weeks. not far from session highs if the surge holds it will no longer be the worst week since 2008. >> yeah. it's pretty amazing because it has been another wild week on wall street as you mentioned the dow is up 394 points right now or 1.9%. s&p up 1.7%, 2449 the level there and the nasdaq is the big outperformer up 2.8% in terms of what's leading the gains a lot of the same names and sectors that have actually been the hardest beaten on a week to date basis as well energy, consumer discretionary and things like the airlines which are leading the dow. transports up 4.7% right now meantime we have some more breaking news and for that we go it steve liesman steve? >> another major step by the federal reserve. the federal reserve now including short-term municipal bonds in its money market fund and will lend, this is for the first time, never did this during the financial crisis,

against short-term municipal bonds. banks buy them from money market funds and then can get loans aga against them at the federal reserve, to address strain in another market, $3.8 trillion market for state and local government bonds and airport bonds, all kinds of stuff in there. only a part of that is eligible for financing at the fed these are assets that were held by money markets and money markets have been shedding assets in part because they've had draw downs from corporate borrowers andenutional borrowers seeking to raise cash. part of the seizing up of the financial system, the fed trying to come in and almost every hour appears as a new program to liquify markets. this now another historic step by the fed one of the first ones i've seen so far where they are not simply repeating what they did last time, but adding 12-month and shorter highly rated municipal

bonds to the money market liquidity fund and i'm sorry, guys, i don't think they're done yet. >> it would be surprising if they were. steve, at this point we would like them to be, but as you said, unlikely thank you. steve liesman. jeff motor and bruce brittle to talk about the markets we're seeing and the measures from the fed. this short-term muni move, there's a narrative out there, bruce, that, you know, that don't fight the feds has been a saying for decades but this is when it becomes potent what do you think? >> we've never had a market like this that's fall son fast and quickly and steep and we've never had an environment where the economy just plain stopped like in 2008, certainly there was a financial crisis, but with the banks and mortgages, but this is something different. this is where the economy virtually stopped.

and so what the administration and the federal reserve board is trying to do is throw everything they can at this to prevent this from turning into a total disaster and by that i mean, once the virus passes, the most important thing is going to be are those jobs going to still be there? in other words, is demand going to be there. that's why we're seeing instances where they're going to be throwing thousand dollar checks at individuals, supporting small businesses and medium sized businesses, all for the purpose of once the virus passes, that those businesses become vibrant again because the demand will be there that's what's happening here so far we've had two days now where we've seen green prices at the end. now we were in a waterfall decline. waterfall decline basically is one that is typically rare, but it lasts typically 27 days,

they're interrupted by strong, sensational one-day rallies, but they typically go the full length, in other words 27 days, and they're over once that happens, you go into a bottoming phase. that takes several weeks or months, where the bottom is tested sometimes like in 1962, '87 and in 2001 and 2003, the tests went and we had lower lows. that's the bottoming process i think that's the next step to the markets. hopefully the past two days could be a beginning of that >> interesting jeff, how much of those historical playbooks are efficient now, given the uniques aspektz of this particular crisis and when you look at treasury and the white house, the hill, the fed, and the private sector trying to make bonus payments to their own employees, are you increasingly

confident or not that this band-aid will stick? >> you certainly have to use history as a guide, carl, even though all waterfalls happen for different reasons. but we are all human beings and understand stress we will reduce risks to historically certain levels and bruce is right on all of that data i'm -- 1987 is a fairly good representation of what transpired certainly that was a shorter period of time, waterfall, markets did retest back again in december, but stabilized and moved forward. there was not an economic recession after 1987 we may be in up with or getting to one now, potentially. but our base case remains a v-bottom, although the left side of the v may be steeper than we originally thought based on the measures we're taking in this country to combat the spread we still believe that right side

and bruce is right, we have to make sure government has to make sure that demand is there on the other side an analogy is a musical chairs where you've sort of taken -- you stopped the music for a while and make sure when you start the music again, there are enough chairs that people know where to go back to and those companies are viable for people to return to our economic engine i think that the fed taking the steps today, we had a committee meeting yesterday talking about the dislocations taking place in the fixed income markets the fed stepping in there as sort of a buyer or a lender of last resort or allowing banks to lend against these, all these things are important steps and i agree they are not done because they have to make sure that markets function properly and if we can get through this, right, with he know this will eventually end are we going to be during the valley, can we keep people in place? can we keep checks in their

