Our country is going up fast. Tonight it reaches over 8,600 people. Note it has been nearly two months since the first case was diagnosed in this country,s you see 140 total fatalities. As the nation grapples with increasing shutdowns, the president has now adopted a new stance when it comes to positioning his effort to fight this pandemic. Do you consider america to be on a wartime footing in terms of fighting this virus . I look at it i view it as a in a sense a wartime president. While he may view himself and wish to be viewed as a wartime president now, the problem with that is the lengths that he has gone to to diminish the virus, the danger, and the approaching pandemic. Were finding very little problem, very little problem. Now, you treat this like a flu. Its going to disappear. One day its like a miracle, it will disappear. The democrats are politicizing the coronavirus. This is their new hoax. Anybody that needs a test theyre there, they have the tests. The tests are all perfect. Like the letter was perfect. The transcription was perfect. It will go away. Just stay calm. Today trump invoked the korean warera defense production act, which allows him to order businesses to make ventilators and masks for Health Care Workers as well as other critically needed medical supplies. Weve ordered millions of them. But we need millions more. A thing like this has never been requested, and its never never had to even think in terms of these numbers. But we need millions of masks. And all of that will be ordered. We need respirators. We need ventilators is a big thing because its a complex piece of equipment. So we have a lot of ventilators but were going to be ordering more. Nobody ever saw numbers like this. Even with regard to testing. Now were getting highly sophisticated tests and its going very well but nobodys ever heard of testing in the kind of quantities that youre talking about. The president said today this snuck up on us. While the president also announced the government is taking further steps to expand testing capacity, its still impossible for Many Americans to get tested. Even those who are violently symptomatic. It remains true that your ability to get tested right now in this country depends on where you live, who you are, and how much money you make. In news to our north, weve now closed our border with canada to stop nonessential traffic back and forth. As you can guess, Asylum Seekers and other foreigners attempting to enter illegally from mexico are being turned back. This comes as a new internal report from the department of health and human services, first reported on by the New York Times, suggests a sobering time frame for recovery, saying the pandemic will last 18 months or longer and could include multiple waves of illness. Late today u. S. Congressman Mario Diazbalart of florida, ben mcadams of utah became the first two members of congress to announce they have contracted the coronavirus. As the number of cases has increased, theres new information about the types of patients being affected by this. There are concerning reports coming out of france and italy about some young people getting seriously ill and very seriously ill in the icus. It may have been that the millennial generation, our largest generation, our future generation that will carry us through for the next multiple decades, there may be disproportional number of infections among that group, and so even if its a rare occurrence it may be seen more frequently in that group and be evident now. So were looking at that information very carefully. We have not seen any significant mortality in the children, but we are concerned about the early reports coming out of italy and france. This was another tough day for wall street as the dow dropped below 20,000 points for the First Time Since february 2017. It has now wiped out all of the gains made during the trump presidency. Trading briefly came to a halt again today. Earlier on cnbc today longtime Hedge Fund Manager bill ackman urged the president to shut down the country and the markets for a month to contain the coronavirus and rescue the u. S. Economy. What would the president be asking the American People to do . Hes not saying, you know hes not saying to storm the beaches at normandy. Right . Hes saying go home. Go home. Spend a month with your family. Okay . And i know for some families thats a hardship. Okay . But its nothing. Go home. Take a deep breath p you know, spend time with loved ones. Take care of your children. And Corporate America is the gradual rollout of whats going on. We need to shut it down now. That is exactly what the big three automakers did today. Gm, ford, fiat, chrysler temporarily shutting down their factories in the u. S. , in mexico and in canada until at least march 30. An unprecedented move that will affect hundreds of thousands of factory employees. Today trump signed the emergency coronavirus aid bill just hours after it was passed by the senate. This legislation provides free coronavirus testing if you can find it. It ensures paid emergency leave as well as additional medicaid funding and unemployment benefits. Senate republicans are now working on a 1 trillion spending proposal that the white house said would include 500 billion in direct payments to americans. Trump also says he plans to make another announcement about his administrations effort to stop the spread of this virus. Heres what he said during a meeting with the heads of nursing organizations. The fda will be theyve been working very, very hard. And i appreciate what theyre doing. And i think we have some very interesting things that will be brought up tomorrow at the news conference. One more note about the availability of tests. As we mentioned, they are