executive officer claire babineaux-fontenot joins us to discuss food insecurity. "washington journal" is next. ♪ host: on any other easter sunday, st. peter's square at the vatican would be filled with thousands of worshipers. seen.s the lives the worldwide coronavirus pandemic has forced pope francis and religious leaders everywhere to radically change their worship practices before today, easter, passover, and the upcoming month of ramadan. happy easter. it is april 12, 2020. we start the morning looking at what a couple of states decided to do. some legal decisions late yesterday and ask you should religious gatherings be exempt

from stay-at-home orders? here is how you join the conversation. in eastern and central time zones, the line is (202) 748-8000. in the mountain and pacific time zones, (202) 748-8001. and we welcome those of you who are religious leaders. regardless of your denomination of faith, we would like to hear from you and how you have altered your gatherings and practices during the crisis. (202) 748-8002 is the line. if you want to text us, tell us where you are texting from, your name, (202) 748-8003. .e are on twitter, @cspanwj and facebook.com/cspan is how you post your thoughts. one of the states was kansas where the decision came down late yesterday from the supreme court. this is that reporting from the public radio station -- kansas supreme court sides with governor preserving ban on large

church services. shegovernor wrote that holds powers to shut down large gatherings in the face of a public health crisis. the high court said public leaders lack the powers to reverse the limits on charging funeral services. that meant late last night, governor kelly's order banning church gatherings of more than 10 remained in force. the ruling forced the justices to weigh in on an issue that tingles together politics, religion, and debate about the powers granted to a governor when a deadly pandemic strikes. in kentucky, in louisville, a headline judge allows drive in service at louisville church. says the mayor of louisville,

fischer - a federal judge reboot mayor fischer's call for churches to forgo drive-in services, calling the move unconstitutional and overly broad. they write that, on holy thursday, and american mayor criminalized the celebration of in a temporary restraining order saturday. on fire christian church in louisville sued the city friday, arguing the mayor's direction on driving religious services violated constitutional rights and their religious liberty. should religious gatherings be exempt from state -- stay-at-home orders? that is our question this morning. (202) 748-8000 is the line for those of you in the eastern and central time zones. (202) 748-8001 mountain pacific. the president talked about the

issue in the daily briefing friday. here is what he said. [video clip] >> though we will not be able to gather together with one another as we normally would on easter, we can use this sacred time to focus on prayer, reflection, and growing in our purse no relationship with god -- our personal relationship with god. i pray to god to give strength to the doctors, nurses, and health care workers to restore health to the sick and to renew every person who are suffering, our nation will come through like never before. host: your comments on facebook and twitter as well. a couple post on facebook. no, from donna that says, you cannot worship from home. livestream if that is an option, but leading large gatherings of any kind is a public hazard.

jeffrey says accommodations must be made. not everyone who wants to worship with others has social media access. people who can keep safe, personal distance from others should not be forbidden from congregating. religious beliefs and practices are so precious. they deserve the highest respect and protection. deadly andause this contagious virus checks as the other or not you have in excepted from the stay-at-home order from -- before infecting you. and bc on twitter says jesus would tell you that organized religion today is a scam and sham to get your cash. god needs no money. only man does. god did not make covid-19, man did. god will not cure it. only man can. (202) 748-8000 for those of you in the eastern and central time zones. (202) 748-8001 for those of you in the mountain and pacific. the lead story in the new york times, the headlines as he could

have seen what is coming, behind trump's failure on the virus. an examination reveals that the president was warned about the potential for the pandemic, but lack of planning and his faith in his own instinct led to a halting response. "any way you cut it, this will be bad," a senior advisor wrote on the night of january 28 in an email to a group of public health experts scattered around the government and universities. "the projected size and outbreak already seems hard to believe." a week after the first coronavirus case had been identified in the united states and six long weeks before the president finally took aggressive action to confront the danger the nation was facing, and pandemic now forecast to take tens of thousands of american lives, the doctor was urging the upper ranks of the nation's public health bureaucracy to wake up and prepare for the possibility of far more drastic action.

guys made fun of me screaming to close the schools," he wrote to the group, "hich called itself "red dawn based on an inside joke based on a movie. hardlyes writes his was a lone voice. throughout january, as mr. trump repeatedly played down the seriousness of the virus and focused on an array of other figuresan array of inside his government identify the threat, sounded alarms, and made clear the need for aggressive action. where you read that. first, we go to michael in new kensington, pennsylvania. caller: thank you for taking my call. andy easter to everyone passover. i think it is a tough call. i can see why they did it, but i

am not a fan of the isolation. i do not think there is a lot of proof that it works, the sheltering. guess it is something we have to live with. their churches -- i do not think they should have been exempt. inth plays such a large role so many people's lives, and it should play a large role. when they started talking about this flu bug and all of the bad news coming around about it and everything else, they said there is one thing that is missing. and i said they will finally talk about faith. and they did not. they talked about immunity and this and that in the other thing -- i think immunities are a key role. , thes angeles, the virus rise of the virus, was not as large as it was in other places,

despite the fact that they have a lot of chinese there. that is their main port of entry, i think, california. and yet they did not have that large rise, and i think it is because of herd immunity. i wonder, if i keeping everyone away from this virus, if you do not actually make it easier to spread this virus in the end. if we get another wave of this virus, will anyone have any immunity at all? host: florence, kentucky. caller: how are you doing? for a number of years, i was on immunosuppressive therapy to fight crohn's disease. spleen removedmy complications, so i am very susceptible to this virus. a series of other things as well.

religious exemption -- i am sick and tired of hearing about religious exception. a church should be in the heart and not in the actual building. i do not need a building to go to church. but what you do, when you break these corn teaming rules, you threaten my life, and that is completely unacceptable. to me, that is no different than a drunk getting behind the wheel of a car and running into a school bus. your reckless behavior then threatens my life. it is no different with those who are anti-baxter -- anti-v axxers either. host: thank you. we started the program showing scenes of st. peter's square, the vatican -- the pope tweeted late last night that we understand the service at the vatican has already streamed. he tweeted several times yesterday evening. tonight, we acquire the fundamental right, the right to

hope. it is a new and living hope that comes from god. it is not mere optimism. it is a gift from heaven that week couldn't have earned on our own. our question this first hour asking you about religious gatherings. in many places, they have been banned. should they be exempt from stay-at-home orders? we hear next from houston, texas, don. caller: good morning. the word of us is where two or three are gathered in my name. i think the issue of church, religious gatherings, has been the issue in america and across the world. head.as come to a againstof the violence religious service right here in texas, where a guy killed over .0 members of a congregation

come to where we have to identify what is a gathering? what is the purpose of the gathering? is it for propaganda or true religious freedom? an age of live in technology. of --ve many ways television, for instance. so i do not think that the physical gathering during a pandemic is necessary. also -- itdemic spread across diseases. if we look at the pandemic of poverty, children's poverty, i do not see the religious sect taking that issue on the pandemic of children's poverty in america and the world. against thends

mandate of the right of all andzens to public health the pandemic of poverty, they are silent on that issue. but the issue of a pandemic of infectious disease, they are bold and bodacious, so i think they are hypocritical to their own doctrine. host: don in houston, texas. we are starting to see video from the vatican -- i'll not sure if this is live. -- i'm not sure if this is live. media video vatican we are seeing. our question for you -- should religious exact -- should religious gatherings be exempt from stay-at-home orders? our next call is josh from redding, california. caller: good morning. we have to look at is this -- in a rational way, in possible,bvious way

by allowing religion to override what the government does, by allowing religion to take over what they can and cannot do, who's to say when they stop? idea of for the religion being sacred, religion being special, and having good preference, but when does this special preference say we cannot just do whatever we feel like doing? if you are religious, keep doing what you do, but do not let your religion put others at risk. host: by the way, thank you. we have set a sideline for religious leaders, (202) 748-8002. tell us not just this sunday or this week how you are handling the closures during the coronavirus pandemic. a report in the "washington post," published before that state's supreme court in kansas

issue their ruling. their headline, "kansas court ways in state order barring state gatherings." they write about the pastor of st. luke's lutheran church in kansas city, kansas. he said his small church will continue to have in-person services this weekend, despite the health warnings, though the events will take ways in and outside space with handmade pews. his flock of about 25 will be wearing masks and use physical distancing during worship. his easter theme is about resurrection and the gift that the pandemic has given believers -- a chance to pause, reflect, and grow. "as christians, we are people of body and soul. the essence of our faith is spiritual, but physical presence is essential. in my opinion, there is no substituting the presence of a christian brother or sister, even six feet away.

