stay home and washington working on relief. it is friday, march 20, 2020 you are watching cnbc's special coverage of the pandemic good morning welcome to cnbc. i'm joe kernen eventually along with becky quick and andrew ross sorkin there is a reason i'm at the nasdaq we can keep this shot up we have the whims of modern day technology in full swing i'm here u.s. equities are rebounding interesting because yesterday, we managed to eek out 100-plus point gain after it got a little dicey and a little good. we were up # 00 or 400 points at a time this enit was down

futures pointed to the loss of more than 400 points we saw oil rebound then finally, can you see the dow futures up treasury yields suddenly backing down a little after getting up 1.2 on the 10-year yesterday now getting to the latest. yesterday, california issued a state-wide order for california residents to stay home other states and cities are taking similar steps mack, is that coming here? we don't know at this point. closing dine-in restaurants, bars, clubs and gyms washington is working on programs to keep the economy

afloat steve leaiesman is like the norh star he's here. he's got the tie on. eamon jafers no offense that you went tieless. you have some response on the fiscal stimulus as well. maybe we'll get to talk about that great market timing of a couple of those senators too >> that is an important one. that really angers americans we had a couple of u.s. senators exposed in the press yesterday for uncanny timing of selling stocks richard burr sold his stocks on february 13. somewhere between half a million to $1.5 million at a time he was getting classified briefing. his office says he sold well before any market volatility, there is nothing wrong with

that we'll see if his colleagues and the american public agree. a couple of items on the stimulus plan. the issue of means testing they are proposing to send checks to americans across the country but that will be at a level below $100,000 breaking those levels out. under $75,000, americans will be eligible for $1,200. between $75,000 to $99,000, less than $1,200. and over that, nothing that is the proposal from mitch mcconnell. they'll debate that with democrats. there are some are not on board with this at all

yesterday, discussing whether the government will take equity stake in companies here is what the president said >> do you support the idea of the government taking an equity stake in certain companies >> i do. i really do. >> which companies >> i won't answer that right now. >> so the president not answering that question. boeing will be front and center in that conversation, joe. >> been done before. aig. something similar. why shouldn't the government pull a buffett a nice convertible, nice high dividend not too high the government doesn't need to get rich if things work out, the government could end up whole or even making some money >> some of that happened in the last crisis. the government was able to get out of some of those investments in very good shape

you can see that happening here. it is not private but certainly public equity investment and stake. why wouldn't the public get a stake as well. >> we are going to steve liesman. but quick. percentage of books behind you, you have read? >> 100 i don't put books on my shelf i haven't read this is my nonfiction section. i have fiction over there. i put andrews up i'll put yours up when you write it >> at a point when fiction and nonfiction are not merging now to the recent fed action steve liesman joins us now he's all those -- oh, he doesn't have any >> i have. we can go over that later. there is more to talk about.

this is an unbelievably historic week for the fed it has done more this week than ever before. it will do more today than it has ever done before there are calls for it to do much, much more. let's look at what will happen today. fed plans $107 billion in purchases in a single day. that breaks down to $75 billion in treasuries and $32 billion in mortgages. that's a market the fed has been struggling to get under control. there is severe strain in the mortgage market. i went back and couldn't find a single week and i believe it has done that and will do that in the next few days here between yesterday and today. it will do more in a single day than in a week >> remember, this was reported a few weeks ago. he said when the rate gets down

to zero. the fed will think about doing things like buying corporate bonds with the idea of buying equities in companies. here is what he said to me yesterday. he said, we should go day by day. everything should be on the stable for things that could help stabilize markets more and more on wall street the question is not if the fed goes further but when and how the fed goes further the fed has provided lick witness i had. barclays said, quote, solving the gfc required the fed and the public sector to take risk that will be asking them to assume some of the bad debt and also including the possibility of the fed stepping into the muni market. that market is also behaving really poorly. the idea that these local and state governments will be under

stress, barclays is among those saying, maybe the fed needs to come in and buy muni debt. there is really no place to that is needed. >> certainly off risk trade. are these worth anything can you sell for for me too? >> i haven't seen a single noncorrelated asset in this whole thing, steve >> what you were talking about earlier. the idea of jobless claims shooting up. they talk about 2 million jobless strains. you are talking severe stress. >> two and a quarter >> i don't know who that was, where that came from >> becky you are here >> i was listening the whole time >> i felt so alone >> the whole crisis itself puts

stress on it, steve. health departments and one of the criticisms i heard is that there is not enough money for states in the package being worked on on the republican plan right now. >> i can't believe the number of industries that jump in. you saw hertz rental cars. they want in on this package i hadn't even thought of that industry you start to see people raising their hands saying, wait a second, where is our bail outpacka bailout package too. >> now the question is with the backstop of the residencetreasuy really extending the balance to say if things go bad in the

economy because it is shut down for three months, we are going to assume that position. not the position the fed wants to be in they want backup from the treasury on that >> thank you some extraordinary measures for extraordinary times. joining us now for more on the virus is ken, a professor of economics at harvard university. we had been talking about that number that goldman sach put out that jobless number could jump to two and a quarter three times what we have ever seen before. >> that is plausible i could see unemployment going up to something we saw in the great recession before this is over we are talking about california going on pause that is the fifth largest

economy in the world we are looking at extraordinary times. >> ken, in terms of trying to figure out how that happens. it happened during the great recession but then over a much longer period of time. you you are going from full speed to shutting down entire states in more than a week what does that look like >> the big question is how it goes forward the whole management of the health crisis. that is the first thing. the feds mopping up liquidity. if you don't win on the health front, everything else falls apart. we need to have a recovery that gets people back to work i've met just in my neighborhood not yesterday but over the last week or two. so many small businesses

dry-cleaners, restaurants, stores they don't know how they'll pay their rent or pay employees. i don't know how long that can last to hang on to people. >> the federal government is trying to jump in, state governments are trying to jump in you hear corporates stepping up to the plate bank of america will allow a pause in mortgage payments i believe that is extended to small businesses too you hope the rest of the industry will follow their need offering help to those needing it >> i absolutely agree. in other countries like the uk, they made it explicit that the government will backstop that. i think bank of america is pretty reasonable to assume the same thing will happen here. we are putting people, shelter

in place are we going to kick people out of their homes in the middle of that definitely not >> we haven't talked about it a lot here, at least there is a real need for hospitals to make sure they are getting backing in everything they need. these were hospitals that were cut pretty thin down to the bones. you've got 10 years of the affordable care act that forced hospitals to cut back anywhere they could what does that mean will happen? >> first of all, we are in a war-time situation we need to do whatever it takes to produce masks and respirators. to train extra personnel to build temporary facilities i'm not impressed by what i hear so far i just don't see this happening at the pace and scale it needs

to california is putting on a pause for eight weeks. what happens at the end of eight weeks. you want to put an infrastructure in place to take care of things and flatten the curve but that is not enough you hear president trump talking about pressing private industry to do things that is great, if that's happening but i don't know what is going on. >> so as an economist, what do you see when you look forward eight weeks and to the end of this year? >> i've been reading everything my colleagues have been writing. there is a lot of stuff. they are trying to think this through. it is so hard to know the pattern of the pandemic and what will be the policy response? how fast will the government let the infection spread and can it stop it and what is the response

i think some of the more optimistic ideas that we do shelter in place there is a spike and after that, we release it after a fairly short period then there are smaller spikes, we pull it in. nobody really knows. there are a host of papers out there. it is hard for economists to know we are in the middle of this war and it is not clear how it will play out >> thank you for your time today, ken thank you. coming up, restaurants across the country are closing amid the coronavirus outbreak but meal kit company freshly, busier than ever the company's ceo will join us live coming up, check out the best performing dow components this morning. boeing is back up almost 12% stay tuned we'll be right back. you met on an app. delete it.

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. welcome back to "squawk box" this morning if you are just waking up, let's show you the futures the dow jones looking to open about 775 points higher, the s&p up about 85 points higher, the

nasdaq about 358 points higher the government mentioning maybe taking stakes of company stock like boeing and others are up looking at oil prices. barrel of wti crude right now, 27.17. we have a lot more coming up on "squawk box. when we return, we'll talk about one of the biggest challenges in this pandemic. feeding people who are stuck at home we'll talk to meal delivery service freshly after the break. let's take a look at the biggest market gainers and decliners on the s&p. we are back in a moment. promoti. you should be mad at forced camaraderie.

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welcome back to "squawk box. meal service company freshly is partnering with nestle trying to help seniors and those most at risk during the coronavirus crisis joining us now, the cofounder and ceo of freshly good morning, michael. this is a great thing you are doing. how are you going to get those meals to people? and how across the country, people are going to be getting supplies over the next several weeks and months tell us what it is like on the ground >> good morning. we are seeing unprecedented demand now more than ever, people are

looking for meals direct to their house. before this, a third of our customer base was over 50 with a third over 70. a lot of people bought their parents meals through our service. you can imagine it is even better now with people trying to stay inside. the challenge for us and what we are seeing with our business is we literally are sold out four weeks in advance we are taking people on a waiting list and doing the best to service our customers and special needs and requests we wanted to do more and see how we could help service people when literally we are at max capacity we worked with nestle. they were early investors in 2018 we worked with their senior team and said what else can we do we looked at services and for

those most at-risk now which are seniors. we made a $500,000 donation yesterday to meals on wheels on freshly.com, we've set up donation pages so you can go directly to make a donation now. we hope this is just a jump start of donations going to them it is critical right now that senior citizens are getting meals brought to them and especially for those that have compromised health >> michael, it is a great thing you are doing. one of the big questions with your company and others trying to stay in business but actually service the public now is keeping employees healthy and kitchens clean how are you dealing with that. you've heard stories about employees not wanting to come to work for obvious reasons amazon closed down a warehouse

yesterday in queens because somebody was identified as being covid positive as we think about the supply chain in the next weeks and months, that becomes an issue. >> first and foremost, we took nestle's investment back in 2018 our number one focus has been food safety. we've focused on food safety way before this. before anything around covid-19 came into place. we have full wash down facilities where we do full wash downs every day. nestle has been a world class partner and absolutely number one leader in the food industry. i can't speak to others but for our employees, we have 1,700 strong every single one of them recognizes the value we bring.

we are dealing with all sorts of stuff with day care being shut down and things like that. we've seen a work force and a team coming together to say we are a part of the front line on this we are an important part of getting through this however long it lasts. and we need to buckle down we've always been a mission-driven company this is part of our mission. it is about getting healthy meals to our customers now more than ever, this so important. >> i think becky has a question for you. >> to andrew's point about amazon's warehouse being shut down because of positive test case have you had any positive tests in place if so, what would you do

it seems hard to imagine it won't happen at some point >> we have not we are probably in a little better position in that we have already built in full safety protocols with a wash down every day -- >> michael, i'm going to stop you. you are talking about your business and god bless you it is impossible to believe over the next few months you are not going to have employees that test positive. this is an issue many people are dealing with sma you ha somehow you have safer kitchens than anyone else just talk us through what you will do when you have a positive

employee >> very fair we were one of the first to shut down offices in new york we shut down over a week and a half in new york we have already put in place screening in all of our locations to make sure people are not testing positive or have temperatures or been around anyone >> when you say you are screening -- hold on you are screening every employee, every morning. how you doing that if you are the model, tell us how you you are doing this >> i want to be careful in saying we are working with our local officials. last week, we set up screening in front of every one of our facilities every person is being screened 24/7 coming into our facilities. >> how are you screening them?

