guest: thank you for having me. host: how does this $2 trillion stimulus package, how is it going to help our economy? what can we expect to see? there of bad to be news. all it does is club a whole in the u.s. economy. hole in the u.s. economy. you are going to see shocking economic data over the next few months where you might see upwards of a million jobs lost. the stimulus package is a big number. it just prevents a lot of companies from going bust and the stock market from coming under increasing pressure. a lot of the sources i talked to on wall street see this as a down payment for something intentionally larger in the second half of the year just to get the economy accelerated,

getting things going well into 2021. host: you are seeing people on wall street and in the business community saying they are going to need another stimulus package just to get things back on track. this $2 trillion is not enough? guest: you are right on. that is the reality of it. marriott, one of the biggest hotel chains in business, they are furloughing tens of thousands of workers. it is unclear when that demand will pick up. yesterday, i talked to the founder of growth help. -- of grubhub. $100 million in fees. it is unclear when demand will come back.

i caution people that think the u.s. economy will snap back in the second half of the year. that is false. year where thee u.s. unemployment 8%. might spike up to that is a long way from where we were at the beginning of the year. the economy does not just jumpstart. host: what are the business experts saying that the government needs to do right now? if the $2 trillion was not enough, what are they saying actually needs to be done to save the economy? guest: they need to come up with a bigger, more defined plan that is better targeted to industries. within this $2 trillion deal, one of the industries that was not included that has been hammered is the cruise line industry. in this package, the major

cruise lines were not given any relief. lawmakers did not want to put that in. they want to see companies based in the u.s. getting that money first. these are companies that employ thousands of people. they need to do something. , lot of these cruise lines they might have look at mergers. what does that cause? potentially more job layoffs. a lot of people calling this a bailout, that is the wrong term. this is a relief package. a lot of companies are going to need a lot more relief in the coming months. i look at the april employment report. when you lose over one million jobs in the month, those jobs do not come back overnight. host: you brought up the cruise companies. i will bring up what i heard people say about the cruise companies. a lot of those are not american companies. why should the u.s. government

give them a relief package when they are not based in the u.s.? they would have to reconsider where they are domiciled. something needs to change on that front. so many of these companies that international in waters so they do not pay higher taxes here in the u.s., but if you want relief, get it back in the u.s. these companies employ thousands of people. it is not just u.s. workers. it is international workers. where are you going to go? you are not going to work at a restaurant right now. those jobs are no longer going to be there. restaurants may not open after this black swan event. where do you go if you were just laid off? host: let me ask you this

question, with all of the economic information we are getting now, people looking at the stock market and unemployment numbers, what information are you watching to tell you how the economy is going to be tomorrow, next week, next month, for the rest of the year? guest: it is interesting you ask that. a lot of people on the street and business leaders are starting to say ignore the data that is coming in a couple of months. the stock market has predicted it. the stock market is a forward-looking indicator. that is absurd. you have to pay attention to the data. like i mentioned, the april job losses might be upward of one million. the worst month during the great recession during 2009 was 800,000. i'm looking at the osundairo brothers rate, which might spike close to 20 -- i am looking at the u.s. unemployment rate,

which might spike close to 20%. weeksk in a couple of when companies start to report their latest earnings results, you are going to see some shocking news. potential more layoffs, profits under severe pressure, potential business closures. that is the reality. that is where businesses are. our viewers remind that they can join this conversation. we are going to open up regional lines. if you are in the eastern or central time zone, you can call in and join this conversation at (202) 748-8000. if you are in the mountain or pacific time zones, you can call in at (202) 748-8001. we are going to open up a special line for those who are just recently unemployed. we want to hear from you. we want to know what industry you work in.

we want to know when you got laid off. if you are recently unemployed because of coronavirus or any other reason, we want to hear from you at (202) 748-8002. keep in mind, you can always text us at (202) 748-8003. we are always reading on social media, on twitter, and on facebook. brian, we have been talking about the economy in the macro level. let's talk about the micro level, the personal level. a lot of people are being laid off and furlough. what can we expect to see from the unemployment numbers in the future? guest: we just got a taste of it this week. each week you get initial jobless claims data. for the most part, for the last five years, this data has been boring.

