Theres a long, long way to go before we are anywhere close to making declarations like that. As of tonight, there are 1,450,637 reported cases of coronavirus in the United States. 88,101 confirmed deaths from coronavirus in the United States. And that is likely an undercount. Just tonight, cdc director Robert Redfield tweeted that all 12 of the forecasting models that the cdc follows predicts the United States is heading toward more than 100,000 coronavirus deaths by june 1st. Thats a little over two weeks from today. One of the main coronavirus models used by the white house now projects that 147,000 people will die in the u. S. By the beginning of august. Some 36 million americans have filed for Unemployment Insurance claims in just two months. Nearly 15 of the u. S. Workforce was unemployed as of april. And last night governor andrew cuomo, assailed the federal response to the pandemic in a discussion with rachel. They left it to these 50 different states with no real guidance or national standard. Youre right, new york, the curve is coming down. You take new york out, the curve is going up, rachel, and theyre opening. You know, by what standard . So its its i dont think thats going to change for the second wave if there is a second wave because thats the federal course, and the ship has sailed. All right. Does that sound like were back . You got to admit its interesting to hear the president praise his administrations efforts to develop a desperately needed vaccine, only to dismiss those very efforts moments later today because he thinks were already over the worst of this. Conflicting messages like that are at the heart of a scathing editorial in the lancet, one of the best known general medicine journals in the world. It says, quote, the administration is obsessed with magic bullets, vaccines, new medicines, or a hope that the virus will simply disappear. But only a steadfast reliance on basic Public Health principles like test, trace and isolate will see the emergency brought to an independent. And this requires an Effective NationalPublic Health agency, end quote. The degree to which the pandemic is becoming political is frankly alarming. At the very same event where the president dismissed the need for a vaccine, he promised to have one ready for widespread use by the end of the year. Thats two months after the president ial election. Trump wants you to make a choice in november in part based on the notion that a vaccine will be available conveniently just after you reelect him. And then if the timeline falls apart, what does it matter . He was just reelected. This kind of promise is clearly political, but its also remarkably dangerous because it affects policy decisions at the state and the federal level, and those decisions could mean life or death if we get them wrong. Heres the thing. You cannot talk yourself into a vaccine. The fastest a vaccine has ever been produced from start to finish is five years. Now, some parts of the process could be sped up. Government and companies and foundations are all trying to do that desperately. But as philanthropist bill gates noted last month, in the final phase of vaccine trials, phase three, you must give the vaccine to thousands, probably tens of thousands of people, and make sure it works and make sure its not dangerous. And that takes time because, quote, it occurs in what is called natural disease conditions. You must wait and see if the vaccine reduces how many people get sick. We have to be real about this. It would be great to have a vaccine ready to go in six months. It would be great to have one ready the day after the election, better still, the day before the election. But its not likely to happen, and telling americans otherwise is dangerous, and its wrong, and it could cost lives. Leading off our discussion tonight and joining us for the entire hour is my copilot, dr. Zeke emanuel, msnbc senior medical contributor and a Senior Adviser for Health Policy in the obama administration. Also joined tonight by ron klain, who worked alongside zeke in the obama white house, including as a senior aide to Vice President biden as the ebola czar. Gentlemen, thanks to both of you for being here. Ron, im going to start with you. Zekes the brains of the operation, but i think we need to lay bare the degree to which this is not aspirational what donald trump is talking about with a vaccine by the end of the year. Its b. S. Yeah, i mean, look, i think everyone recognizes that the nations leading Infectious Disease expert, tony fauci, he said it would take 12 to 18 months. Dr. Rick bright, who was in charge of this program until he was removed by president said it would take 12 to 18 months optimistically. Thats having the vaccine available sometime in the middle of 2021 or so. As you said, that would be an incredible achievement. It would be a historical, recordbreaking achievement. Why . Because the scientific factors you cited are part of it, but then you have to make hundreds of millions of doses of this vaccine if were going to get it into everyone. The president today was talking about an International Strategy. Its not really clear what his International Strategy is, but its possible this vaccine will be invented overseas. Well have to get agreement for getting it here in the u. S. The prospect of discovering the vaccine, testing it, making it, delivering it, administering it, getting people to take it that sadly is not going to happen by the end of this year. Ron, can i zeke go ahead. You take it over because i need to hear what youve got to say about this, zeke. No, i was interested. It does seem to be that the sort of heavy development in vaccine while theyre simultaneously, you might say, removing themselves from establishing guidelines, minimum criteria for businesses to open, schools to open, is an interesting strategy, and i think it obviously frustrated