Good evening once again tonight from our nbc news headquarters in chicago. Im ali velshi in for brian williams. Its day 1,148 of the Trump Administration. 236 days to go until the 2020 president ial election. As this country now grapples with the concerns over coronavirus, there are many more stark signs of the outbreaks deepening impact. Wall street witnessed yet another meltdown, the worst day there since 1987. Despite the Federal Reserve promising to inject at least 1. 5 trillion worth of money into the financial system, the dow sank 10 . For the second time this week, the rapid stock selloff triggered a halt in trading. Yet even as todays markets were in free fall, the president was sounding optimistic about the financial future. We have a lot of things that were working on with the Financial Markets, and its going to work out fine. Were you have to remember the stock market as an example is still much higher than when i got here, and its taken a big hit. But its going to all bounce back, and its going to bounce back very big at the right time. Going to bounce back very big at the right time. Tonight trumps former director of the National Economic council offered up his assessment. We are in a recession right now. We are having negative growth right now, and the market is pricing in that uncertainty. The good news is we did start from a very strong position just three weeks ago. Efforts in congress to ease the vast Economic Impact of the coronavirus continue. Tonight House Democrats said they are close to a deal with the Trump Administration on an emergency aid package for those affected by the outbreak. Nancy pelosi and treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin have been negotiating all day. We know of at least eight phone calls between them today alone. Tonight pelosi says they hope to reach a final agreement tomorrow. In a letter to democrats tonight, the speaker said the bill would provide free testing for those in need, emergency leave, and two weeks of paid sick leave, enhanced Unemployment Insurance and food programs, and more money for medicaid. In the meantime, the number of u. S. Coronavirus cases in this country continues to climb. There are well over 1,600 confirmed cases here now and at least 41 deaths. And the number of closures and cancellations across the nation is also quickly rising. Disney and universal, msnbcs parent company, are shutting down theme parks. College basketballs march madness is canceled. Pro hockeys season is suspended until further notice. And the mlb is delaying the start of the baseball season. And just a short time ago, news that canadian Prime MinisterJustin Trudeaus wife has tested positive for the new coronavirus. Trudeau, who spoke with President Trump today about the outbreak, is now under selfquarantine as his wife recovers. During last nights primetime address trump rolled out a travel ban from europe scheduled to take effect in just over 24 hours. Tonight the Washington Post reports the president realized today that his speech last night did little to calm fears about coronavirus. Quote, trump, who believed that by giving the speech he would appear in command and that his remarks would reassure Financial Markets and the country, was in an unusually foul mood and sounded at times apoplectic on thursday as he watched stocks tumble and digested widespread criticism of his speech. Today at the white house, trump defended his decision while also seeming to open the door to limits on travel within the u. S. A lot of people went from china into europe. Europe suffered tremendously. You see whats going on. And so i just wanted that to stop as it pertains to the United States, and thats what weve done. Have you considered traveled restrictions within the United States . Such as to Washington State or california . We havent discussed that yet. Is it a possibility . Yes, if somebody gets out of control, if an area gets out of control. I dont want people dying. Thats what im all about. One of the main obstacles to fighting the outbreak continues to be a lack of testing. Today dr. Anthony fauci, the director of the National Institute of allergy and Infectious Diseases was very candid when he spoke to congress about the testing shortage. The system does not is not really geared to what we need right now, what you are asking for. That is a failing. A failing, yes. It is a failing. Lets admit it. Okay. The idea of anybody getting it easily the way people in other countries are dog it, were not set up for that. Do i think we should be . Yes, but were not. Down the street at the white house, the president had a very different take on testing. They have a million tests out now. Over the next few days, theyre going to have 4 million tests out, and frankly the testing has been going very smooth. Millions are being produced. Theres a brandnew thing that just happened, but millions are being produced. Today, even some republican lawmakers were factchecking the president. Thats obviously the goal is to be able to get testing for everybody who wants testing to be able to get it and to be able to get it in multiple locations, but thats not accurate right now. [ inaudible question ] people should not say if you want a test, you can go get a test right now. Amid all of this, it appears donald trump has had another close brush with coronavirus. The press secretary for the brazilian president , who reportedly has now tested positive for the virus, dined with the president in maralago this past weekend. Senator Lindsey Graham was there too. His office has announced hes in selfquarantine. Today the white house issued a statement that said in part, both the president and Vice President had almost no interactions