we gather in body and spirit, not just. ." several governors, including florida's governor, have classified religious services as "an essential business" in their states and have allowed such gatherings to continue despite stay-at-home orders statewide. but national religious organizations, including the catholic church, the church of latter-day saints, and jewish have suspendedps live worship in recent weeks. the governor of kansas, laura issuedbefore the court the ruling, was on cnn and said this about her executive order. [video clip] mywhen i originally issued first executive order, my stay-at-home order, we did exempt churches. everybody else was under this 10 , sociallyit distanced, and if it was enforced -- if there was enforcement, it would be a class

a misdemeanor. what happened was we saw what happened in kentucky and louisiana around church service. then we had four clusters here in the state of kansas and them that that have resulted from church gatherings. so i felt it important to make it clear that churches would be included in the limit of 10 with the social distancing. ton i did that, i had talked all of our faith leaders all across the state, all denominations. all of them were on board with that. after the legislative coordinating council revoked my executive order, i then -- again talk to faith leaders. they were still supportive. we took this to the supreme court not so much because we want to argue with the legislative coordinating council on criminalization or non-criminalization, but the fact is, the coordinating

council does not have the authority to revoke this order -- only the full legislator can -- legislature can do that. kansashis recording ruled yesterday on the governor's executive order, upholding that order of stay-at-home orders for applying to religious services there in the state of kansas. gail in new york. hi there. caller: hi. happy easter. host: happy easter to you, too. caller: thank you. last night, i watched services on tv from st. patrick's cathedral. i am a christian. but most religions, i think all religions, teach us that god wants us to be good to everybody and that our neighbor is very important. and the issue with public health, i think -- and i think

god would want us to protect one another. so i am glad they are not excluded. i do not think anybody should congregate if it is going to make people sick. so i do not think they should be exempt, churches or other -- synagogues or whatever. god is everywhere. host: what is that experience like? you mentioned watching the service, the streaming. have you been watching the regular sunday services there? caller: no, no. i am not a person that goes to church every day, but on holidays and holy days, i do that. what was it like? it was uplifting. it was not as good as being in a church, because it is important to be with other people. but it did the trick, you know?

for oneime out to pray another is a good thing to do. it is not like this is exempting from by exempting us going the church and being with other people, it is not saying to us we cannot pray to god or that we cannot be good to other people. i think that is the biggest message, especially on easter sunday. arizona.m phoenix, hi there. caller: thank you for taking my call. i am listening to these callers, and i am not sure what bible or what word of god you are reading. thatible that i read says they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover. thatible that i read says he was roost through my transgressions, and by his strides, i was healed, 2000

years ago. so for all these people, especially those governors and wants and sheriffs who to put an ad lib after the constitution, yesterday, there was a judge in the western district of kentucky who issued a temporary restraining order against louisville, saying that you do not get to tell churches that they are not essential. how do you tell a church they are not essential? and who are you to tell the church that they are not used by officials? and the free exercise clause religious police are at times not logical or compensable an alcohol and if store is essential, then you better believe a church is going to be essential.

if a walmart or home depot, who are not practicing social distancing when you walk into that store, if they are essential with over 100 or 200 people inside, you better believe a church is going to be essential. i encourage all of my christians, if you feel that your rights are being infringed, take yourself down to that federal courthouse and file your action against that governor or that sheriff or that mayor and get your rights back. out: and christian pointed the situation in louisville, the ruling of a federal judge in louisville on that. here is the mayor, greg fischer, after that ruling came out. among his tweets, i reluctantly but emphatically asked faith leaders to worship without holding in person or 99% ofn services -- the

those houses of worship who have chosen to adhere to that have made the responsible choice. we hear from rich next. caller: a lot of good comments. it seems the line should be which way to save lives, and it is where that now that we cannot go to church on easter, we miss it, where before, we took it pretty much for granted. i hate to say that we had to go through this to really appreciate it more. it could be one of the odd benefits of this. the other thing is we have been through other crises before. when polio was going around, we had no idea what was causing it, and years, they were trying to solve it. our thing happens, from one church school, they did a test to solve polio. it was the first time polio was tried on. saul tried it on his family first and then in this one area in pittsburgh. in one generation, we are solving it. we should get onto the

and the -- we shouldases go to the next one and the next one of the major diseases. host: next call. this is dusty. caller: i attend services every sunday. the building is not the church. the fellowship of people coming together to worship god in spirit and truth. aw can i go to work 50 hours week, how can i go to walmart to buy essential foods for my skull body, and then sa -- my physical body and then say my spiritual body does not matter? because when i am on my isthbed, people and bread not going to matter. the only thing i can depend on is the lord. we have a convocation of about 125 people. aref them, 35, 40,

attending. we tried to pack his social distancing. we do the things necessary to duty tried to keep people safe. but i cannot turn on the lord because the government tells me to turn on the lord. he is my refuge. i will continue to worship the lord in spirit and in truth. host: jim is next, st. john's, michigan. it says you are a religious leader. tell us about that. caller: i am an ordained minister. i've stood at the pulpit before. currently, i do not. my point of view is it does not really matter what the government tells us. we should look at what god tells us. he tells us to love everyone as we love ourselves.

way, can see that meaning that we should go risk our fellow parishioners, fellow believers, or even the unbelievers. why should we do that? that is not what he would do. he would not want to risk the life of anyone. wea religious community, need to say, hey, this is not ok. toneed to find another way get together -- in smaller groups, to do it online, to do it however. that is where i think it needs to be. it does not matter what government says. we should be doing the right thing. host: so on this easter sunday, what are you doing? and typically where would you be in church on an easter sunday morning? caller: i would be in church on an easter sunday morning.

morning,aster sunday myself and my wife are going to take a walk and meditate and just enjoy all the beauty that the lord has given us in the midst of all the problems. host: appreciate you calling in this morning. we go to kansas next and hear from oakland park, don. caller: hi. i am a secular humanist, but i think it is good to stand up for the first amendment. , getnk people can worship together at a building, and keep their social distance, and do what they got to do to keep safe. there are doctors and nurses who belong to these churches as well. they can advise them if they need advice. but the cdc guidelines are up

everywhere on the internet. there is a church in overland park that has 2000 members and just spent tens of millions of dollars on a huge sanctuary. it seems to me like they can squeeze in a number of people and even go beyond the six foot minimum distance, keeping them 10 feet, 12 feet apart. it does not seem to me that the governor needs to hold every meeting to 10. orderregardless of the from the supreme court last night, or what is your sense of the people in your neighborhood or your circle of friends and family, will they be attending an actual service or will they participate online somewhere? i know of, butat i have not asked some of them. my parents are pretty old, and injuringd be

themselves quite a bit to venture out and take a chance at all, but i have some atheist friends that kind of look about it -- it's darwin's deal, you know, if they're stupid enough -- i'm not that cold. i think there is a middle ground there somewhere. host: appreciate your call. we have half an hour left of your calls. should religious gatherings be exempt from stay-at-home orders? (202) 748-8000 the line for eastern and central time zones. (202) 748-8001, mountain and pacific. if you are a religious leader, particularly if you have made other plans for your congregation or denomination, (202) 748-8002. this is the "washington post," the online version of their front-page story. after u.s. surpasses italy for most confirmed coronavirus

deaths, trump vows to bring our country back. it writes that the u.s. passed italy for the most confirmed coronavirus debts. -- in a saturday night interview with fox news, trump shed little light on how he will decide when to reopen the country, saying the decision will be based on "a lot of facts and a lot of instinct." "post,"e, writes the pope francis presiding over an empty st. peter's basilica urged people to not yield to fear during the pandemic. looking at some of the latest statistics. as reported by johns hopkins university in the worldwide figures on the coronavirus pandemic, 1.7 million cases worldwide. total deaths worldwide 109,000,

almost 110,000. million.s., over half a with 20,608 deaths. they have a new column added in recent days, the total tested in the united states -- 2 million -- almost 2.7 million. again, the deaths in new york city up near 7000. shreveport, louisiana. welcome. caller: happy resurrection sunday, in the name of jesus. i am a christian, and i must say this one thing. god is everywhere. we must practice social distancing at this time. we are in a timeout pandemic. this is a serious crises. and god is in total control.

i am a christian. i believe in the name of jesus. i believe that jesus is our healer. god is everywhere. he is not just in the building you are in on sunday. he is everywhere. , pleasestand this understand this -- that we must obey that the law is saying to practice social distancing. god's ultimate law, do not misunderstand me. he does not want you not to obey the law that is set down in your country. he does not. if they are telling you to practice social distancing, please understand that is the best thing to do. what about saving lives? what about putting people's lives in jeopardy? do not put god in a box, because he is not in a box. god is everywhere.

he is with you wherever you are. host: sylvia next up in alexandria, virginia. caller: hi there. good morning. happy easter. i am a women's division buddhist leader. s.g.i.r they told us not to meet for at least until the month of april. we have not yet in march and will not meet in april. one of the things we do is we do chant, so we are not able to chant with each other, so that it hard, but what we are trying to do is chant more. chanting is like praying. and study the buddhist religion

more. and call each other. yesterday, we had a call and used zoom and called one another and had a little buddhist study meeting. host: how did that work out compared to being in person? caller: it is different. it is not the same. but it is encouraging. i think it made us all stop and realize that we are the ones that need to change what is going on. because we have to take responsibility, especially in the buddhist faith. whatever we are suffering, it is because of something in our lives that is what we believe. sometimes, that is hard to deal with, but that is ok. we just keep going and try to figure out, through prayer and things ares it that

the way they are at this time kate i know it is frustrating for people. you want to get together. but just like that lady before me was talking about, they believe that god is everywhere. your happiness is everywhere. it is how you deal with this. how we turn this poison into medicine for ourselves, which is what we need to do right now. is if the right thing for us to not be around one another until we can figure out how to change this disease that is going around, that is not a bad thing. because our philosophy in life, whatever it is, should give us wisdom, and that is what we need in our lives right now. wisdom to see how we can change this issue. host: appreciate your insight.

