Force, of course seemed fine with doing away with the task force. Until today when the president said he didnt know how populari the task force was and said hes decided hes going to keep it or around. The virus continues to churn across our country in tandem with the trend of reopening businesses and entire states. Despite the Johns Hopkins expert who just today testified that none of the states reopening have met all of the white house guidelines for reopening. And despite opinion polls showing a majority of americans are not at all ready or willing to go back to life and events as normal as we knew them. Indeed, in the real world tonight the death toll across our country stands at 73,863 souls lost to this virus. There are now among the small percentage tested more than 1. 2 million confirmed cases. The number of new cases is rising in nearly half of our country. Those are the states in orange on this map. The green states are where the number of cases are falling. Some 36 states have now reopened in some form or fashion. Former director of the cdc was asked about that during a House Committee hearing this morning. It will be tragically at least 100,000 deaths from covid at the end of this month. As bad as this has been, its just the beginning. Is it irresponsible to open the economy without adequate testing . We need to continue to y rapidly ramp up our ability to do all of the four things i r mentioned. Not just tests but also isolate people who are infected, Contact Trace and quarantine. By having all of those things in place we can come out safer and sooner. And we start our economy without a risk of explosive spread. Dr. Fauci was supposed to testify at that hearing as well, but he was blocked by the white house. T new reporting from politico reveals that even as the president has pushed to reopen this country federal officials p are worried. Politico obtained audio recordings of three Conference Call meetings held between 24 april and 1st of may led by hhs and fema officials. They talked about medical supplies and a possible new outbreak as restrictions are lifted. Politico says a may 1st Conference Call started with the head of the cdcs Influenza Division warning the numbers of deaths definitely will be high. N while this afternoon trump was asked about the risk. Will the nation just have to accept the idea that by reopening there will be more i cases, there will be more deaths . S, so i call these people warriors. And im actually calling them, now, as you know, john, the a nation warriors. Hopefully that wont be the case but that could very well be the case. We cant have our whole country out. The we cant do it. The country wont take it, wont stand it. Its not sustainable. If somebody lost somebody, a parent or a wife or a husband or, you know, any brothers, sisters, if you lost someone, you can never make up for that by saying, wow, youre going to have a great year next year economically. A and so you can never do that. But i will say from an economic standpoint i think next years going to be a very big year. Trump made those comments during an oval office event to honor nurses where he was also asked about the need for testing. We have more case, were going to do more testing. If i dont do testing we dont have any cases. So as i do more testing, they g say, but you have more cases. Meanwhile, the White House Task force that we were told yesterday was going away, as we mentioned, came roaring back into existence today. I thought we could wind it down sooner, but i had no idea how popular the task force is, until actually yesterday. When i started talking about winding it down. I got calls from very respected people saying i think it would be better to keep it going. Its done such a good job. I would say by monday well be announcing two or three new members to the task force. Those new Task Force Members may be challenged on the darkest aspect of this pandemic, and that is the growing death toll. Axios reporting the president has complained to advisers about the way the coronavirus death et toll is being calculated, suggesting the real numbers are actually lower and that a number of his senior aides share this view. One highlevel official expects the president to begin publicly questioning the death toll as it closes in on his predictions for the final death count and damages him politically. Trump was also asked about that report this afternoon. The death toll figures in the United States, over 70,000. Do you believe those figures . Well, i think it is what it is from you saying its 70,000. Its approximately now 70,000. I dont imagine there would be a very big variation. No, its a big number. But its also a number thats at the lower scale. I think deborah, you could say its at the very lower scale of any number that was predicted. Because if you look at the predictions i guess they said from 100,000 to 220,000. Thats if we did the big shutins and if we went to the total shutdown. Tonight the nations most populous state preparing to reopen. On friday california will start lifting parts of its stayathome order, which has been in effect for nearly two months. This is happening even as the state grapples with rising numbers of cases in l. A. And the bay area. California reported more than 2,600 new confirmed cases of the virus yesterday. We begin our leadoff discussion in just a moment. But first, we are pleased to be joined live by Eric Garcetti, democratic mayor of the city ofo los angeles, california. Mr. Mayor, because to my mind the testing plan you have launched in l. A. County