cnbc's breaking news of the coronavirus pandemic continues now. >> good morning, welcome to "squawk box" on cnbc i'm becky quick along with andrew ross sorkin and joe kernen on the upside or the down side you see the limits capped. we often look at the etfs, they are indicated up over 5% yesterday was a down day for the markets. s&p and the dow were both down by about 3%. nasdaq hung in there s&p closed at the lowest level since december 2016. the dow at its lowest level since 2016 for the month of march, it is already down more than 8%. on track for the worse

performance of all time. we are looking at limit up with dow futures and the etf slightly more than that looking at the treasury market the yields have been all over the place. we've watched the 10-year go from .4% to 0.85%. andrew >> a huge lineup for you this morning, in about 30 minutes, new data from the china books about how ugly the hit to the first quarter may be at 7:15, we'll talk to the ceo of lab corp about the ramp up for testing. at 7:30, we'll talk about the hit to our economy with starwood capital. last time he was on, he was

bullish in the face of the bears. and at 8:00 a.m., the ceo of boeing, dave calhoun so many questions for him. at 8:30, joining a growing chore yus of voices. >> global cases have topped 38,000 including 300,000 in the united states. new york city with the biggest hotspot. 13,000 confirmed cases in the city new york state accounts for half of the confirmed cases in the united states. china says the lockdown in wuhan will end on april 8. cnbc is bringing you team coverage of the coronavirus

pandemic, reaction in the market and government's response. steve liesman will join us with the latest stimulus measures i'm still not convinced. we are still waiting for the s&p futures. first, we'll get to eamon javers on the latest to pass the stimulus bill in the senate. how late were people talking about this last night, do you know >> they went until well after 8:00 p.m said they will reconvene about 9:30 this morning. as democrats and republicans left, they both said they felt close to a deal. democrats were holding out for more constraints to the aid to companies. they want more oversight and not to be what they call a

slush fund that seems to be the last big sticking point they are reconvening at 9:00 in terms of the negotiations and conversations. well see whether they can pass that by tonight. in the meantime, we saw the president in a two-hour period of time really visibly struggling with the tension here between the damage to the economy of this shutdown and the health implications of reopening the country. the president suggesting medical professionals may be too strict here in terms of wanting to shut the country down >> if it were up to the doctors, they'll say let's shut down the entire world we are up to almost 150 countries. let's shut down the entire world. that will be wonderful let's keep it shut a couple of years. you can't do that. you can't do that with a country, especially number one

economy in the world, by far you can't do that. it causes bigger problems than the original >> so the question here is when will the president order the country to be reopened the president not giving any indication yesterday the 15th day of the 15-day suspension will be monday. the president not committing to that i texted with a senior official and asked if the president will reopen by the middle of april, this senior official said the president wants to do it sooner than that. the big unknown in all of this is what happens if the president gives that go order to restart the economy. of course, the economy wasn't shut down by the president, it was individual governors and business leaders the whole thing began with the nba suspending its season. will those leaders follow the president's lead or make their own calculation and decision

based on experts, and even liability if they reopen and somebody gets sick as a result so all of those considerations will be complicated. even if the president does say he wants the economy up and running again. >> eamon, to that point, i was reporting yesterday, spoke to officials in new york and california and general counsel of two fortune 10 companies. all of who want to get the economy started but are tremendously worried if the president does give the signal to go ahead, that they'll have to be the outliars and not do it those states, california and new york expected to be the most hard hit those general councils making the point if they were to bring their employees back and if people were to get sick and/or die, that the liability would be

free mendious. i think there will be a huge question mark about how this will take place and how quickly it will happen >> if the curve is getting bent, i think everybody will be on board. that is more than next monday. from what i'm hearing, from folks in new york and california i think you are talking about two or three weeks from now before you you are going to get the sign about which way the numbers are going. >> right think about the politics of this if the president does say it is okay to reopen the country, and leaders don't do it. you can imagine president trump will point to those figures and say that's reason the economy is tanking but the reason he'll say is because those leaders aren't

doing what i said. that will give the president a scapegoat going into reelection. he was planning on running on the strongest economy. he might have to end up running on the weakest economy since the great depression this is a looming concern is how do think run to reelection and having a scapegoat to point to is something tactically politically useful >> i'm watching different politicians appear and hearing from other business leaders in states that maybe aren't as affected and there are people saying that closing down everything -- and i'm not buying -- i need to be sold a lot harder on the idea of not continuing to try to bend that curve, it has been said anyone 70 or over should stay home.

other people young, they should have the option to go back to work this is something i'm hearing. i'm not saying i agree with it it is not just trump that is talking about it >> joe, i'm hearing -- >> go ahead, andrew. >> i'm hearing the same thing. business leaders want to get back to business the other question to ask and i also heard this yesterday was if, in fact, younger people -- if you decide you are going to quarantine people of a certain age. if you were to do that, people would go back to work if there were things like these n 95 masks, gloves and other supplies we don't even have those ready

for the health care industry for enough people to get back to work is still probably three, four, five weeks away. >> it is not just the masks and the gloves you also have to have testing. what they found over the last several days is that a symptomic people are not showing signs and people ages 20 to 50 are getting sicker than early research if you look at what's happening now, the a symptomatic spread and suntil you can find out who is walking around with this is

completely irresponsible >> if you've seen the latest news out of italy, talking about in terms, of a glummer ofhope that for the last two days, cases and deaths have started mod rating it is the same point in time that south korea, we are seeing it there even in italy, glimmers. and the image puts us 14 days behind that. also, eamon, we went back and forth on twitter with the 1% mortality. zero is what we want for a while, we were worried 3%, 4% once the hospital system got overwhelmed in a place like new york city, you will not be able to keep it at 1% or below.

>> i agree the problem here is fear of the unknown. for political leaders and business leaders, you can't plan if you don't know what you are planning for there is so much of this thing the other one i haven't heard the answer is whether or not you can be reinfected after you've had it and can recover if you are, that implies an increasing number over time who have recovered and are now able to go about their daily business those people can get back to work >> we don't know that. that's why one of the beauties of our great immune system, 4 million years of evolution has perfected this thing the other worry is about the fall, when it gets cold get,

there will be a second wave. hopefully, we'll know about the gilead drug or vaccine or testing. i get up and i'm afraid to look at my phone. for some reason, i guess the futures, i still don't know, andrew, if we have enough windmills in this bill >> i think you'll need more windmills. i hope you are going to stand firm >> i'm standing firm on the windmills. >> wait until you read the pelosi bill. >> such a great soap box i wish you would get on it for other issues >> i can only do other things. >> the only wind mill i care

about is keeping people safe let's get to the lies man. how are you, steve >> i'm doing well. great discussion, guys the fed is going to come in and buy aggressively again today i'm hearing some guarded optimism that credit markets could perform a little better as those markets could either loan or purchase munis. those are ramping up and there is some guarded optimism what everybody is waiting for is what you guys are talking about with eamon, congress to get its act together they are working on this main treatment pension program. it needs congress.

the bill could perform 400 billion. the fed could ramp up $4 or $5 billion. it is not supposed to pick the balance sheet. it can act as the agent of the fiscal side. let's do some high finance how do you take 425 and turn it to $5 billion. the fed will take a loan, hair cut that loan, the treasury assumes the first 10% of the losses now the other side of what the fed is doing here, which is the purchase of the market the fed said, it is going to with buy $125 trillion that gives us $625 billion worth

of purchases this week alone last week we totalled $320 billion. a comparison $6 $600 billion was qe2 over about seven months this is about two weeks. whatever is going on, the fed acting more aggressively and really further out the curve than it has has in the past and really stretching the boundaries here we'll see how that main street lending program is restructured. something the fed has never done before i don't think there is an analog for any central bank in history doing something like this. back to you. >> thank you we'll take a quick break a new report that says major u.s. airlines are drafting plans

of potential shut downs. we'll talk about the impact of the air lane's executive we'll talk to the ceo of boeing. check the tracking etfs right now. we are just above that in terms of percentage gains. one of those days where i don't like the limits. other days, i love them. it depends we'll be right back. when i lost my sight, my biggest fear was losing my independence. 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.

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welcome back airlines and boeing having a brutal month a new report saying major airlines are drafting plans for potential voluntary shutdown of virtually all flights in the united states. heading over to phil lebeau in chicago. >> many saying, wait, that's going a bit too far. i talked to a number of executives last night is that they are drawing up con continue si plans let's take a state like california, at some point, the governor could say, we don't want any flights coming in here, if that happens. then maybe the state of florida and others, contingency plans

are being drawn up but going too far to say we are ready and making plans to shut down that is not happening based on my conversations with executives and officials. we are talking about the airline stocks looking to get a pop higher requesting $50 billion higher. we'll see if that goes through the drop in airline passenger traffic is dramatic. we'll talk about whether or not the hand will be forced. the number of people going through tsa check points 454,000 is 18% of what it was on the same day last year basically, you've got 20% of the people flying last year are again, flying this year. you take a look at shares of boeing, this is a company that has net negative 28 in orders

this year. are they likely to get a positive number in march when they report those? maybe, maybe not a person to ask about that is dave calhoun you do not want to miss this interview at 8:00. we'll talk about the demand in the market for new aircrafts obviously the negotiation on capitol hill for a $60 billion bailout package and suppliers overall. looking forward to that interview. >> phil, before you go we talked about it earlier this week or last week. you don't know what day it is anymore. about the legal right of a state or governor to effectively say, no planes in and out of this state or not what does the law look like on

that front >> it comes down to this most airports are owned by municipalities or states take o'hare airport. if the mayor of chicago said, i don't want any planes coming in anymore. do they own the property at o'hare you bet they do. do the grants come with stipulations that they need to keep the airport open? yes. it becomes a legal question and would no doubt wind up in court. faa and trump administration that would say, we are the ones who control air place. it is not up to cities or municipalities whether or not they want an airplane to land. look at hawaii, they have said

they will have a 14-day quarantine for people flying in here that is essentially locking in the state. who is going to fly out to hawaii so that they can sit for 14 days in quarantine. that is a concern a lot of airlines have with that their hand will be forced. >> thank you, phil bringing in a veteran airline voice to join this conversation. former spirit airline ceo. also the cohost of airline confidents podcast with friend of the show mark kaplan. the big debate, dot airlines deserve. i don't know if that's the right

word >> great to be with you. i think money at this point does make sense for the industry. i'll tell you why. the industry has invested in its people and planes. with no revenue and in some cases, net revenue because more cancellations than bookings, the ability to keep people employed and sol vent is not there. the reason they are looking for grants and loans is to protect workers, to pay employees during the time where there is virtually no revenue we are looking at 75 to 80% reduction in bookings. without this, the industry would have to layoff people because they have to reduce costs

without revenue coming in. >> the airlines may have made a mistake given that it appears the politics is that they are asking for something different than what everybody else is getting. when you think that the grant has debt forgiveness if they had been categorized like everybody else, i don't think there would be a debate on this >> that's a fair point i think it is a timing issue it will take longer. the grant is in place to make that happen. specifically to protect workers and the industry has been open to any conditions around executive pay or no share buy