some comments on social media. karen tweets religious gatherings should be top of the list foreclosures. people close together, sitting side-by-side, greeting each other -- if there is communion service, even more exposure. on facebook, sarah as i believe there are ways you can have faith and keep safe. why can't the church service be online or at a big screen in a parking lot, people spread out? if pastors actually care about their parishioners, this would not even be a question. they would not have in person services when it risks everyone's health and lives. report, the rumback christ overcame death and the resurrection, we shall overcome the pandemic. i salute all the heroic health care professionals putting their lives on the line to defend us.

there is political news from alaska. the headline at the "anchorage daily news" -- biden beats sanders to win primary. joe biden won the alaskan primary days after their sanders suspended his campaign. we hear from jared next in oakland, new york -- brooklyn, new york. caller: good morning. happy passover. i believe there is that should be religious exemption. we have seen where police have overreacted to police playing in the streets by themselves. that said, i believe every synagogue and church should shut down completely. the fact is 99% are. as an orthodox jew, it is really hard for us not to pray three times a day, but all the rabbis

have said shut down your and stay-at-home. host: in addition to the online seders that have been happening, has your convocation done online praying together? caller: not online praying, but my rabbi has been given, every night before sabbath, been giving a speech. this is not something we regularly do, online stuff. our synagogues are shutting down, and that is what i think so them should do and are doing. host: thanks for your experience. we hear from susan next in california. caller: how are you? host: fine, thanks. caller: i believe that we should shut down, only because it is catching.

otherwise, from what i've heard the news, we have some overzealous authoritarian government overreaches. starbucks is open. walmart is open. home depot is open. dunkin' donuts is open. all your liquor stores are open. the government did not take any time in telling us to shut down our churches. r.o.k..tuary cities and they are letting prisoners out. you have to do some sense, and i cannot believe that that buddhist chants to a block of stone. was: the vice president interviewed friday by david brody, the chief white house correspondent for cbn who will

join us in our next segment here . he asked the vice president about religious practices during this time of the coronavirus pandemic. [video clip] >> even if you are not in a pew sunday, that ministry is still going on. to the extent that you are able to contribute to your local church, your local synagogue, ministry, we encourage you to do that, because those communities of faith are making such an immense difference. , iare so grateful that think, most communities of faith around the country have heated the president's coronavirus guidelines for america and avoided gatherings of more than 10. to those who would, as we go into this precious easter weekend -- you might think otherwise. i would remind our brothers in christ that, where two or more are gathered, there he is also. host: the vice president's

interview with david brody. david brody will be our guest in the next segment here on "washington journal." fromwing up that caller california, this is a tweet from pa. you can work, go to groceries, to the lumber yard, get the dog groomed at vet, dry family through a drive-through, you can vote, but you cannot stand six feet apart at a church? becky in pennsylvania. caller: good morning. happy easter. to all the people concerned about hardware stores being open, you have to consider the fact that they have life-sustaining equipment and things there. i have a neighbor whose house caught on fire, and if they couldn't get to the hardware store and shore up the house, their house would be open to the elements. a friend of mine had her ceiling cave in because of water damage. what is she supposed to do? not be able to get the stuff she needs from a hardware store? but as far as people going

anywhere, especially to churches, you are putting other people at risk. first of all, the people you meet. but let's talk about the health care workers and emergency responders. what if you are in a car accident on your way to church? you will add to that burden. i think i read or heard that 70% to 80% of car accidents, it is down that much -- why do we want to increase that for people going to church? stay-at-home, watch it on tv, listen to it on the radio, watch it live streaming, whatever. take care of it yourself at home. you do not need to be together in order to celebrate. host: what about those communities or individuals who do not have the ability to stream live, or at least effectively stream live, or participate in a religious gathering, as they would in person? caller: read the bible. i am sure, if they have been to church their whole life, they know the process.

they should be able to have silent prayer. there is all kinds of way you can pray and show your love, and you do not have to be in a social gathering to do that. host: here's rita in new jersey. caller: good morning and happy easter and passover to everyone. first of all, i truly believe that god, at this time, is bringing down the church for its hypocrisy, the mega churches and our country. we care more about going to church and worshiping, but we did not care anything about trump kicking out the kurdish overseas in ukraine. he told them to go pound the sand and go toward the oil fields. it broke my heart. i cried like a baby when i saw him leave all those homeless christians out there when jesus taught us, when he came back,

that the only thing we have to do is love god with all of our hearts, all our minds, and love our neighbor. the church has become hypocritical. it is a moneymaking machine. and let me tell you guys god is taking their money, and this is why we have this plague right now. you can go on any youtube and watch any minister in the world. i will watch adrian rogers. i want to hear a real minister this morning. , the popetch the pope john, that beautiful pope, who taught us about the lonely spirit. this is what we need today, instead of all this division and anger. god also taught us to respect authority. if they tell you not to gather, it is go'd wor -- god's word.

it is in the bible. host: to joe in arlington, virginia. caller: good morning. how are you doing? host: fine, thanks. caller: i was thinking this is more of an agile, flexible decision based on that geography and location. i represent the majority of muslims in america, black american muslims. ramadan is coming in about another two weeks or so. so as a consequence, i just have some few friends -- it is quite different than congregations doing easter in the church. of might need a minimum three people there, so you can have it in your home. so i had our service in my home last friday. and we are going to have it this

friday, about three or four people. host: would you typically -- during ramadan, would you typically try to go to your oral mosque for imam center wherever and pray with fellow members of that congregation? caller: yeah, most people will do that. but there is a lot of activity at home also. kind of like 5050, 50% at home, 50% at the mosque. a lot of people cook and do a lot of different things in their homes as well. of have an extreme amount activity at home during that time of ramadan as well. ready much and adaptive religion. host: how are your small gatherings working out? caller: pretty good. only three or four people. a lot of other muslims are praying and doing it from home.

it works out for us pretty well, because we are very adaptable people, and we do not need a physical building, per se, to do our obligor -- up with the tory prayers. host: the president tweeting yesterday, retreating pastor robert jeffers saying i will be watching, have a great easter. we go to ed in titusville, florida. caller: good morning. happy holidays. would simply say that we would render unto caesar what caesar data that includes the right to protect people international -- in an emergency. you need to respect the right of the people.

host: joe's next in kent, washington -- jill's next in kent, washington. caller: good morning. i do not believe religious gathering should be exempt. i do not believe it is god's intent to harm people. as someone said, it is hypocritical to think it is your in spite of the world being in the midst of a pandemic. into think it is ok to basically dig the graves of another -- and to think it is ok to basically dig the graves of another, you could be digging the grave of yourself. host: thank you. newsweek says americans eligible for the stimulus package have started seeing payments, the one-time payment from the

treasury, arrived in their accounts, looking to ease pressure from the economic downturn. ae chief executive officer of mobile banking startup said that a bunch of the first wave of payments from the cares are cap started to appear in their customers accounts. datat sopp said current's indicates around 40% of the deposits so far were for $1200. this is barbara in new york, city -- in new york city. how are you doing? caller: how are you? host: fine. caller: several people have brought up that churches should be exempt. exempt,r stores are staples is exempt, the banks are exempt, the stock exchange is still working, that i churches should be exempt -- then i think

churches should be exempt. solid rockpplaud church in ohio, holding service today. pastor tony spell in life tabernacle church in baton rouge. the core mission of the church is to comfort the afflicted. their job is to shepherd the flock in times when we are terrified, when we do not know where to turn or who to trust. host: what about arguments made from our caller, i think in pennsylvania, who said part of her issue is she is concerned the if people going to church service have some sort of accident or need assistance from emts or public officials, they would thereby put those folks in danger, potentially. what are your thoughts? would ithat difference make if a person was driving on

the highway and had an accident and they are already instant -- already symptomatically and emt would have to come to them on the highway? i am not sure what the issue is -- host: i guess her point is that if the order is to stay at home other than critical, essential religioust having a service in person potentially puts more people on the road. caller: when people go to the liquor store, they also get on the road, so i do not think that issue is really substantial. and all of these people who call up and talk about their health, how their health is compromised and they would be at risk, it is up to them to stay home. it is not up to them to tell other people that they cannot go to church. they should look after their health and stay home. host: you are at the epicenter in new york city. how are things going? noter: quite honestly, i do see any pandemic here in new york city.

host: you do not see it in new york city? caller: that is correct. i do not sick people. i do not see people lined up at the hospital. i just see a bunch of terrified people walking around in masks because of the fear mongering that the media does. host: what part of the city are you in? caller: manhattan. host: thanks for calling in. we will hear from sandra next in eastpointe, michigan. caller: hello. the first thing i wanted to say is, here in michigan, we were told not to go visit our unless we were one to be caregivers. that is how bad. and the wound -- the woman from new york who says she does not see illness, she is not in touch with reality. thinkto say, i, myself,

the pastors asking people to come to church are doing so more because they are more worried about getting money to pay the bills for the church than they are the people. because people are dying. this is a serious, dangerous thing. i watched the pope this morning. i felt very comforted by that. host: on twitter, we're @cspanwj. steve says i love attending worship, but during this crisis, surfaces are suspended. we cannot say we care about our fellow man and then risk infecting them. if you need a brick-and-mortar building for worship, you may want to reevaluate your spiritual life. this tweet says god may not be dead, but some of his celebrants. be fairly soon if they unwisely congregate today. bakersfield, --

i know what jesus would do this easter sunday stay home. may god protect us all, but use your god-given intelligence and get a coronavirus blood test as soon as possible. opinion piece from wade allen root. his headline -- mr. president, stop listening to the d.c. swamp and ivy league eggheads. he said i am one of your biggest supporters. praise you in speaking to my large and growing national audience on radio and tv and through my nationally syndicated newspaper column. my audience loves and supports you. we have your back. do you know who does not have your back? the ivy league eggheads, the washington, d.c. small deli politicians and bureaucrats. no one elect the dr. anthony found she elected dr. deborah

birx, surgeon general room adams, or hapless federal reserve chairman jerome powell i either. reason.good being lovedly about by the media. this is billy in florence, south carolina. caller: how are you doing? host: fine. caller: i just want to make sure that i think the woman from new york is on the money. the lady from michigan, i think she is kind of in that fear mongering part. here in south carolina, we have experienced little, if any. i think this year is just a bad -- in a bad flu season or pneumonia season, we do not close schools.