hands to help us get through that i think the other side will be robust i think it will be a snapback, but we have to make it to that other end. once the market can see to that other side of the valley, it will rally long before we read the headlines that things are better >> bruce, jeff was talking about a v bottom and i wonder how much that's a checkmark, how much is a v, and really if we're going to talk about a v bottom it seems maybe we ought to think about what are the sacrifices that might be required of taxpayers, both individuals and businesses, based on all of this spending on fiscal aid and stimulus that we're talking about as well and how does that factor in to how equities might be likely to behave in the months and years ahead >> yeah. well that's part of the equation we don't know what the variables are when throwing money at all these various places

now, what i believe is going to happen here, i'm not so sure we're going to have a v bottom that would be rare in a market like this, but i do think the fact that market has gone down so quickly and so abruptly and so deep, that we won't have a v bottom, but we'll have a bottom that's much shorter than previous episodes like this. instead of waiting for four or six months to find aed good bottom and start to rebound, it may only take two months that would be a big help now, my guess is the fed is not finished here. we have a lot more work to do. i would mot be surprised if the fed announced, along with perhaps congress, that they will begin buying corporate bonds they've never done that before that might be the final move now we only get a good example next week of how the market reacts to economic dues.

next thursday we're going to get the jobless claims report and it might be a real shocker of over 2 million and how the market reacts to that may tell us how fast this recovery is going to be if the market absorbs that pretty easily, then i think maybe the market -- most of the bad news was built in. we'll have to see. >> when talking about jobless claims going into the millions, you're talking about historic jump on a week-to-week basis jeff, in light of this entire conversation we're having right now, how are you guiding clients? what should their investment strategy be? >> so morgan, we are taking advantage of this dip, of this draw down, of this waterfall by having clients upgrade their portfolios we are actually -- we've been reducing exposure to international investments and putting more money into u.s. large cap names. i believe not only their ability to historically defend better in down turns but also our

government's ability both at the federal reserve and at the fiscal side to have more arrows in our quiver also makes us not only safer on the downside but perhaps even better equipped to restart the engine on the upside we are advising clients to take advantage if they can to the dislocations happening in fixed income markets as sellers are ubiquitous, buyers are scarce. to be a buyer in that environment, to pick up on these dislocations we're trying to have our investors lean in to some of the dislocations and fixed income markets thinking that they are for the most part temporary. never comfortable but temporary. we're trying to take advantage of this. do what great portfolio managers do, upgrade your portfolio into stocks which you could not afford before this and also take advantage of dislocations in particular markets that's what we're advising clients to do.

we remain neutrally positioned from an asset allocation. >> that's really good, very specific information from both of you and we are grateful jeff and bruce, we'll talk to you soon thanks and now we are going to resume our conversation with ceo and shark tank investor robert herjavec. >> thank you for having me interesting day yesterday and today. >> yes, indeed we are living in interesting times it seems every day, particularly this week we were talking about cyber security and robert, i can tell you last night, i got a text message from my 81-year-old dad saying that apple support had appeared to e-mail him saying that his account was locked so they wanted him to ver iffy his identity i said dad, sounds like you might be getting phished and

hackers trying to get to you because his account wasn't locked phishing is a concern right now, isn't it it's not all coronavirus related. people are feeling insecure, they want to have access to their technology, and there are people trying to take advantage, right? >> it's unprecedented times. we're seeings the rise of phishing like no time and people are susceptible. people are working at home especially older people or people that are on their own and they just want any level of contact and so an example of your dad, people's first concern is, wow, someone is reaching out to me. they want to be engaged. it's an interesting time and, you know, like we were saying yesterday, in the last five days, the growth of global internet traffic is up 30% that is an unprecedented statistic in the history of humankind. more people are moving to on-line work at once than at any other time and there is no

company that was prepared to have every worker work from home people have plans and they have contingencies, but nobody expected every worker. and then the final challenge that we're seeing out of all of this, is people normally when you work from home, they give you a laptop or some type of a device they can harden but what we're seeing now here in the united states is that the government is stepping in and taking laptop orders from large enterprises because they need them for the first responders. so people are now being forced to log in from insecure devices they may have at home and we're actually seeing companies ask their workers to work in shifts so that they don't all log on at the same time. >> wow yeah, that certainly is a