backs or things like that, that this money just goes to workers. the industry has already been talking about loans as well to fund operations during this time period the other thing that makes the industry different is the enormous multiplier effect of this industry. it drives the economy. an investment in transport in general is really an investment in getting the economy restarted. >> as you may know, i want to throw money at everything. i look at this as a natural disaster and everybody is a victim of the situation. the issue now is that the airlines is asking for a specific deal to them relative to every other deal in the

country. because of that, you have all sorts of people mostly on the left saying, you spent all this money on buy backs, you are being irresponsible. >> facts are facts since 2010, the industry has invested almost $100 billion back into the product. retired $90 million in debt. to talk about fiscal response in the industry is crazy when the industry has done a lot of good things >> do you believe taxpayers

should get warrants or something else do you think shareholders should be completely protected if the goal is to have planes in the air? this is why it is more complicated, if they are not a part of the larger program than everybody. >> i think the airlines are different because of that multiplier and the enormous responsibility that goes along with them as well. because of the way the airlines work and because they have people in every state across the country and buying product from american companies, not only the airlines but the equipment and all of that. >> and you'd bailout the sha

shareholders as well >> as you know, they've taken a huge hit i don't think the market will benefit the airlines because of the money from the government. stock investors will increase that multiple for the airlines, which is who investors want and producing positive cash flow again. i don't see airline equities increasing as a result of this >> delta is worth over $20 billion. it would be worth zero today if you didn't believe the government would step in zero >> they'd be worth zero except for the money they make through delta tech ops and their credit

card you are right. flying people today isn't a profitable business because people aren't flying the question is, what is the right thing to do to keep people alive until we are out of this curve and people are flying and working again. >> fair enough good to have you on today. >> thank you starting tomorrow, every commercial casino in the united states will be shut down the closure means thousands will be laid off. contessa brewer had a chance to speak to the company's ceo she has more with us >> good to see you matt maddox, the ceo of wynne resorts had experience there in

macao last month and what p think went through. he knew it was in his company's best financial interest to keep paying its workers even though they would have to shut down he was the first casino in the united states who said we have to shut our doors. and said all 15,000 employees will get paid. i asked him about that >> the idea that they've been told within a week, there is a pandemic and you have to stay home and you may be laid off that is unattainable i wanted to take that an decide et out of people we want to keep paying our

people even considering tips we consider paying our employees as an asset. we are investing in our culture. >> he believes that the tide will turn. china has a get back to work message going on now all his employees are back at work visitation is up to 10% of what it was before. there is a real feeling that the optimism is returning here >> so many businesses trying to think what do casinos have instead of people. those crappy chips but really, what do they have? the guy is doing the right thing? how is he paying to it >> that's a great question they are cutting costs they've asked all directors and

executives to exchange salary for stock. that means they are getting more stock than what they would have. he says government has to pitch in here. he's got a runway but he can't pay for his people forever he told me what he's lobbying for. >> i love to small to media business plan where if you use those funds to pay salaries, you will get a grant for large employers, we should be able to borrow money, once we are reopened, we should pay it back >> his big message here is that it pays to keep your workers on if it is short-term paying

it makes a lot of sense when you reopen >> like a viewer, i'm checking out your sour roundings there. i don't think i've seen it before very nice. >> if you can keep the kids away so their toys aren't everywhere, you can keep it nice >> it is weird that they are 18 and 20 no great to see you i like that story. the stupid card shoes, that's an asset? what do they have? it is the people >> that's right. when we come back, we'll take an early look at what an early recovery in china luke like you can watch us live any time

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on cnbc. gains have to be capped at 5% before the market officially starts trading same at the downside keeping an eye on what is happening with the etfs. gives you an indication of where the markets might actually open. right now. looking at some gains where the market was down by about 3%. >> looking at what is happening in washington, d.c. trying to figure out what to do in terms of response to the coronavirus new news out of china. the first quarter gdp plunging about 11%. for more than that, we'll welcome leeland miller, ceo of beige book international

good morning >> caller: good morning. >> what do you think, a drop of 11%. given how china clamped down in response to the coronavirus. >> caller: no. it shouldn't have been a surprise to anyone a few weeks ago, you had economists saying we are going to see positive growth for the quarter. it is a shock that things are this low it is not about first quarter weakness the chinese were going to acknowledge that to some extent because they shut down their economy. i don't think people were expecting double digit weakness. we are getting to a level we have never seen before every sector weaker, every region weaker. but in contraction we have never seen anything like this before.

>> you think this is telling of what we can anticipate here in the united states. is the shut down here not as drastic? >> that is to be seen. there is a potential we shut things how much longer in the united states. keep in mind, the shut down in the united states will be stradled between march and april. maybe you see two quarters hit less so. even if we have a wide shutdown, you are going to have these extremely negative numbers the question is not how much one quarter hit but how much can you recover. the problem with china's it is not really possible considering every one of its trading partners around the

world, most notably united states and europe, are shutting down they'll have a difficult time getting back up to growth with the broader context. >> you think if the rest of the world was doing okay, they'd be able to snam snap right back >> it would be easier to do that the government has made clear they are prioritizing growth much and trying to get on track for growth targets for 2020. those targets are not possible because no matter the doe hes ti domestic resilience china itself has, there isn't enough to fuel that recovery. understanding, yes, china will be recovering but recovering from a severe contraction. there is a very different out

c outcome. that will be an incentive for beijing to start juicing the numbers to look better >> how transparent are the numbers and how will you go about seeing what the real recovery is? >> caller: we've asked thousands and thousands of businesses. we are now putting out weekly updates on this and tracking it closely. we are asking firms, are you back to work we saw firms overwhelmingly go back to work in march but we are still seeing this get worse. i don't doubt there will be a pickup the second half of march,

april and may but the problem is, back to work doesn't mean back to growth -- >> meaning that people went back to work but there wasn't demand and no sales >> no demand but they are just turning the lights on and rolling the production machinery but not producing anything making the party look good as a result, there is a lot of mo motivation to look like they are back to producing. there will be a recovery there already is recovery in the chinese economy but that does not mean they are going to hit the growth targets they had before it will be very tough to walk away from the growth targets they have now. >> thank you

i'll send it over to you breaking news now from energy giant chevron we'll toss it to brian sullivan. >> breaking news on chevron. major spending cuts now. the company is cutting its capital spending by $4 billion from $20 billion down to $16 billion coming across all aspects. also suspending the $5 billion share back the first quarter is cut now speaking of cuts, there is no plans to cut the dividend, chevron making that very clear saying there is no plan to cut the dividend right now they do say the rapidly changing environment might have, quote, material impact on their

operating results for the year and they'll give investors upcoming guidance soon chevron cutting guidance by $4 billion. it will suspend its buyback. it will not cut the dividend, it does see production in texas falling as much as 20% this year that stock has had a rough go by as much as $55% this year. there is breaking news on chevron. we hope-to-get to more later little hope. coming up, we'll talk about the response to the pandemic and later economist will join us on his call to reopen the economy in a targeted way, here is what president trump said on

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massachusetts general hospital, mass. general, one of the premiere hospitals really in the entire world with its close proximity to all the great academic institutions around boston is sharing data now with hospitals in new york and italy in order to get a sense of where the u.s. is in terms of the kur. curve thank you for joining us you have some data anecdotal from mass. general on cases and

how people are doing and actually on some promising drugs, perhaps, from gilead. how's it going there for you, sir? >> yeah. so we do have a terrific modeling group within the hospital that is working closely with colleagues across our health system, mass. general brigham as well as harvard school of public health down in new york and also in italy and we're tracking our data very carefully to see how it compares to some of the curves in italy there were some parts of italy that were very hard hit and others that had milder experiences. and so we're trying to get a sense as quickly as we can as to where the boston experience is fitting. it's too soon to draw any immediate conclusions, but we're also, as you said, one of the places here in the united states that's doing the trial with rendecevir, the drug that was tried with ebola we hope it will help against this virus

we're participating in those trials >> multi-faceted response that we're trying to put together here globally, doctor. you mentioned 3d printers and surgical masks and you got a huge push on that. is that bearing fruit? >> it's too soon to know i believe we need to know the ingenuity of this country to save as many people as we can. we're evaluating a whole host of ideas that have come up within our organization and outside like making masks with 3d printers, using construction masks in the health care industry reusing supplies, personal protective equipment by sterilizing them, radiating them we have a team looking at a variety of these different innovations. we certainly hope some of them pan out. >> the latest -- it's not a

controversy, but we're having a discussion about the economy overall and the effects there and how long term that could have on the quality of life and actually people worry about -- if you're broke and poor and there's no economy whatsoever, they're worried that maybe we've taken this too far now recently, i don't know if you've seen, in italy the last two days there might be a glimmer of hope, and it's happening at the same time that it happened in south korea so is has italy finally gotten its act together in terms of social distancing and shutting down the country or does the virus play itself out after a certain amount of time >> it's really hard to know. you're right, the data from the last day or two in italy is somewhat encouraging whether that's due to their physical distancing or whether it's due to enough herd immunity

to slow the spread of this virus is uncertain unfortunately we don't have an antibody test. >> that would help. >> that would certainly help again, we're tracking our data the boston health care system is not overwhelmed but we're prepared for a large surge of patients and we'd be delighted if that didn't pan out >> i guess i was leading to the question that do we -- will we benefit by staying closed down basically the entire country for the next month, three months what do you -- when would you think that we could actually -- you know, the president is saying he'd rather re-open the economy sooner rather than later. what would sooner mean that wouldn't be crazy to re-open >> i don't think we know yet all hands on deck need to be focused on getting this virus

under control and dealing with this first wave, again, it's when we start seeing the peaks or the numbers going in the right direction, i think we can start considering when to decrease the physical distancing that is now happening, but i think it's way too soon to think about that and we just need to be focused on preparing for what lies ahead of us. >> doctor, hopefully we can use you as a resource as i said at the top. mass. general, having gone to school up there and everything else, it's really the cream -- it's the best we have in this country. we'd love to be able to come back and talk to you about this as things go on. >> thank you so much >> thanks. a lot more on "squawk" ahead. two very big hours we've got cnbc's special markets coverage as we continue here we have you covered from every angle. huge lineup of guests including chevron ceo michael wirth with

news then we have boeing ceo david calhoun. labcorp ceo is going to join us as well. tom friedman and michael novogratz. stay tuned. more markets coverage on the more markets coverage on the other side of this quick break . no matter what your goals are, our trusted advisors can help you reach them. ameriprise financial.