are you doing temperature screening on every person? >> so andrew, we are working right now. you can imagine the supply chain is struggling. we are working to get more supplies for temperature monitoring right now, we are doing full screening of employees we've issued immediate paid leave for all employees. we've issued employees to stay home if they have any issues protecting employees but also making sure they are not being economically hit i feel we have been leaders in the front of this. it is a tough situation, andrew. i agree with everything you you are saying our employee's safety is absolutely paramount the issue is the supply chain of america, the food supply chain

of america is critical >> are you seeing a break down of that supply chain >> we are not. we think we have a great supply chain in the united states so far, those we are working with are supportive of making sure the supply chain remains maintained it is critical we make sure that these important things are maintained look, no one is more proactive on employee safety we have been absolute leaders in this >> we wish you the best on all of this and the good work you are doing. we do hope to have you back and get a progress report. thank you, michael >> thank you visit freshly.com to make a donation for meals on wheels >> say that again. >> i said, visit freshly.com to

help make a donation for meals on wheels. >> it is a good cause. thank you. joe, back to you at nasdaq >> it has been a tough month we'll look at the challenges ahead and we'll talk to an executive from walmart for the race to keep food on the shelves. we'll look at the week-to-date dow losers boeing is a nnwier today but a loser for the week we are back after this mmm... good. so i've spent my life developing technology to help the visually impaired. we are so good. we built a guide that uses ibm watson... to help the blind. it is already working in cities like tokyo. my dream is to help millions more people like me.

good morning, everybody. welcome back to "squawk box" on cnbc futures are indicated higher after markets managed to finish in positive territory yesterday. the dow up and nasdaq up as well futures are indicated up we'll see where things head as we get to the opening bell s&p indicated up by about 72 and nasdaq indicated up another 354

points looking at the treasury market, yielding right now 0.97% joe? thank you. we continue to focus on the airline industry and the possibility of a bailout and other major carriers phil lebeau is with us >> first talking about what is going on with boeing right now nik nikki haley, basically saying i'm not going to be part of a company looking for government ba bailout package. a good chunk will also make sure boeing has liquidity in place. in her letter announcing her resignation, she said, i cannot

support a move to lean on the federal government for a stimulus or bailout that places our company over others. getting to this period here where they have slumping revenue. that everett plant, many people are focusing on that and wondering if that plant outside of seattle will be shut down as coronavirus continues to spread in that area we heard about the senate proposal which is out basically saying among the industries that would be helped out with a bailout would be the airlines industry curious to see what happens with this package a couple of elements on that one, does the government take a stake in the airlines and other industries like boeing. two, the ceo pay cap being part

of the strings attached. look, boeing up 9% as people look at the news swirling around them and a little more encouraged that equity stake holders will not be wiped out now. >> stay with us. we'll bring in nicholas who is ceo for america airline industries you have some specific things you are asking for for airlines including boeing >> we have asked for an aid package that totals $58 billion including a combination of grants, loans and tax relief we are gratified both to the administration and senate leadership for coming up with a package that hits that $58 billion number

we have some differences on how it might best work we are hoping to work those things out the package is necessary we've gone from a position of three weeks ago where we were flying people in record numbers because of historically low air fares, even 10 days ago when we had some of the best balance sheets of any country to a point where the industry is facing devastation because of government-imposed flight restrictions and fears of the virus. i have never seen anything like it, no one has the speed and degradation of the business has been mild boggling. we were flying at 80% load capacity planes were full right now, they are about 15%. there are 9 to 10 people on

airplanes. it takes planes to be 60% full to pay one of my members had on yesterday, a year ago, they had $3 million in bookings, yesterday, they had under $500,000 you are not making that, you are losing money direct estimate accounting for everybody, we are going to lose in the next couple of months $10 to $12 billion a month we are doing everything we can we are taking self-help measures executive pay has been cut, management pay has been cut. when we realized what is going on is as bad as it is. every day is a new picture

$10 to $12 billion is a snap shot it requires action from administration and congress to help the industry get through this period so we can protect our employees and keep our employees online the airline industry in this country has 750,000 employees directly working for us. there are another 10 million jobs that go off of that they are some of the best paying jobs in the country. we've added 186,000 jobs to our payrolls we want to keep them and protect them >> the hotel industry went from 80% to like 5% you are at 15% becky, i think you have a question >> part of this was the government shut down

part of this was you would be losing business whether the government shut down or not. what are the differences between what the government is proposing and what you'd like to see . >> we'd like to see a loan facility that is not tethered. after 9/11, the government provided a loan guarantee up to $10 billion. the there were so many strings attached, it was so difficult. also looking at the collateral we've used a lot of our assets already in the private market, which is what we should do we'd like a recognition for which this is an event no one is responsible. this is not like the banking crisis we were being model citizens doing what we should do. putting out a good enough product that everyone wanted to

fly everywhere >> hey, nick -- >> i'm sorry >> keep going. i apologize. >> we'd like a little text relief as well airlines are taxed higher than any other industry in the country. we are hoping ensure we keep our workers in place finally, we think there should be a combination of loans and grants because the grants provide a cash infusion that would allow us to bridge what is going on right now. >> nick, i have two questions for you. the first is, should share holders be protected i understand the need for our country to have airlines ready to go. that includes having planes ared to move. the question is how to do that

and how to spind tend the money, which is to say as a taxpayer and citizen, i want to keep employees ready when we need to. the flip side is whether shareholders need to be protected. that is a big question right now. >> that is a big question. you have to take this in steps we've never faced a crisis like this this is way, way, way bigger than 9/11. the impact will last a lot longer order number one is to keep employees in place and the companies themselves in place, let's face it. the airlines are responsible for 25% of the gdp coming out of this, we can lead it recovery moving people and products and getting people connected again. we can do that better than

anyone else. >> what do you think of the request that says, you can put these companies through bankruptcy protection like we can about general motors and ford and keep them running but the shareholders get wiped out >> our hope is that we can have our cake and eat it too and keep the company up and running it is inevitable it will be lower. i think people will want to fly. at the end of the day, if people are patient, everyone will be protected. >> do you believe nikki haley has done you a service or disservice by resigning from the board? she is sending a signal that she does not believe companies should be bailed out raising some questions about her

own duty to that company, by the way? >> it is difficult for me to comment on that. what i would say is that this is a crisis like none we've ever seen everybody needs to take a step back and look at it in context we arefacing a national emergency. the consequences would be great. it will determine how long it will take us to get out of the crisis we don't know how long it will last everybody's motivation should be to fix what you can and do what you can to be in place and recover from this as quick as possible we are lucky with unemployment where it is and the stock market where it was we want to get back to those places doing nothing and saying the government shouldn't act here. that is for many people, i understand that.

doesn't make sense in the face of the facts, the graph vety of this situation >> this is phil here the level four warning for americans overseas basically saying, do not leave or get home or shelter in place. why don't the airlines shut down the few international flights left they are down to 15% capacity. just shut it down? >> that's the question increasingly being asked the question is, is it de facto happening in terms of shut down. there are, as you point out, very few international flights left the planes are booked. the crews are booked if we can get people where they want to do, we'll do. >> that it will be an increasingly decreasing population, even beyond what it is now

the facts speak for themselves about where this is headed >> very good nick it, thank you we appreciate you appearing with us this morning. we appreciate what is happening and we are wishing everyone well in coming through this, which is a very, very tough situation >> thank you thank you for the opportunity to be here. >> you are welcome >> thank you i erred in my question referring to general motors and ford, ford did n in my question looking at the dow opening up hire. the s&p looking to over about 65 points higher. and the nasdaq looking to open hire here are some of the biggest

winners pre-market grocery shelves may look empty as many are encouraged to shelter in place data suggests there is plenty of supply to accommodate demand more on the supply chain, you are really on the front lines. ceo of cisco yesterday, i was in the super market i was thanking every single check outpers checkout person there. they are really like first responders tell us how you are making out and what is going on >> thank you for having us and talking about the importance of food supply chain in our country. sysco plays a vital role

we serve the food away from home space. restaurants, colleges, entertainment venues we are seeing a dramatic shift these are unprecedented times. since monday when the communicad to americans the good news is americans are heeding that advice. it's good for us from a health care perspective people are helping each other by practicing social distancing the net effect is obviously a significant reduction in traffic through restaurants. we as well as the restaurants we serve are working to pivot our business model restaurants are still allowed to do delivery to the home and pick up at their restaurant locations, and we are working very hard to help that smaller restaurant population that did not have the capabilities to do that on their own, we're stepping in to set up delivery services, websites to continue to take orders one of the reasons we're on today is we are here in support

of the national restaurant association who's looking for the federal government to be able to help those small business owners. that is why we're here we have the financial stability. we have over $2 billion of carbon our balance sheet we are not looking for any financial assistance we are stable. we will weather this storm financially. it's the small american business owner, this economy needs those companies. we are very worried about them we need the employees to have jobs we're hopeful and thankful that the u.s. government can step in and help them at this critical time it seems like if we were to get a miracle cure, who knows how long it took, you were back to servicing restaurants that were reopened, it was an $82 stock. it's now half that the market must be anticipating a long delay with lasting effects rather than just something really temporary where

in two or through months you're back to full capacity. what do you think that is? and do you think the market has it wrong >> i can't predict how long the declines will be i would agree with your point be there, which is we think there's been an over reaction in the stock market, most specifically an over reaction in our space. as i mentioned a moment ago, joe, we are a very fundamentally financially strong company with over $2 billion of carbon our balance sheet. we are taking bold and dramatic actions to reduce our expense bases to match the volume reduction in the food away from home we are pivoting our business model to new sources of revenue. the one main business that we don't serve today is that grocery store segment. as you indicated, grocery stores are struggling to keep up with deman demands. we have the largest food supply chain and we have the second

largest fleet. i personally made phone calls to all of the major grocers in this country. they're very interested in how sysco can help them. we have trucks, drivers, we have food we can step in and help these retail grocers fill their shelves. americans need access to food. that food needs to be handled in a safe manner from a covid-19 protection perspective these are unprecedented times. we will step back as a company we will snap back very quickly as restaurants reopen, people want to go out and eat and get out of their homes it will be to be determined how long that takes. >> i was going to ask you that, why can't you switch quickly or is it possible logistically to switch to the grocery chain. >> yeah. >> seems like you generate revenue, they need what you have i can understand it would take some doing i think becky quick has a question now for you, kevin.

