last show as well. because -- well, she wasn't present. well, i guess she was present. anyway, dr. wen, congratulations to you and your family. extraordinary. bit of happiness on a difficult day. news continues. let's turn it over to don lemon and "cnn tonight." >> this is "cnn tonight" i am don lemon. here's our breaking news. more than a quarter of a million cases of coronavirus in this country. over 276,900. more than 7,000 deaths, right now. more than 1,400, just today. more than a quarter of a million americans are sick, and more than 7,000 have died. so, tonight-l, the president announced new cdc guidelines urging americans to wear face coverings in public. the masks are important, not to protect yourself but, to protect others if you are asymptomatic and, unknowingly, carrying the virus. it is really important advice. advice that could save lives. advice that the president,

promptly, says he won't follow. and says you don't have to, either. >> so with the masks, it's going to be really a voluntary thing. you can do it. you don't have to do it. i'm choosing not to do it but some people may do it and that's okay. it may be good. probably will. only a recommendation. it's voluntary. >> i wish he would think, not about his own image but, about setting an example for the country. >> what would people gain from wearing a mask? and why are you opposed to wearing one yourself? >> well, i just don't want to wear one myself. it's a recommendation. they recommend it. i'm feeling good. i just don't want to be doing -- i don't know. somehow, sitting in the oval office, behind that beautiful, resolute desk, the great, resolute desk, i think wearing a face mask as i greet presidents, prime ministers, dictators,

kings, queens, i don't know, somehow i don't see it for myself. i just -- i just -- maybe i'll change my mind. but this will pass and, hopefully, it'll pass very quickly. now, with that being said, if somebody wants to -- most people can just make something out of a certain material. so it's very well-designated. it's very simple to do. i won't be doing it, personally. it's a recommendation. okay? >> vanity. he also refuses to even consider a nationwide stay-at-home order. >> mr. president, dr. fauci, last night, recommended -- said that every state should have stay-at-home orders right now. do you agree with that? should every state in this country have the kind of stay-at-home orders that we now see in places like washington and new york? >> the governors know what they're doing. they've been doing a great job. i guess we're close to 90% anyway. and states that we're talking about are not in jeopardy.

no, i would leave it to the governors. i like -- i like that from the standpoint of governing. >> so i guess i, alone, can fix this. that has gone somewhere else. dodging responsibility. even though at least 96% of people living in this country are now under stay-at-home orders. more and more states, finally issuing those orders. alabama and missouri, tonight, ordering residents to stay home. that leaves just eight states. arkansas, iowa, north dakota, nebraska, south carolina, south dakota, utah, and wyoming. there's at least one big job on the president's plate that he won't leave to the states, though, in the job of blaming the former president barack obama. >> if you were preparing for a pandemic, if this government were preparing for a pandemic, why is it we don't have enough masks? >> administrations gave us very

little ammunition for the military and very little shelf -- let me just tell you. you know it. you know the answer. the previous administration. the shelves were empty. the shelves were empty. so what you should do is speak to the people from the previous administration, jim, and ask them that question because the shelves were empty. >> so he overtalked jim there. but here is the point. this president has been in office for more than three years. if he had really prepared, remember, he has served now almost a full term, there would be no need to blame the former president barack obama. but this president's gaslighting has worked so often for him that he and his base can live in an alternate universe. remember the alternative facts? a universe where everyone is shocked when a virus does exactly what viruses do. viruses spread. viruses go viral.

bl blows your mind, doesn't it? and on top of all that, it was his predecessor, the one he is blaming tonight, whose people actually trained the trump administration on how to respond to pandemics. this is retroactive responsibility. the buck stops with obama instead of the buck stops here. that's the new trump motto. and then there is this dog-eat-dog answer to the question of whether new york, with well over 100,000 people sick with the coronavirus, will have enough ventilators to keep people alive. >> governor cuomo was saying new york may be days away from running out of ventilators. can you assure new york that going into next week, that they're going to have the ventilators that they need? >> no, they should have had more ventilators at the time. they should've had more ventilators. they were totally under serviced. we're doing our best for new york. you know, we have -- we have states.