governor cuomo. But is it the right bet for this president that he cant control how businesses open up, but he can put a lot of resources behind a vaccine even if it takes longer than hes proclaiming . Well, its a i think its almost exactly backwards, zeke. That is obviously we should invest whatever it takes in a vaccine and also therapeutics, too. Thats part of this. Its better treatments so people who get sick can recover with a higher percentage, more quickly. We need to invest all we can in those things. But those are the unknowns. We dont know what will work. We dont know when it will work. The problem is were not investing in the knowns. We know that testing helps us identify cases. We know that tracing the contacts of people with tests can help us isolate chains of transmission. We know that these standard Public Health interventions, they work. And so, yes, im all for operation warp speed, the manhattan project, whatever kind of name you want to put on all this stuff. And i hope we invest maximally in that, yes. But there are things we could do right now that save lives right now, and why arent we doing those things . Zeke, i want to ask you something. There are things you cant control. The economy is actually based on animal spirits. People can actually decide that they want to go out and they want to shop, and you can do that. But i want to discuss, and i want you to listen to dr. Rick brights testimony on this, and i want you to please explain to our viewers what parts of the Vaccine Development process you can speed up and what you cant. List ton what rick bright had to say. A lot of optimism is swirling around a 12 to 18month time frame. If everything goes perfectly. Weve never seen everything go perfectly. My concern is if we rush too quickly and consider cutting out critical steps, we may not have a full assessment of the safety of that vaccine. Zeke, theres an Antivax Movement in this country that dines out on the idea that vaccines are unsafe. Now, generally speaking, they go to very rigorous testing processes to make sure they are safe. Theres always a danger with vaccines, but if youre looking for one that youre going to give to the general population, you cant skip the step that determines safety, and you cant get there without doing tests on people, lots of people, over time. Yeah. So the estimate is that well probably need to do, i think pfizer is talking about 8,000 people. Johnson johnson is talking about 20,000 people in the phase three trial to see if the vaccines effective. Thats going to both give you a sense of the safety as well as its effectiveness. But, you know, if youre then going to give it to 330 Million People, undoubtedly youre going to find some problems that werent apparent immediately. And the chief problem that people are looking for is whats called antibody enhancement. That is the antibody actually makes the virus worse, and that i think has got a lot of people afraid because the original sars attempt had that problem. But, you know, 20,000 is a good number. Its a big number, but even there, there are going to be a lot of things we wont know if that proves effective, and then we begin scaling it. So were going to have to monitor even when we roll it out to all sorts of people, and i think thats one of the issues. So, ron, therein lies the issue. If you have a bridge and its going to take three years to build and you put, you know, three times as many people on it, you can reduce the time it takes to build that bridge by twothirds. You cant do the same thing with viruses. If we discovered a virus that we thought works tomorrow, theres a certain amount of time and testing that has to be taken before you can even start to manufacture enough for 330 Million People, let alone the rest of the world. Yeah, no question. As zeke said, you have to test it carefully. You have to test it. There are going to be some problems when you administer a vablgs ev vaccine of this scope and scale, but the testing itself takes time. The manufacture takes time. The president launched this operation warp speed to try to speech up the manufacturing, but we just dont make this amount of a brandnew vaccine in a short period of time. Its going to take time to do that. Then, ali, we have to talk about the complexity of actually getting it in peoples arms. That is not an easy thing. 330 million doses. 300 million doses. Where are people going to get these shots . When are they going to get the shots . How are they going to get the shots . And then this question of vaccine resistance. You alluded to it. Its not a small problem. Polls already show that large numbers of americans have said theyre not going to take the vaccine. The president hasnt committed that he will take it, and he himself has been back and forth on this. So i think were in a real struggle to get this vaccine all the way to the finish line. Ron, i was curious if you were in charge now, youve said that testing and Contact Tracing would be your top priority. How much of the economy do you think we can open up over the summer and convince people that its okay . Especially i ask you this given the fact we can be outside in the summer and its thought theres not that much transmission of virus once people are sitting outside. Could we do restaurants only if they serve outside and things like that in your view . Yeah, look, zeke, i think we can do a lot more things than we are doing, or at least we can be doing the things were doing and doing them a lot more safely. What concerns me is weve almost got this again backwards, which is more than 40 states will be partially or fully open as of monday. That number grows every day. You know, the white house set a very low bar for what it would take to open, which was 14 days of decrease. Most of the states are opening dont meet that bar. In fact, most of those states are actually seeing the