>> yeah. along those same lines, joe, kevin, it's great that you are looking to kind of help in any way you can, but so many of your businesses, from colleges, retail, entertainment, restaurants, all of them shutting down immediately. how many employees do you have right now? are you keeping them on the payroll as you see how you can redeploy them? >> that's a great question we have 69,000 employees that work at sysco. keeping them safe and keeping them employed is a top priority. we have had to flex down expenses we've canceled all travel. canceled all meetings. we've delayed all capital expenditure projects that are not mission critical as it relates to our associates, this is good for two reasons it helps us practice social distancing and it keeps our associates actively working. we've gone to a and b. team a works week one and week

three. team b. works week two and four and in the off week we're working with our associates to keep them paid we're able to continue to pay our employees. they stay on our health insurance benefits and we're here to weather this storm we stand by our associates who are on the front line and we're here to serve them. >> kevin, thank you very much for getting in front of a camera this morning for whatever it is, an ipad, i can't really tell thank you. we appreciate your time this morning. >> thank you, joe. appreciate it. >> you, too. in the meantime, let's take a look at the futures again. all morning long the three major averages have indicated higher after they closed higher too yesterday the dow was 1% s&p by half a percent and the nasdaq was a big winner up 2.3%. those green arrows continue this morning. the dow is up by 640 points. s&p futures up by 647 and the nasdaq by 312. we're watching oil rebound, too,

pretty significantly we were talking about $20 and change this week this morning you are looking at wti at $27 and change. andrew >> okay. coming up, two big hours ahead right here on "squawk box. we're going to talk to a walmart executive about the company's response to the pandemic and the race to keep products on the shelves. we'll talk to dan bartlett then challenges to the restaurant industry. the ceo of grub hub with how they've pivoted in reaching the demands. and former fed governor kevin warsh is back to speak out about the fed's moves and what's next we are solidly in the green in the pre-market this morning "squawk" returns with our special market coverage on the other side of this short break get it.

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it's a responsibility. emerson. consider it solved. or trips to mars. no commission. delivery drones, or the latest phones. no commission. no matter what you trade, at fidelity you'll pay no commission for online u.s. equity trades. futures higher this morning as investors try to make it two days in a row in positive territory. we're going to tell you what you need to noah head of the opening bell. walmart is paying special cash bonuses to employees and plans to hire 150,000 workers in

response to the coronavirus pandemic we're going to speak to walmart executive dan bartlett about that move. and the number of coronavirus cases growing across the country. california issuing a stay at home order while the number of cases in new york city explodes. the latest numbers and the responses by the government all straight ahead you're watching breaking news coverage on cnbc good morning i'm joe kernen along with becky quick and andrew ross sorkin u.s. equity futures at this hour are up 600 and change all over the map since the session began last night about 6 p.m we were down quite a bit we've been up close to 1,000 points up over 900 as the -- as we've gone forward since about 6 a.m we're now, as you can see, indicated up less than 600

points 580. we are up after the dow managed to eke out a small gain yesterday. you might recall on wednesday into the close the dow did make up about 900 or 1,000 points so we're off the lows that we saw so far on wednesday. the ten-year note has -- the yield has fallen a little, but we're still above 1% you can see exactly right there sort of that three-month intermediate term chart. that's actually year-to-date chart. less than three months oil prices have given some strength, whether that makes sense or not, to equities. when you get down under $20 people are really scratching their heads. that's a shocking number anyway, yesterday's trading was a slight break from the extreme volatility we've been seeing steve liesman has the latest on the economy. let's begin though with our eamon javers who's been

following the stimulus debate in washington, d.c. hi, eamon. >> reporter: yeah, hi again, joe. mitch mcconnell put out the republican proposal last night this is the proposal he's been working with the treasury secretary on now he's going to bring in democrats and recall kal scalcit republicans. here's where it stands as of right now. it's a total of over $1 trillion for economic support it does involve payments for individual taxpayers, direct payments based on income nothing for people making $99,000 -- more than $99,000 a year below then it's means tested for the passenger airlines, it's $50 billion in relief. for cargo airlines, $8 billion for what they're calling other distressed industries, $150 billion. you've got to imagine, guys, that the other distressed

industries category is going to be enormous by next week, right? there will be some question whether that 150 billion is going to be enough the tax filing deadline will be extended to as late as july 15th mitch mcconnell was asked about this and whether there was this issue that we had in the last bailout of a moral hazard for the companies that are being benefitted here. here's what he said. >> we're not talking about so-called ailouts for firms that made reckless decisions nobody is alleging a moral hazard here. none of these firms, not corner stores, not pizza parlors, not airlines brought this on themselv themselves. >> reporter: so, andrew, what you heard there from the republican leader is this is not a moral hazard these companies didn't do anything to deserve this in the first place unlike the banking

crisis in 2008, therefore, we can feel good about going ahead and providing support there. the moral hazard on capitol hill will be all about senator richard burr and kelly loeffler, two senators who sold stocks early before the crash there's questions being raised whether they did that on classified information on how bad the coronavirus hit could be kelly loeffler's office says she had an independent advisor do this burr's office said he sold before there was any volatility here i think you're going to see some white hot political rage around that this is a story narratively that has not had a villain in it because it's a virus and not a human story. now potentially it does and those two politicians are going to be on the hot seat today. >> eamon, wanted to get your other thoughts on a little bit of analysis of nikki haley's resignation letter from the

board of boeing yesterday. what that really means is it about her own political ambitions? is it a signal to some of her peers in washington not to vote in favor of the bailouts specifically this idea of not just bailing out the companies but also bailing out the shareholders >> reporter: well, look, she wants to be intellectually consistent she's resigning because she's never supported bailouts for companies. she doesn't think that's the right way to go. obviously she sees that's where this is going for boeing and she doesn't want to be on the board at the time it happens potentially she was going to be wiped out anyway if you do 2008 style bailout, she was going to be wiped out anyway this might be a political gesture aimed at keeping her intellectually consistent. people have speculated about her as a presidential candidate. one of the questions is the question of leadership if you're on the board and the

company is in a crisis, what is your proposal to fix that other than resigning from the board? you know, what is her idea positively about what boeing should do now? there's a national security question around boeing which is does the united states need to have a big airplane plaintiffer th -- manufacturer that can produce weapons of war they're going to be pushed on this and they're going to decide america needs boeing in some form or shape. how that's done is an open question i think they're going to decide we can't just have airbus be the only company out there making these commercial jets. >> eamon, want to thank you very much. walmart announcing that it is giving cash bonuses to hourly employees for working during the coronavirus pandemic on the "squawk" news line we're joined by dan bartlett in charge of corporate communications. he was also a counselor to the president in the george w. bush administration dan, want to thank you for joining us this morning.

>> thanks for having me, becky >> let's talk a little bit about this move. it's more than half a trillion you're going to be paying to your employees how does that break down >> it is it's an extraordinary effort we're seeing all of our associates being put forward to serve customers during this crisis we felt it was important to recognize that work they're doing. there will be two big components one is for hourly associates in our store, supply chain and corporate office will receive a special bonus. a $300 bonus for full-time associates and that will get paid out on april 2nd. in addition to that, stores on a quarterly basis have performance measures in which they can be awarded a store-based bonus as well we are going to go ahead and accelerate the q1 bonus and pay that out in april. we're accelerating more cash

into the hands of our associates it's almost like a mini stimulus package for walmart associates we're very fortunate that because of the hard work they're doing throughout our country that we're in a position to do this we have had a lot of conversation on your program about a lot of industries who are not in a position to do that, but we felt like this was an important time to recognize the hard work that they're doing. in addition to that, becky, we're in a position where we're going to be hiring 150,000 new workers in temporary roles during the time, but some could be full-time jobs. we're reaching out to industries like the hospitality industry and see if we can't partner with them to see if we can't potentially help those workers out of job. >> that's huge news, dan corporations really stepping up and taking the lead in a situation like this. walmart's already the largest employer, i think in the world outside of maybe the federal

government and the chinese army. how many employees do you have >> here in the united states we have over 1.3 million. over 2.1 million globally. so it is a large work force. and we have experience with the virus already in china with our work force there which has given us key insights and learnings from our stores over there here in the united states the 1.3 million employees we have are just performing herculean efforts, not only in stores but also our supply chain and the distribution centers and fulfillment centers. as you've talked to the head of sysco and others, the supply chain is under strain. it is holding up it is performing at extraordinary levels right now, and it's important that we recognize those workers in those distribution centers as well. >> i guess it's different stages in different parts of the country, but what do you see in terms of store shelves are they stocked are they supplied? where are places where it's a

little tougher >> it is a targeted area what's interesting and makes this crisis unique to, compression, katrina, those were pockets of stress. to have the entire system under stress, and particularly obviously when you think about communities and parts of the country that are going on further lockdown like we're hearing, there's going to be more pressure in those parts of the country. we're feeling it pretty evenly across the country when itcome to the supply chain. at the same time we are able to -- the supply chain is working. i think that as other retailers would say, we urge patience. we have the product. recognizing that it is in challenging times so obviously we reduced hours and have closed stores overnight where typically a store that stays open 24/7 but

the ability to shut down that store at 9 to restock, clean those stores, do those things to be able to serve our customers on a daily basis is something we'll continue to do right now i would say -- i wouldn't want to point out one part of the kun kri, but as shelter in place and those types of comments are out in the public that's shifted a lot to food and obviously the restaurants shutting down, the pressure on the food part of our business is feeling it right now. but it's one in which we're able to meet those demands. >> andrew has a question, too. andrew >> hey, dan. i just wanted to sort of get your thoughts and hear about the experience working with employees. you know, so many people whose schools are now shuttered, i imagine their employees either calling in sick themselves, hopefully they're not positive, they're just trying to figure out how to work with their --

work under these new circumstances, what kind of strain that's putting on you also, sort of longer term what kind of steps the company and other companies are going to have to take to screen employees in the morning we were talking to a ceo in the last hour taking temperatures and things like that that's already happening in china, south korea, elsewhere. what kind of investments and thoughts of what that's going to look like in the next weeks and months >> it's a great question, andrew it's one all companies are grappling with people are adjusting their pto policies obviously you don't want any worker who feels -- either having symptoms obviously but even feeling uncomfortable coming into the workplace. in addition to that though, you're right we're constantly communicating with our employees about the cdc

guidelines, ways they can protect their own personal health at the same time as we think about it over the horizon, the fatigue that companies like us and others is a sustained crisis, we're going to obviously have to find ways to make sure that we relieve the pressure on our work force the hiring of 150,000 new employees is one way in which we can take pressure off. reducing store hours is another way we can take the pressure off of our work force. this is a dynamic process, and as we look at how this is going to play out over a period of weeks if not months, this is unchartered territory. >> dan, you say that it sounds fantastic, the idea of bringing in 150,000 workers, particularly if you can work with industries where they're having to layoff all of their workers at this moment then i start thinking about how complicated it is to bring in a brand new employee and say, okay, here's what you do how do you train those people?