the unemployment rate 3.5%, 50 year low coming into march. now, the initial jobless claims data that it's every thursday is watched closely indicator. that hit 3.3 million. you might see that number increase close to 4 million per week if not even more, which brings us back to the april employment report. losing over a million jobs, and you might lose even more over the headline in may. that is a shocking number. i'm looking at a lot of the gig workers. and lyft, these are contractor driven. if you are quarantined at home,

you are not jumping into a lyft. this is not a mild recession. this is a pretty severe recession. host: defined for us what signifies a recession. i have someone who has just wrote in and said can your mind is what a black swan event is? guest: the technical definition of a recession is two quarters of an economic retraction. we will not know that officially from a technical standpoint within a couple of months from now. the consensus view is that we are now in a mild recession. that is the view on wall street. that could morph into a more severe recession, a sharper decline in gdp or economic output going into the third quarter. look at the stock market. 25%s&p 500 is down over

from the february 19 hi. that is a bear market. the stock market is saying we are probably in a more severe recession. in finance terms, a black swan event comes out of nowhere. you can predict business slowing down, but the coronavirus is not something that was on people's radar screens 12 months ago. that is why you are seeing to figure scrambling out how they are going to survive the next week or two weeks or month. gig: you just mentioned the employees. what type of employee is being affected the most? is it the restaurant industry? visit the travel industry? -- is it the travel industry? what kind of employee is affected the most? guest: out of all the industries

i have been studying, it is the restaurant industry. these restaurants, small independent chains, the pizza parlor on the corner of the street is closed. they have been closed two to three weeks. these businesses are the lifeblood of our economy. i talked to a lot of fast food chain ceos. in many respects our small businesses. they are primarily now just take out oriented. you cannot keep a restaurant profitable and keep people operatingy just delivery. retailers. i think retailers are in dire straits. a lot of them have cap employees on the payrolls despite stories being closed. the reckoning is coming. you will see a lot of

furloughing of retail workers in the weeks ahead. this is going to make things a lot worse. that is macy's, jcpenney's, even kohl's. let's have our viewers join in on this conversation. we will start with dave calling from new york. good morning. caller: good morning. i want to try to contract some of the things you are saying quick. one of the things with the bailouts is the federal reserve is printing money. it is going to buy corporate debt. corporate debt has been issued consistently over the last five years. they take that money and buy back their own stock. then the corporate executives cash out their stock options. with this bailout, you are bailing out their luxury homes on the ocean, their lamborghini,

there for ari. their fofeig -- rarri. that is a big thing. the bondholders will lose all their money. you are not bailing out the corporations, the company, you are bailing out the people that lend that company might. host: go ahead and respond. guest: i get the outrage. i'm no fan of stock buybacks. this situation is a little bit different from what we saw in 2008 and 2009. leading up to that, you had investment bankers on wall street take absolutely insane risks to line their pockets and get rich. since then you have seen a lot of regulation come into place on

wall street. if you are carnival cruise lines, royal caribbean, macy's, trying to do business on the up and up. this event came out of nowhere. orclose a department store cruise line overnight, that means you have no cash coming into your business. these are capital intensive businesses. because you do not have cash coming in, you will have no other choice but to lay off workers. i think the government should protectionsgreater to the money they are lending out, but a lot of these industries need relief. they need a yesterday. host: let's go to the top chef in new york. tasha in new york.

she was recently laid off. caller: i was working in the plastic surgery industry. i'm a per diem person. self-employed pretty much. i had a good business going. i was working for three different facilities. one was on fifth. one was in queens. i worked for another private plastic surgeon. my husband worked in the food industry. he lost his job before i did. made his way in the .igher echelons of manhattan basically everybody is out. everybody lost their job. i just want to tell the people that they just have to have faith in our government and the people that are above us because they need to help us. the way they can help us is for

us to be calm and believe that something good is going to happen soon. host: go ahead and respond. guest: my heart goes out to you and your family. i know this is tough stuff. i think what she brings up is key. business leaders thinking the economy can bounce back quickly and this is a blip on the radar screen. treasury secretary steven mnuchin said this will come back quickly, and the economic data they will see in the coming weeks he said is useless. this is not useless. this is the definition of a black swan event. she and her husband were working. things were going well. the coronavirus comes out of nowhere. they will have to adjust how they spend and plan for retirement.

how is the economy going to survive this and handle it over the next three to five years? play sound for you from president trump, who said he was targeting easter as the day the country could relax social distancing and bring people back to work. [video clip] >> ultimately the goal is to ease the guidelines and open things up to large sections of our country as we near the end of our battle with the invisible enemy. we win. i said earlier today that i hope we can do this by easter. i think that would be a great thing for our country, and we are all working very hard to make that a reality. we will be meeting with a lot of people to see if it can be done. easter is a very special day for me, for a lotor

of our friends. what a great timeline this would be. easter as our timeline. is always theity health and safety of the american people. i want everyone to understand that we are continuing to evaluate the data. we are working with the task force and making decisions based on what is best for the interests of our fantastic country. host: that is what president trump said about opening the economy by easter. how does that resonate in the financial and business community? guest: it really did not. a lot of folks i talked to, eir openings are being delayed until mid to late april. retailers were supposed to open this weekend.

