this particular person approved as soon as possible he's been telling me that for a long time and the democrats won't allow it to happen again and every single judge every nominee we have goes through maximum or at least they go through a long process so it takes days and days and there's no time left and it's just a concerted effort to make life difficult an example is michael pac he's my nominee for the c.e.o. of the broadcasting broadcasting board of governors and he's been stuck in committee for 2 years preventing us from managing the voice of america very important and if you heard what's coming out of the voice of america it's disgusting with things they say are disgusting toward our country and michael pac would get any do a great job but he's been waiting now for 2 years can't get him approved the senate

has left washington until at least may 4th the constitution provides a mechanism for the president to fill positions in such circumstances the recess appointment it's called the senate's practice of gaveling into so-called pro forma sessions where no one is even there has prevented me from using the constitutional authority that we're giving that we're given under the recess provisions the senate should either fulfill its duty and vote on my nominees or chit formally adjourn so that i can make recess appointments we have a tremendous number of people that have to come into government and now more so than ever before because of the virus and the problem. we have to do it and we have to do whatever we have to do they've made it very very difficult to run government i don't think any administration has done anywhere near what we've done in 3 and

a half years but every block every week they put up roadblocks whether it's russia russia or russia or whether it's impeachment or hoax or whatever it may be it's always roadblocks and a waste of time if the house will not agree to that adjournment i will exercise my constitutional authority to adjourn both chambers of congress the current practice of leaving town while conducting phony pro forma sessions is a dereliction of duty that the american people cannot afford during this crisis it is a scam what they do it's a scam and everybody knows it and it's been that way for a long time. and perhaps it's never done before it's never been done before nobody's even sure if it has but we're going to do it we need these people here we

need people for this crisis and we don't want to play anymore political games i've been waiting for 2 and a half years 3 years to some of these people and they're great people they left law firms they left jobs they gave up everything to do it and they've been waiting for 3 years 2 and a half years 2 years one year to get approved it's ridiculous and everyone knows they're going to be approved but there's only so many hours in the day when you go through judges and you go through lengthy hearings on judges that they know should be approved immediately and they could do it in one session one and they could do it in one hour. and it said it takes a many days in order to advance the health and security of our nation and all nations as we announced yesterday the u.s. government has put a hold on funding to the w. h. o. world health organization pending a review of the organization's coverup and mismanagement of the corona virus

outbreak over the objections of the w.h.o. we took decisive action and early lifesaving action to suspend travel from china they didn't want to do it they were angry that we did it it was early on they were angry that we did it to come a long time to realize what was going but i have a feeling they do exactly what was going on tragically other nations put their trust in the w.h.o. and they didn't do any form of band and you see what happened to italy you see what happened to spain you see what happened to france w h o's guidance had failed to control their borders at a very crucial phase quickly unleashing the contagion around the world that was a horrible tragic mistake or perhaps they know i'm sure they didn't know the gravity of it but perhaps they knew it because if they knew the gravity that would be an even worse offense to ease the economic pain

of millions of american families we've now process $300000000000.00 in loans to more than 1000000 small businesses through the paycheck protection program this action has saved millions of american jobs it's been an incredible success and they want to replenish it now but again the democrats don't want to do that this is money that goes to the workers of our country. phase one was $350000000000.00 and now phase 2 we want to do $250000000000.00 this goes to workers and it goes to small businesses so we can save all the small businesses around our nation mike macfarlane from nebraska recently said this is stork relief has been a godsend for his small factory and the 136 americans who work there save those. another small business owner tim miller from oklahoma called the program

a total lifesaver for his auto repair shops for employees stories like these underscore why congress must replenish the paycheck protection program immediately the republicans want to do it they want to do it immediately they want to do it now and the democrats are stopping it a short time ago the c.d.c. issued public health guidelines for critical industries in a few moments agricultural secretary sonny perdue will elaborate on how these guidelines apply to our nation's dedicated workers in the food processing profession because it's a profession it's incredible what they do. food processing and keeping our grocery stores full the shelves are not bare like the shelves that i inherited when we took over the stockpile the medical stockpile where the shelves were bare the cupboard was bare i say tomorrow also be leading