how do you spread it out >> it's amazing. in a normal time frame it would take two weeks to on board an associate. we've got that process down to not only 24 hours but down to three hours that we can at least get through the vast majority and do things quickly. it is one of those things where you can train very quickly the taskswe're looking at, whether it's loading trucks, or if it's stocking shelves you can do that on a fairly quick basis. we're not too concerned about onboarding those employees in the holiday period we have temporary people who come in so we have a background and training philosophy that allows for associates to on board very quickly. >> president trump was speaking -- the days all run together i don't know if it was this week or last week he said he spoke to doug from

walmart, the chairman and ceo, and that it's busier than christmas time how busy are the stores? >> it is quite frankly unprecedented. the type of sustained pressure we're seeing it is like black friday day after day after day in some respects so in particular different parts. we have the food part of our store is feeling the most pressure right now it is, as i said, putting strain on the system but the supply chain is holing up, and that's because, andrew, you talked about the work we've been amazed by how many associates who feel this is part of their own calling to serve the country and we're not seeing dramatic callouts at store levels they're up some, as you would expect, but not up in a way that you might fear in fact, our associates are

rising to this challenge it's extraordinary but it is putting pressure on the system. >> dan, i want to thank you for what your company is doing and your associates are doing. it's inspiring that your workers are front and center and out doing the jobs and helping people everywhere and that you all are stepping up to the task making sure you are supporting them as well the bonuses, 150,000 workers coming online. i want to thank you very much for your time this morning and we hope to speak to you soon dan bartlett at walmart. >> my pleasure meantime, for mother re on economy, i want to get over to steve liesman who has some news for us as well steve? >> reporter: good morning, andrew you know, while we wait for the fiscal side, the senate, the house and the administration to provide stimulus for the economy, it is an absolutely

historic day for the fed putting money into the economy right now. today in our estimate the federal reserve will purchase $107 billion of securities that's the most i believe in any one single day it has done so it's going to buy $75 millbio of treasuries and $32 billion of mortgages. those markets are not acting very well. if you are tuning in for the first time, why is the fed doing this it's doing this in the first instance to drive down interest rates for businesses and households you have the ten-year spike. you had mortgage rates going up and so what the fed wants to do is drive down rates towards its policy rate or something below that slightly which is 0 to a quarter percent so it's easier to borrow, makes loans more profitable, makes them more likely to be given also lower the debt burden on households and businesses. now this is -- you've never seen

anything like this before so i went back to the financial crisis to find the biggest sing willi le week in february. it will do $300 billion this week if the fed does what it says it's going to do. in 2008 it was $162 billion, this was almost double what it did in the crisis. you know what, it's probably going to do more if you look at what the fed said on sunday night, they said they'd come in and buy $700 billion of purchases read the fine print, it says at least 700 billion. i don't know, guys maybe a trillion i don't know where they might stop here, but the fed is going to continue to come in it's amazing they've worked breathtaking speed here. unfortunately, how much they've done is a sign of how much needs to be done

the markets are still clogged up and we'll see if the totality of all the fed is doing can really unstrain the credit markets out there. andrew >> thanks, steve meantime i'm going to send it over to casa quick becky? >> thanks, andrew. for more on what investors should be doing, let's bring in a voice. one that we know pretty well noah blackstein is at dynamic funds. you've been watching what do you think? >> well, i think, you know, this economic contraction that we're going to be on in the second quarter to third quarter hasn't been driven byimbalances in th economy. this isn't over investment in real estate or i.p. and then, you know, fed policy raises rates until something breaks this is a much different economic injection caused by

this virus the shut down of the economy isn't a choice i don't know who thinks any company, perhaps save a walmart and kroger, are going to have a great quarter. we're sort of in a situation where the policy choices have been to shut down, you know, california, new york, shut down basically the economies and air travel so a lot of the recovery out of this kind of depends on, you know, when the virus pops out, runs its course and certainly when the policies to shut the econoee econo economy. some places that are being evaluated, office space longer term, retailers perhaps evaluating the number of physical stores they need. i do believe longer term the mobile work force and the work from home probably accelerates

the move towards a cloud-based services and digital transformation enterprises who have on premise stuff that may be struggling probably accelerates their move to the cloud reassessment of business travel. does everybody internally need to go to the same meetings or can a lot of this be done over video conferencing and things like that. i think there will be lingering changes coming out of this this isn't a crisis driven by economic imbalances. it's a crisis driven by what is a virus and policy choices to shut the economy down. >> you're not the only investor thinking that. that's probably why we've seen the nasdaq outperform, done a little better because people are looking at things like the cloud service providers. what is that making you do what investments decisions are you making as a result of that thesis >> well, i mean, the speed of this has been unprecedented in

my career and, you know, i've lived running the same funds through '08 and '02. was there for a long-term capital. what the etfs and risk perry has done the speed has happened in an unspeakable amount of time maybe if you are a 30-year-old portfolio manager sitting there in your patagonia no socks you're trying to play this quarter. i think what you have to think about is not this quarter because everyone is going to miss this quarter and next quarter. the question is often is down. which companies have the superior business models and the growth you'll have 1.6 million students using google classroom in new york city. does that mean google blows out this quarter

of course not. does that bode well for distance learning in 2022, 2023, probably does stepping back, i've been a growth investor for the last 25 plus years in my career, but i also think there's a generational opportunity for value investors. i mean real value invest horse because the decline in hotels, casinos, airlines, other thing like that, it's almost unprecedented. you have a number of investors out there who these are generational opportunities in these areas. not something i do but certainly something i can see is an enormous opportunity the question of when we recover. we also have unprecedented fiscal and monetary stimulus so we can see over the valley. the question is the depth and

the length of that valley. those are policy and medical questions that a lot of us don't have the answers to right now but we can certainly see the other side >> noah, thank you for your time before you go, you know, knocking all those traders sitting around without their socks on, they're not the only ones check it out no socks. >> i don't have socks on either. >> all right so we're all in this together. noah, thank. good to see you. >> take care >> bye. if you are just waking up, the futures at this hour are -- really have given back more of the best levels of the session we're up 370 points now on the dow. the s&p is indicated up 37 or so the nasdaq also up a little bit higher some of the best performing stocks in the pre-market, take a quick look we've been looking all day noble energy, mylan and national

orwell >> talking about feet, i'm in rain boots because we had a flood. we have about 1 1/2 inches of water below me we're in the basement in case you wanted to know meantime, a growing number of states are banning or restricting eat-in dining services at restaurants in an effort to mitigate the coronavirus. many offering takeout or delivery and some are forced to close shop entirely. joining us is grubhub ceo matt maloney. we spoke to you a couple of weeks ago and boy, matt, did the world look very, very different. tell us what the past week and a half has looked like for your business >> i was there a couple of weeks ago and everything was very different. now we are very, very concerned about the independent restaurants across the country as you mentioned, a lot of the states and municipalities are restricting their dine-in business and we have been extremely active on the phone

with the governors and mayor's offices, if you are going to restrict the dine in, allow them to do delivery and pickup. when you see the local corner restaurant shut down for a couple of months for rehab, they're probably not going to open back up we're taking this as our quest to help the liquidity crisis so they can pay their hourly workers so they can get through this valley. >> in terms of workers themselves, are you finding it easier to find people who want jobs in this moment? are you finding it harder given so many of the complications of just daily life that have now emerged? >> sure. actually, we are finding it easier to find drivers so when i was on the show a couple of weeks ago i said, look, i'm not sure what this does to demand but i'm concerned about my restaurants and my drivers. it turns out there are a lot of people, i'm not sure if thor'

ride share drivers looking forex tra income, but they're willing to deliver food. the fulfillments capabilities are very good. we might see 1/3 of the restaurants flat out closed and refusing to do anything, but we're seeing five times the in bound. we're doing everything we can to get as many restaurants live as possible we're seeing a massive transition of the restaurants if they're available to any given neighborhood, which is really incredible to see. >> one of the other questions we've been talking about all morning, again, it goes back to employees, is employee screening. people are very anxious in this social distancing world just about touching things, getting things delivered in certain cases while may be better than going to the store represents its own challenges what are you guys doing? >> yeah, sure. so one thing to remember is the

u.s. has really good food safety locks. with the safety of that, there's concern about delivery the delivery driver drops it off at the doorstep or lobby, steps back the six feet and hits the button on the app that either texts or calls you depending on your preferences so you can leave your building, go get your food and keep a safe distance between you and the delivery driver it's really important. we were extremely important to get that out especially as people are looking for restaurants to feed you during this time. >> one of the things you have done is suspended, if i understand this right, up to $100 million in commissions for your restaurant partners to try to provide cash flow relief. what does that look like

>> looks like we lost matt where did you get that sign? where did you get that sign? i mean, you just brought that with you or was it already up there from previous -- >> you're talking about the logo behind me? >> yes. >> is there another sign in your shot where did you get the sign stop sign? a yield sign yes, the cnbc sign where did you get the cnbc -- and is it all wet and ruined now from the flood >> it's actually -- it's holding up -- the sign looks like it's holding up okay. the better question is we have wires on the floor as you know how this whole thing works. >> are you serious >> that's what i'm a little worried about. what do you think? of course. >> this is like the end of day i don't want to say it, but what you've been saying, locusts -- i

saw something flying around your head geez, andrew it's a rental though you should tell people they're feeling bad for you. it's a rental, right just move upstairs. >> right right. the books back here -- the books back here are -- i don't want to say they're fake, but they're not mine they're not my books competition out there among some viewers. >> i had to send out a picture of mine to compete thank you. we're all a little -- what are we supposed to do? these are unprecedented times and every once in a while we've got to, i don't know, return to some normalcy. we'll be back. coming up, fed governor -- former fed governor kevin warsh speaks out check on some of the names on the move in the dow as we are solidly in the green more of cnbc's special market vege on the other side of this short break coming back

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welcome back to "squawk box" this morning we are seeing big swings in

futures right now. let's show you where things stand. the futures if you bring the board up looking higher. 500 points higher. nasdaq 265 points higher you're seeing this whip saw all across the board the s&p 500 looking right now like it would open up 50 points higher let's show you the 10-year note because of all of the questions and where it has been the past couple of days the yield at 1.018 ray dalio and some of the others talking in recent days about the ten year and what that interest rate means to asset prices i want to send it over to becky. >> andrew, thank you boeing and the airlines have seen their shares fall drastically over the last month and the industry is now looking to washington for help phil lebeau has been covering that story good morning. >> reporter: that help is controversial at least in the eyes of one former boeing member nikki haley. when she joined in april of last year, people said, that's a

smart move by boeing former trump administration member, great political connections in washington. really somebody that you want especially as a defense contractor and a company that needs washington well, she's decided she doesn't need boeing. in fact, she sent a letter to ceo dave calhoun saying she is not going to be part of a company that is looking for a government bailout or at least some help from the federal government in her letter of resignation i strongly believe that when one is part of a team and cannot support the direction of the team then the proper thing to do is resign. nikki haley leaving immediately. the aid package, the gop saying here's what we think should happen with this proposal. not just for boeing but for all companies. one is the government stake in option in terms of taking a stake whether it's boeing, the airlines, whatever company takes government aid also, the ceo pay should be

limited, at least that's the proposal from the republican side in the senate we'll see what the democrats have to say. quickly as you take a look at shares of boeing versus the dow jones industrial average, i don't know if we have a compare some chart there clearly this is what has been the biggest drag on the dow. not that they're alone boeing has been by far way below the dow jones industrial average. nikki haley off of the board of directors. no indication who will take her spot. >> that's not the burr loeffler bill about ceo pay probably not no, those are the two senators that got out of the market that's a bad -- >> reporter: yeah. >> -- it's unbelievable. i saw eamon earlier. he started to say senators republican senators. let's just say it. they are

>> yeah. >> republican senators we need to see what the democrats say. do they want to put any further restrictions. >> let's talk about government bailouts because we need to walk a fine line. maybe chris flowers knows how. veteran financier who was entrenched in the bailout in 2008 ceo of j.c. flowers&company. these are different circumstances but the potential to look like things aren't fair or to sort of engineer moral hazard, all the pitfalls are going to be here depending on the industry even though you can't blame a particular industry because it's a virus. do you have a good way to walk that fine line to help these companies without, you know, alienating an entire country again?