they are starting to push back those reopened dates until the end of april. a lot of the folks i have talked to in the business community view it as the right thing to do. a lot of them have strong financials. they can survive this for the next two or three months. i get where the president is coming from. you want to pick up the economy. you want the economy going in the right direction before the election. the economy could pick up strongly. if you have the fed with a stimulus package, the government with a $2 trillion plan, but the key thing is get the american people healthy and then reopen businesses. you don't want chaos. you don't want to open up the mall, get infections rising again and then have the economy thisng into turmoil summer. that is not the right way to think about it. host: here is the question i'm

interested in. a lot of these businesses have closed their doors. a lot of these businesses are furloughing people. when they reopen their doors, do they expect to get the same employees that? -- back? do they have to retrain people before they can reopen? guest: i will not say retrain. a lot of these people they are furloughing, those are people with institutional knowledge of the company. those are the people that marriott calls back first. i'm concerned what hourly wages these workers come back with. we have seen a lot of companies across the board cut hourly wages across the board for those that are still working. as they come back, they might have a check coming in, but is it at a lower pay rate?

these companies are concerned if sales will pick up in the later half of the year. at some point these people will come back to work, but the question is how much money are they going to be making? host: let's go back to our phone lines and talk to eric, who is calling from california. good morning. caller: good morning, america. thanks for giving this opportunity to speak. when you see the president trying to fulfill bible prophecy by

even hand sanitizer. those companies playing into panic buying. another name we just talked about a couple of days ago, they make spam. up record-setting

pace is. they are buying a lot of canned goods. >> let's go back to our phone lines. good morning. caller: good morning. brian, i am proud of you for finally saying someone has to say the world does not revolve around wall street. my town has never recovered. i understand what you are saying, sir. buyin the world is going to all this debt from america since are going tories be about as broke as we are in the united states? thank you for telling the truth about everything. i was felt like wall street was always the place that was too big to fail. good: you bring up a very

-- important question. our countries debt levels were not in a good place coming into this black swan event. not looking too well. this is an issue that has gone overlooked by many economists. many people i have talked to on wall street. we did see an interesting development. s&p reiterated their aaa credit rating on the united states. it is the best credit rating you can get from the rating agencies. they could move to a negative watch. that is important for a lot of investors. if you do get a downgrade on the economy, the cost of borrowing goes up. you go into a debt spiral. we saw social security, medicare

payments we have to make. a long-term trajectory going higher. you bring up a very good point. that day of reckoning on the country's debt will have to come. host: let's go to teri who was calling from virginia. waser: one of the things i , people are getting checks from the government that are still employed. people understand why that are not affected, like the earlier caller, are really impacted, really hurt by this situation, of course, they would need help. people that are still working, i don't know why they would be getting checks from the government. it seems crazy.

my second point would be i think we could pay a lot of this debt back if they just legalized marijuana and taxed it. it is legal in colorado. i'm sure that has generated a lot of income. host: go ahead and respond. guest: within this plan, if you make up to $75,000, you get $1200. that is $2400 for a couple and $500 per child. is it perfect? no. if you are working and you get one of these checks, the question is where your hours reduced? a lot of companies are cutting hourly rates. you may need this check to pay

your rent and get your food. host: a lot of people are focusing on the tax return provision. what year did you have to last file tax returns to qualify for that check? guest: i believe they are using the 2018 tax returns. host: let's go to elizabeth, calling from california. good morning. caller: good morning. how are you? host: just fine. go ahead. caller: i'm on social security. that's all i get. i live in southern california. this year i get a $19 increase in my social security, and a live in a senior apartment complex, and my rent went up $35.

from what i heard so far, i don't know if anybody on social security is going to get anything. i have some physical problems, and i cannot work. i'm 72, so i cannot apply for disability. i'm wondering if social security people get anything. also i would like to comment on one of the governors the other day said they had a deal with a company to get all the ppe's for the nurses and doctors, and the company called back later and said we cannot do the deal with you anymore because we've got somebody who is going to pay a higher price. i worry about that.

i certainly hope that the doctors and the governors that have to do with these companies remember that. host: go ahead and respond. guest: i do not see anything in this plan regarding social security beneficiaries. ♪ >> good afternoon, everyone. thank you, mr. president, for comfortre today as prepares to set sail for new york. on behalf of the men and women of the department of defense, i want to thank