concern. i want to point out my dad did not click the link he texted me to check. he was certainly savvy there you are also very connected as we all know to small business through shark tank you've made a number of those investments. i want to ask you about this proposal that is moving through the senate, we expect it to, to give these loans to small businesses with 500 or fewer employees that would then be forgiven after four months if the firms don't lay anyone off the cost our eamon javers reported between $700 billion and a trillion dollars potentially but saving a lot of jobs what's your reaction to that proposal is it big enough do you think it will be effective? >> my first thought on it is i really applauds the government for moving so quickly, even if we compare this to 2008, the speed as to which the government is moving is unbelievably quick.

but the problem is i don't know if it's going to work. the rate of business cessation is immediate i have friends and i have companies that can't make payroll friday there are very, very few companies that can operate on zero revenue certain sectors of the economy have not gone down 20% or 10%. they've gone to zero and people cannot survive on zero my fear with these programs is, that we're saying to people, look, once you swim across the river it's going to be good on the other side but i fear the companies are drowning every single day and many of these companies are not going to come back give me a loan, assumes i'm going to be alive figuratively in order to use it

i think what we should be looking at is forgiving things like business taxes, forgiving things like rent if if a small business i need an answer right now and that's what i worry about. we're seeing businesses lay off and closures that aren't being reported at the level in the media right now. it's massive entire industries are shutting down >> yeah. and certainly i know one of the conversations we've been having on the air since yesterday is how that's going to roll out in data with jobless claims starting next week with a number of people including one of our last guests, you know, expecting to see those numbers jump into the millions just on a week-to-week basis >> i can tell you, i can tell you firsthand just from the circle of business owners i know, the layoffs are huge and vast i think we're going to see jobless claims spike at a rate

we've never seen in history. >> wow so in terms of the companies that you are invested in right now, it sounds like you're having these exact types of conversations with them. how are you counseling them? how you advising them? when it is really not just a week-to-week basis but day-to-day basis in the situation? >> that's funny you say that we were on a call this morning and people asked me what my long-term plan is and i said my long-term plan is one week my daily plan is every ta and long-term plan is one week we're telling our companies and what we're telling small businesses is, you've got to keep going anything that allows you to survive you need to do right thou one of your panelists a couple days ago said hell is coming, and we think hell is here. when going through hell you have to keep going. right now, the mandate for every

small base usiness is survival. not all sects are dying, some are growing, but for most businesses right now you have to make the really tough decisions that allow you to survive until tomorrow it's one day at a time cut back costs, make sure the business survives. because if the business doesn't survive, there is nothing to bring employees back to. there's nothing to have customers with i think it's really a really unbelievably difficult time. what we're telling people is, this isn't going to be done in a week or two. make sure you're prepareded that this is going to be a month, two months, three months potentially. >> robert, as you're talking, the last few days, we've seen estimates on q2 growth go down minus 5, minus 3, in some cases and then b of a went minus 12,

jpmorgan minus 12. goldman is talking minus 24 in q2 and they see a 9% peak in the unemployment rate in coming quarters you have to -- you look at the report and you just -- you have to open your eyes wider to make sure you're reading it right i mean you have -- we have to be braced it's like being in a car, you know it's going to have impact and you hope the airbag works. the market has to get unnerved to some of that, doesn't it? >> it does i hate to say it, but i think some of those numbers are conservative i think what turns this around from a market perspective is, when we start getting immune to the bad news you know, there's a reality if i'm running a business i have to survive, but from a market perspective and an investment perspective, we're going to get to that point and we may be there where there's so much bad news every morning, that after a while you just become immune to

it the system is not going to cloo completely break this is going to end one day and it's to the going to be an immediate spike but the world will come back we know what caused it and what will fix this. those left standing will grow and the economy will come back it's just how many companies will cross that bridge until then >> robert, thank you we hope to talk to you soon. let's get to sue herera with breaking news. >> thank you very much, carl here's what's going on governor cuomo, the new york governor, holding his daily briefing and has just made a big change in the number of people who can go to work the governor is now saying 100% of nonessential personnel need to stay home he is not using the word lockdown, but as we look at the steps that he is laying out,