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futures pointing to a higher open after a stormy day on wall street a look at what you should be watching ahead of the opening bell also, no deal. congress continues to fight about a fiscal stimulus package. senator rob portman joins us with an update. plus, more u.s. states ordering lockdowns as the nation fights the coronavirus outbreak. we're going to hear from the ceo of labcorp which recently expanded its ability to perform 20,000 tests a day cnbc's breaking news coverage continues right now. good morning welcome back i'm joe kernen along with becky quick and andrew ross sorkin u.s. equity futures at this hour are locked up. up 965 we're taking a -- hopefully a look at the etfs as we do.

we do that a lot now because we're either on any given day locked up or locked down trying to get an indication of just how much is not being expressed because of the halt. 5.09% on the s&p the dow actually indicated up 4.77 nasdaq indicated up 5.25 becky? >> joe, thanks we have some breaking news out of the energy industry today chevron out with news in the last hour saying that it's going to be cutting its guidance for 2020 when it comes to capital expenditures it will be cutting it by 20%, from $20 billion down to $16 billion. it says it is going to be suspending its $5 billion share buy back but the dividend is safe at this point joining us is the chevron ceo michael wirth. our very own brian sullivan who covers the oil industry for us gentleman, welcome to both of you. michael, let's talk about the

news this morning. maybe not a huge shock given what we've seen happen to oil prices in the last month or so with oil prices at $24, what does that mean for you >> well, good morning, becky first of all, you know, our thoughts are certainly with those who have been affected by this virus and the health care workers on the front line that are combatting it. we announced changes this morning that really demonstrate the resilience with which we've positioned the company we come into this very, very strong we're taking actions to preserve cash it will have some impact on production in the near term, but we've stayed with our financial priorities, which include protecting the dividend, as you mentioned, and we've seen circumstances like this before we know what to do and we're doing it >> michael, i have to say that probably is the biggest news coming out of this, that the dividend is safe at this point if oil prices were to fall to $20 or below that, how much additional pressure would that

put on you the guidance that you're issuing right now, you're assuming oil will be what over the next year? >> we haven't put out an oil price forecast because that's a difficult thing to do in a time like this. it's an uncertain market which is why we've taken actions on the things we can't control. we can't control the health situation other than work with our employees. we can't control the oil prices. we can control our rate of spend. we can control things like share buyback. we had already embarked on a restructuring to become more efficient. we'll continue to focus on things our dividend is the number one priority it's very secure we haven't cut the dividend since 1934, and we come into this with a position that is stronger really than just about anybody in our sector and we intend to stay that way. >> brian >> reporter: mike, it's brian. good morning the big debate right now appears to be how severe the oil storage scenario is. there's a school of thought that

pretty much all the tanks, all the off shore ships pretty soon are going to be filled up. then we could have another severe drop of the price of oil. what are you hearing about inventory and storage levels and how severe is it out there right now? >> brian, i think you're tuned in to what is an important issue to be watching we already had seen inventory levels in the world were higher than typical now this dramatic decline in demand that accelerates as we see more of these economic shutdowns occurring not just here in the united states but also in other parts of the world which further slow economic activity and demand at the same time as we're about to see increased production come from saudi arabia, russia, and some other countries. so, look, it's a pretty simple lesson in markets. we're going to see demands down, supply up. the balance of that has to go into storage somewhere so it will go into tanks

it will go into ships. we've seen shipping rates go up as ships are often used as floating storage in a time like this and that's where the balance will go. we don't have infinite storage so i think it bears watching to see how this market responds as inventory levels go up around the world in all different types of products. and there's not one -- >> do you believe, mike, that -- sorry to jump in do you believe, mike, that the u.s. government needs to do something to try to get saudi arabia and russia back to the table to try to coordinate some kind of opec-led response? does there need to be even in this time where pretty much everybody's efforts are fighting one enemy, which we all know what that is, does there need to be a political response to try to coordinate something to end this global price war which really set off the oil price slide before the coronavirus scare? >> well, it is unfortunate that the oil price war has come in right on top of this global

pandemic i think both of the primary players on this, saudi arabia and russia, thought this through before they began the price war. i think it was not a rash decision i think it was a considered decision and i think we have to take them at their word, that they intend to see this through. in past periods of time like this, and we've seen this in the '80s, the '90s, earlier this decade, there have been in some instances efforts by leaders of the united states or other countries to intervene to try to approach the countries that had engaged in these kinds of actions and helped them see things in a different context. certainly political dialogue is always helpful, but i don't think we can count on it we're taking actions on the things that we can control we're preparing for a difficult market and as i said before, our company entered this in a position of strength we're taking actions to preserve that strength. >> hey, michael, let's talk

about capital expenditure. by cutting it by $4 billion, from $20 billion to $16 billion, what does that mean in terms of your existing work force and potentially any hiring you might have had planned for later in the year. >> well, becky, lower activity levels generally mean we've got less work to do and we'll need fewer people to do that work so this ripples into the service companies that support our activities, the contractors that we hire to do work, and it will have some impact, no doubt, within our own work force. earlier last year, actually, we had indicated a desire to approve returns, become more efficient. our geographic footprint has shifted and we've become more focused and concentrated with larger scale and have embarked on a restructuring program before any of this began that would create a more efficient operating footprint for us, and that means there will be some work force impact. as we see across so much of the

economy there are likely to be some implications for jobs. >> hey, mike, you made the point that, yeah, it's unfortunate that we have this pandemic at the same time that we have the price war. people have to decide what they do i'm not sure the price war is inevitable maybe it was maybe russia has its own domestic issue saudi arabia, opec as well but there's been conjecture that certain entities wanted to make it really tough for our producers here and our share producers and really put them out of business. who are you most -- who should we be most upset with? the russians they're not our friends, we already know that. the saudis, we've done a lot for the saudis i mean, should we look at saudi arabia with -- you know, with a more realistic view of what they're in this for? who are you upset with can you just speak to that >> look, it doesn't do me a lot

of good to become upset with anybody. these are large producers. they have complex interests, state-owned companies that are integrated into their economies. they have their own strategies which are not always purely based on market objectives because of the state-owned interests there and they're not even historically parties that have really collaborated what we've seen in recent years is somewhat unprecedented for saudi arabia and russia to coordinate here. so i don't think it should be a surprise to us that there has been some strain in this relationship, that people have seen things differently. and so, look, i don't have a lot of time to be angry with people. we've got to run our business and run it well, prepare it for an environment and a commodity business, we know these things can happen this is the fourth time in my career i've seen prices drop by more than 50% in a very short period of time we've been here before

we know what to do we're taking action to do it i'll let others deal with the blame. >> okay. maybe others need to deal with it, because in terms of geo political things that we do, we need to -- you know, we do have policies that we pursue with saudi arabia we do have policies we pursue with russia, and i'm just -- you know, i'm just wondering whether we act differently based on -- i mean, this was the worst time that they could have possibly have decided to engage in this i understand it's business, and business, a lot of time that takes precedence, but i just think we need to be realistic with the relationships we have with these countries and maybe act accordingly in the future. is that too much of a stretch? >> i'm a businessman you're getting into political issues, and i know our government is engaged in this and i know our government historically has been engaged in this and there are important state-to-state interests that extend from the u.s. to both

russia and saudi arabia, and channels for dialogue on those things look, we want to see a healthy energy industry globally we want to see all producers able to employ people, supply energy to the world reliably, affordably and compete, compete in a market that rewards the producers who are efficient. i think russia and saudi believe that they have pulled production back for the last several years, which has made room for lower -- less efficient, higher cost producers at the expense of more efficient producers and i think that may have frustrated them. so we'll see how that -- we'll see how that plays out and what steps the u.s. government chooses to take. >> reporter: you know, mike, there are probably a lot of families scared across texas for a lot of reasons, not the least of which the job scenario. we know many of these companies are unlikely to survive. i would imagine with your balance sheet and your cash that you would potentially look to go

on some kind of ashopping spre when this is over. is it likely that chevron will come in to these hard-hit areas when this is over and help pick up the pieces and do some deals and buy some companies because those employees right now are probably wondering in six months, one month, 12 months where they're going to work. >> right i think now isn't the time for me to speculate about things like that. we're certainly focused on making our way through here in the immediate term with a strong financial position, and i think that's what other companies are focused on as well there will be a day to see what changes this may lead to within the industry, industry struct e structure. we've certainly seen things in the past such as you refer to, and no doubt the day will come when that activity occurs. we're really focused right now on taking the immediate actions to preserve the strength we have and a balance sheet that's

stronger than any others in the industry to bring our break-even price down, further reduce our costs and ensure the health of our company for the long term. >> michael, want to thank you very much for joining us today again, michael wirth, the ceo of chevron. brian sullivan, thank you as well guys, want to bring you some news right now there's something that's just crossing according to the nhk wires. japan's prime minister abe is prepared to propose a one-year olympics delay this is nhk citing it on the wires. this is something widely speculated about, whether the olympics would be able to go forthcoming up this summer right now the japanese prime minister looks like will be proposing a one-week delay this is something a week ago thomas bach was saying, we're not going to discuss this. three days ago he was saying, obviously we need to consider this we will continue to watch this that's the news we have right

now. >> they're going to decide by april. i thought looks like earlier than that. >> i believe the final decision is going to be made mid april. i think the last chance they have is around april 20th, april 24th, three months before the olympics to be able to really shut things down, postpone it if they need to of course, so many athletes around the country and around the world asking for it to be delayed because so many of them are out there still training and worried about social distancing and risking themselves in the midst of all of this. we have a lot more coming up on "squawk box." coming up, an update on coronavirus testing. ceo of labcorp will join us. how many more tests the united states ultimately needs. a programming note for you house speaker nancy pelosi is going to speak to cnbc at 9:30 a.m. eastern time this morning before we head to a break,

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welcome back if you're just waking up, the 10-year treasury note is now at .8% that's not the story today the equity markets are rebounding on i guess the hope for congress doing something we'll keep you updated on that plus, this is also being cited, some potentially promising news out of italy this morning. the deaths in that country fell for a second day one hard-hit region near milan posted a decrease in the number of people being hospitalized for the virus. we're watching the various places in the world like italy and now spain and the rest of europe to watch the progression of the disease to try to figure out what to do here, andrew. >> okay. thanks, joe. meantime, labcorp ramping up

testing capacity for covid-19. that company announcing it has the ability now to perform 20,000 tests per day joining us right now on the phone to talk about it is labcorp ceo adam schefter. good morning, adam thank you for joining us we're having a big conversation about testing, the key and importance of testing. you guys are at 20,000 a day the question is, what do we need what's the actual number of tests that we are ultimately going to need? how quickly do you think they will be made available >> yes, good morning, andrew, becky, joe i want to thank my colleagues at labcorp every day to increase our capacity and working relentlessly we're working on bringing this unprecedented pandemic under control. let me bring you some numbers. we launched our test 2 1/2 weeks ago. as of this morning we've reported results for over