we have a lot of states. we have territories, too. but we have a lot of states that have to be taken care of. >> they should've had more ventilators. that is brutal. and, in this time of crisis, we've got to call out our leaders right now. members of our government. when they don't -- when they aren't telling us the truth. here's the case in point. the president's son-in-law and senior advisor jared kushner. i want you to listen to what he said last night about the strategic national stockpile. >> the notion of the federal stockpile was it's supposed to be our stockpile. it's not supposed to be state stockpiles that they then use. so we are encouraging the states to make sure they're assessing the needs, they're getting the data from their local -- local situations. and then trying to fill it with the supplies that we've given them. >> boy. that is absolutely not true that the strategic national stockpile is just for the federal government. and what's up with kushner calling it our stockpile? it's our stockpile. it belongs to the people of the

united states. and the proof of that comes from our own fact checker daniel dale. i want you to listen to what he said after kushner made that totally false statement last night. >> daniel, kushner also said today that the strategic national stockpile is not for states to use. what is the truth here? >> i'm on the website, right now, staring at my computer screen, of the strategic national stockpile. and this is what it says, don, on its first page. this is the intro. the stockpile is a large supply of lifesaving pharmaceuticals and medical supplies for use in a public health emergency, severe enough to cause local supplies to run out. and then it goes on to say, when state, local, tribal, and territorial responders request federal assistance to support their efforts, the stockpile ensures that the right medicines and supplies get to those who need them most. >> you need to know this. it gets worse. okay? that website daniel dale

mentioned last night, by this morning, it was changed to match what jared kushner said. you see, what kushner said wasn't true. it was, in fact, false. so they changed the website in order to make it match what he said. to cover up for him. this administration's attitude, don't come crying to us. >> don't ask us for things when you know that -- when you don't know what you have in your own state. just because you're scared, you asked your medical professionals, and they don't know. you have to take inventory of what you have in your own state. and then you have to be able to show that there's a real need. >> just because you are scared. have a heart. here's what the president says tonight. >> we have a stockpile. it's a federal stockpile. we can use that for states. or we can use it for ourselves. we do use it for the federal government.

>> we can use it for ourselves? who -- who is that, exactly? does this president, this administration, even know how our government works? and as far as his insistence that nobody could have seen this coming, a lot of people actually did, including his own secretary of health and human services, alex azar, who said this at a biodefense summit a year ago and i quote here. of course, the thing that people ask what keeps you most up at night in the biodefense world? pandemic flu, of course. i think everyone in this room probably shares that concern. the president was asked about that tonight. >> your own health and human services secretary was aware that this had potential of being a very big problem around the world. a pandemic of this nature. who dropped the ball? >> well, i always knew that pandemics are one of the worst things could happen.

>> well, then, you should've prepared. you had ample warning. the bulk of a full term as president. the buck stops with you. our chief political correspondent is dana bash. our white house correspondent is kaitlan collins. they, both, join me this evening. good evening. dana, big news tonight is the cdc recommending face coverings in public. but president says that he won't be wearing one. so masks, optional? >> look. this has been so incredibly confusing. and the surgeon general himself admitted that. said that word, confusing, from the white house podium today. i was just communicating with an administration official who said there's just no way that the president will wear a mask. a couple of reasons. but, on the practical side, what they insisted, the white house,

is that the recommendation right now, the new one, is intended to do is to prevent asymptomatic people who have the virus from spreading it to one another. he's gotten tests, so he feels comfortable that he's okay. that that's a different question from the one i think you're alluding to here, don, which is leadership by example. and that is, obviously, not something he is willing to do. but it does come -- this whole decision comes after a very, very intense debate. week-long debate. anthony fauci said right on cnn's air last night was pretty intense about whether or not to change the guidelines. and there was some resistance at the white house. >> kaitlan, a source is telling cnn that the cdc felt pressured by the white house to draft these guidelines. what can you tell us about that? >> they told our colleague nick valencia that they would have rather waited and made sure this

is the guidance they wanted to put out because initially, what you heard the surgeon general say was that was the best guidance they had at the time when, in early march, he was telling americans stop buying masks. it's not going to help you. now, officials at the cdc say they felt pressure to put this guidance out. that they actually wanted to wait and see. and that comes after that very heated debate inside the west wing over what to do over this. because you had officials telling the president that he should put out this guidance, that it will help stop the spread of the coronavirus. and you have other people telling the president it's going to lull americans into a false sense of security. they're not going to listen to this cloth-only mandate and said they are actually going to go out and further threaten the supply of these medical-grade masks. so that's the question. but, obviously, the larger question coming out of this the president saying he's not going to follow it is does his own action undercut the guidance from the cdc? because a lot of time people take cues from the president. >> so this national stay at home order after dr. fauci called for one, why is the president ignoring experts' opinions here?

