President is now taking hydroxychloroquine, an unproven drug in the fight against coronavirus. That means hes going against the advice of his own governments medical professionals. Trump says hes tested negative for the virus, so he seems to be doing this as a preventative measure. The frontline workers, many, many are taking it. I happen to be taking it. I happen to be taking it. Hydroxychloroquine . Im taking it, hydroxychloroquine. When . Right now, yeah. A couple of weeks ago, i started taking it. Why, sir . Because i think its good. Ive heard a lot of good stories. And if its not good, ill tell you right. Im not going to get hurt by it. Did the white house doctor recommend that you take that . Is that why youre taking it . Yeah, white house doctor didnt recommend it. No, i asked him what do you think . He said, well, if youd like it. I said, yeah, id like it. Id like to take it. A lot of people are taking it. A lot of frontline workers are taking hydroxychloroquine. A lot of front i dont take it because, hey, people said, oh, maybe he owns the company. No, i dont own the company. You know what . I want the people of this nation to feel good. This is a pill thats been used for a long time, for 30, 40 years on the malaria and on lupus too, and even on arthritis, i guess, from what i understand. So its been heavily tested in terms of i was just waiting to see your eyes light up when i said this, when i announced this. Ive taken it for about a week and a half now, and im still here. Im still here. Can you explain, sir, what is the evidence that it has a preventative effect . Here we go. You ready . Heres my evidence. I get a lot of positive calls about it. The only negative ive heard was the study where they gave it was it the v. A. . Where people that arent big trump fans. Youll remember it was a short time back when coronavirus entered the white house and, more importantly, entered the president s circle. The Vice President s press secretary and trumps own valet tested positive for the virus. Nbc news reporting trump started taking hydroxychloroquine after he learned about the case with his valet. Tonight the white house physician issued a statement. He writes, quote, after numerous discussions he and i had regarding the evidence for and against the use of hydroxychloroquine, we concluded the potential benefit from treatment outweighed the relative risks. About a month ago, the fda strongly advised against taking the medication outside of hospital settings while several studies have also shown it to be potentially dangerous. This afternoon, one of the more senior voices employed by fox news and his onair guest warned viewers against following the president s example here. If you are in a risky population here and you are taking this as a preventative treatment to ward off the virus or in a worstcase scenario, you are dealing with the virus, and you are in this vulnerable population, it will kill you. I cannot stress enough. This will kill you. These drugs can be very dangerous, and if they dont have any effect, theres no reason to take them. Today there was also promising news in the race for a vaccine. The drug manufacturer moderna says the first phase of human trials on its vaccine found it was safe and prompted an immune response in the human body. Only 45 people participated in this trial along with some mice who were not consulted. So larger studies still need to be done. More on that just ahead in our broadcast. In the meantime, just about the entire nation has reopened in some form or fashion even though the spread of the virus is now on the upswing in 17 states. This past weekend, americans emerged from their homes in force as states relaxed restrictions and allowed more kinds of businesses to open up. In michigan, this was the first day back on the job after nearly two months for thousands of workers on the line at the big three automakers. Texas now moving into phase two of its reopening despite reporting 1,800 new covid19 cases on saturday, the biggest singleday jump in confirmed cases in texas thus far in this pandemic. While the president s dealing with the impact of the virus, hes also facing fallout from his announcement that he intends to fire the state Department Inspector general steve linick. Nbc news reports linick had been investigating allegations that pompeo had an aide running personal errands for him. He was also said to be looking into the secretarys decision to sign off on billions in arms sales to the saudis despite opposition on capitol hill. Linick is the fourth Inspector General to be fired in six weeks, and this afternoon the president confirmed it was mike pompeo who asked him to get rid of the i. G. I have the right to terminate the Inspector General. Many of these people were obama appointments, and so i just got rid of them. I mean i think that when somebody pays us a fortune for, you know, arms, we should get the deal done. Also today, trumps suggestion that his Justice Department prosecute former president obama and figures from his Administration May not be going anywhere. Attorney general bill barr said he doesnt expect the departments examination of the russia investigation will lead to any criminal charges against barack obama or joe biden. As long as im attorney general, the criminal Justice System will not be used for partisan political ends. That didnt go over too well with the attorney generals boss. Im a little surprised by that statement. If it was me, id guarantee theyd be going after me. In his case, theyre not, so i think its just a continuation of a double standard. Im surprised by it. Here for our leadoff discussion on a monday night, phil rucker, pulitzer prizewinning White House Bureau chief for the Washington Post and coauthor, along with his post colleague carol leonnig, of the book a very stable genius. Also dr. Vin gupta is with us. Hes an e. R. Doc that happens to be fresh from the e. R. , specializing in these types of illnesses. Hes also an affiliate