with the individual who tested positive and do not require being tested at this time. And today trump seemed unworried. We did nothing very unusual. We sat next to each other for a period of time, had a great conversation. Lets put it this way. Im not concerned. All right. Our leadoff discussion will begin in just a moment, but first im joined by alan blinder, professor of economics and Public Affairs at princeton and former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve, who served on president bill clintons council of economic advisers. Alan, its a rare occasion to talk to you, but this is a serious one. Heres the issue. The fed cut Interest Rates last week. Today it introduced money into the financial system, but were not solving for a financial problem right now. Thats exactly right. If you think back to 2008 or back to 1998, we had a financial problem on our hands, and certainly in 2008, that financial problem was having dire effects on the real economy. This is not like that at all. This is the this is going the other direction. We have terrible things going on in the real economy, and the Financial Markets are reacting to that, and they know, as you know, that the fed cant do anything about that, about whats going on with the virus, about whats going on in the short term with the real economy. People that are worried about liquidity here and there, the fed can fix that and well. It may take a lot of money, but the fed knows how to do that. But thats really not even secondary to this. Its tertiary at best. So there is a role perhaps at some point as this crisis spreads for the Federal Reserve, but right now it does appear that theyre trying to solve a problem they cant solve, and weve got futures tomorrow morning looking like another bad day. I mean these are times that, alan, we have not seen for a long time, even before your time in the clinton administration, these kind of heavy losses on a sustained basis. No, absolutely. Well, weve seen these in the 200809 crisis for reasons that were horrible and complicated but kind of understandable. But this is a beast of a completely different nature, and what youve seen when the fed cut Interest Rates and what youve seen with its liquidity announcements, today the markets look at that, and they may get happy for ten minutes. Then they realize this is not going to really solve the problem never mind solve. This is not going to seriously ameliorate the problem. Alan, thank you for your time as always. Alan blinder joining us from princeton. Here for our leadoff discussion on a thursday night, my colleague stephanie ruhle, a veteran of the Investment Banking and business world, the host of the 9 00 a. M. Hour here on msnbc. Nbc Business Correspondent susan page, Washington Bureau chief for usa today. And peter baker, chief White House Correspondent for the New York Times. Susan, let met start with you. The president really thought about 24 hours ago, it seemed, that he was going to deliver a speech and a speech from the white house, from the oval office is a serious matter and it would calm markets. Through the course of his speech we already saw futures dropping. The investors around the world, people who have choices about what theyre doing with their money, do not think the white house has a firm hand on the tiller right now. Yes, thats right. This is the kind of address weve seen president s previously make at times of crisis or turmoil. After the Oklahoma City bombing or after the 9 11 attacks, weve seen president s very effectively use an Oval Office Address to the nation to keep people calm, to provide a sense that theyre in charge, that theres a path ahead. But those are reassurances that President Trump did not manage to convey last night and instead i think raised more questions than he answered. Ive got to say of the six president s ive covered, ive never seen a president read a speech off a teleprompter and immediately have to have aides come out and offer factual corrections to what he said. That really does raise questions about whats happening at the white house and the competency of the leadership there. Peter, you and Maggie Haberman have filed a story this evening in which you talk about the fact that what it seems the world and certainly americans wanted or needed or continued to need from the white house is some degree of direction, some unified roadmap to follow forward. And in the absence of that, people are making their own rules, whether those be investors or governors or mayors or School Districts or sports organizations. Yeah, its rather striking. The president of course has been pretty assertive on the issue of closing borders, right . Thats an area hes familiar with. Its an area thats sort of dominated in some ways his three years in office. Hes restricted travel from china, from iran, and now as of tomorrow night, from europe. But the area he has not really asserted himself and provided direction to the country is inside our borders. What do we do with schools . What do we do with universities . Broadway, disney world, the nhl, the mlb, all of these guys are making their decisions on their own without the guidance of the commander in chief from washington. It took anthony fauci, the scientist you just showed on air, to say yesterday at a congressional hearing, yeah, maybe the nba should think about suspending games. We shouldnt have these large gatherings. And within 24 hours of him saying that, you saw all of the professional sports essentially react in a very strong way. The president himself didnt say that last night. He didnt give any direction on what he thinks people should do beyond washing their hands and keeping vulnerable populations, you know, isolated. So