pharmaceuticals joining us from home in westchester, new york. canhank you and hope we check in with you again as this virus continues to dominate our coverage. guest: i hope you will not need to, but i will be here. host: we begin with the john hopkins numbers, sobering numbers around the world with nearly 670,000 confirmed cases across the globe and over 30,000 approaching 31,000 deaths around the world. in the u.s. now close to 125 thousand confirmed cases of the coronavirus in the united states. we want to get to your phone calls. if you are recently unemployed, tell us your situation. this is a headline from cnbc. the u.s. economy has come to a standstill. reporting from cnbc, the coronavirus crisis is bringing the u.s. economy to a screeching halt, and every sector feeling

effects of most of the country' is workforce staying home. airplanes are parked on unused runways and the busiest highways are empty during rush hour. resorts have become ghost towns. we see a sharp drop in shipping activity. the u.s. now has more coronavirus cases than any other nation in the world. the u.s. labor department reported a staggering 3.20 8 million americans filing on a plane and previous week, shattering the all-time weekly record of nearly 700,000 set in october of 1982. that from cnbc. and yesterday on fox news, this conversation with vice president pence on when the u.s. economy will reopen. here is part of that conversation. >> a very tough decision, may be even tougher than slapping a travel ban on china, because there is risk. if he opens the economy too soon, there is a risk. if he doesn't open it soon enough, there is another risk. what are you specifically

looking at and basing your decision on and then formulating a recommendation to the president on? v.p. pence: well, it's the right question, jesse. i can tell you, short answer, we are following the data. with the public-private partnership that the president secured with massive commercial labs around the country, we're literally doing tens of thousands of tests a day, and we've gotten a great deal more understanding about where people have contracted the coronavirus, who's recovered, who's most at risk and the regions of the country most impacted. so while the president has said he would like to open the country up in weeks, not months, we're going to be bringing that data forward to him, with the advice of not the best health care experts in the country, but the best in the world who are working on a task force and the president will make a decision he believes is in the best interest of all the american people.

host: the full interview is at cnbc.com. joining us on the phone is a white house reporter for reuters. thank you for being with us. guest: good morning. my pleasure. host: want to begin with the back yesterday with the -- back-and-forth yesterday with the president and governors of new york and new jersey in terms of a quarantine, the administration seeming to back down late in the day. ask how this unfolded? guest: they did back away late in the day. the blunt answer to your question is they are not putting in place a quarantine, but the president did sort of dabble in that possibility. he spoke to reporters when he was leaving the white house yesterday, going to virginia, his first outing outside the white house in about 2.5 weeks. he spoke to reporters on his way to virginia and said it was something he was looking at, considering.

that received or generated criticism, quite a bit of criticism from those governors and he ended up tweeting last night that there would be a travel warning but a quarantine it self was not necessary. host: does the president even have that authority? guest: that's a terrific question. i think there was some back-and-forth about that and i belief thatare some he did and others at the state level who believe he did not, and that raises a broader question about what the federal government and president can do about things like this. there's been a big question mark, some of that was in the clip you displayed, over when the president will "reopen the economy." he did say last week, pretty prominently, that he would like to do so by easter. but i think it's worth noting as we study the debate and watch what he decides that the guidelines the federal government has put in place, this 15-day period vice

president pence and others have talked about, those were just recommendations. it's really at the state and local level where governors and mayors and leaders have been making decisions about keeping businesses and places closed. so that's not to undermine or downplay what the president can do, but i think it is important to note a lot of those things are just recommendations at a federal level, and they have been orders at a local and state level. host: is that another example of mixed messages coming from this white house? guest: absolutely. the president has wanted to take credit, and has made a point of saying his task force is doing a terrific job, but there is still a lot of criticism about his response specifically, from the very beginning. he did downplay this, at the very beginning of the outbreak.

he came around to showing a great deal of seriousness about the problem, but then sort of we nt back to downplaying it a little last week, by comparing it again to just a seasonal flu. at the end of the week, also, to the question vice president pence was answering, saying the decision to reopen the economy would be based first on life and safety and then economic health. so he himself has gone back and forth, publicly, in his own response to this, and there have been myriad mixed messages. host: chatting with jeff mason, white house correspondent for reuters and former president of the white house correspondents association. we both know jonathan karl of abc news who has that position now. a lot of changes inside the white house and the briefing room. what have you seen in recent days and weeks and what more can we expect, if anything? guest: that's a good question.

veryhing we have seen, a determined attempt by reporters with the leadership of the tion toondence' associai practice social distancing. there was a time when i walked into the briefing room one morning, and there had been new seating assignments made, basically for fewer journalists to be able to sit in the briefing room. that was changed up a few days later to make it an even smaller number, so there were greater numbers of seats in between the reporters, who were sitting there for what have become almost-daily briefings by the president and his team. yesterday, when the president went to virginia, they reduce the size of the normally 13-member press pool of reporters and journalists who travel with him. all of these are temporary measures, but they are measures to increase social distancing

and protect reporters as well as the staff and the president himself. busy jeff mason, on a weekend and week ahead, his work is available at reuters.com./ thank you for being with us. this is a headline from the new york times, testing blunders causing -- costing a vital month in the u.s. effort. reporting, as the deadly virus from china spread with ferocity across the u.s. in late january and early march, large-scale testing of people who might be infected did not happen because of regular tory flaws, technical hurdles, business as usual leadership at multiple levels. that's according to interviews with 50 current and former public health officials. the result was a lost month, rights the new york times, when the world's richest country with some of the most highly trained infectious disease specialists squandered its best chance of containing the spread of the virus in the u.s. we want to focus on the impact all this is having on your

finances. victor joins us from silver spring, maryland. good morning. caller: good morning. i've been buying into the stock market, while others are freaking out, i'm fine in -- buying in. i did this in 2001 and 2009, so i know i will come out ahead in the long run. to take ad like couple minutes, to salute the truckers out there. when i can't sleep i call wlw in cincinnati, and they have a show called the american trucking network with steve summers and riding the wave with dave. i personally know some of the truckers out there. i've talked to them on the phone. he hauls wood chips to paper mills, so you can have toilet paper. and horsefeathers, he hauls pro

pane to various places, and there's others. spaceman.ster, my handle on there, i'm known as blind man. host: alex also in silver spring. good morning. caller: so, i'm not really affected by this economically at reason is i'm an essential employee. a little over a week ago, the --site

[no audio] you verymp: thank much. thank you. i appreciate everybody being here. beautiful day in the rose garden. tremendous distance between chairs.