still extremely difficult to get. Nbc News White House correspondent Peter Alexander today asked trump why that wasnt the case for some folks. How are nonsymptomatic professional athletes getting tests while others are waiting in line and cant get them . Do the wellconnected go to the front of the line . Youd have and them that question. I wouldnt say so. But perhaps thats been the story of life. That does happen on occasion. And ive noticed where some people have been tested fairly quickly. Well, on that note here for our leadoff discussion on a wednesday night philip rucker, pulitzer prizewinning White House Bureau chief for the washington post, also happens to be the coauthor with his colleague Carol Leonnig of the bestselling book a very stable genius. Kimberly atkins, senior washington correspondent for wbur, bostons npr news station. And ian bremer is back with us, the founder and president of the eurasia group. His expertise in Global Affairs with a particular eye on the relationship between Political Risk and financial markets. He also happens to be the host of g zero world on pbs. Good evening and welcome to you all. Kimberly, id like to begin with you. A week ago tonight the nba season was canceled. A week ago today people were wondering, almost a parlor game, wonder which celebrity will possibly come down with coronavirus. The virus was impressed us all when it started at the top of the chain when we learned tom hanks and reeita wilson were in quarantine in australia, that is to say, a week has passed. Should congress have passed what they did faster . Congress should be working as fast as humanly possible. The one thing that this variety and the fact that people are staying away from each other, social distancing, is that Congress Members of congress, many members, have opened up virtual town halls and facebook meetups. And they have been hearing directly from people on the ground, from their constituents, who are extremely concerned with everything that is going on because it has touched every single american in one form or another, even with just the orders to stay away from one another. They are concerned about everything from how theyre going to take care of loved ones with disabilities or say themselves have a disability. If theyre working parttime jobs. What happens to people in the gig economy . Will the recovery package address them . People who are taking care of elders or taking care of children. There are a host of issues that americans are extremely concerned about. And yeah, im sure seeing people like tom hanks who have means and who he and his wife were able to get their testing because they were in australia, by the way. When im hearing from folks like, you know, my moms own doctor who says she doesnt have the equipment and supplies she needs to treat people and she is telling people who she would normally have to treat to stay home. It is a very concerning time, and people are looking to congress to act and act quickly. Phil rucker, the Senate Majority leader having given the senate a long weekend off, yesterday because its always about the inside game told his members if they had to gag go ahead but vote for the package of legislation. It came out of the senate ultimately today, but according to your reporting today whats the health of partisanship . Is it alive and well in washington still . You know, it has never died in washington, brian, except for a few days around september 11th, 2001. But theres a really interesting political story under way here with the economic response to the coronavirus. And that has to do with the 1 trillion rescue package that the Trump Administration has put together. That includes bailouts for a number of Industries Including the airline industry. And lets think back to 2008 when Congress Passed those bailouts for the big banks. That became a lightning rod issue for activists on both the right and the left. It began the Tea Party Movement that swept republicans into power in 2010. Many of the very same senators and house members who are coming out in support of the current package because its proposed by President Trump were actually elected because they opposed those sorts of bailouts and they preached fiscal austerity. So theres been a real sea change here because of the coronavirus and because of the president s determination to spend a big dollar figure to try to rescue this economy without much regard for the federal debt. Ian, i know youre with us via skype. I know theres always a bit of a builtin delay but i want to play for you an exchange at the White House Briefing today. Well talk about it on the other side. Why do you keep calling this the chinese virus . There are reports of dozens of incidents of bias against Chinese Americans in this country. Why do you keep using this . It comes from china. Its not racist at all. A person at the white house used the word kung flu. Do you think using the term chinese virus, that could put asianamericans at risk . No, not at all. I think they probably would agree with it 100 . It comes from china. Ian, what are we doing here . Well, President Trump hasnt referred to this as the chinese flu until about two days ago. It links up with his policies in response to coronavirus implo imploding and the markets imploding in the United States, and it made it harder for him to blame obama, blame biden. He needs someone to blame. And chinas the proximate country. And the problem with that of course is i mean, yes, it did indeed come from china originally, and furthermore the chinese din deed covd indeed co for the first month. So they are responsible. But on top of this massive market meltdown and economic shutdown were seeing in the United States right now, picking a fight with the chinese, who