i'm told the office of attending physician has said we don't need to quarantine. we are waiting to get the official word. ok? reporter: thank you, sir. sen. kennedy: want to react to anything else? trump on: president the coronavirus task force led by vice president pence will hold a briefing today. we will have live coverage from the white house starting at 4:30 eastern here on c-span. levin is joining us from his home in maryland. he is with the american enterprise institute. thanks for being with us. guest: thank you very much for having me. i hope you and your family are doing well. host: we are, and to you too. time fromate your your home.

let me begin with asking about the president, his performance so far in this pandemic. how is he doing? guest: dan to that question you have to acknowledge this is a very difficult situation that no president would find easy and the federal government was always going to have to go through some mobilization, being overwhelmed by a crisis and rising to it. the question is how are they doing at that and obviously there are weaknesses to the response we have seen from the white house and i think above all there has been a certain kind of dysfunction where there has been an unwillingness to confront some of the top or realities of this crisis, or at least to acknowledge them publicly. in a lot of ways the federal government has mobilized and certainly the country has, where people are willing to put their lives on hold in order to respond to a public health crisis. unwillingnessome to confront basic realities at

the top and still now we are seeing the system overwhelmed in such a way that people are not inking strategically about what the next step has to be, how we gradually return to normal has to be the question that policymakers are dealing with. understandably we are seeing policymakers trying to confront the minute by minute pressures they are facing, so things like the failure of testing early on has made it very difficult to come back and try to get on top of this problem that this is a challenge that would be a massive problem for any president. it is not a function of just this particular white house. is a packageponse well in excess of $1 trillion, perhaps totaling close to $2 trillion, the largest package in american history. this is a crisis, an emergency. we also have a $23 trillion debt. guest: there needs to be a

massive response, given the economic cost of the social distancing and the shutdown of our service sector that we are going through. the question is, is that response geared to enabling the next phase? ultimately we are trying to find a way to live relatively safely with this virus for some time until there is a vaccine, until we have a better grasp of its characteristics and are able to handle it. the question policymakers have to ask themselves is having taken a hard pause and needing to do that for some time, how do we gradually resume our natural life anyway a way that is sustainable? that means the kind of package congress is looking at needs to look at enabling this pause to be sustainable to helping people keep their place in our society, upping employers retain their workforce so people are not fired or lose their jobs. helping the economy hold on for

a matter of what will be weeks and then gradually enabling people to return to the economic and social life. the package that congress is passing that looks to be passing earlier in the week does some of this but i think it is also somewhat confused between that and a traditional stimulus. this is not a situation for traditional stimulus where the goal is to spur economic demand. there is nowhere for that demand to goal right -- nowhere for that demand to go right now. be helpingeds to employers hang on and then gradually enabling a resumption. a hard pause and a soft return is how we have to think about this. then yous the goal, have to give a pretty mixed picture, a pretty mixed grade to the packages that have been passed so far but there will be more to come. host: let me ask you about a caller we had in our first have,

katie works in maryland and she is now out of a job as restaurants across the country are shut down. she is a waitress, dependent on that to pay her rent, her car insurance, her automobile payments each month. what does she do, and people like her in the short term? guest: unfortunately a lot of people in our country are going to find themselves in this situation, at least temporarily while everything is closing down. first of all there is some help she can find by going to her state government. maryland has been distinctly helpful. governor hogan and the state government -- stick government have been helping people deal with creditors to make sure you don't find people being kicked out of their homes or coming under credit card debt. they will also be some help from the package that is likely to pass in the coming weeks but i think it is on people like her that the federal support needs to be focused.