you should go to church. use your god-given sense. if you're sick, stay home. if you're healthy, like you normally would be, go to church. i would just like to ask everybody, have we cured flu? because flu numbers have dropped these last few months. i think they are getting mixed up in the count. i think we are getting -- with covid like symptoms in that number. host: thanks for your call. robert is next. caller: good morning. today, has gotten away from god. all the country has, absolutely. three weeks ago today, i lost my older son to cancer. right now, my faith is stronger in god than it has ever been. this country, people make fun of him -- look how he died.

he did nothing wrong, and they crucified him. tot is why they are trying do our president now, who is trying to help the people, but they are doing everything against him. the man cannot do anything right -- life andule over death. people cannot believe that, they are ruined. god says what he means and he does it. these people better wake up and get back to god, because this country will be destroyed. host: to rochester, new york, fred. caller: thanks for taking my call. i am all for everybody that wants to go to a congregation. i think it is something you should be able to do right now. but you are peeping -- but you are putting people's lives at risk. i pray.

i love god. but at this point, if you want to go to your congregation, go for it. you should have to take up a mandatory quarantine for 14 days with your congregation if you want to do so. that is my, this morning. i love c-span. i love what you guys are doing. thanks for your time. host: to texas, we hear from lisa. go ahead. caller: good morning. i believe that we should abide by the law's. people perish for the lack of knowledge. if experts are telling us not to get together, we should not. the people are the church. we are the church. where two or more are gathered in prayer, there he dwells. i think it is taking a risk that is not necessary, and a good

shepherd should not try to lead to congregation and maybe jeopardize them. twitter, @cspanwj, let's start up this easter sunday, are you better off this easter sunday than you were last easter sunday while obama was president? the poke at myf local episcopal church can use zoom, why can't all the churches do the same thing, or is it really about the money? and bill says religious gatherings should not be exempt. only here in the u.s. can a public health issue be turned into a red state-blue state issue. a quick look at the front page story of the "new york times." residents are sitting ducks. overwrite that overall, 8600 deaths in new york and connecticut have been attributed

to covid-19 vice -- in saturn -- have been attributed to covid-19 on saturday. the virus has been perhaps the coolest at nursing homes. population,il understaffing, shortage of protection and constant physical contact between workers and residents has hastened the spread. in all nearly 2000 residents of nursing homes in the region have died in the outbreak and thousands of other residents are sick. let's hear from francisco in glendale. caller: thank you for taking my call. i agree with the lady from new york. i am in arizona and we have not seen anybody sick. not one name has been on the news. you think when babies are involved, they would interview their parents or something. as far as the religious gatherings being exempt, absolutely.

i think people should still be able to do what they want because we need more evidence. this is just hearsay. it is a competition between the states, between how many people are stupid. that is what i think. host: we will continue the conversation in the next hour of washington journal. we will be joined for discussion on the role of faith and religion during the coronavirus pandemic. politicaly, the chief analyst for the christian broadcast network will join us and later sojourners magazine foundered reverend jim wallis will join us -- founder reverend jim wallis will join us. ♪ >> television has changed since begin butce c-span

our mission has not, to provide an unfiltered view of government. we have brought you primary coverage, the presidential impeachment process and now the federal response to the coronavirus. you can watch all of our public affairs programming on television, online or listen free on our c-span radio app. you can be part of the discussion on our daily washington journal program or through our social media. c-span, created by private industry, america's cable television companies and brought to you by your television provider. >> tonight at 9:00 eastern on afterward, the netflix director of inclusion with her book, the fix. >> we are often in denial about the challenges women face at work. assume america is a meritocracy, that everybody is

treated the same way. people don't have different every and says of work and with that kind of logic, we are not only denying difference but we are denying inequality. words at 9:00r eastern on book tv on c-span2. >> "washington journal" continues. host: with us next is david -- he ise host of the also the chief political analyst for the christian broadcasting network. thank you for being with us on this easter sunday morning. guest: thanks for having me. host: we spent our first hour asking our viewers about public gatherings and whether they should be exempt from the stay-at-home orders. what is your sense of how religious leaders across the spectrum are handling the challenge of getting a congregation together or keeping

them apart? guest: it is a good question and it is a challenge to a degree but i want to do a disclaimer off the top that i think will cloak the whole conversation we have which is that most christians, most pastors, most by eitherre abiding the federal guidelines, state guidelines, what have you. the reality is, for most of the country, for most even silica christians or christians across this country, they are abiding by these rules. when we get to talking about certain cases, a certain handful of churches that had decided not to do that, but it has been a challenge, and i think more than that, how do you come up with creative ways to go ahead and hold church not just online, most people are turning online but whether they are be -- but whether there be drive-in

services. thursday you drive through and pick up a cracker and wine or the grape juice and you open it on sunday during the online service. there are different ways people up duringg churched this difficult time. host: it does seem like governors and mayors will raise in his -- will raise an interesting constitutional question, about the government's ability to say to the disorganization's you can't or shouldn't meet in person or worst-case scenario you are subject to some sort of penalty. guest: that is exactly right. we have the contours of the argument, it is public versus religious freedom, two very important contours in this discussion. what do you do exactly? what we are seeing is a line. for the most part, you see christians and pass and even jessica leaders being ok with

heating those guidelines and siding on the side of public health but when you start crossing the line and i think we sort it to see this popping up in the news whether it be down in mississippi where they are ticketing people in their car. drive-in cars in a church service, they are not entering the building. the cars themselves are six feet apart. the cars are social distancing and yet these folks are getting ticketed. we know what is going on in kentucky as well whether it is being -- whether it is a license plate being reported by authorities. those license plates will then be reported to public-health officials. you have church folks that if you go to a church parking lot, they write down your license plate number and you get a knock at the door by public-health officials saying you need to be quarantined for 14 days.

at that point we are starting to cross the line and that is where this debate is going and that is the big concern among even silica. host: we showed the interview with vice president pence. when will that air and tell us more about what he said on the gatherings and his take on these church gatherings either online or in person? guest: a programming note, we have released a couple clips over the weekend and there is one just on the news because i host that podcast. that one is up as well. then a full report on the interview on monday, the 700 club, check your local listings as they say. as for the interview with mike pence, he started by saying he has a lot of gratitude in his heart for the churches that have stepped up, so he is happy with

that and i asked him what about these pastors that are in essence going rogue and he said his concern is that you can worship jesus anywhere. you don't have to be inside a church and that was basically his point. he is onto something that is very true. the last time i checked, jesus isn't in a church building, jesus can be online. you don't quarantine jesus. jesus is everywhere. as you go throughout the day and i think that is what his point was that overall he has been very pleased with how churches are responding. one very interesting part of the conversation that has been controversial to some on the far left and the liberals as it relates to contribute into churches during this time, mike pence has made it very clear during the white house task

force briefing that people should donate to their places of worship whether they be churches or synagogues or monasteries because the ministry still goes on even if you are not in the building. host: our guest is david brody, chief political reporter for the christian broadcast network. we will take your calls on the conversation. (202)-748-8000 is the line to call for folks in the eastern and central time zones. for those on the west coast, (202)-748-8001. you mentioned airing on the 700 club on monday. tell us some of the other things you heard from the vice president. guest: they were a couple interesting things. we talked about testing and i think it is going to be interesting to folks. i pushed him on this idea that there was a slow rollout and in essence, without admitting it, mike pence has a way of saying things without it coming across

of ao bad but in terms slow process, he did talk about that, he talked about how there is bureaucratic red tape and they are changing the model and the system to these rapid testing systems and he believes they -- key was that instead of it just being with the cdc, it went into a more public/private sector partnership, so i thought that was interesting. income --about male mail-in voting as far as what democrats are pushing for in congress, whether or not that is political. i cannot reveal everything but those are a few things in the interview. host: the president reacted fairly strongly to a wall street journal editorial on thursday, editorial ran, the title was trump's wasted briefings, saying

the president should not lead these briefings. early on, the vice president had led them. did the vice president indicate how he thought those briefings were going? does he think they are helpful? guest: i talked to him about the media and how the media has been covering this. interestingly i thought he would take a jab at the media he didn't. he said overall he thought the media was doing a relatively good job but he also realizes they will have questions and they have a role and a job to do as well, so he did not take the bait if you will, because he's got more pressing things on his hands. host: let's hear from callers. bob in texas, you are on with david brody. caller: speaking of rogue wasors, years ago i listening to pastor dan cummings