that's a live picture of his news conference at this point, only essential personnel will be allowed to go to work. that is going to have a huge ripple effect on the transit situation and also, of course, on the social distancing the governor has been very aggressive there has been pushback from him to the new york city mayor, bill de blasio who warned of a possible lockdown and the governor said that's not going to happen. but this is a big step, 100% of nonessential personnel have to stay home. that's the latest, carl, from new york and we'll have an update for you on the latest coronavirus numbers in a short while. >> and sue, it does sort of echo what we heard from california calling it safer at home all of these government officials trying to find the best ways they can to frame the policy but governor newsom, mayor garcetti for l.a. county,

and the mayor's words yesterday was a moment where everything changed. it does certainly feel like we're getting that mood out of new york today. >> i think this is a time when words, carl, matter very much and the language that is used by government officials, whether it's city, state or national matter very much they are trying not to panic people at the same time, they're trying to get as many people out of the workforce as possible so the language that's being used by the various officials, whether it's in california, as you mentioned, they have a different framing for it, in new york, the governor is just saying if you're not essential you stay home. it's 100%. but he avoided giving it any sort of a title. we're going to monitor the rest of his news conference and then we expect the mayor of new york city to have a news conference and we're monitoring basically all of the breaking developments across the country as various state and city officials hold their briefings.

we'll get that as soon as we can. >> sue, title or no, the s&p just turned negative on that news >> yep. >> to give viewers, again, a sense of context, new york, new york state, and the area around new york city, very important part of that is a virus hot spot right now. there's been a lot of concern that social distancing happened in the area like this just as much as in the san francisco bay area, and the seattle area, which have also been areas of high concern we were just talking to robert who was giving a very sobering account of what he's hearing from small business about the impacts here this is going to make it just even more difficult for them to make tough decisions how to keep praigt it seems. we don't have sue herera but -- >> jon, i am here. i was just --

>> we were just having -- >> i am here i was looking up at the governor's -- the -- he's calling it pause provisions. i don't know if we have that live shot up, but there are a number of different things that you can see that he is putting in place and now he's talking about how he is going to enforce those provisions and as you were mentioning, jon, this is extremely important because new york city and the capital that is generated in new york city alone, is going to be basically sucked out of that economy. that's the secondary worry i think for the markets certainly is you now have all of the large cities like l.a. and san francisco, like new york, possibly chicago that are not only money centers but commerce centers and they generate an enormous amount of money for the economy and now that is being pulled back. that's what the market is worried about and frankly i think it's probably what the fed is worried about as well

the fed came in and did the aggressive municipal bond action we're at this inflection point i think where the market is watching the larger cities around the country basically kind of slowly being shut down and that has huge capital ramifications. >> yeah. it's really important, sue, an when talking about some of the states we're talking about states that don't necessarily -- i think of new york as an example -- don't necessarily have the best fiscal situation to begin with facing budget shortfalls and the like before this happened. really basic question but one that i think is really important when you talk about essential workers, i'm assuming that's things like first responders, health care workers, but what about store employees an the like >> he mentioned the fact that it is only essential personnel we defined as those who are on the front lines. i'm reading some of his headlines. those on the front lines and also essential personnel to

staff things like a walmart or a target or a supermarket which they're curtailing the hours certainly of many of those stores in many states bs but they still need people to stock the shelves and make sure that, you know, you can go in and get what you need. nonessential personnel, basically i think means people who are not on the front line in terms of health care workers, testers, people who are working to kind of navigate the health care system and those who are working in things like grocery stores and big box stores that need to restock the shelves so people can get what they need. we're going to get more clarity on that as he continues. >> yes the press conference, sue, does continue it does exclude according to the headlines services like grocery stores and pharmacies are excluded the idea of what a first responder is in the country has changed. >> yeah. >> it's amazing to watch

market reaction has been negative although we're not near the lows of the session, down 214 on the dow we will take a quick break lot more "squawk alley" continues in a men driverless cars, 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. but when allergies attack,f any the excitement fades.ion allegra helps you say yes with the fastest non-drowsy allergy relief and turning a half hearted yes, into an all in yes. allegra. live your life, not your allergies. wewithout the planet cooler getting warmer. at emerson, when issues become inspiration, creating a better world isn't just a result, it's a responsibility. emerson. consider it solved.