the united kingdom has enacted a package of responses that includes what they call job retention. in return for employers not firing their workforce, the government is taking over paying 80% of the salaries of that workforce during the public health emergency. at significant cost, the national government is helping sustain payrolls. that support is provided through employers rather than around them, having lost your job. that would be expensive but what we are doing is expensive too and i think we have to think about how to take on the problem we face in ways that allow people to hang on. at the same time, this period has to be weeks and not months. we have to be finding ways, public health and economic ways to start returning gradually, carefully to our national life

and start allowing people to work again, allowing schools to open again. that has to be done in a way that helps us gain control of the public health situation. that means it can't be done for a few more weeks. hospitals are going to be going through a very difficult period in the next few weeks but once that begins to decline, the goal has got to be to return to normality and i think at this point, the discussion in washington is not focused enough on that as the goal. ust: yuval levin is joining from his home in maryland. we will get to your phone calls and you can send a text message at (202)-748-8003. i want to share with you this headline from the washington post to go to my earlier question on the president and his response. u.s. intelligence reports from january and february warning about a likely pandemic. this from shane harris, and a team of washington post reporters. quote, u.s. intelligence agencies were issuing ominous

classified warnings in january and february about the global danger posed by the coronavirus while president trump and lawmakers played down the threat and failed to take action that might have slowed the threat of the pathogen -- slowed the spread of the pathogen. the intelligence reports did not predict when the virus might land on u.s. shores or recommend particular steps as public health officials should take. the spread of the that in china and warned chinese officials seem to be minimizing the severity of the outbreak. a virus that showed the characteristics of globally circling -- globally circling pandemic. despite the constant flow of reporting, trump continued publicly and privately playing down the threat of the virus posed to americans. lawmakers too did not grapple with the virus in earnest until this month as officials scramble

to keep citizens in their homes and hospitals bracing for a surge in patients suffering from covid-19. this reporting, blaming both congress and the president. guest: i think there was certainly an enormous degree of avoidance early on, a sense that this will pass, that this won't happen. at some levels there have been passed warnings about these kinds of challenges. i worked in the bush white house and we confronted the possibility of avian flu at that time which thankfully did not happen but there were a lot of preparations made in that period and it was taken seriously. tended president trump to rely on hoping this would not happen. there is no question that when this began there was going to be some period of being overwhelmed and needing to mobilize. we don't keep in reserve thousands of icu beds or the kind of response that would be

needed but once it was clear that this would be coming, there was a need to begin the oval is asian and there is no question the united states began several weeks too late. there is no question other --tes in the west the question in assessing the government's response is has that mobilization and response happened in a effective way and the country has shown a willingness and ability to disconnect, to move to a kind of social distancing situation where schools were closed, workplaces were closed but while that is happening, our government needs to milk -- needs to be mobilizing in a massive way, it needs to be building surge capacity in hospital systems, needs to be leapfrogging the testing question and moving to a different approach to testing where we use blood tests to get a sense of who has antigens to

this virus, who has been exposed to it. let us where our response things to be right net -- that is where our response needs to be right now. host: you write that the trump administration has never been prepared for this type of disaster, saying the staffing structure around the president has always been too flat and chaotic. you wrote, the problem is not that our government was not fully prepared for the swift global spread of this virus or even that it made serious mistakes as a result. the problem is that upper reaches appear to be overwhelmed by choice. guest: this has been a problem from the beginning in the trump the timestion, that when we most need our president to function well, times like this, times of crisis, the administration has to prepare for those moments by building a staffing structure that is

capable of bearing the burden of an emergency, moving information in an effective way, formula and questions for presidential decisions in a clear way. that has always been a problem in the trump white house. the staffing structure is very flat. there is not a clear hierarchy or chain of command. the chain of command that does exist has never been trusted by the people within it. they have always been people who have gone around trying to reach the president. there has been a tendency to ignore president directives, something we saw in the mueller presidentere when the orders something his senior staff thinks is unreasonable, they just ignore it. that could be a good thing if they are averting trouble but in a moment like this where decisions have to be made under intense pressure, they are not ready. they have not built a functional decision-making system and we are paying a price for that now. host: let me share you a moment -- share with you a moment that has been getting a lot of press, the daily briefing on friday

with peter alexander and this from the president. [video clip] >> i am not being overly optimistic. i sure think we ought to give it a try. there has been some interesting things happening, very good things. let's see what happens. we have nothing to lose. what do you have to lose? >> what do you say to americans who are scared though? millions who are scared right now. what do you say to americans who are watching you right now? >> i say you are a terrible reporter. that is what i say. that is a very nasty question. that gives a very bad signal that you are putting out. the american people are looking for answers and they are looking for hope and you are doing sensationalism, the same with nbc and comcast.