who is now frequently at the capital, he started in a cattle in texas. anyway, just this morning i am reading his book, about 80 pages, it is the people, the preachers and the politicians, how one woman's prayer changed the nation. it is free on amazon, like a the answert this is that hebrews used, the answer our founders used and it is the only answer that i think will do anything to help america. right now i am in the hospital with a 97-year-old mother who inadvertently got put in for covid which she toast -- which she tested totally negative for. we are praying for her and i

sow jesus is the solution until we bound down -- until we bow down to our one lord and savior, we are toast. host: good luck to you and your mom. he is right. jesus is the solution. what is interesting from a research perspective, more than half of all americans are praying more than they ever have before. they are praying for an end to the coronavirus pandemic and what is interesting is that if you go inside those numbers, about 36% of people that call themselves religious, none, they don't have a religion, they are even praying. it goes on from there. prayer is a good thing and when folks that don't even believe, whether it be jesus or any of that, they are praying, that is

something that is a positive development for sure. host: henry in michigan. hello there. caller: good morning. like mr. brody's help in trying to resolve an inner conflict. as a liberal, i am well instructed in the bible and in disbelief -- and in religious belief. in my upbringing i have always been taught that god will not be mocked. america hasat elected satan and satan is in the white house. you interviewed one of his demons yesterday. if i am to be reunited with my country, my country has to be reunited and instructed by the goodwill of jesus christ and his

social ministry and i don't believe we are following that now. i think this president has mocked god and that is why we are where we are today. i have no hope of being reunited with my country and with my fellow countrymen if they continue -- if they continue to follow satan. how am i supposed to resolve that conflict within myself when i have been raised to hate people -- to hate people and to hate -- to hate evil and to hate the people that love evil? guest: it is a great question. i don't even know where to begin. there is so much to unpack. you have one view of it and there are a lot of folks who have a different view and believe that donald trump is in office for such a time as this from a biblical perspective.

we believe that debate for another day -- we will leave that debate for another day. is, ifth of the matter you come out of a biblical conservative perspective, this president is the most pro-life president in history. many things he has done from a conservative biblical perspective and a word from god perspective, he has been very positive. you will of course counter with the fact that the social justice aspect of all of this, but there are a lot of things he has done in that area. a lot of times, and i think both sides are guilty of this, you have the conservative even to liquids on one side talking about -- concentrating on certain issues with a cut -- with a biblical context and you have liberals talking about social justice aspects, but the last time i checked, jesus

wasn't all about social justice, he was about coming to this earth, dying for our sins and giving everyone a chance to be with him for eternity. that is what the common bond should be on both sides. host: our guest is david brody, chief political analyst of cbn. our next guest, -- our next caller, go ahead. you are on the air. caller: the church should be allowed to go to church and congregate. [indiscernible] when you get sick, you go to jesus and pray. why wouldn't they let people go and pray? host: we kind of touched on that earlier. we will go to oklahoma. jerry is on the line.

caller: good morning. happy easter gentlemen. i think the distinction needs to be made between pastors who are shepherds of the flock and religion because personally i am hearing a lot of talking between butanne williamson and etc. christianity and i am a christian, i believe we see too many puppeteers and not enough pastors. together,meeting pastors can exercise their buildingutside of the church ink the revelation was a perfect example. thank you for your time. host: david brody? guest: first of all, we have to remember most churches are

following these guidelines. i don't want to say it isn't an issue but for the most part it hasn't been. we know in places like tampa, the pastor there has physically gone against authority. he has now gone online. in places like ohio and down in louisiana, especially white tabernacle was holding church sunday services and brought 2000 people attending. it is happening but it is in pockets and that is important to point out. the ones that are having church, and once again i am not defending people holding these services, i'm just explaining from a factual standpoint, they are still doing social distancing guidelines. some churches removed some of the pews, move them to the side and kept families six feet apart. i am not saying that is the way to go but there are certain

precautions they are taking and that is part of their defense. host: your interview with the vice president done on thursday, you tweeted some photos about that and i wanted to show one of those. you say in this tweet, i was tested for covid-19 today because i was doing a one-on-one interview with the vice president and the test was negative. did you have to take that test in order to get the interview? guest: i am glad you brought that up because i did want to bring it up. i was tested and it was negative. here is what happened. we thought we were all going to get temperature checks going in and we did but then we are in the room and this took place in the old executive office building, the ceremonial office and the interview was going to start late morning and about an hour before that i was told very nicely we are going to need to give you one of those rapid covid-19 tests.

myself and the woman that was going to apply makeup to the vice president. that is exactly what happened. we both went down there about an hour before the interview. it took about 10 seconds. these rapid tests are nothing at all. graphic,d be a little it is five seconds up one nostril, five seconds up another and your eyes are watery little bit and that is it. they said they would only contact me if it came back positive and an hour later nobody contacted me and the vice president walked in and i figured we were good. host: during that hour were you a little bit on pins and needles? guest: i was a little concerned. as you know in journalism we always have a plan b and quite frankly we have a plan c and we were already in plan b territory with the producer who was getting ready to ask those questions that i had ready for the vice president just in case. host: we go to illinois.

lawrence, go ahead. caller: good morning. to hopefullynt give some solace to practicing christians locked at home. most christians understand the significance of the resurrection but what led up to it is also important. christ dying in his crucifixion and the reason he was crucified was because he came to earth and told the congregation i am the sacrificial lamb, you don't need to go through religious leaders because prayer to christ, everybody had -- prior to christ, everybody had to go to their religious leader to do the sacrifice and christ said you can talk directly to god through me. he ripped open the tabernacle, that is what happened. people at home can administer to themselves. they don't need to go to a pastor or priest to tell their sins. they can call directly to god through christ and receive the

body of christ, the communion and administer to themselves and receive it in christ's name. people forget that. it is one of the reasons why christ was crucified. many of the religious leaders were frightened they were losing control and power. christ did that all through his life. that is why he took a bullwhip to the temple. i don't want to make it to political, but he was pointing out a lot of fake news of the day. host: david brody, any thoughts? guest: i like how we turned it into a fake news story. he is absolutely right. there is the sermon of the morning and beyond that what is important is to understand that what he said is true which is you don't have to necessarily be in a church to worship god. is there a community aspect to it? yes, is church important, of course.

that is a lot of what people are missing, the community aspect to all of this but the main point is correct and this is something that a lot of people don't quite get which is christianity is called a religion but a relationship with god is not a religion. a relationship with jesus is a personal relationship. aere is a difference between relationship with church and a personal relationship with jesus. people get hung up on the relationship with religion. host: his comments reminded me we need to get some politics into this conversation. we read this story earlier about joe biden, winning the alaskan primary with 20,000 voters in that state. the lay of the land in terms of the presidential race, the convention already moved for democrats into august. how do you see things and focusing in particular on the democratic side, how do you see things moving forward? guest: i think joe biden has a

big challenge on his hands and it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with donald trump, it has to do with democratic politics internally. he has to get the bernie folks to the polls. they've got to be energized. it is all about energy and momentum and all of that energizing debates. the democratic party has to figure out -- they have a lot of people angry at trump but if you are angry and sitting at home, that is one thing. you have to be angry to get to the polls. the millenials and the bernie people out there are not too jazzed. how does he engage them and get them to the polls? the answer would be to embrace some of what bernie has been talking about and move the platform to the left and that is the problem. if you want to play to what the general election, you better go to the middle. what is biting going to do? is he going to go to the left or does he go to the middle and go blue-collar rust belt and try to

win those folks? he needs both but if you are here and don't know which way to go or you are trying to thread the needle, that is difficult and it will be pointed out by the trump campaign as we move toward november. host: the problem for the former vice president in that he has no podium, no pulpit. whatever you think of the daily briefings, the president is out there every day and perhaps some people these substitute for his rallies. he is there every day by the nature of the pandemic, the vice president does not have that platform. guest: he doesn't and it is a real problem. even when he tried to go virtual and read off prompter, you might remember, the prompter speech from his library or wherever it was, and he still messed up. machined himself a gaff and he talked about calling out the national guard at about 20

seconds later he said we should call out the national guard. in other words, he was all over the place. he has a gaff problem for sure. i will say for the president, he has his work cut out for him. we are going to go into june, thisand august, if not situation, kind of a modified quarantined situation, what does he do for his rallies? on those daily coronavirus task force briefings but his biggest pulpit of all are those rallies and right now that weapon has been taken away from him. host: a couple more calls. california, robert on the line. caller: yes sir. good morning guys. i just wanted to say that i am a christian, kind of a devout christian. i went on the road for jesus for

a year to search out his faith and his trust. i want to say this. ande don't get on our knees return to our first love, then we are missing the mark. that is what all this is. he wants us to return to him. do is picture a man hanging on the cross dying for you. he died for you. he will always be proved. all you have to do is picture that man this morning. if you are struggling to find him and find the love for him, he hung there for you, personally for you. but i wanted to say to everyone who is listening, you need to return to your love, get on your knees, cry out to god this morning. bernie -- david brody, you wrote a book a couple years ago talking about the faith of donald trump. the president tweeted that he

would be watching the robert jeffers service online. are we hearing from the president in these recent days of some thoughts on religion, some of his religious beliefs in terms of how he is addressing the coronavirus? guest: we are but it is not done in a traditional way. nothing with donald trump is traditional and that is what the book explains and goes into. he is not going to say it, forget a pastor but your normal even jelly coal having a brunch and cracker -- a brunch at cracker barrel after service, that is not him. he is going to say get his way but the truth of the matter is he has in essence ushered in a whole bunch of even to little christianity type policies from a conservative perspective and he is seeking out prayer in the white house. it is a store that does not get told much. donald trump is part of the reason why this happened. donald trump is the law and