i think thats an unusual situation. Maybe he will turn that around. Hes talking about a national emergency. Hes talking about using emergency powers. But so far hes left it to the country to decide for itself, and the result is much of American Life has been closed down. Stephanie ruhle, you and i have many times said that the stock market is not a proxy for the economy because of the number of people who are not invested in it. But when you see 20 , 25 losses on the stock market over a twoweek period or threeweek period, it becomes a bit of a proxy for the fear that the world is fearing. Sure, about half of americans are invested in the stock market in one way or the other, but lots of americans work for Public Companies and at this point this feels like the slow, grinding shutdown of an economy that is really making people fear for their futures. It does, and i mean im in agreement with former economic adviser to the president gary cohn. Were absolutely slipping into a recession. But i want to give you a sliver you know, a bit of a Silver Lining here. What we have seen in the last 24 hours is a really scary tipping point. Peter just went through whether youre talking mlb, nhl, the nba, the college and university closings, across the board. What has happened, as we more from corporate america, less from the government, are truly getting our heads around assessing and addressing the risk of corona, Everyday Americans are now having to change how we live our lives in order to address this. And at least in the short term, we are going to selfquarantine. We are going to hunker down. And when we do that, were not spending. And when were not spending, were not contributing to the economy, and that turns markets in the red. Now, the sooner we do that and that has become today for more and more americans, the sooner we get to the other side, and that is the bright spot. So as alan blinder said, this is very different from 2008 where you had a disastrous underlying economy. Thats not where we are today. Were facing a disastrous Natural Disaster that was not done by bad risktaking from banks or bad decisions from executives in the auto industry. And the sooner we get to the other side of this mountain where china has started to get and south korea has started to get and maybe italy soon, were actually going to get back to normalcy. So as scary as it is and youre absolutely right. Its like a falling knife, the market right now. The fact that at least were tackling it, theres a lot of sophisticated investors out there that are saying were taking our medicine and after this were going to get better. Susan, there is a consequence to the president continuing to talk about how its the media that is providing a narrative that is not honest about this, and the president s got a lot of supporters in rightwing media who are doing this. Youve done a poll. There was a u. S. Today ipsos poll in which you polled people who identified as republicans and democrats about a basic thing like washing their hands to prevent coronavirus. The result was actually different depending on your political party. You know, i was looking at the cross tabs on the question of are you washing your hands more often because i thought men and women would be different on that by the way. No offense to men. And i found a small gap on gender, but a huge gap on partisanship. By more than by double digits, democrats were more likely to be washing their hands more often than republicans. And i dont know exactly why thats the case but i think it may be the effect of the president s bully pulpit, that republicans trust him when he tells people its not so serious, were going to get better, its being overblown. They believe it, and they dont take these common sense measures like washing their hands. Democrats dont believe the president. They believe tony fauci and Public Health officials that say wash your hands as much as you can. So theyre taking heed of that. That just shows you perhaps in a small and quirky way kind of the power that the president has to lead on an issue like this or to make things more difficult for the country. I dont know, but ali, i would say, how humiliating for the president. Who does he want the approval of more than anything . The ceo set, the most powerful men in america. And what do they do . Ignoring what he is saying, calling the coronavirus a hoax, trying to downplay it. And on the other side, they are taking extreme borderline, draconian measures to address it. So one could say, yes, the president looks so powerful among his republican base, but thats not actually who he seeks, who he desperately seeks the approval from, and thats the most powerful ceos out there. And they certainly dont agree with him. Peter baker, whom i know to be a hand washer, peter, the president has directed Jared Kushner to take some sort of leadership role in this. But ultimately as you heard alan blinder say moments ago, this is not a financial crisis. This is a Public Health issue. The administration or at least donald trump and it seems Jared Kushner according to reporting shares this view, that this is actually a public psychology issue as opposed to an actual Public Health crisis. It could be both. Public spirit and public mood plays a role. We are having the first pandemic really of the social media era, right . It was 2009 we had the h1n1 virus, but we didnt have the prevalence that we do today of twitter and facebook, and they didnt play such a large role in our life, in which all the information that were getting these days doesnt just come from television. It doesnt just come from the president of the United States. It comes from our friends and our neighbors and our colleagues, all of