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touchdown! comcast business goes beyond with the extraordinary speed, reliability and security your business needs. call today. comcast business. beyond fast. welcome back the s&p just dipping negative moments ago. citi tech analyst jim is with us and brad mcmillon at commonwealth financial network good morning to you both the moves, the fluctuations we

are seeing in the major averages right now presumably these recent earlier gains now wiped out because of this news -- newser we're getting with governor cuomo in new york and 100% of new york state workforce is being told to stay home except essential services. what does that tell us about the market and what continues to move the market? >> well, i think the real thing here is the dog that's not barking. if this happened a week ago, new york being shut down, new york city, a major financial center being shut down, that would have hit markets a lot harder than it is right now now we're kind of flat we may be heading to the point where the markets have bad news priced in. >> it sounds like you're potentially calling a bottom here am i right >> i think we're getting close i'm not sure -- obviously more bad things can happen.

we can expect the case count to keep going up, but we've had a lot of bad things happen and i think we're getting to the point where the markets said okay, the world is coming to an end, what next >> i want to dig into that more, but jim, to get your take on where we're at in terms of tech right now, i think it's notable that there seems to be, based on your most recent research report, that a fundamental change in your outlook where this virus is concerned and that that's really governing what has been for you another round of eps cuts within your coverage universe, walk us through that and why you're now more concerned than just a couple weeks ago? >> sure. and the news today about, you know, the new york lockdown today is in harmony of what we've been experiencing here in california and to be honest, people have learned to adjust life they're still shopping they're learning to work from home the world has not come to the end. and the great thing about all of this is, technology is a sector

that is not going to be displaced, technology is a sector part of the solution and to directly answer your question, what we had thought earlier in the year like january and early february, is that the demand would be pushed out to the second half of the year, but what we've seen is the virus has spread and that's well known and demand is being destroyed. in essence being pushed out is no longer the case but actually going down we proactively reduced all of our sales and epps expectations and cash flow expectations and we expect many people to do this in the weeks ahead and we're also expecting many companies to pre-announce negative. importantly, we do not believe this is due to companies' poor performance or mismanagement of operation but directly attributable to the coronavirus, which will directly materially impact the technology supply chain. in the end the great thing about technology is, it is part of the solution to many of the world's

problems, such as children learning from home where my children today log in every day, do their homework and interact with schoolchildren and their teachers, it is changing life and technology as part of the solution it's going to be problematic near term as demand does slow, but long term technology we believe is the solution. >> brad, i want to build on the point you were making about the market taking the news in relative stride, although a couple hundred points off the session high couple points out of cuomo, one is, new york has tested 32,000 people, 10,000 in the last 24 hours. the other is that we are now testing in new york according to cuomo, per capita on a par with south korea and china. so i wonder if you believe the market is prepped for this denominator to go up and if so, how constructive that is

>> i think you're going to see the number of cases go up as we test more. the market is starting it realize we're just getting a handle on this and looking forward the question is not what has happened, what's going to happen and we have the measures in place that we know work you know, we have new york shut down we know that works because we've seen that in south korea we've seen that in china we have california locked down we know that works so, you know, we're probably at the end of the beginning purely from a pricing standpoint, if we look at valuations with interest rates where they are, valuations probably shouldn't shift that much it's all about earnings expectations do we really think that earnings are going to be down 30% now and forever? next quarter or two absolutely but is it really going to be that bad forever i don't think so i think the market is starting to get quantitative about it rather than just fearful >> jim, there are stories out that i'm seeing today about

demand for laptops in particular, just a couple years ago there was all of the chatter about the death of the pc. that certainly doesn't seem to be the case. at the same time a lot of the pc supply chain is just still in the process of getting on its feet after the supply shock when china was experiencing the impact of the coronavirus. what's your expectation around how that balances out those plants coming back on-line to supply the technology that we need over here and the demand for it here? does that end up being a benefit net to the technology industry and are there any still bumps in the road that you see to getting the full production? >> well, your observations are spot on. what we are seeing is a pull in of demand for things such as laptops and tablets. as lot of this is being driven by the lockdown that we've seen here in california, which is now

spreading to new york and other areas, and with the school closures, where children are required to log in each day, where they are required to submit homework each day and the remote learning i think many families are going to learn that not having a pc in your home or the death of the pc is greatly exaggerated. in fact, we've seen in situations where families do have a pc at home, they're making sure their children are balancing education time with some enjoyment time of playing some video games, not video games all day but reward them. we believe pcs will be stronger but the second half of the year people need to remember and don't forget there's going to be more challenging for the pc sector because last year companies and people were preparing for the windows expiration where they started to end the support for older versions of pcs.