order guy, the tough guy, he is control and that is what he wants to project. behind the scenes it is much different. he is much more compassionate behind the scenes. he is seeking out prayer behind the scenes and inviting people in who want to pray with him and more importantly pray for our country and for guidance. a lot of that doesn't get told as much but it is happening and it is interesting because normally politicians want to do the exact opposite. they want to kiss the baby in public and show the softer side. donald trump doesn't want you to see that. but he does have a softer side, you are just not seeing it. in response to the last caller about prayer, he is absolutely right. we do as a country need to get down on our knees. from a google analytics standpoint, this past march the search term prayer was searched more often this march than it has been in the last five years. clearly people are turning to prayer whether it be searching for it or doing it more often

but that is a good thing and is something we should remember. host: here is isabel in missouri. caller: good morning. if you got the sense that they were going to fix the issue of ticketing the people in the drive up service. we have a church with a pastor service anddrive-in we downsized on our worship team. we do zoom for our sunday school classes. threat inhat a missouri? is your governor threatening to ticket people? caller: he is not. we do everything in compliance, what we are supposed to do but upon hearing the news of other states doing this, i feel like that is and infringe on the

religious side of that like they should not be doing that and i really feel that that is a presidential thing, that as a government they should step in and go that is on the freedom of religion. they are not being next to someone, they are not threatening someone. it is no different than going to mcdonald's or whatever as far as socializing. host: what time is your service this morning? caller: 10:45. host: thanks for calling in and happy easter. guest: i think isabel is onto something very important. let's start with this. in terms of my interview with the vice president, we were talking specifically about pastors holding church inside, in the pews. we did not get into drive-in services. having said that, we know the department of justice is going to be coming out this week with we believe some sort of

guidelines. it is going to address exactly what isabel is talking about, this sense of what is protected and what is not protected under the first amendment when it comes to what is going on right now. expect that guidance to come out this week and win that guidance comes up, you can be sure the president in the vice president have a lot to say about it. isabel makes an interesting point, this is part of the concern among even? christians which is if you are going to go to parking lots and start taking down license plates or giving people tickets are ,eing in a church parking lot hold on for a moment. why are we not going to mcdonald's anja polian a lot of other places where there are drive-through's -- mcdonald's otheripotle and a lot of places where there are drive-throughs? that is part of the issue here.

is church essential or nonessential? that gets into a whole lot of issues as it relates to religious exemptions. we can talk about that some other time. host: david brody, chief political analyst for the christian broadcast network. look for his interview with vice president mike pence online and coming up this week. thank you for joining us. guest: a pleasure, thank you. host: up next, more on the role of faith and religion and how they are playing out amid the coronavirus pandemic. we will be joined by sojourners founder reverend jim wallis. later we are joined by feeding america cheaper sick of officer cheat -- she picked ticket of officer claire babineaux-fontenot -- chief executive officer claire babineaux-fontenot. -- and nothing a new executive order for all new jersey transit and private carriers -- announcing a new executive order for all new jersey transit and private carriers.

>> i am announcing a new step filling up on the step we announced thursday to help slow the coronavirus. today i am signing an executive order directing all private carriers to cut the capacity on all trains, buses, light rail vehicles and paratransit vehicles to 50% of their maximum. the order for the requires nj transit and private carriers to supply their workers with gloves and face coverings. the order also requires all whens to wear face covers traveling on nj transit or with a private carrier whether it be by bus, train, light rail or paratransit vehicle unless they cannot for medical reasons. many of ouror essential workers, public transit is how they get to work and we need to protect them during that trip. nj transit will put out guidance specifically on these -- on this

executive order so that we have a rational execution of this order. there is going to be a lot of discretion left up to our drivers. part of the same addition -- part of the same executive order, expending the requirement to wear a face covering to all customers heading into restaurants and bars that remain in operation as they get their takeout orders. if you are not walking into an establishment, if you are doing curbside or your order is being delivered, a face covering will not be required. we will require that restaurants and bars give face coverings and gloves to all their food servers personnel. all of this is effective monday evening at 8:00 p.m. repeating, a face mean a medicalot grade mask.

we need to keep those for our frontline public health and safety responders and they remain in short supply. there are any number of ways you can cover your mouth and nose with a bandana or homemade fabric covering. you mayor some of you view this as another inconvenience, remembering to bring your face covering to the supermarket or to pick up your takeout order may be a hassle but you know what would be really inconvenient is if you ended up in the hospital with covid-19 or you inadvertently infected a family member may be of an older generation with the virus unwittingly. if you did that just because you didn't take to heart the need for us -- the need for us to take every precaution and continue working together. we accept this is inconvenient and we accept the level of exciting and we except we all want to be outside doing as we would normally be doing. here is the problem. if we do any or all of the

above, we blow our chances of flattening this curve. you probably put yourself or your family members at risk and i can promise you we put our health system at risk. we cannot do that. i thank you from the bottom of my heart. this will have been worth it. i know we are going through hell but we will get through this together. >> "washington journal" continues. host: here on "washington journal" we look forward to talking to reverend jim wallis shortly. we will put up the phone lines to hear from you. (202)-748-8000 for those of you in the eastern and central time zones. (202)-748-8001 in the mountain and pacific time zones. we are working on our connection to reverend jim wallis. we started the program with the situation in kansas over the governor's order. headline, the order limiting

kansas church service stands, justice rules just hours before easter. they write in the story that the order on easter services and limiting those gatherings on easter sunday would stand. the republican leadership in the legislature in kansas had overturned that, had blocked that executive order and now the supreme court in kansas, staying the order, keeping the governor's order on track. from the washington post this morning, there headline on the covid-19 u.s. deaths topping 20,000, exceeding the total in italy. confirmed ineaths the united states top 20,000 on saturday, a the total in italy, the world's hardest hit country as state and local leaders in new york sparked a decision to

close the largest school system for the rest of the academic year and almost the entire country came under a federal disaster declaration. it was an ominous start to a holiday weekend in which president trump said he once hoped to reopen the country but a sign that the pandemics most painful phase is far from over. with the approval of a disaster declaration in wyoming in the report of 1879 new deaths nationally, the united states reached two grim milestone saturday. all 50 states are in a state of emergency and the u.s. outbreak is the deadliest in the world. the post writes that italy with a population of 60 million still has lost more people per capita, roughly 31 of every 100,000 people have been killed by the virus. in the united states, roughly six out of every 100,000 people have been killed by the virus. our phone lines are open. (202)-748-8000 for those of you on the eastern and central time zones. (202)-748-8001, mountain and

pacific. in tennessee, let's hear from robin. caller: hello. i would like the reverend to inform these even telik was about what god said about a liar. there were only six things that god hates and a liar is one of them. i want to know how they justify following and worshiping donald trump when he is nothing but a straight up liar. to be a liar means you will be seen and it means you will steal. there is nothing about this man that says anything about christianity because he is one of the things that god hates. host: we welcome to the program this morning, reverend jim wallis the founder of sojourners . he is there president and founder -- he is their

president and founder. happy easter. guest: happy easter to you. host: tell us your thoughts this morning. what would be your typical easter sunday tradition and what are you doing this easter sunday? guest: easter is the proclamation, the conviction of despair and life over death. ,ven now in the midst of all easter was never a time to go back to normal. churches, to start the economy, it is a public health let'sssness but easter is make this new. the first time i ever remembered -- we are backing the scientists, the doctors and doing the physical distancing which is necessary to save

lives. here we are. says where two or three are gathered together, their mi. there is a promise. virtually anding we will probably feel closer than ever to our fellow parishioners all over the world. we are learning in the churches how to worship virtually, how to love, how to care for each other virtually in this pandemic time. one of our roles is to back the scientists and doctors. consistent with christ to infect your neighbors, so we will heal the nation by saying physically distance but standing apart but never being alone. that is the solidarity we need. host: we have had a number of

callers and i want to get your thoughts, what do you say to people who have called us and said we see attending a church service as an essential service and if people have the ability to go to a liquor store or a drive-through, fast food restaurants, why are churches or other religious organizations prohibited from having people in distanting, socially safe gathering of some sort? guest: this is about public health. gathering together in a big building is the way to infect your neighbors. this isn't about religious liberty, it is about public health. -- terribly infectious disease.

you don't love your neighbor by infecting your neighborhoods. we are doing that together all over the country and we are feeling often closer than ever before. this remarkable easter because we have also learned, it is almost like good friday. good friday there was a powerful image of christ on the cross with his hands nailed to the saying to all the suffering of the coronavirus, i can't stop your suffering but i am with you in it. christ's handsy are outstretched and says all we have seen revealed by the coronavirus, all of these inequities, all of these things that are wrong, racism and

poverty, being revealed as preconditions for getting this disease and dying of it because of how people are made to live and yet now in this day, jesus says come to me, i can make all things. i can make all things new. come join me and let's fix this. but we will respect public health and we will be the healing spirit of christ in the world, making things new. this virus has revealed things are bad and wrong and much -- and must no longer be acceptable. sermon before heading into jerusalem. sick, i was, i was in prison and where were you? as you treat the least of these, that is how we treat him.

we both aren, where today, the least of these are the least important. host: i want to follow on that and one of your comments, one of your writings. reverend jim wallis is overcast, the founder of sojourners. his articles at sojo.net. one of his articles, you wrote this. two scriptures come to mind for me in the last week. sayss if fusee ends which lovell redeem the time for the days are evil realizing there are people dying, dying alone makes her very evil days but i also think the days that preceded the unexpected onslaught of the killer virus were also people. they have become days of untruthfulness, the acceleration of racial bigotry, the promotion of fear, hate and violence, the political targeting of those jesus tells to protect, those on the margin. biblical perhaps

implication of the coronavirus? guest: it is interesting. i wrote that before the coronavirus but the pandemic has shown these things, it has revealed these things. that thingsws now like poverty and racism are preconditions because of people's lack of access to health care, to safe housing, anywhere to physically distance, reliable incomes. all of that makes them more prone to get sick and die. i think on this easter, more than ever, we want to proclaim jesus, thellowers of least of these are the most important.