assistant professor with the university of Washington Department of health and metric services. And there in the middle you see nancy cook from politico. Full disclosure, her signal was down no more than 15 seconds before air. Weve never been happier to see her pop up on our screens. Hey, doctor, im dutybound to begin with you tonight. Why would President Trump take this medication and, more importantly to some people, why would he talk about it . I think hes taking it i mean, its all of our best guesses. I imagine hes taking it to save face. Whats happened since hes first issued his proclamations at the White House Press briefing about a month and a half ago that everybody should take it, what do you have to lose . Well, you know whats happened . Theres been clear studies, one here amongst a veteran population, another in france that showed, in fact, hydroxychloroquine is associated with harm, and its not that its a safe drug. This is the big problem here. Its a potentially harmful drug with clear indications. He doesnt have any. So what hes basically doing is promoting misinformation and arguably because what we do know, when he said everybody should take it that has covid19, what do you have to lose, prescriptions went up 46 times. So what the president says matters, and this has Significant Impact to harm people because some people listen to him. And what we do know is that now there are studies showing that this is associated with harm. It can cause fatal cardiac arrythmias. So this is the equivalent of medical malpractice. He should honestly be ashamed that he is promoting bad behavior in the absence of evidence to save face essentially. So thats whats going on here. Lets be really clear thats whats happening. Doctor, im also dutybound to add that he has some measure of Heart Disease and a weight issue, which the speaker of the house tonight could not help herself on cnn and said it is what did she call it morbidly obese. So we add that into the equation as well, dont we . Listen, nobody we may disagree with the president. I dont think anybody wants any harm to come to the president , okay, regardless of our personal feelings, our political leanings. We dont want him to be harmed. And what hes doing right now is hes putting himself at risk. To your point, he doesnt have a normal cardiovascular profile. Even though we get told every year from his white house physician that hes in spectacular shape and thats all we get, i wonder what the white house physician is doing. Whats the Surgeon General doing . What are people that are supposedly Public Health experts in his own circle why are they standing for this . They shouldnt promote their own power and their own title over integrity and over whats best for the patient, in this case, the president. This is really harmful. Im shocked that a white house physician would go along with this. They should resign before going along with this. Nancy cook, thats a lot on the part of the doctor. I heard a lot of reputable people, most of them journalists, tonight saying straightup this is a shiny object because think of it. What were not talking about is our testing rate and Contact Tracing or our death toll, north of 91,000. Were talking about an unproven medication being taken on a daily basis by the president of the united states. Nancy, any reporting on how wide a circle knew this to be true and or knew he was coming out with it today . Well, i think that the white house was really caught off guard by him announcing that he was taking it. He did it in the context of a meeting with several restaurant executives, and its interesting because the first large part of it was pretty wonky, and it was about different economic measures that the white house and Treasury Department could take to help restaurateurs and hotel people as theyre reopening the economy, and there was lots of talk of expanding the window in which they could spend their loan money. And he really threw it out there on what was otherwise a fairly slow news day out of the white house. I think the president always likes to try to dominate the news cycle, and he did that. And whats interesting to me is, you know, the white house has been so eager to talk about reopening the economy and the importance of that, and thats what he was doing for the most part today. But by him talking about how hes taking this medicine, it really draws the attention back to the west wing and how he started taking it basically after his military valet and the Vice President s top spokesperson contacted or were diagnosed with covid19, excuse me. And it really draws attention how even the white house has had a hard time keeping the infections under control. Theyve done a lot of measures in the past week like having people wear masks, having more people work from home, and i thought that his admission just drew attention to that. So, phil rucker, on the upside, the virus is no longer a hoax. I think our doctor friends would agree that the wearing of a mask, which a good, healthy percentage of americans are still doing, is a prophylaxis, its a preventative. The president apparently has been talked into taking this drug as a preventative. He wont do one, but hes doing this. Yeah, brian. Its a very confusing situation tonight at the white house because the president doesnt wear a mask because he says he doesnt need to wear a mask. In fact, when hes been asked about it several times, hes said hes perfectly healthy, that hes been testing negative for covid19. They are testing him regularly at the white house and that hes perfectly healthy and strong and so forth. And yet he must be concerned about catching covid19 himself if hes going to go to the extreme length of taking hydroxychloroquine despite the risks that are known to the public and known to him. So he made a calculation there. Were not sure exactly why. Perhaps future reporting will bear that out. I thought nancys point about this coinciding with the outbreak of coronavirus cases inside