so pcs right now is good what we're seeing is a draw down of the supply chain. you're seeing your big box retailers who sell pcs and your distributors and on-line vendors that they are working down their inventory to meet demand as you correctly stated, most of the pcs are built in asia and we are seeing that hong kong and parts of china are coming back on-line for manufacturing and we expect them to work multiple extended overtime and shifts and weekends to get supply chain back puts the death of the pc as you correctly said is far exaggerated and far overblown and many people today would love an extra pc in their home to get through these lockdown and remote education situations. >> yeah. i think it's very, very true jim and brad, thank you for joining us today and for your insights the news flow just keeps coming. we're moments away now from the white house task force briefing on the latest with the

coronavirus. in the meantime we want to bring you a virus update sue herera has that for us from hq. >> indeed i do, thank you very much and as we just mentioned minutes ago, a very dramatic announcement from new york state. governor andrew cuomo is ordering all of that state's workforce to stay home except people providing essential services >> we're going it to the ultimate step which is we're going to close the valve, all right. because the rate of increase in the number of cases portends a total overwhelming of our hospital system. so we're going to put out an executive order today. new york state on pause. >> and the virus is hitting home here at nbc and cnbc a member of our nbc family has died of complications from coronavirus. larry edworth was an auto

technician with nbc news with 25 years of service, he was 61 years old. he did have underlying health problems that made him particularly vulnerable to the virus. nbc news chairman andy lack paid tribute to him saying, quote, he was the guy you wanted by your side no matter where you were. and all of us at cnbc send our condolences to his family and colleagues you can get continuous updates on the coronavirus crisis at cnbc.com jon, i'll send it back to you. >> sad news, sue >> indeed. >> thank you now i want to bring in doctor on demand ceo hill ferguson back with us. telemed k telemedicine, sup an importach part of how we all continue to deal with this virus outbreak and doctor on demand is a pioneer on that, hill ferguson joining us on the newsline hill, good morning. >> good morning, jon >> now, it seems, hill, that

some at least temporary regulatory changes coming into effect that should make telemedicine more accessible to people, particularly on medicare what do you think the impact of that will be >> well the administration made some good moves here in the last few days top of mind really removing the barriers for 37 medicare beneficiaries to receive virtual care this allows our most vulnerable populations to more easily get treated in their home without going in to see a health care provider in person i think the next step there is really helping expedite the timelines for provider enrollment in medicare but that's been a really good move >> so practically speaking, hill, do you expect this to aid with the diagnosis of covid-19 itself do you expect the bigger impact to be shifting the load of cases

that are not coronavirus related into the home instead of into facilities and freeing up capacity to deal with this outbreak what >> i think it's both i think we've seen telehealth be very effective at triaging cases away from in person facilities we've got massive amount of consumer demand from the worried well people who might be sick but don't actually have covid-19 keeping them out of ers and physical facilities that actually need to be reserved for true cases of covid-19 we've also seen, you know, a real benefit in people just being able to get follow-up care especially with medicare being able to have that video conference with your existing primary care doctor without leaving your house is just a huge benefit for that population. >> hill, when we had you on a few days ago, you were talking

about the fact that you have seen these increases in traffic and demand for the services and use of the platform. how has that continued to grow in recent days the fact that we have this expansion of telehealth to medicare which could potentially open the door to tens of millions of more patients being able to access your services, what's your expectation in the coming weeks >> it's interesting, morgan. we've seen as i said to you a couple days ago, a huge surge in demand in the last couple weeks. one of the interesting things about that, we're seeing a demographic shift in our user base where traditionally our target user is a 40-year-old working mother that average demographic is shifting to become more male and become older so i think that is being driven by an influx of more mainstream consumers particularly among medicare populations coming on-line to seek telemedicine we're also seeing an impact from

