms at all . They are beginning to, steve. Theres a heightened sense of concern within the president s circle about the coronavirus situation, about this perhaps worsening into a pandemic, about the economy remaining shaky, jittery. The markets continuing to decline as stephanie was just alluding to, and what that may portend for this president. And theres a realization too that trump is not a great fit for this moment. This is a moment that of course requires leaders to present honest, factual information, to rely on the scientific experts in the government to provide clear instructions to the american people. And what you have in President Trump is a leader who is prone to hyperbole, who doesnt always tell the truth, who likes to be a salesman and exaggerate and can sometimes be emotional and personal in his responses when calmness is really the order of the day. So its sort of a wait and see moment in the white house. Theres an attempt to get things under control here with Vice President pence taking charge. But a lot of concern that this could go off the rails very quickly. Well, nancy, that gets to another question. We just played before this, in the intro to this discussion, comments from the president again today. Is that going to be a consistent presence here, Public Comments from the president . Is there a plan to have him talk less about this Going Forward . How much are we going to be hearing from him . Well, i think that the white house doesnt really have any control over how often the president speaks, and you have to remember tomorrow he is going to South Carolina for a rally. So hell have, you know, a huge platform there and an hour and a half potentially to talk and deliver his messages. But i think what we heard from the president today at an event at the white house was a sense of grievance that he wasnt getting enough credit for the coronavirus. And that really contradicted what the white house wanted him to do with that press conference on wednesday night. They wanted him to try to calm people down, you know, display a president ial leadership, you know, and then today he was talking really just about how coronavirus is being perceived throughout the media coverage, how its reflecting on him, and not really about the larger question of the welfare of the american people, how the stock market is going to react, whats going to happen with the economy. Its all through the lens of himself. Phil, youve also written about recent personnel changes, the evolution of personnel in this administration, how that could come into play here. Tell bus thus about that. Steve, for the last three years the president has been waging a war, in effect, on science and on experts in the government. Hes tried to discredit what he has termed the deep state, which of course applies to the National Security and intelligence realms but also the scientific realms, those government bureaucratic experts in our government who he now has to rely upon for information and for leadership at this moment. They have tried to cut the budgets of the cdc and other areas. Theyve tried to suppress some of this expertise, and now that needs to come into the fore, and theres a real scramble under way in the government to try to fill some of those vacancies and to bring that expertise to the forefront. Stephanie, we were talking about this. Wall street as much wondering as the rest of us where this is all going. Is there anything the administration, is there anything the president can do if tomorrow they dont want to see the dow plunge another 1,000 points . Well, thats the thing. This is very difficult for the president because its not like he can say, were going to go with Corporate Tax cuts, reminding corporate america, hey, dont forget, this is a time of deregulation, or to pressure the fed to cut rates. We may see the fed cut rates. But if theyre cutting rates at this time, its because they need to. The truth is today a lot of investors are griping that its unfortunate that last year when the fed didnt need to cut rates, they did. The feds job is not to tinker with Interest Rates to keep the markets going or to guide things along. The fed is there to use the tools of rising and cutting rates in times of an emergency. And right now that is what were potentially facing. So wall streets looking to see what the fed does. But this will be a very frustrating time for the president because if we do face a human toll, if companies actually have poor economic numbers because of this, he cant do anything about it. All right. Stephanie ruhle, nancy cook, philip rucker, thank you all for being with us. And coming up, South Carolina voters, they have the potential to shake up the democratic president ial race. Im going to head over to the big board to explain because weve got some brandnew and dramatic numbers today. Also a critical part of preventing a coronavirus outbreak, it is detection. Were going to ask a former secretary of health and Human Services if this countrys Public Health infrastructure is ready. The 11th hour just Getting Started on a thursday night. the sun is risin as the day begins time for reflectin on family and friends and hey, we got somethin just for you sniffing its a cup of your favoriiiite. loud splashing highpitched laughter dang woodchucks with geico, the savings keep on going. Just like this sequel. 15 minutes could save you 15 or more on car insurance. My agerelated macular degenso today i made a plan with my doctor, which includes preservision. 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