100,000 people if you look at the next week, we'll be able to do more than 100,000 in a week. we can do 20,000 or more in a day. by the end of today we'll have more capacity than that. it's not just about labcorp. when you think about the other regional local labs, hospital centers, state labs, everybody is increasing capacity the capacity this week is significantly more than last week and next week will be significantly more than this week right now we continue to do the pcr testing but in the future there will be point of care testing we can do in hospitals there will be blood testing to help us understand the epidemiology of the disease and so forth i think the capacity building continues. it's impossible to know the exact number that we need. we'll all build as much capacity as we can. >> adam though, but in terms of the speed and scale of all of this, one of the things the president has been talking about

within the past 24 hours is trying to get people, at least some people back to work as quickly as possible, possibly even next week i would imagine that would, therefore, require lots of testing, at least that's what health experts are saying. you need to get to a point where there's enough testing out there if yur if younger people are no longer going to be social distancing the way they are now what's a realistic time line to have enough tests for a big portion of the u.s., at least the younger generation, if this is the direction we're going to be able to be tested >> the first thing i say is i believe social distancing has to continue and washing hands and other things that the cdc has recommended should continue under all circumstances. i believe that the capacity that we have for testing is going to increase very significantly over the next several weeks to months but in addition to that, i

believe that serum tests will become more and more important to understand who has had the disease or the virus in the past >> adam -- >> joe >> yeah, thanks. something that is really a factor here is the -- how many people are in hospitals and the amount of medical personnel that we have, the amount of equipment we have. so a person takes a test, it really looks like they might have it. if you don't know for a matter of days whether they have it or not, i'm told that the medical people around that person in the hospital have to use all that equipment, all of the gowns, all of the masks, they have to pretend or assume the person actually has it so that's not being used for other -- and then only 10% have it so they've wasted three or four days of treating the person as if he had coronavirus. i mean, time is of the essence here, is it not? we need a test that comes back in hours >> so, two things. one is, there are tests that

will be made available that will work quickly the pcr point of care test that should be launched in the not too distant future, we can actually run those tests in certain hospitals. in addition to that, i don't know if you've heard about the prioritization that's been asked for. we've been asked to prioritize and we're doing everything we can this week to figure out how can we ensure that we prioritize those people in hospitals first for all the reasons that you just mentioned we will have a solution for that and be able to turn around the hospital in patients faster as we move forward. >> hey, adam another question yesterday we had the roche ceo on. he told us it will be weeks if not months before anybody who wants to get a test can get tested does that sound right to you >> so the bottom line is as we increase capacity, it depends on how many people are going to need the test. some people are going to need

the pcr tests, the ones we can run in a few days. in addition to that, i believe that serum tests will be available in the not too distant futu future those tests will help us understand who has had the disease and those will be helpful. you can run them faster and do more of those quicker. >> adam, you keep saying that this is all coming soon, and i think people want to get a real sort of time line of what soon really looks like, especially given that the president is now talking about revisiting or revising the idea of social distancing starting as early as next week, which i know it sounds like you don't believe is the best course. nonetheless, in terms of the time line which is what i think frankly every family wants to understand, what every business leader wants to understand, what every politician and investor wants to understand, what does the time line look like for you, specifically from a testing perspective. put aside the curve right now. >> two things i'd say.

first of all, what i said about social distancing is that under all circumstances, whether people go back to work in the next weeks or not, i think that's going to be important until we have the pandemic fully under control. second of all, the capacity fo testing is increasing significantly every single week. it's not just labcorp but all the other national laboratories, regional, national medical centers. i think that is going to substantially increase over the next several weeks >> but to the point of -- adam -- adam -- adam, put some numbers on it. do you think we will be a million tests, 2 million tests 3 million? are we going to have that type of capacity? >> well, like i said, labcorp can do 100,000 or more a week. by the end of this week we should be able to do more than that but then you have to add in all the other tests that are being done around the country, and it is significantly more than that. then when you start to think about serum tests, i think you can do hundreds of thousands of

those as well. in total we will have a very significant capability over the next several weeks >> and then final question for you, adam. what do you charge per test? >> so it's currently the medicare price that we charge for everybody, which is just over $51 >> fair enough adam, thank you for all the work that your company's doing and all we can say is we hope -- we hope you can even do it faster than you're doing it already thanks again. >> you're welcome. thanks for having me and we will continue doing everything within our capabilities >> thanks so much. becky, over to you >> andrew, thanks. still to come this morning, we'll be speaking with businessman and investor barry sternlicht, chair map and ceo of star dl starwood capital let's take a look at this morning's pre-market winners and

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good morning, everybody.

welcome back to "squawk box" on cnbc we're watching the futures this morning. sharply higher throughout the morning. we were limit up a short time ago, up by 5%. that's the most they can trade up or down before the start of trading. we're a little bit below that. up by 900 points you're seeing similar gains for the s&p 500 and nasdaq andrew >> okay. let's get over to phil lebeau. breaking news now on ford. phil, what's going on? >> reporter: this is ford announcing a couple of partn partnerships as they are trying to work on accelerating the manufacturing of products to help fight the covid-19 outbreak ford will be partnering with 3m on the manufacturing or increased manufacturing of n-95 respirators. ford is also going to be partnering withge health care in manufacturing ventilators exactly where those ventilators will be manufactured remains to be seen, but the two companies

all working together separately from that, ford is also testing and building facemasks or face shields, i should say, face shields in demand by the health care community. they're doing this in michigan this has been a rapid move by ford not only to work with 3m and ge health care but on their own to develop, build and ship take a look at shares of ford. announcement from the company just a few minutes ago chairman bill ford said the time for action and cooperation is now. it's critical not only for ford, 3m, ge to move as quickly as possible to fight the coronavirus outbreak also as you take a look, there's the three companies there. take a look at shares of ford, moving slightly higher pre-market ubs out with a note downgrading the stock to neutral saying the

company is in liquid preservation mode. that's why they've moved it from a buy down to neutral. guys, not surprised we see it with ford and 3m and ge. we'll see news from gn m as wel. a number of people in the auto industry taking to heart what the president saying, hey, we need to see what we can do to fight the coronavirus outbreak. >> hey, did they say anything, i know this is very early, phil, this is great news, how many masks they can put out, ventilators, how many people they put to work doing it? >> it's a little unclear, becky, how quickly they'll be able to ramp up the manufacturing and how quickly they'll be able to ship these out i think these are early days they're moving as quickly as possible it's one of the situations where if they've got the facilities and they've got the capability, they're putting people to work they're working with the uaw on

this in terms of numbers, in terms of how quickly we'll see the ventilators and n-95 facemasks delivered, i think that remains to be seen. >> great news. >> thank you, phil coming up next, we're going to talk to barry sternlicht again. last time he was on he was talking about getting through this some day, which we all hope for, but first before we talk to barry as we head to break, check out the biggest dow movers of the morning. stay tuned 'rcongig bk. i know that every single

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. welcome back to special cnbc coverage of the coronavirus pandemic and the global market turmoil. right now let's show you the boards things look up, up in a pretty big way. looks like people are expecting -- i don't know if they're expecting the aid today. we will see if that is the reason for it or perhaps president trump's comments yesterday that he wants to try to get the economy up and running more quickly meanwhile, let's show you the 10-year notoriety now. flip the board around so you can see what's going on here we are at .80 for now, flipping

between that .799 and .80. becky, over to you. >> andrew, thank you. joining us right now for his perspective on the impact of coronavirus, what it's been doing to the markets, real estate, tourism is barry sternlicht he is the chairman and ceo of starwood group he's the chairman and ceo of s.h. hotels. good morning. >> good morning, becky thanks good to see you. i guess i can't see you. i'm on lockdown in miami >> okay. well, when we talked to you, i guess it was just last week, things were changing pretty quickly though you were pretty bullish about that how we're doing with things, how we'll get through this >> i was -- i was optimistic i mean, i said on another show that it was world war 3 for 90 days and we're only 20 days into world war 3. it is a global war, not on each other but on a virus it's a virus that will pass.

i don't think anything's really changed other than i'm waiting to see congress pass the package that will get money into the hands of unemployed workers, and there are going to be far more of them than i thought given the rapidity of the spread and what's happening in the economy. we were ordered to shut our hotel here in florida that had a bunch of guests in it, actually. come down from new england, spend the recovery period and we had to kick them -- send them home the next night we had to fire nearly 1,000 workers at the hotel. so it's kind of tragic, and we need aid from congress the democrats are wrong, we're not helping millionaires and billionaires people, pension funds, individuals own these assets they own the debt of these assets they own the stocks on these assets across the whole real estate complex i think it's really just -- and the republicans are wrong about writing blank checks and sending money to people that don't need

it and the money should go to people that do need it so things like payroll tax cuts, delaying irs payments, that's not the issue. the issue is the unemployed. it's not that hard to fix. you just ask us and every other employer who we laid off, you check their w-4 form and the irs checks that in fact they were employed, we have their addresses, they wire them the money. you can't have people go to unemployment office, stand in line and they need the money now. we are creating our own rescue funds for employees. there's so many go fund me programs to help people. i'm so proud of the american people and our generous spirit, but congress has to get their act together i appreciate what the fed did yesterday. it was great, but it wasn't complete what you need is a freeze on a mark to markets, the real estate market in particular i want to explain how this works for the average viewer if i can. you buy a house for $100, you

borrow $50 against the house then somebody calls you up and says your house is only worth 80 nothing has happened maybe the government shut down the block or something, right? so somebody says your house is worth 80 they say you have to pay down your 50 cent mortgage to 40 cents. you look around, maybe i have some money maybe i can pay it up once i come up with my $10 to pay do you know the mortgage. that's a mark to market. you have to sell the house, you have to sell it in an instant. what's happening now is there are distress marks everywhere. people are trying to scramble to come up with liquidity those are not real marks we saw this in '07, '08. these are marks being forced by institutions that have to mark to market, have to call their loans or try to get cash there people who have cash to pay down the loans. you have the cascading effect. you sell it at 70, not 80. the bank calls the neighbor and says your house is only worth 70, not 100, you have to pay

your mortgage down you have a cascading negative effect we need a freeze we need a freeze on mark to markets and we knee lenders to forebear if we're going to let individuals not pay their rents or businesses which is the right thing to do. sorry about that that was important >> no, your analogy, on a mortgage i'm not forced to pay down on my mortgage. i'm continuing -- >> in the commercial property markets -- in the commercial property markets you are there are loan to value covenants or you own a security, let's say. >> right >> you sold a bond against your building, let's say, this has happened all over -- i'll give you an example there's a resort in the caribbean, they made $200 million last year pre-crisis it's worth 10 times. that would be $2 billion there's a mortgage from 0 to $600 million of value. it was under security. cmbs, commercial mortgage back they didn't cover a private

label security that security from 0 to 600 of the $2 billion value was a triple a rated bond. one of the institutions needed cash and says, i've got to sell you. will you bid this. this is a par note >> right >> there's no scenario under which that resort isn't worth $600 million and they have to sell it for 70, 80 cents oh, my god, is that really a mark that's a distressed seller we saw this in '07 and '08 we're seeing it again. sorry. >> i have to say, this time around sounds like even a better argument than last time for why these sales should be prohibited and the marks should be prohibited >> they should freeze them >> if the mark was frozen, the assumption is the world will get back to a normal position sometime in a number of months. >> right you need a three month --

germany, u.k., talking about three-month forbearance on a time-out my children have to take a time-out the capital markets, the banks, some lending institutions, we ourselves when we're a mezzanine lender has to forebear and the banks have to forebear people are scared. this will come back. this is a virus. i'm just as bullish as i was before, maybe more so. there's 39 stimulus packages, rates are low, commodity prices are low. there will be liquidity. the fed is stimulating, over stimulating probably at the end of the day with trillions of dollars of programs. we will come out of this america is incredibly resilient and creative i'm listening to your show, companies coming up with materials, respirators, things we need to get to the hospitals. we have hotels that can serve as hospitals. i'm from new york. i don't think the javits center would be as nice as the marriott

marquee for people who are sick. i want to talk about trump's idea for reopening the economy if it's okay in my opinion, he's kind of right. if you look at the italian data, which was through yesterday, 2,000 people died. no deaths under 30 not one. and then there was about three deaths of two of 1,000 we have 170 million people 4 years of age and under in the united states and they could go back to work let me tell you how this is going to work. you're going to have these tests. there's a test coming out friday, it will be distributed monday 45 minutes to find out if you have a coronavirus. >> barry, those tests are going to be -- we've talked to so many people the new tests are faster they will be going to health