that's for you, kaitlan. >> that's a really good question. that's -- that's -- that's a great question because you saw fauci, on cnn just last night, saying he doesn't understand why there are states that have been reluctant to do this. belatedly doing this. my home state of alabama finally doing it today after a lot of urging from other officials they should be doing it. i think the president realizes they can't tell governors what to do in this situation but what the president says has a lot of weight on these governors. and i think nine of these governors who have not so far done this are republican governors. so it has even more incredible amount of weight on them. so what the president says matters, as we saw with florida's ron desantis this weekend. cited the president's demeanor at that briefing. but for right now, he is giving cover to these governors saying it's up to them to make the best decisions for their states. and it comes, you should know,

behind the scenes, health officials are telling the president they think all states should be following the same mandate. not just a patchwork of certain states doing certain things in the medical experts' opinion. >> go ahead, dana. >> if i may, i mean, i think what kaitlan said, i know, is exactly right. and if you just kind of look at what she said from the other side of it, which is, that the president is giving these governors cover. the flip side of that is that the president doesn't want to be the one to tell these governors, all of whom are governors of red states for whom, you know, many of whom the governors and, more importantly, the majority of constituents think of it for the president of the united states to be putting this kind of -- using this kind of heavy hand on their states. you know, the other thing that you need to keep in mind is that, at the white house, at least i talked to a senior

official tonight who said what will we do? will it be martial law? which is a good question. how do you implement that? but it doesn't have to be an actual executive order. it could be a real use of the pulpit. the president standing at that podium for so many hours combined this whole week and the past few weeks. he could just say if it were me, i would do it. i think it's important to do it. just use his rhetoric, which is so powerful, as any president's is, but he doesn't want to do that for a lot of reasons. but the fact that they're red states is something to keep in mind. >> it's interesting to me he continues to blame the lack of ventilators, kaitlan, on -- and equipment -- on govern. take a listen to this. >> we have a federal stockpile and they have state stockpiles. and, frankly, they were -- many of the states -- were totally unprepared for this. so we had to go into the federal

stockpile. but we're not an ordering clerk. they have to have for themselves. >> so he keeps using this ordering clerk line. i mean, what is this ordering clerk? what is that? why doesn't he see the power the federal government has here? i mean, as dana was saying, he doesn't see the power of his pulpit. maybe he does. but he doesn't see the power of the government when it comes to the ventilators,as well. what's happening? >> yeah, and the other week he was saying we're not a shipping clerk for these states. though, he has said time and time again when these states do need backup, they will be there. but as we know, the federal stockpile is depleted on ppe gear and on ventilators, they basically only have 10,000 left. that is not the numbers we have seen governors say they are going to need going forward. they say it's pretty much, basically, a way for the president to deflect criticism of the federal government in

this situation. and you have seen that play out with these governors, where there are certain governors who criticize the federal government. say they're not getting what they need. and then the president comes out and says well they shouldn't be relying on us for everything they need. and then jared kushner says the national stockpile is our stockpile, not the states. even republican senators disagree with that. cory gardener said today he didn't know what kushner meant by that because the stockpile belongs to everyone, belongs to these states. that's the purpose is to help back these states up when they need it. so much like the guidance about the stay-at-home orders, it's really a way for the president to be able to leave the responsibility up to the states. so if they don't have what they need, then it could fall on the states' shoulders. if they don't issue stay at home orders, it falls on the states. and it's really notable, don, the president has said he is a wartime president, though, very often we have seen him deferring to states for matters like this. >> i mean, where would the stockpile go to? family members and friends? when he says ours, i don't