is the biggest and boldest of its type in the nation, i want to start by asking you to listen along with our audience to the new White House Press secretary and what she had to say about testing in this country. Well talk about it on the other side. Why shouldnt all americans who go back to work be able to get the test before they do to feel comfortable in their own work environment, to be interacting with other individuals . Yeah, well, lets dismiss a myth about tests right now. If we tested every single rt l, american in this country at thi moment, wed have to retest them an hour later and an hour later after that because at any momeno you could theoretically contract this virus. So the notion that Everyone Needs to be tested is just simply nonsensical. Mr. Mayor, as someone whos in the middle of attempting to test 10 Million People, why is she wrong in this case . Well, its become a cliche on shows like this to say more testing, more testing, more testing. But its because Public Health professionals tell us this is a silent killer. Its not just about first le responders and medical personnel and people with symptoms who of course should always be our first priority. But its also about finding those people who are not a exhibiting symptoms, who can walk through us, walk through crowds and workplaces and spread this without us knowing. So thats why im proud los angeles was the first big city to offer widespread testing for people with and without symptoms, because it gives us a chance to know, find those folks, find who theyve interacted with and not just bend the curve but chase down those cases quickly, isolate them and help us get to a place where we can better protect from death people and better prepare for an economy that doesnt suffer so much. In new york the governor and the mayor have in plain english a horrendous relationship. You guys in california seem to rkdo have it much better. Though im guessing there are areas where as a city youre going to have to disagree with and supersede the governors slow rollout plan to reopen aspects of the economy, correct . We have a beautiful relationship, Governor Newsom and myself. Good friends, great working relationship. And that extends throughout the state with my fellow mayors and supervisors here in l. A. County. Where we disagree is not actually disagreement. The state says you can go this far, but its important for local leaders to know states will recommend you can but you dont have to go that far. If your conditions on the ground say your hospital admissions are up, your testing capacity, your tracing capacity isnt enough, go slow is my advice. Nobodys going to be overly criticized for going too slow even though we see protests and things like that. In the long term history will write the chapters of those who walk forward the right way. So were taking some baby steps this weekend in our parks telling people they can go back to trails but with masks on. Didnt change a single rule, you cant gather with a group of friends, just the people youre cohabitating with. G oecand were doing some pickup for retail. In the same way weve done for food well do that for bookstores and music stores but not for people inside those stores yet. So i think we have to get rid of this idea of black and white open and closed. Were going to be somewhat open and somewhat closed for the next year plus and you have to manage that carefully and dont be afraid to go a little slower than national or state regulations allow, but we have a great relationship out here in california. Another new york reference only because of the comparable populations. O n the mayor of new york guesses that hes going to have to lay off City Employees because of the gap between funding. Are you getting what you need from the feds thus far . How much do you fear youre going to need from the federal government . I want to praise the federal help weve gotten whether its the naval ship mercy or some of the help theyve given us to house our homeless or feed our seniors. And we need to make sure we get fiscal help, not just reimbursements for the costs of covid19 but local and state governments are 3. 1 trillion that is spent locally. Thats not only jobs for those workers who work for local governments, but those dollars , get recycled four or five times and the majority of that is in the social safety net to catch people in bad times like this so they dont suffer more. Public safety and firefighters and Police Officers need to stay on the front lines in this fight. And also folks like our Public Health workers who are literally the ones saving lives. A so we cant turn this into a partisan issue. Cities are run by republicans, independents, and democrats. And we are all together in pe saying we need to make sure that the next round funds cities and states for what they have lost so that we dont have more layoffs, we dont have furloughs like we proposed here in los angeles, a 10 furlough, that means 10 less service, 10 less people, 10 less economic engine here. Op and we have to make sure that part of our recovery is not just in the private sector but the Public Sector as well. Thank you for spending part of your 8 00 p. M. Hour with us tonight on the 11th hour out east. Mayor Eric Garcetti of the city of los angeles. Thank you so much for your time. And here now for our leadoff discussion on a wednesday night, phil rucker, pulitzer y prizewinning White House Bureau chief for the washington post, coauthor along with his post colleague Carol Leonnig of the u bestseller a very stable genius. Also