a call with elected officials who will consult with my administration as we work to restore our economy to full speed and we really think with all of the stimulus and all of the pent up demand we're going to have an economy that really comes back quickly. and would like to see it more than match what we had before what we had before was a miracle and we think this is going to be even more than a miracle we're going to do it because we have the greatest people in the world will also be speaking to america's governors tomorrow and then we'll be announcing exactly what's happening you already know will be opening up states some states much sooner than others and we think some of the states can actually open up before the deadline of may 1st and i think that will be a very exciting time indeed governors are looking forward that chomping at the bit to get going again not all states are the same they're very different some are having very little problem some of done such

a good job that they have very little problem and they're ready to go so vice president pence and i will be speaking with the governors tomorrow we'll be discussing procedures today i spoke with the leaders of many of our nation's most renowned companies or organizations on how to achieve the full resurgence of the american economy my discussions included the top leaders in health and health care transportation technology financial services food beverages hospitality real estate retail agriculture construction energy labor manufacturing and sports industries we want to get our country open again we want to have our sports leagues open you want to watch sports it's important we miss sports we miss everything we want to get back to these experts and innovators provided extremely productive feedback on how to safely reboot our economy they gave us

a lot of great ideas we spoke to a lot of very very smart people the highest of the high tech. the level of i.q. in some of those calls was about the highest you've ever seen in a phone call that i can tell you but we have a lot of great thought went into those calls and a lot of questions came out and also statements very strong statements as to what they recommend it was i think it was a great day we did a lotta a lot of calling with a lot of very prominent people but more importantly very smart people and people that love our country they talked about the vital importance of our wide array of relief measures to address the present crisis and they provided valuable insights on how to move forward including on the role of protective gear where we have tremendous amounts of protective gear coming in robust testing and the future use of therapies and treatments they also underscored the crucial importance of strong

supply chains and communications infrastructure we're talking about infrastructure for the middle of our country talking about broadband and things that they frankly don't have and haven't had for a long time because a lot of politicians forgot about them you can forget about them they're really the heart and soul can't forget about them and we're talking about the tele medical it's a new thing and it's incredible what they've been able to do this is an industry that's just growing but it's take it's grown by leaps and bounds over the last 5 weeks people are learning so much without the ability to see a doctor they're learning so much and lot of good things are happening that's something that's really going forward i think going to be very important for a country as we've seen throughout our proud history america's never greater than when our people are working in unison toward a common goal that's what's happening right now. will go ahead will forge an even

brighter future today than we had and will be along with other nations hopefully we're working with other nations will be the comeback kids all of us all of us it's incredible what's going on. i'm very proud of the people of this country i'm very proud of the people i spoke to today these are truly great brilliant people and we've gained tremendous insight so tomorrow is going to be a very big day we're going to be speaking with the governors will have some information on some openings and again we'll have some openings that will be will exceed our expectations and they'll be safe they'll be strong but we want to get our country back we want to get our country back and we're going to do it and we're going to do it soon with that i'd like to ask dr brooks to come up and say a few words and then secretary sonny perdue and then vice president pence thank you very much thank you thank you.

thank you mr president and thank you for summarizing the states and what we're seeing so over the last 5 to 6 days we've seen declines in cases across the country and this it's been very. reassuring for us at the same time we know that mortality and the fatalities that we're facing across the united states continue we know the number of people who are still in the hospitals in the i.c.u. using we want to continue to recognize the health care workers who are on the front lines and really recognize how low the united states case fatality rates are compared to other countries and this is really do not only to our technology but how that technology is utilized to save lives at the same time i am inspired by the american people who continue social distancing these cases continue to decline because of the strong work of the american people. also i wanted to let you know

that we do have 9 states that have less than a 1000 cases and less than 30 new cases per day so we're looking at states and metro areas as individual individual areas we talked before how each of these curves or difference each of the kates is experiences are different we have some states like california and washington state oregon they never really had a peak because of so much work that their populations did to decrease and keep the new cases down so each of these into individual states and individual metros are being studied sperry specifically i do want to highlight and we are remaining concerned and we've been having discussions with rhode island rhode island in providence are in a unique situation 1st they had increasing cases from the new york city area and now they have new new increasing cases from the boston area they're caught between