understand. aren't states part of the united states and people citizens of the united states? >> the whole point of having a stockpile, don. the whole point of having a stockpile is for the federal government to use it for -- for the states. i mean, no matter what it says in the -- on the website. no matter how it's changed to, you know, match what jared kushner said last night, that's what it's for. full stop. >> yeah. that's the issue with, you know, having your kids as your advisor. all the best people. thank you. i appreciate it. the cdc now recommending americans wear nonmedical grade masks. my next guest, a top doctor and former vice president cheney's cardiologist has some thoughts on that that you really need to hear. that's next. but when allergies and congestion strike, take allegra-d... a non-drowsy antihistamine plus a powerful decongestant. so you can always say "yes" to putting your true colors on display. say "yes" to allegra-d.

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americans wear nonmedical grade masks in public, as officials report the most deaths in one day, from the coronavirus. more than 1,400. president trump saying that new guidelines are voluntary, and that he won't wear a mask. joining me now is dr. jonathan riner of george washington university hospital.

he is the cardiologist to former vice president dick cheney. doctor, i'm so glad you're here. thank you so much. these are important times. a lot of people are watching. they want good information, and you are here to supply it. so thank you for joining us. i really appreciate it. >> my pleasure. >> you doing okay? >> yeah, i'm doing fine. thank you. >> you say this is a watered-down recommendation and it comes down to the fact that the administration knows that there aren't enough masks. >> yeah. you know, this is really a -- a half-baked, completely inadequate, half measure that comes weeks too late. look. i think the bottom line is the reason why we haven't had a firm recommendation from the cdc for people in public to wear masks is very simply, and very sadly, that we don't have the masks. don, if you look at how testing was rolled out in the united states, the first patient tested positive for the coronavirus on january 20th.

and it took 51 days -- that's a week short of two months -- for us to test 20,000 people in this country. and the reason why we weren't more widely testing, and the reason why we had such stringent restrictions on who were -- was tested then -- was that we didn't have the tests. so, now, you know, weeks, many weeks into this crisis, into the singular public health crisis of our lifetimes, of the century, people in public aren't wearing masks. simply, because we don't have them. we've known, for a long time, that masks prevent transmission. if you look at photographs from the spanish flu pandemic 102 years ago, everyone in the street is wearing a mask. we wear masks in the operating room to prevent transmitting infection to a vulnerable patient. why would we not be wearing them on -- on a packed subway train? >> so, dr. reiner, you're pretty

clear to me. but just i want to make sure the audience -- because sometimes they're doing other things that they're not paying attention as closely as i am. they have lives. i'm not saying i don't but i'm just sitting here talking to you. you're saying everyone should be wearing masks when they're out in public. it should be mandated that we wear masks. >> so i -- i work at george washington hospital, right six blocks from the white house. and a couple weeks ago, the leadership in my place decided that all physicians, nurses, and staff in the hospital would wear masks. not to protect ourselves from -- from the patients but to protect ourselves from each other. right? we've known that about -- a huge proportion of people with the virus, anywhere from 20 to 50% of people with the virus have either minimal or no symptoms at

all. and that's where a lot of the transmission comes from. so you wear a mask in public to protect, you know, your neighbor, the old man down the street. the person who's just had a kidney transplant. that's how you -- you slow the spread of this virus. by wearing a mask in public. what did they do in china? what did they do in south korea? if you -- not only did they have draconian social distancing and quarantine practices. anyone in public was wearing a mask. wearing a mask prevents or -- or -- or dramatically reduces the transmission of virus from one person to another. it should be required. >> all this time, we've been getting the recommendations from the -- those experts saying it's not -- don't do it. it's -- you know, it doesn't really -- it doesn't really do any good. it's, actually, worse for you because you touch your face more and on and on and on. they were wrong?