with us, jill colvin, whits house reporter for the associated press. And dr. Kavita patel. She served as senior aide to Valerie Jarrett in the obama white house, advising on matters of health reform, financial regulatory reform, economic recovery issues. Also happens to be a clinical physician. Ic and among our medical contributors. And dr. Patel, you are the guest id like to begin this segment with. What about what the White House Press secretary said about w testing, that in effect it is merely a snapshot in time, you could test people an hour latern after an exposure and get a different result, the bottom line being why bother testing every american . Well, its just simply not true, brian. First of all, i think we all have come to a realization that we simply dont even have enough tests for a percentage of americans, much less all americans. So the fact of the matter is that we dont have enough testing, period. And that to kind of offer this contrast that, you know, talking about testing is nonsensical when we clearly dont even really understand what the extent of the disease is in our country, we already know that in parts of our country we are woefully undertesting and if we are thinking about safely reopening you heard it from dr. Frieden and many other experts just today that we cant do that without testing. And at this point were testing about 200,000 people a day, and that is about at least half of what we need. So, you know, trying to kind of obfuscate the orth by talking about testing every american and it looking different an hour later, well, at this point, i d think we need to at least have s some sort of testing strategy, and, brian, to be really honest about it, what we need to do is ask the administration, why are we having such gaps in testing . We have been talking about this for weeks and months now. Av what is it we need to do to get a real coordinated effort and to deal with the shortfalls . Its a fair question. Weve got it that we now have a much larger supply of ventilators. Testing remains the outlier. Hey, jill colvin, it was a minor fleeting moment in the White House Press secretarys presentation today. She made sure to say that the job of the members of the Coronavirus Task force was saving the lives of american people. Maybe because the president earlier had mentioned its popularity as a reason for keeping it open. What do you know about the less than 24hour turnaround in the fate and fortune of the white house Coronavirus Task force . It was very much a reversal t in the past 24 hours. Urembe was you know, had the president yesterday saying and the Vice President also telling reporters that the plan was for the task force to basically phase out. They were giving us exact dates, saying some time between memorial day and early june they intended for it to sort of fade out as they entered this new t phase. But the president received a lot of pushback in the hours before he appeared in front of reporters today, including pp seeing some of the media reports critical of that decision. And that influenced calls he received, he said, that made him decide to shift his language. And he said instead that the task force would continue on in perpetuity. He said he might change the composition of the task force but that it would continue to e meet. Co i just want to say, though, that this is really seems to be ah rhetorical shift more than anything else. For weeks now we have been told that the task force was going to be given a much less publicfacing role. These individuals, theyre members of trumps administration. Dr. Birx will still be there. The Vice President , his staff will still be meeting, its just a matter of how they choose to present that publicly. Phil rucker, the virus is still growing. And as i mentioned, the latest concerning case spikes are in states like minnesota and nebraska. Is there any hint of a kind of perverse buyers remorse inside the Trump White House after it banging the drum for get out there and reopen as long as they have . Well, brian, theyre looking at data here that is quite alarming and disturbing. The rhetoric you hear from the president is that we turned a corner here, light is at the end of the tunnel, americans have been warriors by staying home for all of these weeks, and now its time to get back out there, spend money, go to restaurants, get back into your offices, go to hair salons and so forth. But the death count continues to climb. We now have, as you said at the top of the show, more than 70,000 people dead in america. Were likely to have over d an h 100,000 dead by the end of the move may. And theres not any sign of this ending anytime soon even as the numbers in new york city start to come down. Theyre going up elsewhere. And thats a real dilemma for this administration. But youve seen the president basically adopted a mantra this week that, you know, deaths are going to continue and thats a sacrifice that americans need to make to get back out there into the economy and reopen the economy and get these numbers reversed and get people back to work. Nd our whole gang has agreed to stay on with us for another round of questioning. Our thanks as well belatedly to l. A. Mayor Eric Garcetti for starting us off. Coming up as we approach our first break, the latest white house response to the latest warning signs about lost jobs and cratering businesses. And later, three months ago a prominent name in the Democratic Party told us he was scared to death about the coming election. 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