that is really bad reporting. you want to get back to reporting instead of sensationalism. let's see if it works. it mightn't -- it might and it might not. who knows? i have been right a lot. host: that was the president and nbc reporter jason alexander. that was on drugs being discussed to potentially treat the pandemic. your thoughts? guest: there is no defending what happened. there are two things happening that should not be going on. one is the president talking about a set of malaria drugs that may or may not be effective. he could certainly talk about enabling the fda to try this. what he is basically saying is people with symptoms should take these drugs and i think the president in particular, because the power of that office and the bully pulpit he has needs to be very careful about what he is

telling people to do in this situation, to know what the risks may be. layught -- he was offered a up question, an easy question from a reporter, what do you say to people who are scared? the president has a responsibility to speak to the country, to give people a sense that people are taking action, but the government understands the problem and is doing something about it, and rather than offer some reassuring answer, the president says that is an intelligent question. it shows you in part the ways in which the pressure is getting to this president. no president would find this easy but you have to recognize the responsibility you have in that office in a moment like this. put aside concerns about your own image, put aside concerns about partisan politics in a moment like this and try to speak to the country as its leader and offer some reassurance and offer a sense that responsible action is being taken. in that particular incident -- for instance, the president

clearly failed to do that. host: let's get to your phone calls. carol in texas. caller: good morning. thank you so much for everything you are doing and everything that everyone in the country is doing. my question is, i am on disability but it is a small check. a few months of the year, i worked seasonally at a ski resort. is there anybody thinking about people like us? all i want tof stress what you said the beginning -- you said at the beginning which is thank you to those in the country who are taking extraordinary risks and burdens to help keep going. is paying a price in different ways and we should recognize that. to the situation you are describing, there is some help that will be coming from the legislation begin considered in

congress and i think is very likely to pass that will offer some direct support, some cash help to american families. that, in terms of seasonal work, it. is a real challenge the question is how long are we going to be in a situation of a complete shutdown like this. some kinds of seasonal work will be possible as we go forward into summer and beyond but obviously the challenge of seasonal work in this period is going to be very difficult to do anything about it. even help that is offered through the employer system if we were to do something like what the british are doing, we have confronted serious problems for people who are seasonal workers and are not on the payroll at this point. that is a concern that will have to be taken up in further legislative action that is going to keep coming through the

course of this crisis. i wish you the best and i think the problem you face is certainly one that legislators at the federal and state level are going to need to think about more as they take further steps. host: next up is ryan from california. good morning. are you with us? we will try one more time for ryan. go ahead. caller: i have a comment. there is an article has not been read about a professor. he helps the minister of health in italy. quote,aying, this is a the way we code debts in this country is very generous in the sense that all people who died in hospitals with coronavirus are deemed to have died of coronavirus. on reevaluation by the national institute of health, only 12% of

deaths have shown a direct casualty from coronavirus while 88% of patients could have died of other things. they had too many other ways to die because they were old. we are not talking about the age rate at which people are dying. the death rate is a big thing. we are over exaggerating it. we are destroying our economy because of false numbers. it is as low as the flu or lower because the flu in america has killed more people this week, just last week then corona has in the last four months. -- fakehis is fake mood news and is a hoax of the media and you are perpetuating it. you personally need to be held accountable. host: with all due respect, how do you tell that to the more than 26,000 americans who are dealing with this virus, to the people across europe, those who have died? guest: what about the people -- caller: what about the people who die of car accidents or the flu?

you are not even putting it in the context of what i said. dieof these people, do they of older age or is it the coronavirus? in italy, that is what they are saying. you are fear mongering. anyone could have a cold, anyone could have the flu, anyone could die of anything at any given moment. host: why is congress now about to pass up to $2 trillion in relief? why is the president holding daily briefings? why is there a coronavirus task force if this is a hoax? caller: it is not because of the death rate because the death rate is lower than what is being talked about. the media is perpetuating -- host: stop. we are not perpetuating anything. i'm going to hang up on you. the pace of what we are seeing is absolutely different. the notion that the fatality rate is what it would have been without this is absolutely false.