>> you know, the -- they were -- they were half right. the mask is not designed to prevent you from getting the virus. although, it might. you know, it might lessen the likelihood of somebody, you know, sneezed in your presence, it will prevent you from transmitting it to somebody else. there was a really horrible, horribly sad piece on social media this week. there was a bus driver in detroit. his name was jason hardgrove. and a couple weeks ago, he posted a really angry message online because somebody came on his bus without a mask and was -- >> coughed and ended up dying, right? >> yeah, he died this week. he died because passengers on a crowded bus coughed. coughed in his face. so think about a crowded subway line, and think about the lack of social distancing there. people have to get to work. they're going to get on the subway. everybody should be wearing a mask. >> yeah.

i just want to -- wait. say that. i stepped on you. say one more time. our government what? >> our government needs to make that possible. that is what the federal government is for. instead, we are seeing what somebody described this week as darwinian federalism. right? survival of the fittest. >> i've got one more. i've got one more that i want to ask you before i let you go. and i'm running out of time here. the -- the president, tonight, addressed this drug hydrochloroquine. listen to this. >> hydroxychloroquine. i don't know. it's looking like it's having some good results. i hope that would be a phenomenal thing. but we have it, right now, in approximately now -- it's increased to 1,500 people. >> you say that's downright dangerous. why? >> because the drug has toxicity. the drug may be effective. there's no one that is -- that is praying for this drug to be

effective as -- as -- and a game changer in treating people who are sick with this virus than i am. but i need to see the data. the drug can cause a dangerous heart arrhythmia in susceptible people. and if it's not taken under physician supervision, people are going to die. so it may be that the risks are overshadowed by tremendous benefits. fantastic. but we need to see the data. we need to know that the risk of taking the drug outweighs -- the benefit of taking the drug outweighs the risks. and, you know, the -- the -- the highway of -- of medical investigation has been littered with drugs that seem good. but when you study them in rigorously performed clinical trials, prove to be either ineffective or downright harmful. and if we're going to prescribe this to hundreds of thousands of americans, i want to know that it's going to help and it's not going to hurt. >> doctor jonathan reiner, thank

you, sir. you be safe. >> you, too. good night. >> good night. we have some breaking news for you. you know the musical artist pink that she has tested positive for the coronavirus. in a statement that she put out, the singer says, quote, two weeks ago, my 3-year-old son jameson and i are showing symptoms of covid-19. fortunately, our primary care physician had access to tests. i tested positive. well, pink says after two weeks of sheltering at home, she has now tested negative and goes on to call it a travesty that coronavirus testing is not more widely available. states competing with other states and even the federal government for much needed medical supplies and equipment. i'm going to ask colorado governor jared polis what he is doing as the number of cases in his state rise. next.

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white house coronavirus task force, saying today one of the areas she is most concerned about is colorado. so let's get right to the governor of colorado and that's polis. good evening, governor, i know your time is valuable. thank you so much. you are doing a great job, by the way. so let's talk about the situation there. over 4,000 cases tonight. how are your efforts to fight this virus going? >> well, holding up. i'm glad it is drawing some national attention. we hope that leads to increased supplies. we're at about 823 people hospitalized. 111 deaths. we took action earlier, it would be worse. we were able to close our bars and restaurants and clubs before st. patrick's day, thank goodness, and we are doing our best every day to struggle to get the supplies we need and scale up our hospital capacity. >> i was going to ask you what about your medical situation? do you have the ppe they need? >> it's tough because we are

competing against every other state, every country. now, we are competing against the federal government. we had a good lead on some and they got swept up by fema so we're not getting them. it was nice when we were just competing against the states. it's hard to also be competing against fema. we don't know, yet, what we are going to get from fema. we've been asking. we'd love a timeline and numbers. in the meantime, we're doing everything we can, both domestically, as well as internationally. taiwan, korea, china, we just got some test kits from korea. so we're innovate iv. we're doing our best to do what we can. >> you mentioned fema and i was going to ask you about the stockpile controversy that you heard jared kushner talk about. but a congressional source is telling cnn many of the orders have been cancelled because fema is snatching them up. and you have to compete with the federal government to -- to get what you need. so -- so you just -- you mentioned that. what -- are you saying anything

to the white house, to the federal government? are they trying to comply or relent in any way? do they understand how they are hurting you with this? >> well, either -- either be in or out, folks. that's kind of my message. either -- either you're buying them and you're providing them to the states and letting us know what we're going to get and what we're going to get them. or stay out and let us buy them. we got the most nimble, most dynamic team. we pulled in a bunch of leaders from the private sector working on global acquisition. but we can't compete against our own federal government. so either work with us or don't do anything at all. but this -- this middle ground where they are buying stuff out from under us and not telling us what we're going to get. that's really challenging to manage our hospital surge and our safety of our healthcare workers in that kind of environment. >> this goes along with that. you know, jared kushner saying this national stockpile is for -- you know, said it's our stockpile. it's not supposed to be states' stockpiles. you need help from that