>> well, i don't know that i do, but i will say that the psychological and political backdrop is very different this time for financials. last time they were seen as the political problem. this time i think financials are seen as part of the solution and not the cause of the problem. >> right i want you to help us with not just how we help the financials, but we've got to help the airlines, individual small companies and restaurants and try to keep -- make it so that there's jobs for employees when they come back we've got to help boeing how do you do all of those things in a way that maybe the government gets paid back or that shareholders -- andrew always talks about, you know, taking private losses and basically turning them into taxpayer losses. how do you avoid doing that? >> i don't think you can i don't think you can. you know, i think it's even

trickier in the following way, which is no matter what anybody does or what any government program does, there is going to be a chunk of the economy where people just aren't working and until either that comes back they gain employment in parts of the economy that is working, gdp will go down it will. you will have recession, you will i don't see a way to do this. >> in the future it will be hard to politically or at least public sentiment wise, we'll talk about buy backs we'll talk about boeing and the 30 or 40 billion in buy backs that that company orchestrated and getting a much larger number from the federal government. we're going to talk about ceo compensation all of these things are going to be hot button issues hopefully when we're on the other side of

this >> well, i mean, i think -- this is certainly not the moment to be -- for companies to be accepting needed government support and then doing buybacks or paying themselves a lot of money. >> too late. go ahead, andrew they're already in that position >> hey, chris. you know, as i've been thinking about it, to me there's only two real approaches. either you basically give to everybody on the same terms across the board and maybe that's in the form of a bridge loan and maybe there's some kind of grant effectively at the owned of it, assuming people stay employed or you do this very idiosyncratic approach. it's probably cheaper in some ways to do the idiosyncratic approach of saving the airlines, boeing, but then decide not to save somebody else then you'll have a decade, if not more, as you talked about

it, politics what is the right answer for the economy though >> well, i think the right answer -- in one sense i think the right answer for the economy, there's no answer the right answer for the economy is to offer support broadly how tailored it should be is for others to say, no doubt about it in doing that, it still doesn't change the fact that, you know, a chunk of the economy is just not going to be working and the gdp is going to be lower even if people affected by that have money and can get through it, we're going to have a heck of a recession anyway. but whether that should be -- like boeing should get it and xyz shouldn't or everybody should get it, it's a little hard to see how everybody would get it without some kind of system, formula, distinction it would seem if everyone gets it, how much do you get and how much do i get out of curiosity >> right chris, if you were approached,

just -- let's just say someone said, all right, we want you to be involved with a convertible preferred with company a, company b, company c, i mean, could you structure it in a way that you feel you'd be -- do well in the future can the government expect to do that with a boeing or an airline or any of these airline companies would you think? >> well, i think that of course, you know, that's our job to try to do that, and i think we'll see many opportunities so that's us for the government, you know, they're not strictly commercial, but on the other hand that doesn't mean they need to be foolish either so i would have thought, you know, programs could be worked out where the government is getting a reasonable deal or at least a deal that's being thought about, you know, even if it's not necessarily a deal i would do myself. >> yeah. will there -- we've heard from -- i mean, i saw mcconnell talking saying there's not going to be any moral hazard this time

around is it ever -- if you're doing pailou bailouts, is it possible to do it with no moral hazards whatsoever can you walk that line as the government >> well, you know, i don't know if i should be the one to contradict mr. mcconnell, but it's a little hard to see how you do that with no moral hazard. >> right >> you know, i mean, if you're -- >> i understand. chris flowers, thank you we appreciate it and before we go to break, so, you know, i was thinking about all your questions about nikki haley, sorkin. i mean, i can't see how it's anything other than a political move, gamut. >> me, too. >> sure. >> it's so ludicrous boeing's got its problems, but we need a boeing now she decides that this is an immutable principle that she has. >> joe, you can see the

political advertisement from whoever is going to compete against her in the future, which is nikki hailey cutting and running in a crisis. she will say it's idealistic -- not idealistic shea's making a principled point. >> she's appealing to someone. she's appealing to the total -- >> clearly >> -- free market no bailout -- but that was -- a lot of that seems antiquated. >> it's political expediency. >> after coronavirus >> as soon as i read that, that's all i thought, political expediency she doesn't want to get tagged with this. >> look, she works in the -- she worked in the administration this is an administration that is probably going to take these steps so she's tagged with the administration, if you will, and then to sort of turn -- the idea of turning your back on this company at this time for what appears to be political reasons i think is going to be a hard knock. >> let me rethink it then because i agree with you

let me rethink it. >> you think about that. in the meantime, let me tell you what's coming up next. dr. scott gottleib, former head of the fda to tell us what he's seeing on the front lines with the coronavirus will join us to tell us what's happening with the government's efforts to try to flatten the curve all of that coming up. take a look at the biggest winners and losers on the dow this morning "squawk box" will be right back. driverless cars,

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welcome back to "squawk box" this morning we're going to get some of the latest numbers on the coronavirus effort we'll get this over to rahel solomon. >> reporter: hi, andrew. more than 10,000 have died here in the u.s. confirmed cases stand at over 14,000 with 205 deaths in california cases jumped 21% in 24 hours prompting governor gavin newsom to issue a stay at home order for all 40 million people governor newsom said he estimated more than half of the state's residents would contract the virus over an eight-week period he asked for a naval hospital to be sent to los angeles that is effective for an

undetermined time. as many businesses close in california and across the country, layoffs are mounting. state unemployment offices are reporting unprecedented spikes in initial jobless claims. federal data points to a 33% increase in claims over the next few weeks. goldman sachs predicting for the week ending march 31st, claims could be in the millions in other words, the largest increase ever and perhaps the highest level on record. becky, i'll send it over to you. >> thank you very much. let's bring in dr. scott gottleib, the former commissioner of the fda. been joining us on a daily basis to tell us what he sees on the front lines in the fight against coronavirus. good morning. >> good morning. thank you. >> earlier we had ken rogoff on and he said it was a war. >> we are in batwell a pathogen. what you're starting to sense is

people want to understand when the current lockdowns and restrictions will lift and when normal life will return and when we'll begin to defeat this i do think there's an end to this we need to start defining it and defining the stages of what a return to better times looks like and how we're going to get there. you know, just sort of pause, but it's not a question of ending these restrictions, it's -- certain things are going to change. there isn't an on/off switch that will flip we'll unwind some of the measures, we'll adopt others we'll secure also in the process a better toolbox to deal with the threat which we don't have, which we can have in the context of the current epidemic so we don't get caught flat footed again. >> i got an email from one of the nurses in my town who works at a local hospital here who was chastising some of the other moms letting their kids go out and play she said right now there are 42 cases, 42 cases in the hospital

she works in, 6 of them are on ventilators. i think a lot of us know that something's coming maybe this is the quiet before the storm. what is this going to look like in a couple of weeks >> i think we're going to see the health care system get pressed and on the presidency pes of being overwhelmed we talk about the business sector, we ought to talk about the health care sector and life science build out. we're developing hospital beds right now. we're probably not doing enough. we also need to focus on developing places to discharge covid patients to. two ways to increase hospital beds is, one, build more hospital beds but build secure facilities that you can discharge patients to. so what can you do you can increase reimbursement substantially for taking care of covid patients in a skilled nursing facility or home health that you might set up in a vacant hotel if you increase that to 200%,

300% of medicare, you'll see a market for creating facilities that will enable a lot of hospital bed capacity to open up you're going to want dedicated facilities because you're not going to want covid patients with patients who don't have the virus. we can start securing that right now. we need to start thinking about these things with respect to all of the shortages in personal protective equipment among doctors, we should be developing a national strategy to crash manufacturing of some of these components. we built aircraft carriers in record time in world war ii. certainly we can stand up a facility to punch out plastic parts for these masks. we're not focused on this in a national way and that we would need to if it was truly getting to your first point a war time footing. >> can we just very briefly talk

about what you mean by that? when we spoke yesterday off camera, you were telling me that the real problem we have with some of these testing kits is getting the access to the small ticket items, things like the swabs that you use to swab someone's nose why is it so hard to get those things >> it's always the lowest margin product in the supply chain that ends up being your weak link you'll never have a shortage of the $100,000 scanner you'll have a shortage of the 1 cent swap or the tip of the pipette. they're manufactured in a small number of plants the supply chain is limited. consolidated manufacturing precisely because it is low margin and it's hard to increase the capacity of those plants on the fly. but if we sort of took a deliberate effort now to do it in a coordinated way, we could probably stand up manufacturing of some of these things in fairly efficient time frame. short on the reagents, short on

the swabs, short on the plastic pipette tips that go to move it into the scanner and the wells that go into the scanners. it's not that we're short, we can only produce a small amount each month and we're consuming it the upper limit isn't defined by how many scanners we have, it's going to be defined by all of these little low margin commodity products that we should be able to commondere some manufacturing and crash into these spaces and produce these things. >> andrew? >> hey, doctor, i have two questions for you. they come from viewers who had sent me these questions in the past 24 hours. one is actually about japan. specifically why we haven't seen the outbreak and the pandemic there in really the way i think that most doctors and scientists had been anticipating given the

proximity to china and the travel between those countries do you have a view about what's happened there nchs wel >> well, they adopted mitigation/containment strategies early they did do a good job of stopping the cases they were finding. they haven't been screening a lot. i have been of the belief that they have more spread than they're currently detecting. it's been two or three weeks of me believing that and you would think you would see a surge of cases showing up in the health care setting it's not entirely clear whether they got lucky, whether or not the early containment strategies worked or whether or not there is further spread and we'll start to see those cases emerge. they were spread all through january and into february in the united states and we didn't detect it at all in the hospitals but there were people getting sick in a sporadic fashion. then all of a sudden you've seen

this explosion the cases in the hospital didn't get covid-19 three days ago. they probably got it two daze weeks ago so there's a delay and there's a question whether or not japan is just delayed. >> the other question coming in relates to technology and maybe ultimately our privacy, but a reader is pointing out that in china and south korea, especially on the other side of the peak, when you want more people to go out in public, they're doing lots of testing at shopping malls for employees, qr codes on their phones that identify what their health and history was on this very issue we haven't talked at all about that in this country just yet and i don't know if we're gearing up for it, but should we be >> i think we should be gearing up on how we do containment on a massive scale in the country you have two choices, mitigation, telling everyone to stay home.

containment and a massive testing strategy where you identify people, quarantine them or some combination of the two we can get to some combination of the two right now we're lying more on mitigation because we don't have the tools in place we can get the tools in place quickly. this isn't something we have to wait and let this pass and we'll do this in september to prevent another epidemic if we can get a pond of care in place, you can dramatically increase scanning by putting those tests in the doctor's offices. there's no reason we can't have that the technology is there. >> do you see the american person sharing that publicly wherever they go having to get scanned to walk into a place in israel they're going to start tracking the phones to see if you come in contact with other people with covid.