care workers they said it will be weeks if not months for people who want to get tested. >> it won't happen overnight it was a 90 day war. it wasn't a one day war. >> might be. >> might be. >> go ahead. >> might be optimistic. >> barry, could we speak to your view that it sounds like you are in agreement with the president's view to get back to work we all want to get back to work. the question is when and what does that timing like look what does it look like with the business community the risk extends it out longer you have the testing issue if people need masks, gloves, other

things that is not going to make it available in the next week or two. in the next four weeks we've seen it. >> if we're sending people back to work next week. >> not next week >> i think that may have posed a longer term challenge because it will extend out the true economic damage. i also want to make one point to say that yes the statistics are positive on a relative basis if death is your metric for people under 40 years ld. there are huge numbers ending up in the icu in the hospital. >> in the united states, yes. >> i'm not so sure that, a, that's a great idea and, b, that young people once they know the data are going to go back into

the world and the economy en masse if they know those numbers. >> if we have the stimulus in the right place to help the unemploy unemployed if we stay home for let's say four weeks, maybe six weeks, if we tell the banks they should forebear and interim lenders like the mortgage companies forebear and people who don't have the money to pay their rent forebear, we can have an economic time-out. then in three, four weeks this will pass. it took the w.h.o. ten months to call h1n1 a pandemic if you saw the car accident numbers you would be in a panic

and you would ban cars my mom is 86 -- >> the only difference -- my mom is 86. i'm telling you to stay home stay home, mom stay home. i'll send you deliveries. >> the only distinction i'm making -- look, 4 to 6 weeks out i think you're going to know a lot more information and you can make an educated decision about this my anxiety based on the numbers i'm seeing and the reporting i'm doing is the idea that people are going to re-evaluate on monday and that's the conversation we're going to have that seems less possible. >> i don't think -- i agree with you. i want to say when i hear it's going to take nine months, a year and a half, we can't handle that we haveto re-evaluate this a couple of weeks. we've shut it down people are working from home my team is working from home. but i don't think -- financial suicide and the ramifications to 401ks, pension plans, people's

life savings, the average american, that has to come into the equation that's where i agree with the president frankly. you cannot kill an economy -- the largest economy in the world. we don't have enough money to fix it and it's not fixable. it's a balance i've never seen a counter of deaths if i saw it for the flu i would freak out -- for the regular flu i would be freaking out, too congress has to get this bill passed, we all agree there shouldn't be redundant programs it should be laser like surgical strike by a government that has the resource toss do the things they need to do and then we have to calm people down. americans, i don't know, i went for a bike ride yesterday. i'm stuck in my house. people are smiling, they're cooperating. the american spirit is generous. we'll get through this we're innovative i hear the comparison to the 1918 flu think about technology today

think about computer they didn't have a computer in 1918 this is not 1918 that's irresponsible we have so much dna testing. we can do all kinds of bombardment today of viruses, see what works, what doesn't work even the last ten years, i mean, the technology has moved so far, we will come up with a way to fix this and people should be optimistic. we're going to get through this, and i just think we're -- to say we're going to shut the economy down for two years or 18 months is ridiculous. it is the flu. it will pass it's passed in china it's passed in korea, it's passed in hong kong, it's passed in singapore let's get on with it the market's up. let's get on with it that's my message, right i mean, we need to be laser like strike in what we need to do with our stimulus and the world will survive the u.s. economy will come out of this fairly strong, i think i think people will restock their shelves, buy their cosmetics, take their vacations. the retail complex i think is

going to have a harder time by the way. >> because >> had a lot of weak, weak, weak companies going into the crisis and it's going to be very difficult for some of these companies to survive there are structural issues. that's the equivalent of the 80-year-old with a pre-existing condition. this is a hit over the head that's very hard to come back fr from. >> barry, appreciate your time today. >> sorry i was agitated. important stuff. thanks for having me on. i appreciate it. >> that's okay thanks >> sit back, barry we appreciate it i'm not going to make any comment. thank you, barry the senate failing to reach agreement on a stimulus package although work overnight say progress was made late joining us, senator rob portman of the great state of ohio and even the good part of ohio down in the southwestern part of the state. senator, give us the current snapshot of where we are at this

point in time. >> negotiations still going on more hopeful signs no white smoke coming out of the capitol yet. i think we'll get there today. it's frustrating because we did put together a bipartisan package based on a bipartisan process, task force, i was one of the members of the task forces but democrats dragged their feet we need to get it done we will get it done. joe, can i comment briefly on what i heard from barry? >> sure. >> i think this package is essential to get passed to do exactly what he's talking about, which is to get us back to normalcy get the economy moving again not only does it have a lot to help us weather the storm, particularly for workers, small businesses, but it has a lot in terms of health care there are four things we have to do to get back on track. provide the protective gear. we need the masks, gowns, we need to get the antivirals out, chloroquine, z-pack, others.

most importantly, it provides funding for the cdc to have more testing and be able to collect data for us to get back on the on ramp on the economy, we need to have a better set of data of what's happening without having the tests and quick results and some tests almost immediate results, 45 minutes, it's very tough to do this every day we need to have the county health departments and health departments reporting in, metric, measurement, data. that's what people are going to trust. it needs to come from the scientists and health care experts. we can do this there's no reason we can't do it all of that money is in the legislation too. the economic part is important we need to get the economy, you know, back going again through some of the measures that are in there because once this thing passes, we have to be sure we're on that on ramp. the most important part of the bill actually to me is helping solve the health care crisis until you do that, you can't get enough it will continue to be a

problem. >> do you think at this point both sides, i'm going to be generous, do you think both sides are motivated and at least looking at the alternatives in a way that would be very negative, the outcome? because i didn't really understand how it got side lined in the -- i don't know how that works. i understand you need 60 so that, you know, if you don't want -- if you don't want to let it go through clochur, you have that option as a democrat. you're going to need with five republicans not there. so if you want to delay it and just load it with stuff, you can -- you're able to do that, but when does the backlash from the public where they realize, wow, politically this might not be so smart? when does that sink in is it done has it sunk in at this point >> i think it's already sinking in i spent the day yesterday on the phone with folks from ohio saying, what are you guys doing? i talked to a small business owner saying, we're watching i've kept my employees until

now. i'm bleeding cash flow you know, i've got no revenue. i'll hold on, but you guys need to move. he was hoping we would move on monday as promised we didn't. now we've got to move today. we've got to move quickly. we're doing two things with the economy, one is keeping workers with employers that should be paramount for everybody. i think democrats and republicans now agree with that. you don't want people to be let go if they don't have to be let go it makes it much harder for the employee to get the health care, retirement, and to get back to the economy we all hope for soon second is helping workers who are displaced through no fault of their own that's the unemployment insurance program which is historic, huge increase, and then finally it's this idea of getting our health care system where we can collect the data, have the metrics, know when we're making progress, report that with confidence to the american people and that's how we're going to get back to work and keep people safe all of that is in this legislation. is it perfect? no, it's a big bill.

it's $1.8 trillion what the democrats are asking for is $1.8 trillion if we need more spending for things like hospitals, which they're talking about -- by the way, there's over $100 billion in new spending for hospitals in this bill alone, we can come back and do that in a few weeks, in six weeks, but let's get this legislation passed now to get the economy at a point where it's not in free fall and to get this health care system moving so that we can improve the economy and get everybody back to normalcy. >> senator, wanted to talk to you briefly about one of the provisions in thebill which ha obviously caused a lot of debate, and this is the discretion it gives treasury secretary mnuchin and also the disclosure requirements, which is to say that american taxpayers won't know where some of that money was spent for a six-month period do you support that? if so, can you explain why >> yeah, that's under the 13-3

provision as they call it. it's treasury and the fed providing loans. by the way, the loans have to be paid back. these are not grants, these are loans to companies, small and large, across the spectrum it is not going to specific companies. it can't under the fed's rules as you know. it also has to be paid back, that's why the treasury is putting money against it, so it's not just the fed. this is money that will be paid back you think about the loans that were done after the '08, '09 crisis, the fact that they were paid back. that's the idea here my understanding is there's a period at time in which companies don't want to tell creditors they're taking the loans so you want additional credit you want the program to work more accountability, more transparenc transparency i will tell you, republicans are fine with that we need to be sure the program is effective and it works. that's how 13-3 is typically set up if there's more transparency, republicans aren't standing in the way of it. we are hoping republicans are standing in the way to help get it done. it will help a lot of workers be

able to have a place where they can go to be able to make ents meet to put food on the table. >> senator, you're raising a very important point though, which is if the idea is to effectively keep these loans secret, it sounds like you're saying not from the american taxpayer, at least that's not the instinct here, it's to keep it from the creditors, that's the flip side of this, which is to say if you're a creditor i would think you would at least want to know what the person you had lent to was taking on the other side so you'd be able to see a full picture of the situation. maybe they shouldn't be able to take action. we heard yesterday that one of the reasons was a different reason we were told that it was to protect defense companies, for example, if there was money lent to a defense company, we wouldn't want our rivals to know that to me just -- it seems like there's not a specific answer and then an articulation to the

american people and taxpayers of exactly why this is all being done in secret and i think that's one of the issues that needs to be resolved >> yeah. it's not all being done in secret i don't know what that means exactly, but what i do think is 13-3 is set up in a certain way. that's the way this legislation has it if there was to be more transparency, i would be for that republicans would be for that. i don't think that's frankly the sticking point here. i think it's a matter of democrats wanting more money that's what the democratic leader has said. more money for hospitals, more money for states, more money for a lot ofcharitable there are a lot of other provisions they've tried to put in, nothing to do with the coronavirus, and that's been talked about i don't think the accountability and transparency is the sticking point. >> rob, that's what they've got on that side it's amazing that's what they've got. but let me just say, i have been -- people have made the point that whenever either side has a bill that they absolutely want done, the other side has

any say, they always put something in it, no matter whether that's republicans or democrats or whatever. but the point is r, this time is really different this is not a time where it should be politics as usual and you stick all the -- i'm not going over all the things that are in this bill, but it's like outrageous, the stuff that's been put in there. >> it's not a time for political log rolling. >> this is not business as usual, and people need to know that. >> it's not business as usual. >> it's infuriating. >> i would make the point, when you look at what the sba loan costs, which is $350 billion when you look at what the unemployment system is going to cost, $250 billion when you look at what we're doing in terms of helping the economy move forward, there is a lot of funding here that's going to help exactly the things that democrats and republicans alike say we want to do. keep people at work if they can, help people who lose their job through no fault of their own, help get the health care system up and going so we can be sure we do have this off ramp based

on good data, credible information, good testing. all of that is in this legislation. this is the legislation that is the rescue package there's no room for anything extraneous to be added here. it's essential we get this out the door and focus there's plenty of them in here this is equivalent, joe, of wha year this is more than we appropriated in the fiscal year 2020 so this is plenty of funding, and it's got a lot of good policy changes to be able to be a rescue package here. again, very significantly for me, it has changes to the health care system, money for cdc for testing, money for the anti-viral medication that we need so badly, it has money to be sure that we are able to provide this data for masks, gowns, so on as well for protective gear. that's all in here let's pass this. if we need to come in and fine tune it, we can do that. let's not hold up. the american people demand it.