stockpile, don't you? >> well, i don't know what that means. we're a nation of 50 states and their territories, right? and so we're all on the same team here. we're on the same team as the federal government. our states. we're working closely with our local governments, woith our hospitals. every day, each one of our hospitals puts in an online tool how much equipment they have. we are sharing together, as a state. we'd love to see more of that same spirit nationally. i think it can save lives. it can also reduce the duration of this economic disruption, which is just really -- you know, really devastating people's dibability to support themselves. >> governor, thank you. appreciate having you on. we'll have you back, of course. >> and everybody, wear masks. going to wearing masks in colorado. everybody's wearing masks. it's cool. it saves lives. and we all need to do it when we're out. >> yeah. the president laid out the cdc guidelines but you guys did it -- you announced your own guidelines. and you have everybody wearing masks. >> no matter where you live,

whether your governor wants you to or not. wear those masks to save lives. >> jared polis, thank you, sir. >> thank you. >> a navy captain getting this sendoff today after he was removed from his post for warning his sailors that they were in danger with coronavirus spreading on board. into an all in yes. allegra. live your life, not your allergies. in honor of my dad, who was alzheimer's. i decided to make shirts for the walk with custom ink, and they just came out perfect. - [announcer] check out our huge selection of custom apparel for every occasion. you'll even get free shipping. get started today at customink.com.

today for a departing leader. sailors from the uss theodore roosevelt gave a sendoff to captain brett krosher. he was relieved of his duties

yesterday after raising alarm about the coronavirus on board in a memo to navy leadership that sent off a firestorm. joining me now, barbara starr and retired admiral. good to see both of you safe and healthy. barbara, you first. the navy isn't accusing captain krosher of leaking the memo. so why is he relieved of his command? >> well, what they are saying inside the navy is that they had a loss of confidence in him because he sent this memo out, they say, to a large number of people. and, basically, revealed information. and that he exercised bad judgment in t judgment, in the navy's view, in sharing all of this information. and they didn't share it, they say, with his chain of command. his admiral was just down the hall in the carrier, on board the carrier. and they said he didn't share it with them. to say they had a loss of confidence, that he simply couldn't trust the judgment of the captain.

but look at that video. the crew or at least the hundreds of sailors out on deck that night. they did not have any loss of confidence in captain krosher. they came out. word clearly spread through the 4,000 person crew that he was about to depart and so many came to give him the sendoff they felt he deserved. >> imagine how that felt. i'm sure that meant a whole lot to him. john, an opinion piece tonight on cnn.com, here's what you write. in part, you said removing the uss theodore roosevelt captain was reckless and foolish. why was this the wrong call? >> mostly, the reason i wrote that part of the piece, don, was because of the timing of this. i mean, here we are with an aircraft carrier in the middle of trying to offload thousands of sailors in guam because he's got an epidemic on board. and to go through a transition of leadership only is going to make things more unstable. it's only going to exacerbate the fear and uncertainty that the families and sailors are

having here. so i think the timing was particularly bad here. they've got an investigation going on. we'll learn more next week and look, if he leaked this thing, that's a whole different matter. but i don't think they made the case strongly enough that what he did was egregious enough to warrant him being fired like that. >> what goes through your mind when you see the sendoff he got from the sailors on that ship? because when i said that probably meant a lot to him, i heard you sort of mumble there. >> yeah. i tell ya. i've been around sailors my whole life, don. my grandfather was one. my father was one. they don't just know good leadership when they feel isee it. they feel good leadership when they see it. and you can feel in that video how much they adored this man and appreciated his leadership and what he did for them. i think that just comes through. and i can't think of a single tribute that that man will ever get in his career, however long he'll serve, that will mean more to him than that.