yes older people are dying but we need to be protective of older people. they have been subjected to a novel virus that is causing them in norma's health problems and it is increasing the fatality rate dramatically. what we are seeing in hospitals in italy and unfortunately we will begin to see it here is the overwhelming intensive care units -- overwhelming of intensive care units in ways they are not equipped to handle and we are now trying to build capacity to handle. it is going to be in the norma's challenge and it is -- it is norma's -- an in enormous challenge. we are not being lied to. us taking it seriously. host: what is the message in

your book and how do you apply that to what we are dealing with right now? guest: the book of course is written before this crisis began but it is a book about the condition of our institutions, , corethe ways in which institutions of american life have trouble keeping their integrity and holding together in the last several decades and i do think there were a lot of ways in which we see that reflected now. on the one hand we are living through a national mobilization that is compelling people to rise to this challenge and i think our country is rising to the challenge of some very -- in some very impressive ways. in times of mobilization, we see it is possible for institutions to assert themselves and for people to take them seriously but we also see, having lived through a decay of those institutions for a long time, and this is related to that last caller, having lived through a loss of confidence in our

institutions, a wave of cynicism that has left us unable to trust what we are told by anyone who calls themselves an expert. it becomes very difficult for us to rise to a challenge like this. our first reaction is to say they are lying to us, they are only in it for themselves. a lot of our national institutions have got to take on the challenge of persuading people again that they exist for us, that they are here for the country. in an emergency like this and a crisis like this, it becomes easier to see and understand and we can certainly hope that one small silver lining of this very dark cloud we are living through now is that we might walk away with a little bit more confidence in the authority and expertise of some of our institutions if they handle this well and take themselves seriously. the fact that we have seen a collapse of public trust over decades is certainly one of the problems we are dealing with now, one of the reasons it is difficult for our country to respond to this problem. what do you date the

decline of trust in our institutions to? was it watergate, the assassination of president kennedy? guest: i think it is that period . the united states came out of the second world war and the great depression as a very cohesive country with a lot of confidence in the institutions. enormous levels of trust. that began to decline by the 1960's. you see a gradual decline in trust for getting through the late 60's and early 70's. a real collapse of trust in this century after 2000, and especially after the financial crisis, a sense that the system is rigged against us, the rise of politics in which people say, people like president trump and bernie sanders will say the entire system is rigged against you and present themselves as outsiders even when he is president, president trump sees

himself as an outsider to the system. we see a building accelerating collapse of trust and in order to change that, our institutions have the responsibility to persuade the public they are worthy of that trust and in many ways that requires reform. reforms in congress, reforms of our party system, of the way the executive branch operates. the reforms of institutions throughout our society, outside of politics. this is a time to take on those kinds of reforms and as we come out of this crisis in the coming months, that is one of the challenges we will have to take on. host: the book is titled a time to build, our guest yuval levin joining us from his home in maryland. robert is next from pennsylvania. caller: good morning. i thank you very much for taking michael. i am watching your program -- for taking my call. i am watching your program and i keep hearing the same thing from the people.

they are out of work. they have no money. they can't pay their mortgage. they can't pay their life insurance. they can't pay their house bills. etc. etc.. the american people have had to bite the bullet, tighten their about a full- how of these companies getting our money have to put all of that on hold until after this crisis is over? host: thank you robert. we will get a response. guest: this is a period of intense response to emergency and people have to find ways to make it through it but there is a rule here, this is a public health emergency, this is one of the things we expect of our whornment, even those of us believe the role of government should be limited as i do.