>> the technology's there. >> you can't do it on a state-by-state basis in a country that is very mobile. big states can do it, but ideally you'd want one uniformly national program south korea implemented what you're talking about and they had the best experience relative to the outbreak, the size of the outbreak they had. they were able to quell it quite efficiently and using technology and case containment coupled with mitigation steps where they shut down parts of the country on a rolling fashion and schools, but they did it in a very deliberate fashion. >> scott, to this point, the conventional wisdom has been that this is dangerous but mostly only for people who are ages 50 and up, especially for people even older than that. yesterday there was some new data out that suggests there is

quite a bit different. >> there's a study model in "nature" that looks at a fatality rate in wuhan they estimate -- the fatality rate was 1.4% but what they show is a linear increase in hospitalizations as age increases from 20. that's consistent with what the cdc put out a couple of days ago on the experience of the first about 2500 patients here in the united states where they showed a very high homptization rate, 20 to 54 55 to 64 the fatality rate was .5 to .8 in 55 to 64. with seasonal flu the fatality rate is .1 significantly higher than that the case fatality rate in flu is .1 because it's being driven by a high case fatality rate in

those over the age of 65 where it approaches about 1% the case fatality rate for a 45-year-old with the flu is .02 or .01 this is ten times more deadly. it's just you're dealing with a lower number overall so it doesn't look as startling but that's a very high increase in morbidity mortality among a healthy 45-year-old than relative to flu. 54 to 64 the case on the cdc data was1.4 to 2.6 hospitalization rates are high overall between the ages of 20 to 54 the overall hospitalization rate was about 40% of all hospitalizations were between that age that's almost spot on with what china's experience was, where they found that 38% of all of their hospitalizations were the age of 20 to 55 in the province of wuhan so, you know, young people

getting sick, getting hospitalized, they're not dieing at the same rate as older individuals, but some of them are getting into trouble >> dr. gottleib, thank you we appreciate your update. we'll check in with you hopefully early next week. >> thanks. >> joe >> it's 8:01 now on the east coast. you're watching cnbc stocks are set to jump when the bell rings on wall street this morning. about half of the gains that we had seen earlier the dow is now going for back-to-back gains, something it hasn't been able to muster in, get this, six weeks. up 500 this morning after eking out 100 plus point gain yesterday. senate republicans rolling out details of a $1 trillion stimulus package as the economy shutters in industry and the golden state lockdown, california orders its 40 million

residents to stay home as the governor warns possible more than half. population will get the virus in the next two months. this hour we're going to bring you four big interviews. former federal reserve president kevin warsh, mark sutton, marc short the chief of staff to vice president mike pence and noted tech investor dan niles. cnbc special coverage of the pandemic and the markets in turmoil begins right now. good morning i am joe kernen along with becky quick and andrew ross sorkin the vagaries and if a sis si tuds of technology, this can go down at any time maybe that would be a welcome

respite. >> joe, i've got to tell you it's a miracle we're on the air with some of this stuff. i don't have anybody here working with me. this is it i'm actually amazed this stuff works as well as it does >> andrew, this is your -- how do you like it this is your first time away are you going to stay there? you're possibly going to be called back in there >> i imagine i may get called back in there and sass some of the viewers know we have a flood in the basement. >> no flood here. >> i'm in my rubber rain boots. >> with wires on the floor which is -- >> with wires on the floor so let's just cross our fingers >> cross our fingers that nothing does happen is what you're saying? >> right >> depending how you feel about me >> that's what i mean. >> u.s. equity futures at this hour, you can see there, up

about 561 points on the dow. the s&p up 56. the nasdaq up 269 points take a quick look at the treasury yields. wow. hacking on to that 1 handle. are you okay dry yourself off and read the next story >> ready to go we've got a huge coverage of all of the latest developments in the coronavirus pandemic this morning. want to get you that team coverage of how it's impacting the american economy and your money. steve liesman covering the economy but we want to start right now with eamon javers with the latest stimulus efforts. eamon. >> reporter: good morning, andrew bit of a moving target we'll see a meeting with the leaders at 10 a.m. to hash all of this out. mitch mcconnell laid out what's in his plan last night it's about a trillion dollars. this is a plan he worked on with

the administration take a look at some of the specifics. the center piece, of course, is the direct aid, direct payments to most americans. we're talking about payments to people below $100,000 a year in income it's on a sliding scale. also in this bill passenger airlines $50 billion, cargo airlines, $8 billion other distressed industries, enormous category, $150 billion. the tax filing deadline likely to be extended for a lot of folks. the president talked a little bit about what that category of other distressed industries might be

>> we will be helping the airline industry, the cruise ship industry, hotel industry. where jobs are created you don't want to lose jobs like this. >> reporter: the president talking about saving entire industries that list, i think, guys, is fair to say is going to get much longer than what the president just suggested yesterday as we see the economic devastation throughout the entire economy, not just in that tourism sector that was hit immediately the rest of the economy going to need help here from the federal government a moving target throughout the day. we'll keep an eye on all developments as soon as we have them meanwhile, from what the fed is up to, let's hop over to steve liesman. steve? >> reporter: yeah, eamon, the fed set to make a huge set of purchases. i want to turn to the human side of this whole tragedy and crisis that is unemployment the unemployment claim benefits -- claims are set to surge this week really

overwhelming the states's ability to provide it. we've heard all kinds of stories. goldman sachs out with an estimate very similar to what we had yesterday on "squawk box." goldman sachs saying next week unemployment claims could rise by 2.25 billion. that's almost triple what we've ever had here's a chart here. the largest was 695,000 in one week in october 1982, but next week it could go up by 2.25 million. it could go up by 2 million. we also looked at the number of searches for unemployment benefits on google it is way, way up. the top states, nevada, rhode island, pennsylvania, wisconsin and kentucky the trump administration urging not to give numbers until next week fearing impact on the

markets. one of the big stories is the bills include any assistance to the states for unemployment insurance. eamon's read of it so far, my read of it so far, the obama stimulus bill in 2000 night did. this does not. one they can write it off their taxes and second, direct aid to the states to help them pay for the surge. the problem, guys, is not actually the number. we've been up as much as 6 million during the crisis. the trouble is the surge and the ability of the states to handle such a quick increase and when people might get a benefit. >> just because of the infrastructure, steve, not having enough people working in the offices to process it or not having enough money to pay it all? >> exactly and i don't know about the payment. it's probably not a bad guess to assume states are not in great

shape to prepare for this. they did not -- many of them did not spend the intervening years between the crisis and getting ready for the next crisis. a lot of states, becky, have a balanced budget amendment. what that means is that the states will lack what we call procyclical. in english, that means they'll make things worse. it's a huge problem. what you found is states were laying off teachers, state and local workers. instead of keeping them on the payroll, they were acting to keep their budgets balanced. so what you're going to have now is you're going to have layoffs in the private sector compounded by layoffs in the government sector and it's something we're not talking at all about as to this does not have to happen laying off teachers in a situation like this is probably one of the worse things you can do the issue is can we stop that from happening so when it comes to unemployment you don't have the government sector making the

situation worse for an already tax disstressed private sector >> that's not. we'll talk more about it we've got the time steve, we'll check back in with you. thank you. in the meantime, let's talk about what the fed has been doing through all of this. kevin warsh is a former fed governor, i can't keep track of the days i'm guessing it was two weeks ago, kevin kevin's latest op ed was titled let the fed straight err an antiviral shot what do you think? the fed has taken some major actions. are you happy with what you're seeing >> becky, thank you very much. the u.s. has suffered from the largest liquidity shot since world war ii and the fed has had to come to war time footing more quickly than we did in 2008 so i

think they're off to a good start. i think lucky for them it's a friday fridays when markets close will give them the first opportunity to reflect at the powerful weapons they've sent, evaluate what targets they've hit and evaluate what to do next the weekend's at high command at the troesh ri, the federal reserve in crises. this is the first time they have where time can slow down time has moved incredibly quickly for them i'm sure in the last couple of weeks, a couple of weeks that are times that they'd like to get together the key is treating some of the symptoms symptoms in the treasury markets that steve has talked about. symptoms across the economy.

they need to reveal their economic war plan. i would expect them to be able to say what they've done, why they've done it, what are the ways and means to accomplish their objectives the power is in the weapon but the power is also in the explanation, to get the country and the business sector on board. so i suspect, becky, that's the essential next step. beyond that while they have treated the next steps and the plumbing, my sense is the next move for liquidity is it needs to be broader. the stressed industries is the u.s. economy so this liquidity now needs to be spread across the broad economy and that's the essential element that strikes

me of responding to the 2020 pandemic >> not to mention the municipal bond market which we spoke with steve liesman about earlier. that seems to be showing some signs of stress, too it seems like there are a lot of holes in the dike that they're going to have to stick their finger in a lot of different places. >> yeah, that's right. they've certainly come to the aid as an incredibly effective support to different parts of the plumbing in the house that are breaking but they need to move, i'd say, more strategically and perhaps even less tactically than they have in the last couple of weeks. i'm sure they understand this, and that is unless they can get the economy to hang in there, unless they can get the economy to effectively buy some time so that businesses can wait to see what's the course of the virus, the course of the response, then they're going to have in several months' time liquidations.

liquidations of businesses large and small. so what appears now in my judgment to be a liquidity crisis could turn into a solvency crisis and that's why the overwhelming emphasis has to be to keep the foundation of the house alive, keep it so that all businesses, large and small, can draw on credit, can take cash, can make decisions to keep their financial wherewithal so that in three, six, nine months when this gets past us they are able to move forward quite adroitly again, my call, which i suspect they all recognize in congress, at the treasury, at the fed, the forceful joint action they need to take now is to provide liquidity to all solvent comers before the financial crisis to effectively buy a little bit of time so we can see where this goes there will be a future time where decisions can be made on what industries were particularly harmed, but if we save an industry, if we solve

the symptoms but we don't treat the underlying patient, it really won't be money well spent. >> kevin, how much of this is kind of moving beyond the scope of the fed at this point it seems to me like this is much more heavily going to lie in the physical stimulus and what congress comes up with and how the money is spent, what industries are saved, also who gets relief and when. >> yeah, i agree i agree to an extent making policy is about making choices. congress has important choices to make over the course of the next week but i don't think about it in a siloed way i don't think, okay, the fed has passed its baton to the congress there are huge synergies from the federal reserve, the treasury and the congress working together so how would that work in my judgment the fed would use its emergency authority, which is in the trade called section

13.3 they would break the glass of that authority something they've done earlier this week with the primary deal or something they did earlier this week with commercial paper, but they'd use that authority and provide liquidity to all businesses that were solvent as of the first of the year to your point, they're going to be doing things that will cross into the realm of the treasury and the congress that's where they need treasury and congress's full scale support. if, for example, the fed opened up their credit lines, used the banking system and the banking system provided credit to firms large and small that were otherwise solvent months ago, the fed could provide credit to those firms, overwhelm them with liquidity for all comers, let them buy some time to the extent their losses, the crisis lasts longer, some of the businesses can't survive, then congress needs to pick up the tab. the fed is not in the business

of spending fiscal resources, congress is. so i would hope that in this stimulus 3 bill that congress is working on congress would authorize the treasury department, the federal reserve, that they would backstop these massive credit lines unlike in 2008 it wouldn't be going to a bunch of wall street firms, these credit lines would be going to all companies across the country. we would use the fed plumbing, fed infrastructure, fed supervision of banks with other bank regulators but the losses would be on the taxpayers' dime. i think there are huge multiplier effects by having the fed and treasury stand behind it i'm hopeful that in the coming days some voergs version of a plan would work to reliquify this economy because time is going to be running against the fed. so i do believe the time is right now for this full relick which if i case of the economy

it requires all parts of the government to act in concert none can do it alone >> andrew? >> hey, kevin, i just wanted to talk a little bit about the structure of how you do that i got a lot of feedback in the past couple of days about akol lum i wrote about the equivalent of a large bridge loan provided to everybody on the same terms so long as they continue to employ people. there were so many people in variousindustries who called m up and said, look, andrew, i don't think you even understand, because there's no demand, zero demand, restaurants, hotels over the next two months, one ceo said, i'd prefer to effectively get rid of everybody on my payroll for those months because i'll never be able to make that money back due believe that >> so i don't think -- >> this goes to your solvency question. >> i don't think it's knowable at this point. our government, andrew, has put the economy in recession before, just never on purpose like we are right now. >> right