feel vastly more confident today coming out of this crisis, than they did after 2008 is going to cause more economic damage. And while its politically expedient for trump to do so in an electoral cycle, the likelihood that we end up in an economic fight with the chinese where we pull out of the phase 1 trade deal, theyre not buying the goods they promised to buy, and the chinese are making gains in places like europe, the middle east where theyre actually providing humanitarian medical aid, supplies, personnel, and the americans are actually undermining the relations with those countries, the potential that we end up coming out of this Coronavirus Crisis and a cold war with the chinese is becoming real. Thats aadditional shock right now that you really dont want as we face by far the worst economic crisis weve had in a long time. Kim, i dont need to tell you theyre using the big boy Briefing Room at the white house now after it was idle for a year. That creates an even louder daily megaphone for the White House Briefing, especially when the president is part of it. Is the west wing staff still convinced he is their best spokesperson . Well, he is convinced of that. And weve seen a lot of iterations since the coronavirus became a massive crisis. First it was the creation of that task force. And then mike pence was put out front. And he was the face of it, giving the daily briefings and leading them for a couple of days before the president came back and took control of the message. You can certainly tell in the white house that they feel the increased sense of urgency and they are responding as such. The president is still being the president. And as ian said, doing things like blaming others, like blaming china but at the same time theres a real understanding that this is something massive, it is a bigger economic crisis, potentially bigger economic crisis than we saw in 2008 and that the white house needs to act both for because its the white house and its the head of the executive. But also politically its an Election Year and thats certainly something on the president s mind and he does not want to be seen as the person who is at fault if the response is not enough. Hey, phil, ashley parker, your colleague, et al. At your newspaper tonight giving us this headline. Kushner Coronavirus Team sparks confusion, plaudits inside white house response efforts. In plain english what is Jared Kushner up to now . Brian, this is one of the most interesting stories of the week i think because we see this task force at the briefings every day. Its led by Vice President pence. But theres actually a second task force operating behind the scenes at the white house. It is led by Jared Kushner, the Senior Adviser and president ial soninlaw. He has corralled a number of his loyal associates and allies within the federal government as well as brought in private sector leaders, people from fedex, ups, and other companies who are effectively working in an all hands on deck operation inside the white house to try to get control of the testing situation and try to manage this response. So while theres a publicfacing task force that the Vice President leads, a separate power center is very much emerged in recent days led by kushner, and its created a great deal of confusion inside the government because people are getting orders from both sides. Theyre not really sure whos in charge. Ian, on top of all of it i want to play you this. Here is our secretary of state on fox news. The Chinese Government knew about this risk, had identified it. They were the first to know, and they wasted valuable days at the front end, allowing hundreds of thousands of people to leave wuhan, to go to places like italy, thats now suffering so badly. They tried to suppress this information. You talked about the means by which they did it. Instead of trying to actually do the work to suppress the virus. Ian, this speaks directly to what you were saying earlier. The need to blame. The need to attribute troubles to another source. Its true. I mean, look, it is the fact that china is almost 20 of the worlds economy right now. It was about 4 when sars hit. All of the Major American Companies are massively interlinked in terms of chinas supply chain. And so as a consequence when you end up with more significant risks that come out of china were going to be affected in a much more dramatic way. Lets be very clear here. The mistakes made by china early, and they were intentional, by the Chinese Government are unconscionable. They need to be redressed. And were going to get hurt. The iranians, that was absolutely a response of the chinese not being able to deal with this crisis and refusing to. The europeans as well. But we still have to take responsibility for our own response. And the fact that jack ma, the wealthiest man in china, is offering the United States 500,000 test kits and we arent able to produce them for ourselves yet we lost a month because china covered it up but we lost two months after that because the Trump Administration was asleep at the switch and President Trump was spinning fantasies for the average american saying this wasnt a problem. It was like a miracle, it would go away. Also unconscionable. There is plenty of blame here to go around, brian. And ultimately the americans do have to if you want to put America First, we should also be blaming our own leadership first. Thats really the kind of America First we need to see. We have to see leadership in our country to take care of our own people. And i see a lot of passing of the buck right now. I dont see a lot of it stopping with the white house. By the way, lets take a half million test kits if offered. Ian bremmer, philip rucker, kimberly atkins. Our thanks for starting