, wee come out of easter want to learn those things that this virus has shown us are wrong and have to be changed and then change them together as jesus says. let us make all things new. host: you are probably hearing a lot of this conversation, the headline that usa today, is the coronavirus an act of god? faith leaders debate top questions amid the pandemic. one of those responding is a rabbi who said people want to make meaning in a time of fear, uncertainty and suffering. that is understandable and natural but passover is coming up so people are making those comparisons. i do not think god is smiting us. my theology does not involve a man in the sky with a pair of dice saying it is smite the people time. what do you think of his comments? guest: i think they are right. i think that image of christ on

the cross over the coronavirus suffering saying i cannot stop your suffering but i am with you in it, that is what the cross says, with us in the suffering and now two days later, we believe this resurrected christ is saying that hope can triumph over despair, life over death. we have to believe. believing it makes us change. how do we see that and how do we act, that life will triumph over death and how do we protect those whom this virus has revealed are so vulnerable? protecting the vulnerable, focusing our attention on the vulnerable is the vocation of the faith and we are doing that all over the country. we are learning how to take care of people and we are saying to our political leaders that you

have to protect those who are most in jeopardy. hungry people, people who don't have health care. isn't it interesting now how we see that everyone having health care, universal health care would be the best thing for the common good of all of us? and for the common health of all of us? if people had steady incomes, that would make us more economically stable, all of us. we have to ask what is best for the common good and the common health and this virus can teach us things if we have the ears to hear and the eyes to see. host: comments to -- comments and calls to reverend jim wallis. (202)-748-8000 for those of you in the eastern and central time zones. (202)-748-8001 for those of you in the mountain and pacific. caller: i will make my comment very short and to the point.

i am not a long-winded preacher. romans 13 point -- romans 13:1, b in subject -- in subjection to the superior authorities. it is god's own words and we should follow the government says and that should and all of these conversations. i thank you very much. over: i see governors all the country and mayors, responsible for the people, saying indeed physical distancing, staying away from each other right now is the only way to heal this nation and save lives. i want to see us doing that. i agree with you entirely. that is what we should be doing. i think they are looking to us for that, to protect each other. i don't want to see people infected in church services or funerals. this is a time of social distancing but here is the

issue. i think the virus is showing the world right now how to do social or physical distancing without leading to social isolation. we cannot let that happen. we are finding all kinds of ways to help us prevent the social that social distancing which is necessary for our health could create. we are trying to show that we can reach out to each other and take care of each other in that kind of time. with the doctors and scientists and governors and mayors? they are telling us to please stay home but church is going on. the doors are closed but church is going on. host: here is frank. caller: good morning. just trying to give an atheist point of view. and ih the show everyday

watched all the leaders speak and a lot of god talk, a lot of talk of jesus. my question is, i watch these evenhes, especially tellico's who can heal the children by touching their head out of a wheelchair and the blind to see again. christianityear of and creationists of going to church? why can't someone just touch their head and make the virus go away? is the virus too strong for god? we talk too much about prayer. i think we should be talking more about science and we are wasting a lot of time thinking we have telepathic powers talking to an imaginary person we should be turning to science. person when we should be talking to science. guest: i agree with you that talk isn't enough.

i want to see us putting our faith into action, particularly in terms of caring for those who are left out and left behind. who will do that is the question. we are told to love our neighbors as ourselves. taking care of each other but who is going to love our neighbors beyond our own doors? that is what we have to do. there are plenty of reasons that christians have failed to live the way jesus taught that turns people into not being believers at all. i understand those things, i really do. now is the time not just for talk but for action. who is putting into action love, the care, the compassion and empathy. lived, we want to be

followers of jesus in this time. it is most important ever to take care of each other, especially those whom christ called the least of these and we have not always done that and it has made people not believe but it is the time for us to put jesus where -- put jesus's words into action. i want to see love go viral. i am seeing that. ched those who are unchur can spare some bread and sustenance and we are looking for a way to take care of ourselves and give beyond ourselves and take care of those who are in serious trouble. host: up next is steve calling from tennessee. caller: good morning. thank you so much for today's program because you have highlighted what i have been saying for years. christianity unfortunately has camps,vided into two

true christians and the even evangelicalsd the who believe everyone is out to get them. aboutan evangelical for 10 or 11 years until all of this hate started showing up. i went back to being a true christian. a true christian follows the teachings of jesus. they don't worry about -- they don't push a political agenda. mr. brody got up and i listened to him and he talked out of both sides. he vilified liberals. i am a liberal and most of my friends are and we are all christians. it is sad to me, the way that this country is being divided and the fact is in my mind, the even jill echols -- the even evangelicalsthe

have thrown out jesus and replaced him with donald trump as their lord and savior. reverend wallis is a true christian and he represents true christianity. and it isabout love not about money and the problem in this country is, we have replaced jesus with money and he very explicitly talks about that in his gospels. i want to thank you for this morning and for the opportunity to call in and reverend wallis, i've true -- i truly appreciate the fact that you are a true christian and you follow the teachings. host: thank you. more than ever, my brother it is time to reclaim jesus as you are speaking of. we have been polarized, politicized and i think somehow

jesus gets squeezed out by our politics. is. is the world as it when jesus gets squeezed out with politics full of hate and fear and even violence, i think this is a time where we are called back to jesus to reclaim jesus and what he said. he did say it and are we to follow it, yes we are. even those who left the church, what jesus was saying, it is in need right now, it is what i need right now. let's put the politics aside. our faith is supposed to shape our politics, not the other way around and that has been happening for a long time.

i hope to reclaim jesus in this moment, lift him up and see what he said. us to lovet mean for one another, and particularly protect those who jesus called the least of these. host: we will get to deborah in ohio next. caller: i have been listening to your program. is that the fundamental beliefs i believe is to do onto others as the lenched was the reverend was so right, we just have to love each other. i'm staying away from my church because i love those people and would like them to do the same for me.

and not go to church and be around large groups so when i go to the store it's safer for me to go to the store. i've been going out once, maybe twice in an emergency to go to the grocery store and trying to do everything i can to keep my family safe and myself safe. that are ese churches holding church services, one reason they're doing it is because they get a lot of publicity, for themselves and for their churches. and these governments that are going in there and trying to stop them is getting a lot of publicity because they're the rough and tough people laying down the law. if we just ignore it, stop it from being on the news all the time, stop showing she's defiants, people will be more apt to do what's right and stay

at home. host: deborah from ohio, thank you. guest: i couldn't have set it better than you. we stopped going to church in a pandemic. we haven't stopped church. hurch is still going on. we're there, two or three, jesus, i am with you. and in a few minutes my family and i will be going to church in the living room right here at my house and taught not only taking care of ourselves but loving each other as you were saying, loving those beyond us. so this is the time -- the truth is very few churches, really, are having services in defiance of the law. the ones having it are predictably the usual loud mega church pastors who really all they ever do is draw attention to themselves and the media, you're right, covers that.

and wants to make this into a religious freedom issue which is absolutely ridiculous. this isn't religious liberty, this is public health. it's not infecting our neighbors. let the loud people be loud and the media cover them. very, very few pastors and priests are doing this. we're doing what is best to do when you're in a pandemic. you love your neighbors by staying physically apart but not losing that connection, that solidarity, so worship is going on, prayer is going on. even music is going on with the technology the way it is now. i wouldn't worry about the few people who are loud mega church pastors who always worry about themselves. i kind of ignore them in times like this. host: in "the new york times" there is an easter sunday piece,s headline, the pandemic

and will of god, the cut line, the purpose of suffering may be mysterious but we must search for meaning. as the theologic thomas wrote a message for christians to rebel the quarantine, there is a liberty to search the precious moment and not escape it and what does it mean god willed temporary conditions in which our elite lifestyle of international travel is grounded, our consumption is cut to a minimum, our days are occupied with basic responsibility towards our families and immediate communities, our resources and economic hopes are reduced and we're made more dependent upon one another, what does it mean our nation state suddenly seems less potent and armies are infected by a invisible conteenageon that can't be eradicated and countries face the humility of their limits and might think none of this

tells us anything about ourselves and god's compassion and justice but if we simply ask to pass through all of this in hasty expectations to a return to normal perhaps we are missing the fundamental point f this exercise. guest: he's so right. what are we learning in this? easter is never a time, as i said before, to return to normal. we have to return to the new. we are learning a lot from this. we should be made more humble by all of this. we should see those who are always vulnerable, always open before this and this virus has shown this. how can we learn from this. how can this make us more open, more loving, more aware of what's around us? how can it change us? history. we will be changed by this. we're not going to be the same afterwards. how we are after this will depend on how we act through it, what we do, what we do -- who we do that with, who we act