2 incredible hot spots in the country and they're doing an extraordinary job there caring for the individuals on the front lines but providence continues to have new cases and we do continue to work with specific states that have specific outbreaks related to individual occurrences i will just remind the american people again this is a highly contagious virus social gatherings coming together is there always a chance that a asymptomatic person can spread the virus on knowingly no one is intending to spread the virus we know if you are sick you will stay home but to all of you that are out there that would like to join together and just have that dinner party for 20 don't do it yet continue to follow the presidential guidelines we really appreciate the work of the american people we see as a country where improving we see as metro areas where improving we see as

communities as counties. and as states were improving but that also still requires everyone to continue to social distance and in the end we do have states that have very few cases and very few new cases and so these are the ones the president is referring to that have been silent relatively silent throughout this epidemic and pandemic that many of us have faced and so these are the groups are working in with very specifically and each of these governors in each of these mayors will have to make decisions after generalized guidelines are put out so that they can do what's best for their communities they are at the front line and i wanted to conclude by really thinking my pepfar teams around the world who have been working tirelessly throughout the world to ensure they sitting to doctor their birks their outlining the latest impact on the krona of the coronavirus in the united states before her

we heard from president trump of course just 2 highlights of the things he said he said new guidelines on reopening the call to me would be announced on thursday so tomorrow and also he said he said that they took suggests that the race may have peaked for new cases while for more on that let's cross to mike hanna who is in washington d.c. year 1st of all your reaction to the things the president said in that statement. well president trump insistent that he wants to open up the country as soon as possible this is something that he's been saying for weeks if not days making very clear that significantly and that he will be talking to all the states united states governors before announcing the guidelines for an easing of the restrictions in certain areas very clearly looking at specific areas you heard deborah biggs the white house medical adviser referring to roughly about 10 states in which the rate

of coronavirus is very low these are the states that obviously the president has in mind he's talking about lifting restrictions in some states even before what he called a target date which is the 1st of may so these guidelines are going to be given in the next 24 hours but significant as i said that he is consulting the governors because president trump maintained that he did not need governor acceptance to impose whatever lifting of restrictions he wanted to in whatever area the governors fought back against this insisting that it is in their power to decide timelines and not the executive so here's a situation where he is intent on lifting particular areas once again we will hear from his medical examiners in the court his medical advisers in the course of the day here president tramples they're lashing out at political opponents very much in

campaign mode accusing the members of the democratic party of obstructing everything he tries to do to get a threat from the podium in the rose garden against his political opponents. and not just lashing out a political opponent has also been lashing out not at in that news conference obviously but earlier at the w.h.o. saying that he would be withholding that the u.s. would be withholding funds to the w h o i guess we're still waiting for questions in the news conference but how is that playing in the u.s. well he did once again reiterate his criticism of the w.h.o. in the brief opening remarks or rather lengthy opening remarks that he's wanted to do that the democrats once again in congress are absolutely incensed at his decision to withhold funding from the w.h.o. not only on a moral basis which they believe it is the wrong thing to do while the world is

facing a pandemic but also want to political one their argument very strongly is that the executive the president does not have the power to withhold funding that has already been passed by congress and members of the democratic caucus in congress arguing very strongly that this is very similar to the issue with that ukraine which led to his impeachment in which he withheld funding from ukraine for a period of time in order to save the democrats to get some kind of political advantage so they are arguing very strongly that the president has exceeded his powers constitutionally in terms of withholding that funding from the w.h.o. members of his administration though a walking delicately particularly a spokesman for the centers for disease control who had this to say to d.c. and had a long history of working together in multiple outbreaks throughout the world as we

continue to do in this one and so we've had a very productive public health relationship we continue to have that. well we'll for her there as i mentioned from the medical adviser to the white house deborah bricks saying that the curve racking up the president in terms of saying that the curve of infection in certain areas is a flattening out saying that this is a hopeful sign that being said the particular hot spots such as new york city new york state considered to suffer massive death tolls and the fear expressed by many governors and many in the states both hot zones and not house those is the fact that without a proper testing protocol in place it is not possible to establish a working time line it would be too dangerous for the virus simply to spike again if you were not clear on what data you're basing your decision on the u.s. is still very early behind legging in terms of testing protocols throughout all 50