>> policy errors have cautioned many recessions in the post war era. what our government's doing, rightly so, is deciding that we are going to largely shut down huge parts of the economy in order to save lives, and importantly so the economy can be on sounder footing on the other end. i think what my proposal, and i don't know if this is yours as well, is to buy time if we were to extend for 90 days -- >> that's got to be the goal. >> extend for 90 days and keep the businesses so they're liquefied. you and i and businesses and the health care community will know what to do it's the standard option value theory we need to buy some time here. i don't think the people responding to you know the course of events so liquify early and your proposal in particular, for one, i would prefer that the business hang in there with five of their ten employees than go bankrupt and

unemploy all ten of them so because of -- >> kevin -- >> i'm hess sent -- i'm hesitant, andrew, to make those micro decisions from central command. >> right kevin, the hard part is, i was talking to danny myer yesterday, he laid off 2,000 people because he literally shuttered all of his restaurants. he doesn't know when they're going to be back online, if they're going to be back online. in two or three months from now the argument he's making is labor is his cost. if he keeps everybody on the payroll, yes, that would help him ramp up more quickly when things get better but unclear, as you know very well, that people are going to be dining out double or triple come this summer or fall when hopefully we get past this. >> right so i think you've got it right, which is we can decide -- congress can decide to spend

billions of dollars to keep particular industries afloat, but until they provide a provision that keeps the revenue, the source of aggregate demand in those restaurants, on those airplanes, having a ministry afloat with no revenue coming in doesn't buy you much again, this is just like 2008 which you covered exceptionally well you go after the big proper names first. you go after individual firms and industries that are hurting only until you realize that the problems are generalized so this is the weekend, it strikes me, where the federal reserve, the treasury and congress who have done a very good job in these early innings in this war and fired a lot of powerful bullets this is where they come out of central command and say we need to hit the broader economy we can worry about distressed industries later that's why i'm calling for this

overall liquefication to avoid liquidation later. >> want to thank you for your time today it's good to talk to you i'm sure we'll be talking in the weeks to come. >> becky, thanks very much for having me. >> kevin warsh. if you're just waking up, here are the futures out right now. the dow jones up about 409 points we were up 800 up 900 also down in the pre-market session overnight. the nasdaq is indicated up 216 and you can see for yourself, the s&p up 40. take a look at the premarket gainers in the s&p 500 this morning including mgm, norwegian cruise very low levels. halliburton is a $5 stock. carnival and mylan andrew. we've been talking all week about how the coronavirus is really impacting the operations of so many businesses around the

country and how managers are trying to manage their work forces and supply chains joining us is someone who is intimately involved with the supply chain mark sutton is here chairman of the international paper company and on the board of kroger mark, in terms of your business, i imagine actually, and i hate to say it perversely, things must be very good. >> good morning, andrew. look, our business, as you know, is largely a packaging business and most corrugated packaging is in the food industry we are extremely busy in that business the rest of our company make pulp and paper products. that plays a role in hygiene

it's a dislocated supply chain things are flowing to different places but, yes, we're very busy in trying to meet the different needs of the supply chain challenges. >> you know, clearly there is nervousness and anxiety about that supply chain. how long it lasts, what it looks like, whether disruptions are going to come and how quickly some of these supplies are going to be brought to the public. what are you seeing in terms of the employees and how the supply chains are holing up. >> that's the biggest part of it not just from my company but to anybody in the industry. from the food producers all the way through transport. first and foremost, every one of these companies, they said it publicly in different ways, the first priority is making sure we keep our employees safe. now in manufacturing industry, that's a way of life every day,

for safety this is a hygiene and health safety issue so we have at international paper implemented all of the cdc or for our global business it's the world health organization recommendations for distancing, sanitation and making sure we can do our jobs as the department of homeland security talks about we have a special obligation to be there for our country and for the citizens in times like this, but we need to do it safely. so we've implemented all of that so far it's largely working for us we've had a couple of issues in our packaging plants in italy with three employees they are all recovering fine, but that is definitely the issue. it's true of the grocery stores, distribution centers and trucking companies as i look at our distribution centers before us and after us, everyone is worried about their

employees. >> where is the toilet paper and diapers? they're selling out. how quickly can you get the raw materials? >> we don't make the tissue or toilet paper we make some of the products on the sanitary products like diapers and hygiene products, we are i think running -- i mean, obviously there's been a spike in demand and hopefully when people realize they have a lot of diapers they'll slow down their purchases. the operations ahead of that into the actual diaper manufacturers are running wide open i think that will correct itself i think the same thing will happen on some of the food items. the famous center of the grocery store had been in some bit of a decline because of the way we choose to eat differently. that's skyrocketed in some cases stressing some of the capacity that some of the manufacturers have, but i do think it's a little bit of a dislocated demand that should settle out over time

and we should see the products like you mentioned, diapers and toilet paper, there's plenty of it they've just got to get the velocity through the distribution centers and directly to the consumer, either via a retail outlet or in some places a business to consumer ecommerce. >> mark, just to follow up on -- as a director of progra oor of a you're seeing at the retail level, that's the front line in terms of how people are experiencing this, what you think the shelves are really going to look like over the next couple of weeks? >> well, you know, i'm a director i don't work there but it's a great example of a company that understands its mission. they have sophisticated systems to make sure that they can provide the products that are necessary, but i think every retailer like kroger and others are obviously looking at ways to increase the velocity.

so you've seen many people talk about changing store hours in order to restock and sanitize, but also you'll probably see some differences in the amount of different products available. i think every manufacturer out there, it's true of us, if you take some of the variety down, you've got latent capacity to make more of the product but less variety of the product, less sizes, less scents, all those types of things. i think what's really heartening to look at is that is being worked very heavily across the supply chain so that we can make sure that we build efficiencies in and make sure the products are available. so i think you'll see -- i believe you'll see actually a better stock over time for some products obviously fresh food, you need to get regularly because of the fact that they're fresh. but the non-fresh foods i think there's a lot of stocking that's

occurred and i think that will start to level out >> okay. mark, we really appreciate you joining us this morning and we wish you and your entire team as much success as we can possibly have over these next couple of weeks and months. >> thank you, andrew have a great day. >> you, too. coming up shortly, mark short. chief of staff to vice president mike pence whose boss has a lot on the plate obviously a lot to talk to marc short about government aid, bailout of key industries could amount to hundreds of billions of dollars. why talk billions when you can talk trillions as we head to break, take a look at the shares of boeing. purportedly leaning towards a temporary work stoppage at some jet liner work factories a company is csiriondeng layoffs and a dividend cut stay tuned we'll be right back. no one likes to feel stuck, boxed in, or held back. especially by something like your cloud.

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>> i have my watch as the day on it honestly a couple of times this week, i mean, i had to really try to figure it out. i guess -- and what the difference between this and a weekend. we can sleep in.

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president trump along with the coronavirus task force announced the fda is working towards approving therapeutics to help in the fight against the disease. with more on the evolving response from washington let's bring in marc short. he serves as chief of staff to vice president mike pence good to have you on >> thanks, jim. >> anything new today? we have a lot of input every day from the task force. i saw it yesterday anything new today, marc, that you can tell us? >> we meade every morning at 9:00, joe, and our rhythm is to have a late morning press events to give you updates on what policies will be rolling out i think what's important is we're continuing to collect a lot of data that is going to better inform decisions and some of that is over seas what we've continued to see is you look at the tragic situation of italy the thousands of unfortunate deaths, there's still not a victim under 30.

similar to what we saw in south korea. there were no victims under 30 that were fatalities some of the data we've gun beguo collect in the united states, we're rolling out tens of thousands of tests a day, an infection rate of less than 10%. these are not widespread tests among the population these are fever, people with respiratory ailments and similarly in south korea, wide sample of 250,000 tests. people with symptoms less than 4% infection rate. that guides our decision making. there's been a lot of wild analysis that says 30, 40, 50% of population will get infected. that's not what we're seeing as we're seeing, the populations are most impacted and most affected are the senior populations. >> the rollout of the additional testing that we've been looking

forward to since ten days ago or whatever it was, it's probably not monolithic obviously there's still some anecdotal stories about how difficult it still is. as a rule would you say that it was successful and that most places have figured out how to do it and it's going well now, marc >> joe, i think the president and vice president bringing private sector labs here to talk about ways they could get ramped up as soon as possible, as well i've got to say our fda commissioner is doing a phenomenal job we've had a ten fold increase in the last week and we expect another ten fold increase in the week ahead about the availability of tests. at this point, the number of tests distributed across the country, again, tens of thousands of new tests each day, and those that want to know where to get their tests should go to their state health officials. >> we still don't know -- i

guess we don't have enough concrete evidence on the malaria drug that's already approved that you could do off label t e theoretical theoretically. tomorrow if you were to be convinced that it works really well against coronavirus, how much do we have? how much could we get? what would be the manufacturing issues with how much of that drug we could have, marc >> so because it's already been approved, joe, we would have vast amounts available rapidly in many cases because you said it's a malaria drug. many cases those drugs are overseas already we're working on getting those reimported back into the united states and distributed as quickly as possible. there are multiple different therapeutics in the pipeline. >> that's approved >> that is exactly right, joe. others we hope to have approved by this summer so, again, a lot of the studies that are out there -- >> march it's march, marc. >> they also forecast 18 months

of the virus and they don't take into account -- >> i know. this could be yesterday with chloroquil. >> we have millions of those here and millions coming back from over seas. >> andrew, i know you want in. >> hey, marc, i just had a question i know you're working really on the response to this pandemic more than anything else, but one of the things that happened last night was a former member of the administration, nikki hailey, resigning from the board of boeing over this issue of potentially bailing out that company. and i just wanted to get the reaction inside the white house to that and whether you believe she's trying to send a signal to your peers that this shouldn't happen or whether this is politically motivated or how you think people behind you and along there are thinking about this this morning? >> well, i don't think there's been much conversation about nikki's decisions inside our building

y'all have covered 12 years the response to the t.a.r.p. bailout. there's a healthy debate about whether private sector companies have bad decisions the extent to which the government should be bailing them out and what the consequences are this is a very different case. this is not a market failure this is a virus that the government is working to protect additional americans to pass for travel bands the impact is very different than previous bailouts that have been considered. it's not an apples to apples comparison. >> marc, did you talk to the vice president about senator burr and loeffler and the stock sales? did you read about that in the -- in the press or in the media? and do you have an opinion on that >> i don't, joe. i don't know that we have enough information. there's certainly a body that overseas that within congress about looking at those who do that themselves versus those that defer those decisions to