we have to acknowledge that in a time of national emergency, there is a role for national action and this is generally a moment of emergency and this is a role for the federal government to help us get through this period in ways that enable us to return to economic activity and something don't -- something closer to normalcy. we are going to be living with this virus for a long time and we are going to have to find ways to do that. there will be changes in our lives that don't just go away when we get back to work. this is a moment that requires a kind of mobilization that legislators and the executive branch at the federal level and state level are going to have to think about how to help the public and help the economy get through the emergency so that we can get back to greater normality and our usual kind of politics. in a time like this, the fact that people are facing the kinds of problems they do requires sacrifice from everyone, from

creditors who need to be willing to wait through this period. it requires much more action from public officials and government and requires all of us to be able to make the sacrifices required to make it through. we need to be helping each other. it is a moment where we have to see each other as part of a larger whole. we are all americans and we are all in this together and that is the only way we will make it through. host: our guest has also written a piece that is available online at nytimes.com. how did americans lose faith in everything? our institutions have lost the capacity and have become platforms for approval -- platforms for performance instead. lenore in ohio, thank you for waiting. caller: good morning. i hope everyone is well. is with the mixed messaging coming from the white

that is coming from the administration downward. state, federal, i have been in the military. symptoms.ing to show i am tearing up my house looking for my thermometer. i went to the store and there are no thermometers. i am calling the numbers that are posted and publicized but not getting responses. --issue is the a celebration is the acceleration has exacerbated the situation. in alln who has worked forms of government, now that i need my government, they are not there. who do we believe? are we to believe the sending messages coming out of the white house? i am here on the ground and

seeing things differently -- the sunny messages coming out of the white house? i am here on the ground and seeing things differently. there is a place for government in our lives and right now i need my government and what am i to do? host: thank you for the call from ohio. guest: i think there is certainly a role for government response in a national emergency like this and it is important that that mobilization is now the focus of the administration and i agree there have been some mixed messages on that front. there is no clear sense coming from the white house. the attitude that they want the public to take, the basic approach, the confidence of what is coming in the next few months, what are they working on and how are they mobilizing? there has been a tremendous mobilization at the state level in some places and there has been enormous mobilization at the level of civil society in

american life. find ways to reach, to get in contact with the health care system. by phone first, don't just go to the emergency room but find a way to get in touch with someone and tell them your symptoms and they will give you some direction of what to do and where to go. host: bob in texas, good morning. caller: good morning. caller was astute and a very good call but i am calling to disagree with both you and your guest. i read your guest's article yesterday online and i just want you to consider something. the caller from california just a few minutes ago may have been seconds,ut after a few you lost your patience with him. i want to go to the peter

alexander situation because the president has to deal with people like the gentleman from california. he has to deal with very hostile reporters, peter alexander being one, jim acosta and others trying to make a name of trying to grandstand and showboat. said that the president was sending a message from the pulpit that was wrong or inappropriate to have americans take the drugs, and he shouldn't be doing that. for some of us, we were viewing the president as being very optimistic and encouraging, even though he kept saying over and over it may not work. , don't you feel the president has always been under a significant and undue amount of pressure from inappropriate questioning and

stuff? russians could be posed to him different. what do you think? host: thank you for the call. guest: i think every president can say that. every president is always under pressure, especially true of republican presidents and there is no question that dealing with that can be a huge challenge. nobody forced him to run for president. this is what the job is. for moments like this, the president has to rise to the challenge. the question he was asked is what do you say to americans who are afraid? that is the question that in a moment like this our president should be able to answer without jumping down the throat of the reporter. it makes sense to be critical of him for it. it is not the end of the world, it is not the worst thing going on but it does suggest the president needs to think about the image he puts before the country in a time like this. what do you say to americans who

are afraid? at the same time that he is also working to address the practical concrete challenges we face in a responsible way, you can't just give americans medical advice when you don't know if it is true or false. you are the president of the united states. there has to be a different way to say what he is saying. ultimately what he is doing is having the fda look into the possibility that these drugs can work and that is an important thing to do because they could but that is all you can say with the position he is in. it is dangerous to go beyond that. what we saw in that flash of anger in response to the question about what he would say to people who are afraid suggests, the president is under enormous stress in this situation but it is not unreasonable for us as americans to ask that he handle it better. host: the house and senate are working on a bipartisan stimulus package to help the economy. according to the new york times, the airline industry is asking for up to $50 billion.