states i can with the latest on that from washington d.c. mike froman thank you. let's go to europe now a top e.u. leaders are urging member states to work together on gradually easing lockdown measures the european commission has warned that moving too quickly could have devastating effects paul brennan reports. from curb it 19 hits europe its member countries divided along national markets creating a patchwork response strict lockdowns in some more relaxed and open in others the disunity prompted many to question the value relevance and future of the european union project so the question of when and how to consider lifting those restrictions is problematic italy's spain austria finland and denmark have this week begun the tentative path to normality but do you headquarters in brussels the commission president wants the european union to set the pace and she warned that

in the union's borderless member area that piecemeal strategy will undermine even monday night tasks we will not want to have people moving from one member state to the next member state to use the shopping opportunity and therefore it is very important that the coordination between neighboring member states is an excellent one good neighbors speak with each other in spain the number of new deaths fell slightly again on weapons day and some sectors are reopening but the country still has one of the toughest lock downs in the e.u. and in the 1st parliamentary session since controls were 1st imposed there was a heated debate about exit strategy they wanted to see them you know this by 37000000 spaniards have been confined for a month without any hope other than 2 more weeks of lockdown because you are incapable of carrying out a plan for the must testing to normalize the situation of it. i mean they're going to start out of my stance and see a number they can find that no to working because we began with the daily infection

rate of 35 percent some today we're at 3 percent a little and that's also a consequence of increasing the number of tests so we're taking tough measures that are effective because they're protecting into. and they're benefiting spaniards regardless of where they live. russia's virus outbreak is still very much on an upward trajectory and restrictions got even tighter on wednesday creating traffic gridlock around the capital moscow with very few exceptions anyone outdoors now needs a permit in the form of a machine readable q.r. code but with security officers having to check each one manually big crowds built up at the entrances to moscow's metro stations making a nonsense of the intended strategy of social distancing and limiting movement on social media the city's mayor said he had intervened to prevent such scenes being repeated all of which risks losing sight of the ongoing struggle of medical staff and their stricken patients with more than 85000 deaths and rising europe remains

the world's worst hit region in terms of coronavirus fatalities. al-jazeera. or spain is one of the worst hit countries in europe and earlier al-jazeera as mohammed german jew spoke to spain's foreign minister and check on salaries she echoed the e.u.'s call for consensus among its nations in managing the comic impact on the pandemic. fusses why we are european union this is where we think with our we are in the north or in the south in the story in the west of europe it's europe that needs to exit the crisis it's europe that needs to strengthen its internal market and its ability to be a global player and for that it's europe that needs to invest in a mutual. and you can watch that interview in fall on talk to al-jazeera which for us there is 1630 g.m.t. on thursday april 16th. well one european country that has taken

a much softer approach to tackling the virus is sweden where the death toll has again risen sharply a further 170 deaths were confirmed on wednesday that's up from 114 the previous day and much lower figures at the weekend more than 1200 people have now died from the virus in the country and nearly 12000 have tested positive sweden has come of their increasing criticism for resisting the lock down measures adopted by other european countries south korea's parliamentary election has resulted in a big win for the governing democratic party and even a high voter turnout it's one of the 1st countries to hold an election during the pandemic and many see it as a referendum on the government's handling of the crisis bribe reports now from seoul. as soon as polls opened it became clear people were turning out in large numbers if they were worried after weeks of social distancing they didn't seem to

show it. i think they're doing it quite safely i think they're taking measurements they're doing a quite right. they're koreans and people around the world are equally concerned but we shouldn't cancel we should hold elections regardless 2 days of early voting last week so record numbers of voters including coronavirus patients able to vote in specially segregated polling stations special arrangements are also being made for the thousands of south koreans currently in self quarantine to leave their homes and vote so long as they're not showing symptoms at the end of regular polling some stations are being kept open just for them. this outbreak has changed the way candidates campaign and what they're campaigning on. the issue of north korea has been significant in all elections until now tell young ho used to be the

north korean deputy ambassador in london until his defection and has now won election in south korea's most affluent district gangnam everything is buried by the quiet maintain our brick and north korean issue of national security are no exceptions to this current situation the leader of a minority opposition party and charles sue a medical doctor by training volunteered to help out in the daegu epicenter for 2 weeks and his party's popularity has improved version 3rd. and president jay in was lagging in the opinion polls with domestic scandals and poor economic performance until his handling of the outbreak which has been widely viewed as a success one of them led i got more interested in this election because of coronavirus and i'm looking at how politicians are responding to us. nuclear couldn't that it's one can do it has you president moon has handled the outbreak