others and there's an ethics board there. i'm not sure it's appropriate for us to weigh in on that we don't have enough information on that either and i haven't had a chance to speak to the vice president about it either. >> andrew, if you get briefed -- everybody knew this was a problem. was there actual inside information? would you say at a government meeting on that? does that qualify for non-public information? >> well, look, what i don't know and marc can speak to it better than i can is what kind of information is being disclosed inside those meetings that is different than the information that might otherwise be disclosed to the public and, therefore, if that was the case, this would be a little bit more complicated. marc, can you speak to that? >> yeah. i'm not familiar with any white house briefings that senators would have received that would have given inside information that would have impacted their trading. i have no belief that that transpired i think the best thing we can be

doing is giving as much information to the american people the more data we get, the better informed we'll be with policy decisions. >> the governor of california, should that be in any state, new york has more cases i think than california is that the future for most places in your view, marc? >> i don't know, joe i think, again, it's important to keep in mind that we have a federalist system. it's important to allow states and communities to do what's best for their communities and us to give them the resources to assist there are three states that have more than 50% of the cases and there are ten counties that have more than 50% of the cases we have roughly 2500 counties in the united states. i don't think it necessarily will become a one size fits all policy i think there's an abundance of caution to protect more

americans, but as we see better information, which we're getting in the testing and the rapidity of the spread, it's going to inform whether the one size fits all spreads. >> becky has a question and i have one more for you, marc. >> marc, just real quickly on what you just said the idea that more than 50% of the cases are in ten counties, there's 2500 counties in the nation, are you all considering doing things to lock down those counties in particular to try and make sure it doesn't spread beyond >> i think that the decisions that have been made thus far and the guidelines we've been given are quite aggressive in order to try to prevent additional spread i couldndon't see there being a federal mandate. we give guidance the guidelines are intended so it stays and doesn't spread beyond where it currently is i think that we're encouraged by the way americans have responded from the privatesector, public sector everybody pitching in to this epidemic at the moment, but i'm

not sure that they're -- i don't foresee a federal mandate on that now. >> is the vice president or someone on the task force meeting every day with different manufacturers to retrofit capable companies, for example, for things for a medical professionals that are in short demand masks, clothing, even ventilators? can we retrofit a manufacturer that, you know, has these very sophisticated machines can you turn out a ventilator in short order? is that possible >> that is a great question. it is. peter navarro has been working with a lot of the manufacturing companies to work on retrofitting honeywell is doing that and transforming the plants to assist with ventilators. we commend them. today the vice president has a call with roughly 500 manufacturers organized by the national association of

manufactures to talk about ways they can be doing that. >> becky >> hey, marc we had scott gottleib on this morning and he was talking about how some of the biggest problem points you have, even in testing and other areas, is finding little things, the cheapest things that cost about a penny, something like the swab to stick it up your nose to swab to see if you have the virus. those are hard things to come by his idea was the federal government could pour some money into places that would manufacture those things to make it profitable so that private industry would step in >> i don't know that we're looking for the federal government to provide that the demapped is there to go ahead and produce that the pentagon has a lot of supplies that they've provided as well in their stockpiles that we're getting out to the marketplace too. so -- and one other thing, becky. we also have additional tests coming online, very encouraging

we believe in the next couple weeks that would make the testing even more simple than it is right now so we do think that the market is actually helping to solve a lot of those challenges right now. >> thank you, marc god speed. god speed to the vice president and the task force and everyone else involved. >> thanks a lot, joe. >> you're welcome. >> thanks. >> appreciate it very much we do wish them as much luck as possible we are under an hour away now to the opening bell on wall street want to get over to cnbc's senior markets commentator mike santoli joins us with some of the tentative signs of traction for stocks what have you got, mike? >> reporter: andrew, everything is tentative when you have a market that's been moving 3, 5, 9% a day you can't necessarily make great declarations about day-to-day movements but i think the story of the last few days has been somewhat lower selling intensity. if you look at a one month chart you've actually sort of flattend out in the s&p 500 since last thursday there have been fewer stocks

making new lows. i think what we're looking for here is a very small step which would be potentially an end to the blind sell everything liquidation phase we saw part of that has been reflected as we all talked about in the credit markets not only in the sophisticated whole sale funding markets that have flared up but also in retail fixed income funds. anything credit corporate bonds, anything has sold. if you look at the investment grade etf, it has been trading because of the massive outflows and inability of market makers to get in. that's bouncing premarket. maybe you see this tentative kind of calm i think if you look at last thursday's low on the s&p, close on the s&p, 24.80 or something, maybe that's your next step. nobody is saying this is an all clear, but right now i think it's about whether ithe gears

stop clicking. >> looking good. no ty. got socks on. >> trying to give a nod that i have -- >> have you got socks on so you're not going to show us i think that means i think that means you don't have socks on >> i do have socks on. >> i'll take your word for it. >> there's also things i'm trying to keep out of the shot >> like the kids i'm trying to keep out of the shot very good. we'll see you later today. in the meantime, let's get over to check in with jim cramer. jim, it's finally friday i know we're all happy to see the weekend looming at this point. how are you feeling? >> i think that there's a technical rebound coming i don't know how long it will last i think people are very worried. we'll come in and we'll find out the number of infections is ten times greater than we thought. people will try to figure out whethertalian paradigm or

the chinese paradigm i was listening to dr. fauci being interviewed by zuckerberg yesterday. you get the sense he thinks we're not prepared we're behind we don't seem to understand that the worst -- typhoid mary so to speak for older people people are saying still lead our lives. now now it's obvious there's a new pattern coming in. the pattern is no demand for any of the services that two-thirds of this company produces there's a lot of worries about expressed by the technicals, by oil bouncing selling will resume at some point next week. >> the other thing you're looking at some of the headlines we've been showing on the bottom scroll, the president saying he will be canceling that meeting at camp david with the g7 leaders.

that wasn't supposed to take place until june if they have a better idea about how long this may last, that may be telling >> absolutely. i think we're getting a sense that it won't be over soon maybe it's good to build that in, that gives us room for hope on what regeneron is working on, what gilead is working on and this elusive malaria drug by teva which is being ignored or slighted by the public health care professionals who are working so hard and have to do so much. but we would like to know definitively is this fools gold or should we all be getting these malaria pills? it's out there either put it to rest or say this is what certain countries did to get over it it's too in the air for people to think -- i don't want people to feel we have to stop social distancing, but there will be a trade off at a certain time. at a certain point we'll have to say bite the bullet, stop flattening the curve so much and make it so the social fabric is

not destroyed here >> we'll see you in a few minutes. andrew, over to you. >> thank you we've been talking to dr. scott gottlieb about that malaria pill which i've been raising for guests for the past week, maybe a little longer now. so many of them seem so skeptical of it, you can go online and talk to people who have been using it in south korea. lots of questions. that's a good one to try to get to the bottom of a few stocks could thrive, if you have some optimism right now, in the new stay-at-home economy. many parts of america facing this dan niles is a partner at alpha one capital partners last time we saw you, dan, i believe when you were on the air in january, at the beginning this whole thing, you were shorting apple, if i remember

and hedging your position in disney that looks like the trades of the moment >> andrew, you have a much better memory than i do, i think. yeah when we were on the day that apple reported, we said we are thinking about shorting apple. we had actually already hedged out our disney because i was worried about the theme parks closing down especially in china. on february 17th we put out a tweet saying 50% of our assets were short apple, the suppliers. you know, when you combine a market that's trading at, you know, the highest valuation since the tech bubble when i look at it on a market cap to gdp basis and you look at the fact that people are ignoring something that's going on in china, you are sort of setting yourself up for a big disappointment so that's what we tried to get in front of. >> dan, we're running a banner

on the screen now that says dan niles, no s&p bottom yet you talked to our team, that was your perspective as of last night. has that changed this morning? >> no, it really hasn't. my view -- if you go back, i'm sort of a student of history if you go back and you look at whether it's the global financial crisis or the tech bubble, you had a lot of rallies that sucked people in and caused damage during the financial crisis, you had 11 rallies of the s&p that were 10% each. the problem was you had 12 declines of 15%. going back to the tech bubble, same thing the way i'm playing the market, we tweeted about this as well, we're looking to sell rallies, short rallies, and then sort of cover and buy on oversold conditions again, going back to valuations, right, my view is right now the main thing you have to do is you have to manage risk. a lot of people are not doing

that that market cap to gdp number has come down from 1.5, but it's still at 1.1 and the average since 1970 is 0.8. so that's quite a bit lower from here we all know earnings estimates are going lower. for me, do i think the market can gain 5%, 10% in the short-term sure not a big issue. we have seen that happen in a day before my view on that, you go ahead and you sell, until you have found a bottom and i believe this virus is going to be probably worse here than people think. >> if you're a long-term investor with hopefully a five or ten-year horizon, are these -- are these as -- as bill ackman said, he thought hell was coming but also thought this was once in a generation opportunity. >> you know, that's a great question this is the way i would put it to you in declines, the thing you want to do is preserve capital. so, you know, if you're down

let's say 10% in your portfolio, you only have to be up 11% to get to even. if you're down 30%, you have to be up 43% to get to even if you're down 50, you have to be up 100% the last two recessions we had the declines were 50%. so, i think right now, yeah, you're going to have a once in a generation type of opportunity we have not even seen the beginning of all the bankruptcy filings that will start. there's a reason the biggest companies in the world are hitting their credit lines those will get bailed out. but the people on main street with all the small and medium businesses, they can't survive a two-week shutdown if there's no revenues coming in they still have rent and mortgages. that's where the real damage will be done in the u.s. economy, 70% is driven by the consumer i don't think we're close.

will we get a rally of 5%, 10% sure that doesn't surprise me in the least. that's what you've seen during all the other recessions we've had. i think you want to be focused on managing risk and staying solvent. that way you can participate in the upside i think it's way too early to think this is the bottom with valuations that are still 20%, 30% above the average. we're not even talking the low >> is there any safe or better than safe place to put your money besides cash obviously we had a conversation with ray dalio yesterday i think cash will ultimately be devalued, too. >> yeah. there's certain areas. we're a hedge fund, so we have shorts we try to match up against longs. you brought up how we were shorting apple early on. the areas we're looking at are the ones that benefit. i have two teenage sons, 19 years old. they like playing video games. the video game stocks, i think

even when we were on your program back in late january, we talked about some of those being good places to be. you know, the activisions of the world, zyngas, tencent, we own amazon because you can't go to the store to buy stuff if you try, it's out of stock. we own them as well. some of the stocks related to staying at home and working. so there's a name called ring central that we brought eventually they make it so that if somebody is calling you at work, it will ring on your phone at home and they won't know it's ringing to your phone at home so you can get your work calls off your work number and home number that stock got hit hard. people always mention zoom, but zoom trades at 50 times to sales. we own a little bit of that, too. ring trades at 15 times. there are some spots but you need to be hedged even if you are long >> we want to check -- thank

you, dan before we go, we want to check the futures very quickly i don't know whether -- responding to some of dan's analysis there, which didn't sound good but we're up about 171 points. we'll be back next week. thanks good to see you guys >> have a good weekend, everybody. stay safe out there. >> you, too. good friday morning. i'm carl quintanilla with jim cramer and david faber coming to you live from separate locations. stocks are trying for the first back-to-back gains in about six weeks. futures are up, though well off the overnight highs. as we see more historic fed buying, a gop relief package, huge mitigation efforts in california today and a second day of no new reported cases in china.