the sheltering in place movements that many cities have been moving to in recent days. this is really forcing a lot of people to think hard about where they seek care and so last week we had maybe 35% of our cases being covid related, this week closer to 20%. >> wow hill ferguson, ceo of doctor on demand, telemedicine continuing to be such an important part of what we're all dealing with right now. thanks for being with us. >> thank you >> want to bring in sara eisen this morning, good morning, sara. >> good morning, carl and certainly consumer staples have held up relatively better than the overall market this month as americans rush out to the grocery stores and stock up on what they need, the basics and the food one company that could potentially stand to benefit is craft heinz. want to welcome miguel, his first cnbc interview since becoming ceo last year he is the ceo of kraft heinz

thank you for joining me. >> my pleasure, sara >> so kraft heinz has been a big market problem story for a long time, write downs, losses, double digit declines, lots of disappointments about the brand before this crisis had sales turned a corner now that americans are rushing to groceries? >> well, i think the most important thing is about right now is feeding america and i think that a lot has been said directly about the health care sector and how important it is for america, but not enough has been said about the food sector. these are the two absolutely vital sectors in the country right now. we need to have our factories. we need to have our distribution centers. we need to have our people in grocery, you know, with always putting the products on the

shelves. that is where our mind is, is really to work very hard to feed america. >> so give me a sense of what's open are your factories open? how do you make sure your workers can come in safely an get the food out >> okay. so we increased and improved our procedures in our factories from a hygiene standpoint and also from a distance standpoint being sure that we keep our employees safe we are seeing, of course, an increase in demand we are working, you know, in some of the factories in three shifts day and night and i have to say that our teams, you know, our factories and our distribution systems are incredibly proud and understanding the duty they have ahead of them. i was in davenport iowa.

i think this is crucial at this moment and understanding the sense of duty that we all have with society we are here to feed america. >> california's new shelter in place order does that make it difficult to source fresh ingredients? it's a $50 billion agriculture industry in that state alone >> yes, look, sara, it's one of the states that has particularities. what we are doing is trying or calling -- i'm calling governors personally and asking them to understand the difficulties we are leaving each one of the states and make them understand the need to keep the food sector open and running fast. we have been very agile.

we are beating productivity levels every day and i think that politicians, governors, mayors, even the president, can help a lot at this moment. >> so let's talk about your company for a moment there are reports that you had to draw down a $4 billion credit linep give us a sense of your balance sheet health right now and whether you're facing liquidity problems or if you're getting enough top line growth as people go to the grocery stores right now to make up for it >> look, our demand is strong and our cash flow and balance sheet is very strong as well we did that for precaution i think at these moments, precaution is very important and that was the reason why we did that >> what do you see happening to the economy here well, i think that it's very hard to predict where this is

all going to go. and i think it will depend on how long the supply lasts. we are a global company and we have business in other areas that have been facing this problem for a longer time, like china, or europe i am very pleased that in china our business is back to normal our people are working normally. all our factories are open the logistic problems that we faced at the beginning now are being all solved our teams are up optimistic in china. there's a sense of pride and optimism that the worst is behind them. and hopefully this happens soon in europe and u.s. as well i think that if the timing is really what will matter here >> yeah. well we're waiting for an update from the president any moment now, but the trend has been, miguel, that states and

municipalities are just closing down how can you guarantee there won't be food shortages in this country? >> again, you know, we need to talk and be in concert with governors, with mayors, for them to be sensitive to the difficulties that we can eventually face. i'll give you an example if we have curfews, if gas stations stop or close at night, we'll have difficulties to work in three shifts. so we will have difficulties to move products around it's very important that politician around the country understand the limitations that can eventually happen. we feed them on our side to be sure we don't have problems in supply i'm very optimistic. so far so good communication has happened we've been agile not only kraft heinz but the entire food sector and grocery

as well and we are absolutely committed to have -- to avoid empty shelves. and to feed america. >> give us a sense of what americans are actually buying? the story with kraft heinz was millennials don't bu >> well, i think that the long term is hard to predict but i can tell you that kraft mac and cheese has been popular. we are producing it in full. we sell everything that we produce. it's one of the northeast popular items. >> i'm sorry, we have to interrupt you because we have sbra breaking news. i'll send it back to carl. >> thank you very much we're awaiting briefing here