>> thank you appreciate it. senator rob portman. >> thank you, guys thanks for having me on this morning. it is 8 a.m. on the east coast. the dow futures near their upper limits in the pre-market just a day after the index notched its lowest close in more than three years. washington d.c. looks to get a deal done. signs of progress on the $2 trillion stimulus man from the coronavirus. shutdown in the sky. drafting contingency plans for a near total halt in domestic passenger flights. and a potential bailout for boeing as they deal with the one two punch of the virus and the 737 max crisis we'll bring you a first on cnbc interview with ceo david calhoun. our coverage continues right now. good morning, i'm andrew

ross sorkin along with becky quick and joe kernen this morning, here we are. u.s. equity futures at this hour, we are up. things are looking up. 889 points right now nasdaq looking to open 300 points higher. we have the s&p 500 looking to open about 100 points higher let's also show you treasury yields as well all of this news on the back of some of president trump's comments last night that perhaps he's going to push to have the economy open more quickly. that and the potential for a bill today adding some confidence to the markets. the 10-year note at .820 joe? >> been a brutal month for boeing with the coronavirus adding more stress to a company already under pressure thanks to the grounding of the 737 max boeing stock has fallen just about 60% in march yesterday the company said it would pause production at a washington state factory to help the virus outbreak all of this comes as lawmakers in washington consider a

multi-billion dollar bailout for boeing joining us first on cnbc is boeing ceo dave calhoun and our own phil lebeau. welcome, phil. mr. calhoun, thanks for joining us this morning. we appreciate it can you describe the -- what your efforts are right now to deal with the multi-faceted situation facing your company? >> thank you, joe. let me just start with the virus itself it's affected and impacted all of the families that are represented by associates across the boeing company we pay attention to it every day. every morning we rally the teams. we have efforts going broadly across the company to support health care workers in all the communities that we serve. we're doing work on ventilators like many others and i have to say, there are some inspiring stories that are out there with respect to the work of government officials, local and state government

officials, and the health care workers are incredible so let me just acknowledge that first. our decision in puget sound, which is a big one, it is the factory that represents roughly 80% of our production, to shut down for 14 days been coordinated with the washington state government it's the right thing to do we monitor we have protocols to make sure we stay ahead of the spread of the virus, and this was a decision that was honestly to make simply for the safety of our people. >> how would you like the help from the federal government to be structured? if you were able to dictate exactly how it was done, and by that i mean no one can imagine -- anyway, maybe i'm speaking for myself. i can't imagine the united states not being in the airliner business obviously so it seems like a very necessary company for us to make

sure that it survives. given some of the criticism that you're hearing about what the money was spent on in the past, buybacks, et cetera. the last ceo got the stock to up over 400 how should this be structured to blunt that criticism that you're inevitably going to get from getting aid from the government? >> yeah, joe, i listened to your conversation with senator portman who is incredibly knowledgeable about the aviation industry and sort of knows what we're up against, but i agree with the premise which is this is different than any of those past situations. we have a virus. it is going to take its toll it's going to move according to the epidemiologists along a curve. we're going to get to the other side of the curve, and our job is simply to provide short-term liquidity to all of industry yes, aviation and the airlines because i believe we're at the

point of the spear, provide liquidity and keep our industry and our people warm so that when the recovery comes, we're ready to go. i think it's that simple so i always lobby with the administration and our congressional officials. the simpler, the shorter term in nature, the better i think all of the comparisons to past packages is -- leads us in the wrong direction >> phil? >> reporter: dave, this is phil lebeau you guys are seeking $60 billion, not just for boeing but for the entire aviation supply chain. if you didn't get that money, would we see bankruptcies among some of your suppliers would boeing potentially be skirting close to bankruptcy i know you have plenty of liquidity, but how urgent is the need >> phil, you're right. we do have liquidity we have $15 billion in the bank. we are paying our suppliers.

every dollar we either take by way of debtor any other source of cash, 70 cents goes directly to the industry and the supply chain that underlies us. so we'll continue to pay current and we think we can get through this and we can -- there are a lot of options for us in the private markets, et cetera, but the credit markets have to be open and the first of liquidity that secretary mnuchin has been articulating on your show and broadly i think is exactly the right answer we need to know the credit markets are open, not just for us, but for the entire supply chain. >> andrew? >> dave, one other question. you guys have a backlog of 5400 planes how concerned are you given the airline and north america and europe and around the world and the fact that they're under immense pressure that you're going to see some deferrals, if not outright cancellations, let's say over the next nine months to a year

>> yeah. so we looked at every customer everywhere in the world and we make that evaluation pretty much every day. if there are airlines we're worried about, because they're just not strong enough and/or we don't think the state support will be there in these various countries around the world, then we make decisions on what we do with our skyline at least at this stage there's nothing that is so precipitous that makes us want to change our course and to keep our work force employed and ready to meet demands of the economy return. i will say just as a litmus test for what i think will come, already china's returning. the domestic travel is returning. they are talking to us about their orders and they are talking to us about future orders so i really do believe when we get through this curve and we start going down the other side, this economy will slowly, steadily recover i just want everybody to be

ready for it that is what i hope our congressional folks are working on now >> dave, one last question from me it's been a couple of years since you guys have logged an order, a new order from a chinese airline. do you expect you're going to see one, let's say before the end of the year? >> yeah, i don't want to predict it month by month, phil, but i have a lot of confidence that we are going to have orders with china. the trade deal that was done before of course the virus rolled out broadly and slowed things down, that trade deal is good for us. it's good for china. it's good for the chinese airlines it's inevitable they're going to want boeing airplanes. >> dave, question about these loans, and specifically pat toomey yesterday on our air said one of the reasons for the secrecy or transparency issues around some of these loans and how they're going to be set up with the treasury in terms of

taxpayers not being able to see that information for six months, which is an issue, it sounds like, for the democrats on one side is based on protecting effectively our national defense and security, the idea that we don't want rival countries to know that certain other companies, i imagine like yours, might be getting certain loans and what size. today we heard from senator portman that the reason for that was actually quite different, that it was actually about preventi ining creditors knowin they're getting money. i'm getting emails from people saying that could be credit fraud. as the ceo sitting in the middle of this, whether you would disclosehis to your creditors and whether you think there is a national security issue if people know that you're getting loans, what do you think of that >> i think your question is right on the mark, and i -- so i would -- it's impossible for me to think that i would not

disclose anything he was getting, either by way of government support or not, with the exception of defense provisions while i have not heard much about that as a motive for doing this, anything related to defense, anything that they want to protect, they should. we would stand by them, but the other subject of whether we would hide anything from a creditor, that's of no interest to me. it would put me in an impossible position and i don't think i could subscribe to it. >> dave, let me just ask you you mentioned that you have $15 billion. obviously that's a lot of cash to have at hand. i start thinking about all of the things you're trying to do by continuing to pay your employees, pay your suppliers and do all of this while you're not getting money coming in from the customers who had ordered the 737 maxes. what's your cash burn? >> we will -- if there is no government support and if the markets don't open, the credit

markets don't reopen, it'll be fairly quick, but we can still find our way to the other side if it goes on for eight months, probably not but we'll find our way to the other side i'm confident in that. we have lots of different options to consider. the best option, the simplest option, the one that protects most people, our employees, supply chain and their employees is the injection of liquidity and a reopening of the credit markets. i really believe it's that simple and i'm hoping and praying they get it done >> i hope they do, too if they don't, what's option b is it to stop paying suppliers and then your employees? >> well, remember, we have a -- we do have a substantial and solid defense business, which is doing quite well the defense department is trying at this moment in time to accelerate payments into the industry, et cetera. so we have a good business there. we have a solid services business it's down for obvious reasons but it will come back quickly.

we're a little better off than most people think, and i'm not going to bet that nothing loosens up in the credit market. i'm going to assume they're going to get this tdone if we need to pursue other things, we will. i don't think we'll get to that. we'll do what we have to do. we'll protect the long-term outlook for our shareholders >> however the government help works out, not just for boeing but the private industry in general, one side of the aisle is going to definitely continue to raise the buy back issue and i'm sure some of these -- the help is going to be structured in a way that that issue is addressed. you pointed out that boeing did buy back, i don't know, what, 38, $40 billion worth of stock in the past. would that happen again? what would your future be? sometimes buybacks are very

necessary or they help a company. what would your comments be on whether you continue to do that in the future a year from now, two years from now >> a year from now or two years from now we're not going to be buying anything back we do have increasing debt as a result of our max. we'll pay that down as the max starts to move out, and it will. our first objective is to pay down debt and get back to the balance sheet we had before any of this started, before the max start and before the viruses started. so that will take us a few years for sure i think this decision is so far out there it's not something i worry about. attaching it to a bill, in my view, is a little bit the sleeve's out of our vest >> would you expect there to be provisions in the language of all of the help the government gifts now that somehow precludes buy backs or addresses it? even the president, president trump has said that he doesn't think the money should be used

for buybacks in the future how would you structure that >> well, i don't think the money should be used for buybacks. you know, i think that's a fair comment. but when you finish and you complete and you pay it all back, trying to then extend it beyond the use of that loan, that to me seems a little silly. to be honest with you, of the things being discussed, this one bothers me the least it's not the right thing to do i think we're trying to solve problems other than the natural disaster we're facing. i think we need short-term money, we need to get the credit markets back on their feet, provide liquidity and get on with things so that we can get to the other side of the curve here. >> right i agree. you can see even in just trying to get this bill done right knew, there's a lot of ancillary things that are going to be talked about in spite of the need andrew has a question. andrew

>> dave, but to this issue of buy backs and it's an issue that confronts your company, confronts all companies that have been doing it for the past decade, in retrospect, i know it's with hindsight, do you regret all the buybacks? >> yeah, that's not a fair question they're done and completed i do think the environment changes here going forward for the aviation industry, balance sheets that can withstand moments like this, i'm going to guess this is not the last one that we'll ever face, i think there will be a reassessment of what balance sheets need to look like, not unlike the banks post '08, '09 i don't want balance sheets to be regulated in any way, i don't think that's fair, but it's a natural course to think about and i think we will. >> dave, in closing, i'll just ask you, are boeing's best days behind it in your view will you be there to see a

return to the best days in boeing's existence do you believe that? >> yeah, joe, i have incredible confidence here. i was trying to remind people there are two supplies for these big airplanes. demand for air travel while it will pause, it will crawl back and it will continue its growth in the future. the industry was supply constrained for the last half a decade i think it will be supply con strained i think the two suppliers are both going to enjoy great futures. i also love the number of technologies that we continue to develop and how we'll deploy those in the name of air mobility in the near future. i think our commercial business is going to be solid our defense business is going to be solid and the futures with respect to air mobility are sort of -- as big as the eye can see. for now we are just focused on our people and the production system and keeping it going and

staying warm for the recovery. >> great we haven't even talked about the 737 max and when it comes back this is unbelievable what's happened to the entire world in the last -- obviously in the last three months. any update on the 737 max so to speak? >> yes, it's on the radar every day. that program continues to go well the faa -- i'm inspired by the work of the faa. they're actually putting the time and energy into this process. we are working virtually almost across the board i think you guys have pointed out many times, this airplane flies every day because we're e repositioning airplanes all the time i went to one on a flight in seattle recently the test protocols are amazing the airplane is performing and we're very close to the finish line my confidence is just where it was before our time line remains, which is

mid year >> dave, before you go, i did want to ask you about nikki hailey's decision to resign from the board protesting the potential for a bailout or the government stepping in to a role to help the company. can you speak about the conversations you had with her and do you believe that she performed her fiduciary duty to shareholders and to the company by making the decision she did >> well, i don't want to tackle a legal opinion. let me first say, nikki has been a big fan and supporter of the boeing company our plant in south carolina largely when she was the governor of the state is a phenomenal plant people are fantastic the startup of that facility and execution has been, i think, a testament to american industrial spirit so a lot of credit there nik nikki's been a great member.

when a philosophical argument encumbers your ability to help the board represent itself to the government, you have to make that decision. so that's what she did and now we're moving on. so, anyway, i think it's as simple as that the boeing company's going to be fine we have a fantastic board and i wish her the best. >> dave calhoun, thank you very much for coming on this morning and answering all our questions. and we hope we can do this again soon i'm sure there will be a lot more to talk about in a month or two. thank you. we appreciate it >> yeah. i look forward to it thanks to all of you. >> okay. dave and phil lebeau, thank you to you as well we'll see you. meantime, growing number of companies -- go ahead. becky. >> go ahead, andrew. >> we've got a growing number of companies that are suspending their guidance amid the coronavirus effort want to tell you about some of

those. crossing the wires minutes ago, general motors pulling its 2020 guidance and announcing plans to draw down its $16 billion from revolving credit facilities. the automaker calling this a proactive measure to increase its cash position. it's something that's happening with companies across the country and preserved financial flexibility. we should tell you about intel it's suspending restock purchases. it has tapped its factories. that's the fall. equity futures.