here is the final breakdown, of course to be determined. payments to individuals, especially those year,g under $100,000 a 250 billion dollars beginning april 6 and another $250 billion beginning may 18. based on the contours of what you have been able to read the last couple of days, will this be enough? guest: nobody thinks this is the last phase of action. when you talk to people on capitol hill, the sense is this is the action being taken now but there will be more needed. would offerticism i is that this has to be directed and public policy in general has to be directed to finding ways to gradually resume economic activity and other activity in our national life. we have taken a hard pause that is necessary and central to

allow the health system to handle the wave that is going to phase in over the next couple of weeks. after those next few weeks, it needs to be the priority of public health -- public officials to start enabling people to return to their lives. the goal has to be to helping people keep their place, keep their jobs, keep their position, keep their equipment, keep their location, help companies pay the rent, help people pay the mortgage. if thes of stimulus, as economy is just contracting in a normal way, we have to think about it in terms of a hard pause, getting people through this period when our economy is on hold in a very dramatic and unusual way. there is some confusion in this bill between the need to help people hang on and the need to stimulate economic activity any more traditional sense. it would be wise to think much more concretely about getting

through this period of pause and then gradually mobilizing and getting back to economic activity. that requires some financial support and also requires a different way of thinking about the public health challenge, a way of getting ahead of the testing challenge, a heavy emphasis on treatment so this becomes less of a burden on the health system and that way of helping people protect themselves when they go back out into the world because this virus is not going to be gone when they go back to work and school. that is going to happen within a matter of weeks i think. a vaccine is going to take longer than that. we have to think about ways of helping people returned with some competence and in ways that are careful -- with some confidence and in ways that are careful. the public policy response is not there yet. host: this is the headline from yahoo! news. u.s. airlines warning congress that it would take draconian

steps if congress fails to help. a reminder that the senate is in session at 2:00 this afternoon. live coverage on c-span2. we will continue to follow the proceedings as this continues to unfold. a meeting scheduled for 11:00 this morning between speaker pelosi and senate democrat and republican leaders. we will go to rick in ohio. caller: good morning. i would like to say i appreciate washington journal for people to be able to call in and voice their opinions. i don't even know where to start. early on, when the viruses were breaking out in china, we sell reports, everyone wearing masks in china. going around spraying these disinfectants in the cities. also, we know that the air quality in china is poor.

they are prepared with masks, with ventilators and we don't have that generally speaking in the united states of america. i don't know the quality in italy or iran. two, i am retired, i spend way too much time watching the news and living between cnn and fox. i can't believe that the differences are so large between the reporting. cnnerday i saw dr. on mentioning she doesn't know why -- she didn't know where the 15 days came from. it is not hard to find that. you google the incubation period of the virus and it is one to 14 days. why was she saying she did not know why the quarantine was 15 days?

on the bill,ing she insisted that including the bill would be the relief of pregnant women, children and older black men out of prison, including in this bill. that is hanging things up and yet they blame the republicans for bailing out ceos and high dollar figures. the president clearly said he does not want that to happen. host: i'm going to stop you there to get -- to give our guest a chance to respond. thank you very much. guest: there are a lot of important points within that comment. first of all on the public health side of this, we are going to have to think differently as people begin returning to work and school, about how we talk to the public about the public health requirements, keeping yourself protected. we heard a lot at the beginning of this epidemic that masks

don't work or at least they should only be left for health-care workers. the fact is, simple facemasks can help a lot in restricting the transmission of a virus like this and when people start going back to work, you will find a lot of people in our city wearing masks and that is appropriate. we're going to need some guidance from the real experts in public health and what needs to happen, we are going to see some things on our streets that are unusual in america. you see more often in places with very low air quality, that probably will be happening as we start to go back. to the broader point about legislation, there is no question that we are finding a lot of people in both parties trying to use these very large pieces of legislation to advance some priorities they have had. some of them are better connected to the coronavirus crisis than others but there was a certain degree of opportunism

in this from both sides and i think politicians have to restrain themselves from doing that and focusing on the real goal, which is helping the country find a way back to normality in a way that is safe and keeps our health system functioning. that the national review was written by our guest, yuval levin's washington's response to the virus, you write the following, we want a government a government that is overwhelmed by a problem at first but will quickly mobilize, learn from mistakes and in relatively little time, work itself toward massive and effective action. are we getting to that point? guest: it is important to see that that is what we should want in a sense that our government has been overwhelmed at first. it is not in itself hard to understand. this is a very unusual situation. it is a crisis and emergency and the government doesn't just keep on reserve all the resources it