with the secretary pompeo. >> elements of the deal and the democrats are very much wanting something to happen and the republicans like wise are very much wanting something to happen i think it will. i spoke at lengths with mitch mcconnell. there's tremendous spirit to get something done we'll see what happens my conversation was very good with senator schumer i thank you all for joining us i'd like to begin by providing an update on what we're doing to minimize the impact of the chinese virus on our nation students they will not enforce standardize testing through elementary through high school for the current year they've been through a lot they've been going back and forth. schools open, schools not open it's been all standardized

testing. we're not going to be enforcing that i think you can let the people know i think a lot of the student will be extremely happy. some probably not. the ones that work hard, maybe not. we have waived interest on student loans. today secretary devos has directed to allow borrowers to suspend student loans and loan payments without penalty for the next 60 days if we need more we'll extend that period of time. borrowers should contact their lenders. we have given them strong instructions that's a big thing that will make a lot of students happy we have more to come when

student loans, more good news for the students we'll do that at a different time we're moving tax day out to july 15th >> people will have time and people will be able to get back to their lives we're getting rid of interest and penalties. if you have refunds or credits you'd like to claim you may still file you can file early if you are owed money by the irs. other than that, we're moving it all the way out to july 15th no interest, no penalties. your new date that will july 15th today our team will also provide an update on continuing effort to prevent the transmission of virus across america's borders

i watched what's been happening in california can governor newsome and governor cuomo with respect to every governor on that call, i think every governor, we had almost all of them, if not all of them and i would say that you could see for yourselves that the level of respect and decor working together was extraordinary it was nobody angry. nobody upset we're able to help them and that's what we're all about. we want to help. we're doing things a lot of people wouldn't be able to do. the relationship with governors and states is very extraordinary

especially under the circumstances where this just came upon us we're working with canada and mexico to prevent spread of the virus across new york very closely. you heard what we did yesterday with canada. secretary of state pompeo will be making a statement in a little while having to do with mexico a and the border. chad will be making a statement. it's in collaboration with our neighbors. it will protect the health of all three nations. it would badly deplete the health care resources needed for our people we are working very closely with mexi mexico, very very closely with canada

we're all working toward the same goals it's extremely concerned about the great public health consequences of mass uncontrolled cross border movement that would be mostly and eve beyond but mostly during this global pandemic. every week our border agents encounter thousands of unscreened, unvetted and unauthorized entries from dozens of countries and we've had this problem for decades, for decades. you know the story now it's with the national emergencies and all the other things we have declared that we can do something about it. during a global pandemic they threaten to create a perfect

storm that would spread the infection to our border agents, migrants and to the public at large. left unchecked this would cripple our immigration system, overwhelm our health care system and severely damage our national security we're not going to let that happen we have a lot of information and they'll be discussing that in a moment the tools that needs to prevent the transmission of the virus coming through both the northern and southern borders we're treating the borders equally. they're both being treated equally. a lot of people say thaiey're n treated equally.

they are we're working with mexico to implement new rules to suspend non-essential travel these new rules and procedures will not impede lawful trade and commerce further more mexico is taken action to secure our own southern border and suspend air travel from europe the actions we're taking together will save countless lives. at the conclusion of my remarks secretary azare, pomompeo, secretary wolf will be taking some questions with tony and debra who you've gotten to no well i think you'll find them of great interest we'll be providing amounts of detail over the coming days but

a lot will be provided right now if you'd like to find out about it there's been a week of resolute action, tremendous action. tremendous relationships have developed with people that didn't get along people didn't like each other are now working together maybe even in some cases learning about each other and liking each other. it's nice thing. i invoke the defense production act and last night we put it into gear. we move the national response coordination center to the highest level. it's been a grade one level, which is the highest level.provl businesses

in terms of getting the equipment they need so we're helping them it's a responsibility to have but we are helping the states a lot. that's why the governors have be been paid sick leave for workers at no cost to employers they get paid sick leave at no cost to employers. we're accelerating the use of new drug treatments. we're advancing legislation to give direct payments to hard working families we see the true greatness of the american character we're seeing that. a lot of people are talk about it we're at 141 countries from what they're telling me