>> there's 600 deaths. what we're seeing across the country could go on. what we can expect in the coming weeks. dr. gottleib joins us now. he's a cnbc contributor and serves on the boards of lumina and pfizer we've been privileged to talk to you every day. doctor, the president said last night he's looking to re-evaluate things get the economy moving and more quickly. potentially as early as monday is that advisable. >> well, i think it's good to re-evaluate where we are if you look at what's happened in other countries, the time for the implementation like lockdowns.

>> i think we need to keep this going several more weeks there is an end to this. we know where it is. we now have experience with south korea, china, italy. we know where the epidemic peaks out when you implement these measures >> so just give us the time line that you see as of today in the united states. >> well, we're one week into this and most of the places where you have sustained community transmission that we know about, so it's going to be another three, four weeks until we see the peak in the epidemic curve in regions like new york that's the hopeful case. once you hit a peak in the number of cases and you start to come down that epidemic curve, you can start to substitute in

case-based interventions individuals that are infected for population based mitigation. lockdowns, closed businesses, so you can slowly take your business off the break of population based mitigation and hopefully we have more screening in place and that will help us do that. we have another three, maybe four weeks to go until we get there in new york and new york tristate area. louisiana, chicago look concerning washington d.c. metro area looks concerning san francisco, seattle are on a similar time line to new york in terms of when it started and where they are right now.

does that work in your mind. some of the numbers that i have seen suggest there are 69 million homes that are multi-generational homes i'm trying to figure out how we can make this happen given that. >> well, it doesn't work so long as you have the chain of transmission if you look at the hospitalization rate in new york city, 56% of those are hospitalized under the age of 50 look at the icu, it's not just 65 yeerlds icu admissions they're going to have a health

impact people over 65 can't survive the critical care like a 40-year-old or 50-year-old can they're spending weeks in there. to think this is just a disease that's impacting people over the age of 65, that's just not what the data shows >> if you look at the hospitalization data and china, they were hospitalizing sick patients, this looks very flu like people are 40-year-olds, 50-year-olds

that's early data. when you're in the icu for a sustained period of time, there's a good chance you have long-term health sequelae. the fact that 40-year-olds, 50-year-olds are surviving at a much higher rate, covid-19 but many of them, at least some of them, a good portion of them are surviving after prolonged admissions to the icu in critical care. >> hey, scott, let me ask you. you said three to four weeks to go, i think i heard, in the new york area. is that better than you had anticipated before when you start hearing virginia hearing they're going to close schools for the rest of the year, colleges not coming back the president canceling the meeting at camp david, the g7, did they move too quickly? >> some parts moved quickly and some parts are slower to

implement the more restrictive mitigation steps certainly washington state was slow to take the kinds of measures that they should have taken weeks ago. in terms of the curve and what it looks like, i think it still looks like what people were modeling in some point of april and mid april, we'll peak in the regions. new york certainly one of those regions. new york is heavily seated which should have been understandable why. they had so much travel coming into that city in those regions we're probably, you know, three to five weeks away from seeing a peak and hopefully on the lower end of that maybe about five weeks if you want, four weeks if you want to get a round number at some point mid to late april they will peak watching what happens with the mitigation steps, we need to stick with it. once we break off sustained community transmission in those regions, we can start to slowly lift the population-based mitigation steps and substitute in technology to keep this virus

from springing back up that has to be the goal. >> hey, scott, you watch closely and i can't tell exactly what's happening in italy, but it's been at least posited. elgts' been pointed out the same time line as south korea it's held up as a model. italy on the other hand has not been held up that way. does the virus have a certain amount of time line to take to peak as far as the epidemic goes scott -- okay.

we didn't hear any of that so i don't know whether we can get the audio back better, but i was unable to understand so try again. we're not going to be able to do that maybe we can try to reconnect. sometimes it helps to dial again. i don't know right now i don't think we're going to be able to do that. i'd like to hear the answer to the question, but at least in italy where one of the hardest hit -- yeah, we do not have -- maybe we can get him back. that is one of the reasons being cited for the market doing a little bit better today because italy looked pretty scary. maybe it's better. all right. maybe we'll try and get dr. gottleib back. andrew, in the meantime, what's coming up? >> okay. when we come back we'll see whether we can get dr. gottleib back we'll have investor michael novogratz back on what he sees

on the picture investing and wall street. we'll talk about bitcoin too next "new york times" columnist thomas friedman will weigh in on what our government and others around the world could take to con strain the spread of the coronavirus and how to get the economy back on its feet as we head to a break, take a look at the top trending topics on twitter in the united states. guess who? barry sternlicht cracking the list [music (plays throughout): lack of afro - recipe for love]

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it has been a week of unprecedented activity by the u.s. central bank and, guess what, it's only tuesday. steve liesman joins us now he has more on what the fed and other central banks are doing to try to make sure they are protecting the economies around the coronavirus. steve, how are you doing >> reporter: good morning, becky. with the coronavirus really savaging global economies, g7 finance ministers were scheduled to have begun a call at 8:30 this morning to see what else they could do to respond to the virus. they've already taken some actions. clearly as we debate stimulus in the united states, more is to come here's a quick overview of what the g7 or global central banks have done so far the u.s. leading the pack in part because it had the most to cut by cutting 1.5 percentage

points down to a range of zero to 1/4 the bank of canada cut 75 basis points down to 75. ecb and japan, there you go, they had nothing to cut. they're at zero and minus .1 with their main finance rates. how about quantitative easing? fed leading the pack here with going unlimited. we'll talk about what exactly they're doing right now. ecb at $820 billion. u.k. at 230 and they're debating and discussing additional programs in japan and canada, including japan possibly buying additional stocks. now let's get to what the fed has done or will do this week. by our count they will do $625 billion of treasury and mortgage-backed purchases this week, doing 125 billion a day. by our count they did 322 billion last week. so the total together just under 1 trillion compare that to qe2 over 7

months, they did 600 billion so they'll do more in two weeks, almost double what they did in two weeks what they did last time now coming up 9:45 and 10:00, the first two u.s. march indicators coming out. ihs market, manufacturing and services survey and 10:00 the richmond fed normally wouldn't spend a whole lot of time on these. they'll be the first indication for the month of march of how this virus is hitting the economy and the numbers and the forecast are not great i think i saw a forecast there from goldman now with the most pessimistic outlook for the second quarter, guys minus 24%. before that jpmorgan had the record at minus 14% for the second quarter becky? >> i'lltake it, steve. thanks joining us now to talk about how america can best calibrate its economic and medical responses

to the coronavirus is tom freedman, pulitzer prize winning columnist for the "new york times. his latest column is a plan to get america back to work before i even saw this in the paper, a lot of people had sent it to me already, tom. many of them people running businesses, and this was really before i think we saw the president say some similar things and it's become a lot more common to hear people with some of the similar points that you're making. is that fair to say, that you and the president sort of are on the same page on this? or are there significant differences in how you want to do it? >> i think there's a sequencing question, joe. you know, i felt -- the reason i wrote that column is i was talking to a lot of business people and i felt people wanted to talk about both the health and economic things we need to recover from this, and so i used that column to basically elevate

this conversation. so let me just talk about what the argument was and where i'm coming from, which is a little different from the president this was based on a conversation with a public health expert, dr. david katz he had written a piece of the times and i tried to take it to the next step. what was dr. katz arguing? he was basically saying what is killing us slowly and quickly right now is uncertainty we've been told to shelter in place. we've been told to distance. businesses have no idea, you know, what's coming next and so there's nothing worse for an economy or for a family at home than uncertainty. and so the first thing, you know, i was talking about, that piece, we have a plan. and not based on the president's got feeling, not based on what he woke up today or next day, what is the plan, okay and the plan that dr. katz offered, joe, is five points first, break the chain of transmission with a hard stop.

shelter in place social distancing for a set period of time he proposed two weeks because if you've got the coronavirus, it usually manifests within those two weeks. you'll know either you've got it or you don't it could be 2 1/2, it could be 3, whatever the health experts decide during those two weeks you really try to isolate most or segregate those most vulnerable, those 65 and older second, follow that up with massive testing. so we can get the data and know what the denominator and numerator is which categories are affected and how many people this is actually fatal once you've done that for a couple of weeks and you've got the testing data, then we can begin to pivot to slowly fold back into the economy or steadily fold back into the economy, people who demon strab

bri -- demon strab bring with the disease and have mobile testing units out there so we're keeping track. not everybody is going to perfectly quarantine then have you another week, two weeks, three weeks of monitoring and verification over a month you can keep rolling people back into the economy and we can get back to work again joe, it depends on having that hard stop, that real social distancing that breaks the chain of transmission for two to three weeks, whatever, and my concern is in the country some states are doing it, some aren't. the president yesterday in his briefing praised the governor of nebraska for not doing it. that's crazy we're one whole integrated country. nebraska's not going to be unaffected by this we aren't going to be unaffected by people in nebraska who don't social distance. i truly want to get the economy going again because it's also a health issue

if your dreams, your hopes, your career, your savings has been crushed, you're going to be sick from that. if you can't get in the hospital for weekly treatment from cancer or anything else, you're going to be crushed by that. we want to balance the two the way you do it, you maximize that, joe, is if you have a very clear five-point plan. whatever it is, that's what i think business wants that's what mom and dad want >> hey, tom, a question for you. we just spoke with scott gottleib and he pointed out a couple of things first of all, the idea there are more 20, 30, 40-year-olds winding up in the hospitals than we might have anticipated. they might not be dying from this but they are getting sick and being put on ventilators there are going to be long-term ramifications from this disease. what do you say to that? >> i've heard that and i'm not a doctor i'm not a medical expert at all, but i have asked the doctors that i've been talking to about