>> i mean, look at that, john. all of those men and women there just aboard -- >> that's incredible. it's incredible. >> yeah. >> and it speaks volumes about the kind of leader, the kind of naval officer he is. >> that has no impact, no effect, on the brass? >> well, apparently not. i mean, i don't think it impacted previously and that's a shame. but look. they got an investigation going on. we'll see what they turn up. again, i just don't think the case was that solid. >> barbara, u.s. defense officials telling cnn this morning that 137 soldiers from the uss theodore roosevelt have now tested positive for the c w coronavirus, speaking of the investigation that's going on. representing more than 10% of cases all across the u.s. military. so what steps, u.s. navy, what are they doing to battle that spread? >> well, on the ship, this goes to the central concern that the captain apparently had. he wanted things to go much faster. they're trying to off load, first of all, to get those who are sick off the ship.

get them to medical care. get those who have symptoms isolated and get them taken care of. but they are also trying to get off a large number. hundreds of additional essential crew members so they can be in quarantine, essentially, or isolated for 14 days, determined that they don't have the virus, and get them back on board. it's a bit of a mystery right now. the captain clearly knew this was going on. but he also made very clear in his memo that he just didn't think things were moving fast enough. and paraphrasing his words, he said this is not war and he didn't want to see any of his sailors die. he wanted this to move much more quickly than it was. the pentagon, for its part, saying they knew about -- you know, that the sailors were -- were ill. and that they were moving additional medical care and additional aid out there. and that they were moving very fast. >> barbara starr, admiral kirby, thank you very much. trump administration shut down a program to detect pandemics

early. that included working with a lab in wuhan, china, two months before the coronavirus outbreak. that story is next.

new crest pro/active defense. you're doing more to keep your body healthy for the future. shouldn't your toothpaste do the same for your mouth? now with crest pro/active defense, future proof your whole mouth. its active defense technology neutralizes bacteria to shield against potential issues. crest. services secretary alex azar defending trump's readiness for a pandemic. but the administration's actions don't support that. among them, the shutdown of a pandemic early-warning program, weeks before the coronavirus started spreading in china. let's discuss now. los angeles times science and medicine reporter emily bomgardener is here. listen. you reported this program aimed at training scientist in china,

that was shut down by the trump administration. tell us about it. and why it ended just two months before the coronavirus. >> sure. so this is a program that examines the intersection of animals and humans in nature. so this is the research program. researchers are out in the field, taking samples, tries to understand what viruses are circulating in animals that we haven't seen in humans yet. and which ones are most likely to jump over into humans and perhaps launch into a pandemic. so this is a program that was on a grant cycle. i want to be very clear. the trump administration does not gut a permanent program. they just finished up a program and chose not to renew it. and that was two months before this pandemic. so some would say pretty bad timing. >> and one of the labs involved, am i right, is in this program, was in wuhan, where the virus started? >> there were labs all throughout the world who worked with the usaid on this. one of them was the virology institute lab right in wuhan.

that was, in fact, the lab that identified this virus very quickly. so some of the researchers in the program say that although it was shut down, that is a silver lining. the lab they trained themselves was able to identify this. >> you have spoken with people involved in this program. they say closing it was incredibly shortsighted. why do they say that? >> so the purpose of the program is, as the title suggests, it's called predict. it's to predict future pandemics. so the little bit of funding that's left, $2 million out of $200 million, that's being used to address this current -- this -- this current pandemic. to try to squelch it. but it's not working toward identifying the next pathogen. the next one that will jump over into humans and containing it. so a lot of researchers who are involved in it say you need to continue funding this kind of research so you can prevent these kinds of things on the front end, rather than being very reactive when it finally lands in the human host. >> emily bomgardener from the

l.a. times. thank you appreciate it. be safe out there. >> thank you. >> breaking news. under cover of the coronavirus crisis, the president settling scores with a perceived enemy from his impeachment. that story, next. when we started our business we were paying an arm and a leg for postage.

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i am don lemon. 11:00 p.m. on the east coast, and here is the latest on the coronavirus pandemic. tonight, the number of cases worldwide is nearing 1.1 million. the global death toll, just under 60,000. here, at home, the pandemic is worsening by the hour. johns hopkins university, now reporting more than 277,000 confirmed cases in the united states. and more than 7,000 deaths in this country. more than 1,400 deaths reported just today. tonight, nearly 96% of the u.s.