would need to respond. the question is, over time does it mobilize and the answer to that is mixed. we are beginning to get over the challenge of the failure of the testing regime early on. we are now getting to a place for the numbers of people being tested are much larger but there is a need now for further mobilization, for building capacity in intensive care units and our hospital system, for building capacity for the economic recovery we are going to need and for enabling people to return to normal life in a safeway and that mobilization is not going very well. we have to acknowledge that we need to respond much more massively and effectively than we have so far. i approached this with some understanding of the problem that people are facing, some sympathy for the problems that policymakers are confronting because this is an -- this is an enormous challenge.

--ody around the world we have to be able to get our arms around the scope of this problem and begin to mobilize. that is how the united states answers crises. first we do the fumble around but eventually, a successful response looks like a massive mobilization across various sectors of our national life. we are seeing that in some places and not in others and our government needs to get its act together in a number of important ways. host: we are talking with yuval levin with the american is to price is the -- with the american enterprise institute. he is also vacant ridding editor to national review and served in the george w. bush white house as a member of his to mastic policy staff. patrick is next in chicago. good morning. caller: good morning to you and your guest. after observing this president for the past three years, one thing i have realized is that

this president looks at how things affect him, if it affects him positively, he goes out on the mountaintop and spills it out. if it affects him negatively, he wants to keep it under wraps. the problem that i saw with peter alexander confrontation, the thing he took offense to was when mr. alexander was stating the facts of the amount of people who have died, the amount of people who have the infection. it wasn't so much how to respond the american people. since it started, he said it was going to go away. he always does this thing with his hand, waving like it is going to go through. it is always denial. when we start investigating this, we will look at how south korea responded and how america responded because south korea wanted to know, the government wanted to know how to solve the problem. this president thinks he can wish as a child that the problem

will go away. , the guestnt is spoke about our confidence in government and i believe our confidence in government will be lessened because of what happened in midweek. midweek when the present -- when the senator from north carolina who knew about it in january, all of this crop about china didn't tell them, they knew about it. what they did was they all kept it under wraps and when it comes out how long we have known about this and nobody did anything, i believe this is going to erode confidence in government. host: let me ask you about senator burr of north carolina. he is in his final term which expires in two years. getting a lot of attention and criticism. important to find out what happened but it seems to me that if he walked out of intelligence briefings and sold his stocks, and especially if at

the same time he was not toivering a clear warning his constituents about what he was hearing about what was ofing, that is a form misbehavior that has to be taken seriously and has to be acted on and we have to find out what happened and what the timing was. it does seem troubling. i would say to your caller's earlier point, it is important to see, that the desire to deny this reality and wave it away on the part of the president also others and we see it around the world, the first reaction to seeing what happened in china was basically to say thank god it's not happening here and try to move on, rather than take on the serious possibility that it could happen here. the scale of what we are seeing here is unprecedented. it is not like anything we have dealt with in our lifetimes. it is very hard to contemplate the possibility when you are watching this happen in china.

just a few weeks later we would be looking at such a massive national emergency. two weeks ago up some but it told you schools would be closed across the country, that almost no one will be going to work in our major cities, it would have been hard to believe. -- ais a massive price of massive crisis that has come on us very quickly. our highest elected officials need to take seriously these kinds of problems to consider the bad news and a desire to avoid that has been a major problem in the administration. host: we will go to kevin next in new york. steve andod morning good morning professor levin. you are doing a great job c-span. i believe in the media spotlighting an unprecedented situation. i do have a question for the professor. with the end of the coronavirus

nowhere in sight in states like connecticut, indiana and georgia delaying the primaries, what does the professor think of the federal government having an emergency president election in november using the method of voting by mail that the state of oregon has used for years and the state of oregon has a turnout rate, a participation rate in their elections of over 95%. in november, at .east increase the turnout interest is not to the of parties in power to have an election by mail however i think in these circumstances it might