this, and that's why we so need testing and data, because were knows people all with pre-existing conditions? i don't know i just have no idea. what percentage are they of the total number that's precisely why you need to have social distancing period, sheltering in place while you're dogmas sieve teing massive testn understanding the exact str stratification of people who have been hit by this disease and who we can fold in most quickly and most easily. that's why social distancing plus testing that has to be stage one which then gives you the foundation to start folding people back into the economy because you know precisely who is being most affected in which ways >> hey, tom, just in terms of the time line that you're thinking about relative to the time line that maybe the president or others are thinking

about, given what we heard from dr. gottleib, given this idea that masks would not be available -- n-95 masks not available en masse for the public, if you will, for at least a month from here and the testing clearly, i think, it's hard to believe is going to have ramped up to such an extent that you could have, you know, even 50, 60, 70% of the population back at work to do it the way you're talking about, i think we all want to get back to work as quickly as possible, what does that time line look for you? you talked about two weeks there's other sort of steps that probably have to take place and then the other piece of it is is 65 million homes are what are called multi-generational homes. you have younger people living with older people and how you're going to adjust that in real time. >> i have no opinion about it, andrew, because i don't know about it i can only tell you about the experts that i've been able to talk to are saying

we have to be guided by what is medically right and possible so that's why i say maybe it's two weeks, maybe it's three weeks. one of the things we did because people rushed to send everybody home from college, we may have advanced the spread of this because then young people went home, they were with mom, dad, grandma, grandpa we might have been better off having those young people stay in place in school where they were and that's why, you know, i am guided entirely by what the medical experts say. the medical experts say, you know, it's going to take three weeks precisely to get all of the medical testing out there, then it's going to have to be three weeks. i think people will tolerate andrew, two weeks, three weeks, four weeks if they think you have a plan, if they think you have a plan and every day the president comes out and says, we have a plan we said we'd do this on day three, day five, day seven i think people would be much more reassured than if they felt

we were kind of making decisions on the fly on gut feelings and not on the basis of the best science and the best technology. and that to me is what's been missing here i talked to so many business people and they say, look, i don't know which companies -- which parts of my company to hold up, which parts of my company to cut off who to layoff, when? i don't have a sense that we have a plan. i think if the president came out with a plan, start with two weeks but say it's going to be guided by the medical experts, we may have to roll into three weeks of social isolation but once we do that, we'll start folding healthy people back into the economy. that's what will make the stock market really go up if people feel like, wow, we actually have a plan to get back to work, not just a gut desire by the president to get us back to work >> very good, tom. appreciate your insight today. caused a big splash, that piece you wrote the other day. good to hear you summarize

everything for us here thank you. >> thanks, joe okay meantime, we've got some breaking news for you coming out of washington right now. eamon javers joins us with new reporting on that stimulus bill. what do you have, eamon? >> reporter: yeah, that's right, andrew one of the big stumbling blocks has been until last night, what the democrats have accused the republicans of putting in the bill, a $500 billion slush fund in their terms they were concerned there wasn't enough oversight over how the administration would spend that money. i've been emailing and the treasury secretary has agreed with the inspector general and oversight committee for that $500 billion chunk of money. that would seem to remove one of the major stumbling blocks if the democrats agree that that is, in effect, the answer to their complaints here. i asked the senior administration official if that means there will be a deal this morning. the official said, sure hope so. so perhaps an optimistic sign

there of some of the negotiations coming together late last night, guys. we expect that at about 9:30 this morning treasury secretary mnuchin will be back up on capitol hill to continue these negotiations we saw a tweet saying that democrats and republicans need to pass this bill right away there is a sense of urgency an negotiations are getting underway shortly >> eamon, thanks we're under an hour. we're 40 minutes away from the opening bell on wall street. cnbc senior markets commentator mike santoli joins us now, record t reportedly from the home where he lives we're going to see if what we're seeing in the futures is a mirage or market bottom. >> you could be standing outside and have hung that picture, santoli. >> reporter: i could have. i would look colder if i had done that. that is a one-time exterior -- >> there's a lamp. >> reporter: trying to confuse

everybody. >> never mind. >> reporter: the reason you have to ask that question is is this a rally to be believed is because we've had other bear market or post crash rallies which have a high burden of proof to say it's more than a bounce the last two tuesdays the s&p was up 5 and 6%. if you look at two-year chart of the s&p, you see what it's been struggling to do along the way, today's morning pre-market rally would get it not up to those levels we thought it would hold from late 2018, although i will say there had been subtle below the surface changes in the last week or so in the market we've been pointing to this. fewer actual stocks making new lows the volatility index, which we can look at a one-year chart has led down from the 80s to the 50s. it's still agitated and doesn't say this is a normal, stable market but it does say the extreme pain has passed for the moment

a lot of differentiation going on we look at semiconductors, for example, have done better. the russell 2000 has outperformed these are the straws in the wind that you try to collect and see if they turn into anything more than just the bounce i market could go up 30% fro here because we've gone down so far so fast, and still on a chart it's going to look like a bear market rally. that's where it becomes tricky if this does gather strength we have not had two strong days in a row yet you have to start with that. >> that would be a good start. 30% back bear market rally or not from your lips thank you, mike santoli from his home >> from his home want to get to cnbc headquarters jim cramer is there and joins us now. we've been talking about whether you think the market is putting in some kind of bottom i don't know

whether you think we'll get back to work perhaps faster than we were anticipating earlier. >> i think there's a lot of cross-currents here. if the democrats and republicans agree on something today that's stimulus, we have to figure out okay, howdemand. the demand question is regarding getting people back in who are not going to infect the rest of us and we are versus milan there's a consensus developing that may be incorrect that if you just ride it out, we'll be fine i'm waiting for someone to say new york city is wuhan if we just cordon wuhan, the rest of the country will be good i don't know i think it could be like t.a.r.p., you could get a second vote, get relief, realize it's not big enough, we go back down. that's the scenario i'm operating under. >> how concerned are you about

listening to the health experts like a dr. scott gottlieb, like a dr. fauci and others on this issue relative to you're right, there's a huge amount of business people i talk to, you talk to who say can't we just get some of our people back to work and then you hear from dr. scott gottlieb saying young people are ending up in the hospital, too the death rate may be low, but the health risks are much higher than seem to be talked about >> i think he's right. gottlieb is obviously right. you don't go against him that's why we need the vend latlat ventilators, you wouldn't have a common cold or flu have people 45 go to the hospital. you talk about dr. fauci i want to make sure dr. fauci wasn't kicked out. i want to see if he's okay where was he yesterday he's a voice of reason no one can challenge him

he's unassailable. i would like to hear what he has to say i know he wasn't that thrilled with approving a drug on the spot that has not been -- has not been fully tested and does have cardiac side effects. we need fauci. if fauci's gone, the credibility of the administration will be very much diminished has anyone see him did anyone see him day before >> not yesterday >> i think -- >> maybe the day before. >> it's an issue of credibility and leadership that will play into this if we get into this question -- >> in the greatest speech i've seen him give, he talked about how george h.w. just said listen, we have to get these aids drugs -- george w. said we have to get them to africa there's been presidents from both sides of the aisle that loved this guy i would hate to think he disappeared. >> jim, thank you.

you've been doing remarkable work nancy pelosi will be on your broadcast in a bit we are looking forward to hearing from her and how that conversation unfolds i will send it over to becky >> let's bring in the ceo of galaxy digital, michael novogratz. what do you think, michael what jim is talking about is an interesting dilemma. what happens to places like new york city, like seattle beyond that and when do you think we start to move on >> i think if you listen to governor cuomo last night, he was spectacularly articulate we'll have a two-week surge, it's just a mass of people coming down positive with kro corona they're scrambling to build the javits center into a hospital. it comes down to can you get the ventilators in time.

i talked to a chairman of one of the big hospitals yesterday, they are ten days away from capacity, a week, two weeks away we have a week, two weeks to build the capacity, take that surge. after that, quite frankly, the moment you preserve the health care system, then society doesn't fall apart then it becomes an ethical question on how you decide how much risk you'll take on sending people back. you can't even ask the ethical question until you preserve the health care system danielle allen wrote a great article on this last week. i think we're there. i think, you know, cuomo is really been articulate with it i think we're doing all the right things in new york i'm semi optimistic but i'm watching from a market perspective, last time i was on i talked about a

have a lo valossaraptor. you have seen the vix has fallen, so it went from pocket to pocket destroying p & l a lot of that has been washed out of the market. doesn't mean the market will go up but a lot of that crazy volatility is coming out you are seeing the hedge funds posting today now they're up on the year millennium partners had a big comeback close to flat on the year. so the disaster that wall street was seeing has calmed down a little bit probably leads to a violent bear market rallies >> i saw an article earlier today raising questions about the mortgage market what have you heard there? >> yeah. yesterday, sunday night there were big mortgages for sale, big portfolios it feels like mortgages and high-yield credit are the last places where my friends are

chewing people alive i don't think -- humpty dumpty breaks, you don't put him right back together. we might be in a multi-month bottoming process. we go from 2200 to 2700 and then back down. we're not going back to normal any time soon. but the max pain or the max fear probably has been felt >> we will be watching as washington tries to hammer out the deals on an aid package. are you thinking wall street is betting that deal gets done today or tomorrow? >> i think we're probably 75% priced in. jim might be right, we might have a one or two-day surge off the aid package then people say now what it probably is a rally to sell what's hard on these things, you

have fallen -- you look at the nikkei, the nikkei rallied 25% in 36 hours. just to put that in perspective. the s&p is 5% off the lows that's a bear market rally 25% in 36 hours for one of the biggest stock markets in the world. so it is very dangerous trading, positions need to be smaller, nimble but that's -- i remember the '08 -- we went 8 to 9 weeks of 40 to 80 vix volatility. so you go from 80 back down to 40 back down to 60 it was an exhausting period. like this is not going to be a v-shape recovery for markets it's going to it be a big "w," but the extensions can be much further than people think. >> what are you doing in the meantime are you actually buying things here and there

>> i was buying yesterday. i think i'll continue to buy dips oday. gold and bitcoin, got to talk about bitcoin, they did not survive the raptor, the original deleveraging bitcoin was terrorized went from 8,500 down to 4,000, 5,000, bounced now we're back to 6,800. gold and bitcoin really have a story. you know, if there was ever a time the basement of currencies, monetization of trillions dollars of debt, this is the time of bitcoin. if bitcoin is not higher by the end of the year, i will say what's going on? it needs to rally this year, but i think it will rally. this is what it was designed for, to be a hard money, an alternative when central banks have run amok. i'm not saying the central bank is not doing the right thing -- >> michael, we are -- we are out

of time for the show thank you for your time. we'll have you back very soon. >> you got it. have a great day >> thanks. final check on the markets we're back up almost as much as the futures can go up 965 on the dow. tracking the etfs, they're up. we have to go. see you both tomorrow probably from where you're seeing us right now. "squawk on the street" is next ♪ welcome to "squawk on the street." i'm david faber along with jim cramer who remains back at hq this morning carl has the morning off should be back as soon as tomorrow we are all focused on the potential stimulus package that will come out of congress. the markets opening a half hour from now the new york stock exchange remains closed, that is the floor of the new york stock exchange trading will move along more or