well i'll vote accordingly. the majority of the electorate it seems agreed this ballot giving its governing democratic party a convincing win and giving south koreans a further milestone in the long struggle back to normal life robert bridle just 0 so 600 $68.00 sailors assigned to the french aircraft carrier shows the goals naval group have tested positive for the virus many of them were on the aircraft carrier when it returned to port in 2 long on monday at least $31.00 saying there is have been hospitalized and the french defense ministry says testing is ongoing earlier the french prime minister announced that health care staff in france's most stricken areas would receive a bonus as well as higher pay for overtime. the world health organization and yemeni authorities are rushing to upgrade the country's hospitals before the coronavirus outbreak becomes too widespread years of war have to store the evidence

health water and sanitation systems and 80 percent of the population already require humanitarian aid there are only 37 hospitals nationwide and ventilators are in short supply evan only has one confirmed case but little testing has been done and there are fears the real number could be much higher. presell health minister has refused the resignation of a senior health official leading the country's a fight against the corona virus outbreak let's take you back to the rose garden now and donald trump's news conference he started to take questions in the press let's listen now because of the pandemic we are going to do something that will be . something i'd prefer not doing but which i should do and i will do if i have to kaitlin a good one on a moment later today. that you begin with a country where they feel the real money they're there right here and what not and

that would help the film the governor sure i want to and we have great tests and we want the states to administer these tests for the most part but we're standing behind them we have great tests we've done more testing now than any country as you know in the world by far we have the best tests of any country in the world nobody have as the quality of test the. if you look at abbott what they've come up with or should put of time they've been incredible roche has been incredible we have the best tests in the world and we will be working very much with the governors of the states we want them to do it we're not going to be running a parking lot in arkansas we're not going to be running a parking lot where you have a wal-mart which has been great by the way wal-mart has done a fantastic job but where you have a testing center and running that from washington d.c. the states are much better equipped to do it but we'll be working with the states where. behind the states we're going to work very closely with the governors in terms of that getting additional equipment it used to be 34 weeks ago 2 weeks

ago can we get more ventilators were ventilators right and we got them ventilators and you don't hear that anymore it's been pretty amazing what we've been able to do the good john. a lot of. the miners it workers. with them going wide but where the company. will that well i think the companies will determine that and the governors will determine that and the federal government and if we're not happy we'll take very strong action against a state or a governor if we're not happy with the job of governors doing we'll let them know about it and as you know we have very strong action we can take including a close down but we don't want to do that we're working with the governors or we're working closely with the governors a relationship has been very good vice president has had a lot of conversations over the last 2 weeks with either 50 or almost 50 governors in every conversation and they've been really positive conversations you know.

we have the right to do whatever we want but we wouldn't do that but no we would have the right to close down what they're doing if we want to do that but we don't want to do that and i don't think they'll be any reason to do that but we have the right to do that steve because if. i had you got me up mr president why didn't you have your name added to these coronavirus the. well i don't know too much about it but i understand my name is there i don't know where they're going how they're going i do understand it's not delaying anything and i'm satisfied with that i don't i don't imagine it's a big deal i'm sure people will be very happy to get a big fat beautiful check in my name is on it yeah go ahead please 1st go ahead please it's not a place it's white white lace. thinking it's nothing but just that but i like seeing thinking. that people think having a monster. you just said you'd like to forget it can take on a why how when that by the people traveling plain they control the flow of people

while the governors can control that flow as an example in fact i just saw a little while ago it was reported that certain borders are being controlled already by states assorting to take control of their borders which is good so they'll be controlling they may do testing for people wanting to come in i had read that about rhode island so they have to watch it they have to be very careful to be a pleasing address or president dot dot bill being to country did you sit along with other nations what for would it take are you considering also a relaxing the border between canada and the us so our relationship with canada is very good it will talk about that it will be one of the early boarders to be released canada is doing well we're doing well we'll see but at some point we'll be doing that in the meantime nations that are heavily infected we have a lot of nations that are heavily infected some are getting better some are still in the way up unfortunately and we're keeping very strong borders with those nations who.