be considered. host: thanks for the call. i want to point out in today's new york times, that is the subject of a full-page editorial. it is time to protect the 2020 election. another issue that lawmakers and states need to deal with. guest: it is then enormous -- it is an enormous in norma's challenge. we don't have the infrastructure for voting by mail in most states. it would be difficult between now and november for people to get to a place where they trust that system. oregon has made it work and it can work in oregon but the fact that it has been put into effect wouldere means we basically be experimenting in a presidential election with a brand-new system of voting and i don't think that is the way to go. the way we have to think about this is how to enable people to safely use the systems that already exist, that we know can be trusted, that we know are functional. that may mean voting hours based on people's last names to keep

the polling places from getting overcrowded. a paid day off for everyone on election day so people have more of a chance to vote at different times of day instead of just early morning and late evening. these are the things we have to be thinking about now because it is very important to protect the integrity of the presidential elections. there are other kinds of challenges like this. the senses is going to have enormous trouble because of that -- the census is going to have enormous because of the coronavirus. people are sent out, door-to-door to find people who have not responded to the survey by mail or online, that is going to be a huge problem in these next few months. the census has got to happen. it is necessary for the way our political system operates and we need to be thinking about ways

of making it possible, given the constraints we are going to be under. we are not going to be in this kind of locked down the summer or november but we are still going to be living with this virus and we are still going to be uneasy and nervous about public health and it is important to be thinking about those problems now and finding ways to make this doable while there is time to think it through. york.we will go to new ed is next. caller: good morning. host: go ahead. caller: hello? host: you are on the air. caller: i hear the professor. he has been talking about unprecedented situation, which it is. the one thing i can say is that we have thousands and thousands of planes flying in from all different countries every day, every hour, every minute. he hasn't talked about that and the unprecedented part of it is the disease obviously came from

china to the u.s. in all different ways and i kind of remember back in january, president trump tied -- tried to do something about that and he was halted because he is in a phobic and all that other stuff -- he is xenophobic and all that other stuff. i feel for the guy. he has been saying since day 13 and a half years ago we need to control our borders, always. the good thing that comes out of this is maybe the united states will bring all of these businesses back that are in china that we need in the united states for survival. host: thanks for the call. guest: i think the president did impose a travel ban first on china and then more broadly early in this process. the united states did that earlier than most in the west. in this situation that was a good move i think. it is important to see that it probably helped us, buying us

some time that we are now trying to use to build some capacity in our health system. now is basically on hold. there is very little international air travel at this point. they were almost no transpacific flights happening now. very few transatlantic flights. that certainly needed to be part of the response we are seeing. i thicket is important to reese -- i think it is important to restate that we have to have some sympathy and understanding for decision-makers in this situation. this is very difficult. at the same time, this is a moment when we really need them. this is why they make the big box. -- they make the big need peopln these offices. this is why we have to have a system of government that can mobilize an emergency. yes, absolutely, what they are dealing with is difficult but it

is also their responsibility. we have to be willing to criticize them at the same time we recognize that there is no way to do this perfectly and the job they have is extremely challenging. host: the book is called a time to build, from camel he -- family and community, how institutions can revive the american dream. for you, personally and your family, how are you dealing with all of this? guest: like everybody else. we are trying to keep social distancing. we are doing our best to handle the situation. everybody is healthy, thank god. that puts us in a betty -- better place than many americans. i want to wish you and all of your viewers the best in this situation. i hope people are dealing with it and getting through it well. host: our viewers can follow your work

>> president trump on the coronavirus task force led by vice president pence hold a briefing today. it was originally scheduled to start a 4:30 but will start at 5:00 p.m. we will have live coverage when it begins on c-span. journaln's washington live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. coming up monday morning, we will discuss the latest congressional efforts to address the coronavirus pandemic with a national journal senate reporter. we will talk with the bipartisan center chief medical officer about the u.s. coronavirus response. watch c-span's washington journal live at 7:00 eastern monday morning. join the discussion. next, new york governor andrew cuomo holds a briefing on the coronavirus. he issued a series of