cases still increase. If we want the economy to open and stay open and not just open and close, open and close, weve got to get the incidence of the disease now. Weve got to find the people with the disease. Weve got to trace their contacts. I think if we really ramp that up, we could be in much better shape come july. Also, you know, as you know, zeke, the antigen tests, the faster, cheaper, more reliable tests have been approved by the fda. Theyre hopefully coming online in july. Well see if we can make that deadline. Every testing deadline so far has been missed by the administration. But if they make that deadline, then theres going to be the capacity to have the kinds of millions of tests a week that youve been talking about for a long time, zeke, that will be technologically feasible and that will be a real differencemaker. People need to think about this in commonsense terms. You want to go to a restaurant. You want to go back to work. We all do. You want to know if the person sitting next to you has this disease or not. The only way to know that is to have widespread, inexpensive testing. Thanks to both of you. Ron, thank you for joining us tonight. Coming up, judge clay jenkins is the Top Executive in Dallas County, and hes urging people to stay home and save lives even as texas republican Governor Greg Abbott pushes texas to reopen. Were going to find out how this playing out in the dallas community. A new model says Dallas County could see 800 new cases a day if current social distancing is not maintained. Thats next. How about no no uh uh, no way come on, no no nnnnono only discover has no annual fee on any card. Proof i can fight moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis. Nnnnono proof i can fight psoriatic arthritis. With humira. Proof of less joint pain. And clearer skin in psa. Humira targets and blocks a source of inflammation that contributes to joint pain and irreversible damage. Humira can lower your ability to fight infections. Serious and sometimes fatal infections, including tuberculosis, and cancers, including lymphoma, have happened, as have blood, liver, and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure. Tell your doctor if youve been to areas where certain fungal infections are common and if youve had tb, hepatitis b, are prone to infections, or have flulike symptoms or sores. Dont start humira if you have an infection. Humira is proven to help stop further joint damage. Want more proof . Ask your rheumatologist about humira citratefree. If you cant afford your medicine, abbvie may be able to help. To support you during the Current Health situation. Cvs pharmacy is now offering free one to twoday delivery of prescriptions and Everyday Essentials you need to stay well in the days ahead. Visit cvs. Com delivery or call your local cvs pharmacy to learn more. So you can be prepared, stay on track with your medication, and stay well, with free prescription delivery from cvs. Over 315 million americans have been affected by coronavirus stayathome orders for months, and now most states across the country are beginning to ease restrictions and allow economies to reopen, at least partially. Take a look at this map of reopenings. Only connecticut, massachusetts, and washington, d. C. Have complete stayathome orders still in place. Many governors are partially reopening based on carefully thoughtout plans of action. Today new York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced that five regions of new york state are allowed to begin phase one reopening. New york city is notably absent from that list because its failed to meet reopening criteria, including a 14day period of declines in hospitalizations and new cases of infection. In virginia, Governor Ralph Northam eased some restrictions today, hinting the possibility of beaches reopening next week, but urged residents to stay at home as much as possible. In arizona, governor doug ducey took the first step of Opening Community pools and water parks. Despite taking steps toward reopenings, coronavirus hot spots still exist across the country and are overwhelming hospitals and frontline responders. And Public Health experts warn that easing restrictions is likely to cause a surge of new infections. Were seeing that in states where governors have been most aggressive in opening up public spaces and businesses. Texas Governor Greg Abbott allowed the states stayathome order to expire two weeks ago. Businesses like barbershops, nail salons, and restaurants were allowed to reopen with reduced capacity. But yesterday texas recorded 58 fatalities. Thats the highest single day count since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. Texas now has over 44,000 reported cases of coronavirus and has had 1,200 deaths. But a battle is brewing in texas between state and local officials on these reopening guidelines. State officials have warned the leaders of three urban areas over local orders that go beyond the governors guidelines. The state this week told them to loosen those orders, which call for measures like Wearing Masks in public and sheltering in place. The order in Dallas County expires tonight even as new cases there dipped below 200 for the First Time Since the beginning of the month. Meanwhile, a new model predicts that Dallas County could see 800 new Coronavirus Infections every day by early july if people continue interacting as much or more than they are now. Joining us now is Dallas County judge clay jenkins. Hes the highest elected official in Dallas County, texas. Judge jenkins, thanks for being with us. Tell me what the situation is here because you have this situation in Dallas County where your numbers have just dropped a little bit, but youve got estimates and forecasts that indicate a quadrupling of cases if you dont be careful. Thats right, and its going to be very difficult for us to even ke