the white house is quite telling. The president said hes been taking hydroxychloroquine for about a week and a half to two weeks. Well, that timeline aligns neatly with the diagnosis of the valet and of the Vice President ial press secretary. And so perhaps the president was concerned about catching himself the virus because so many people around him had coronavirus. We dont know that to be true, but nonetheless, its a series of curious medical choices that the president s made for himself. And, indeed, dr. Gupta, since you raised this, we have for you a brief collection of greatest hits, times when the president has chosen to promote this drug from the west wing. Its shown very encouraging very, very encouraging early results. And i say it, what do you have to lose . Ill say it again. What do you have to lose . Take it. If things dont go as planned, its not going to kill anybody. Ive seen things that i sort of like, so what do i know . Im not a doctor. We have had some great response in terms of doctors writing letters and people calling on the hydroxychloroquine. Doctor, to be perfectly honest, we have clips from just a few years back of the president promoting trump magazine, trump steaks, and trump water. That is nothing less than, as president , promoting a medication. As you and i have discussed, hes also done that with the abbott labs test, which has, in effect, become the official test of the trump west wing even though, as you and i have discussed, its rate of false positive false negative has approached 50 and the fda has put out a warning about that test. Yeah, spoton, brian. You know, were going to be dealing with the consequences of this pandemic of misinformation. Thats whats thats whats at risk here, people taking hydroxychloroquine who shouldnt because the president says you should take it. Oh, by the way, im taking it, and im fine. Exact type of n equals 1 case study that we hate in Public Health because it tells us nothing. Its not generalizable. But whether its disinfectants, whether its his complete flouting and his Vice President s flouting of masks policy in public, you have to wonder whats going on here. And then, again, to the point of what are his Public Health officials around him why are they still in the administration . They should all be unifying, saying enoughs enough because this is getting ridiculous on a level that is very dangerous, and hes basically Peter Navarro has called out medical professionals saying that were crying wolf, that were asking everybody to run and hide as though we want that to be the reality here. We should be all on one team. We should all be working in common cause, but unfortunately thats just not the case. And, nancy cook, where is the Coronavirus Task force . Weve got 90,000 dead and cases on the rise in 17 states and some places aggressively. Silence from the task force as far as ive seen. There has really been silence. Theyre meeting much less frequently. There has really been a downplaying of Health Officials, and i think weve seen that even in the Public Meetings that the president has held over the last few days. You see increasingly the economic officials around him, who the people cheerleading for the reopening of the economy. Today we saw him surrounded by larry kudlow, the head of the National Economic council, treasury secretary steven mnuchin, some other domestic policy people who are much more economic people, jared kushner, ivanka trump. These are people that are supportive of the president and urging him along, not asking him to be cautious, not bringing up the deaths or the medical risks. And i think that is who he is surrounding himself with now. We saw that over the weekend, he was in camp david with the chief of staff, mark meadows, who is another one of these cheerleaders. And i just feel like weve seen the Health Officials really sidelined. I do think the president has a Good Relationship with dr. Deborah birx and really does respect her, but shes really the lone voice, and she doesnt have the same voice with the president as the treasury secretary does or some of these economic officials. And i think hes basically surrounding himself with people who agree with him at this point. To our friends, phil rucker, nancy cook, dr. Vin gupta, our thanks for starting off our broadcast and a new week on a monday night. Coming up for us, more on the early optimism over this possible vaccine development. Well speak with one of the first people to ever receive a polio vaccine. Thats because his father invented it and tried it at home on his kids first. Dr. Peter salk is with us tonight for more. And later, one laidoff florida workers solo expedition to help what he said is a broken Unemployment Compensation system as the 11th hour is just getting under way on this monday night. As we said, encouraging results tonight from this early trial of a vaccine. And because we are grasping at any wisp of good news in this pandemic, its useful to look back at one of the most sought after, longed for, and celebrated vaccines in our nations history during the polio epidemic. As part of his great new podcast, the historian jon meacham spoke to the author David Oshinsky about what it was like growing up during the polio outbreak. Polio, of course, was the great summer plague, and i would come back to school, and id see kids in leg braces. Id see kids in wheelchairs, on crutches, the occasional empty desk of a child who hadnt made it through the summer and had died of polio. It took decades before dr. Jonas salk successfully developed an injectable vaccine that he first tested on his three children. It was a national fight against polio, and because it was funded nationally by things like the march of dimes as well as the government as well as foundations as well as Drug Companies that agreed to share the intellectual property, you could everybody could get the polio vaccine when it came out. And we all lined up for it. And of course salk didnt even patent the v