with, how we bring the polarization together around compassion, around the common good not just our own good. i think we can learn from the suffering and take it to a different place. and easter to me is a day to proclaim that, that hope can prevail over despair and that life can prevail over death and we see a world in which, while things are coming apart, jesus is saying i can, i will make all things new. come join me and help me do that. host: we don't want to make you late for your service even though it's in your living room. verend jim ba -- jim wallis, his latest book is "christ in crisis." we go to michigan. caller: i appreciate the time. try to make it short. in reference to mr. wallis' comment and also the text message you read about people

accepting this as a smite from god. god gave us the truth to believe so the freedom he gives all individuals but we are still responsible for what we do, whether it is spreading truth or not. and i do know that according to god, in reference to our relationship with him, i accept, and i know it's offensive to god in not acknowledging his hand in all things, metaphorically, i had a relationship with my father, there's times he did good and times he disciplined me, so saying that's metaphoric how we're supposed to look at god. he's a god that does good, does good all the time. when he chacins us he tests us and this is part of us humbling our imagination because we end up forming perceptions of god he doesn't want to correct us or can't use death or some sort of affliction to chacin our

attitudes that this life isn't the end all, be all, and mannerisms and what we love, i think one of your callers said earlier about loving evil, that's worse, going to god and loving evil is worse death than dying a temporal death. host: we'll hear from reverend wallis. host: jesus, know the truth and the truth will set you free. i've been thinking about that. truthfulness is very important in this crisis. we've seen a lack of truth fulness, very high levels of leadership in this country. and i think the truth really heal us s free and can and untruthfulness is making people sick. let's go back. you mentioned truth. let's go back to the truth. let's own truth, not be afraid of truth. know the truth can help us and heal us and save us and bring us together again.

this time will drive us apart or pull each other through us or bring us back together again and i'm trusting and believing and acting on the easter conviction that we can be brought together again and that hope will finally triumph over despair, even life over death. that's what i'm hoping and believing and praying today on this easter sunday. host: reverend jim wallis, president of sojourners, happy easter to you and your family. guest: and to you, too, happy easter. host: feeding america. claire will join us and talk about what her organization is doing to help food and secure americans during the coronavirus pandemic and also more of your calls coming up as well. first a story from new york. this is syracuse.com from those daily briefings from governor

andrew cuomo, the headline, coronavirus shutdown ending soon in new york. question mark cuomo for pouring cold water on speculation, dismissing the notion the state's economy would open any time soon despite more promising signs about the coronavirus pandemic. what happens next is a matter of, quote, life or death the governor said and urged people to set emotions aside and look at data for understanding the way forward. here's more of what he said in his update yesterday from new york. andrew: good news is the curve of the increase is continuing to flatten. the number of hospitalizations appears to have hit an apex and the apex appears to be a plateau which is what many of the models predicted which it wasn't going to be straight up or straight down, it would be straight up, you hit the top number and plateau a period of time and looks like what we're doing, the hospitalization rate is down and that's important.

we have more people getting infected still. we have more people going to the hospitals, but we have a lower number. that's all this is saying is fewer people are going into the hospitals still, net positive. the three-day average which is what we look at because day to day can be somewhat deceiving especially when you get towards the weekend because the weekend reporting gets a little different. but all the numbers are on the downward slope. still, people getting infected, still people going into the hospital but again a lower rate of increase. the number of i.c.u. admissions is down. the three-day average on i.c.u. admissions is down. this is a little deceptive because at one time hospitals d discrete i.c.u. wards or i.c.u. beds.

effectively now in a hospital, all the beds are i.c.u. beds. it's like the entire hospital has turned into an i.c.u. facility. so this distinction is actually -- i don't know how enlightening this is. this, however, is still a discrete category. the increase in the number of intubations. and as we've discussed, the intubations are a bad sign from a health diagnostic perspective and when we talk about the number of deaths, those tend to be people who have been intubated for the longest period of time. so while i.c.u. beds may not mean anything anymore in the hospital system, intubations are still intubations and this is a very good sign the intubations are down. we were worried about the spread from new york city to

long island and upstate, if you look at the bar chart, you can see almost the wave where it did start to move. we have been working very hard in nassau, suffolk, west cherer, rockland, the suburbs to new york city, and so far we've had hot spots but we've attacked them aggressively and we believe that we've stabilized the situation upstate and in the suburbs which is what you see in that chart. >> "washington journal" continues. host: we'll open up our phone lines, 202-748-8000 for those in the eastern and central time zones, 202-748-8001 for the mountain and pacific region. congress not due back until perhaps the week of the 20th, and some pro forma sessions next week certainly. in "the washington post" this morning, writing about what may be ahead in terms of

congressional action, congress struggles to adapt to socially distance reality. ike dabonis and paul kane, both chambers set a date of the 20th, business as usual return is not good since most recommending continuance in lockdown. trump ousted two inspectors general including one tasked with overseeing administration's handling of trillions of taxpayer dollars and emergency relief. the pandemic only magnified congress' inability or unwillingness to check trump's actions as president. even before the virus trump has declared a national emergency to take taxpayer dollars from the military and other accounts to build a border wall and installed acting officials to oversee critical departments and agencies, bypassing the confirmation process. now the congressional leaders

have narrowed their focus to assembling rescue legislation which has near unanimous approval thus allowing it to proceed hurdles in largely empty congressional chambers but not all hurdles can be jumped, they write, in an attempt to pass the cares act by a voice vote in the house was complicated when one member, representative thomas massey from kentucky insisted on a quorum allowing half the house members to gather in the chamber. on just this last thursday, mcconnell's bid to beef up small business relief funding by about $250 billion was blocked by democrats who offered their own competing proposal. you can read that at washingtonpost.com. and of course when the house returns, live coverage here on c-span and senate coverage is always on c-span 2. joining us next is claire babineaux-fontenot, the chief executive officer with the organization feeding america.

ms. babineaux-fontenot, thank for you being with us this morning. tell us what the last month has been like for your organization. guest: i think the only word i can use to express it properly is unprecedented. we've seen significant spikes in demand. we've seen reductions in supply, and right when people need it the most. host: typically what does your organization do? how broad to you reach and what types of places do you provide food? guest: our network is a network of 200 food banks around the united states and in normal times, over 60,000 pantries, kitchens, meal programs, two million volunteers. so we often have said that we are serving every community where there is food insecurity and that means every single county and parish in the u.s. in normal times we serve every

parish and county in the whole united states. host: over the last month or so during the pandemic, what's been harder or tougher to get, the need of people who need food or the ability of your organization and similar organizations to get that food? guest: those are equally difficult challenges. i'm sure your audience has seen how these retail outlets we have historically relied upon for donated food, they have empty shelves. when their shelves are empty, they're not in a position to donate to us. so the largest source of food for our network in normal times is through retail donations, grocery stores and the type of things we need are the things people are buying the most of. we're having to suprasocial distancing and new safety protocol because of the pandemic and the health crisis in the middle of a food crisis

which has made it all the more challenging. host: for folks watching and our c-span radio listeners, what do you need most in teerms of what the -- terms of what the folks at home -- what do you need most? guest: we need a combination of things. first, we certainly continue to need buns and we had a remarkable outpouring of and has hat bipartisan been meaningful and helpful for us and we need people to donate their times. we rely significantly on volunteers, two million as i think we mentioned earlier. as you might imagine because of safety concerns as well as because of an inordinate number of people who volunteer inside of our network are elderly and therefore have their own challenges they need to think about appropriately. we've had fewer and fewer volunteers who can help us.

so the thing that i encourage people to do is go out to feedingamerica.org and there they can find a place where they can donate whatever they're able to donate in terms of funds. they also on that website can locate the food banks that serves the communities they care the most about. and when they go into the website for that community food bank, they can find out, do they need volunteers, do they need them to bring in food or do they need funding and if so what kind of funding might they be able to help with? host: in your previous experience you were executive vice president and global treasurer for wal-mart. how did that experience and logistics and planning you participated in at wal-mart prepare you for this? guest: i don't know i'd be able to rightfully say anything could have prepared any of us for this. but i can say that i have leveraged every experience that i had before coming to feeding america, i tried to put in play

in this work. so certainly at wal-mart we confronted large scale, we confronted significant disruption. i hope that that helps me be a little bit better positioned to serve in this capacity. but what we're seeing today, it's a perfect storm and it's truly unprecedented. i'm so proud, though, from the people that i guess i work with every day at the national office but also around the country. so many of whom volunteer their services to help their neighbors and right now their neighbors need them more than ever. host: our guest is claire babineaux-fontenot, executive officer of feeding america. welcome your comments and calls, 202-748-8000. for those in the eastern and central time zones, 2302-748-8001 the mountain and pacific region and if you're experiencing food insecurity or not able to get to the grocery store or not able to get what

you need on a day-to-day basis the line we set aside is 202-748-8002. there was an article in thursday's "wall street journal," similar piece from "the new york times" this morning, "wall street journal" headline on their piece said farmers dump milk, break eggs as coronavirus restaurant closing destroys demand. how reliant in the past is your organization, feeding america, on that type of donation from restaurants from their food bins. guest: you've identified another stream we've been able to reliably and consistently access. one of the things that people, even those who know our network may not realize is that we are the largest food waste recovery organization in the u.s. so while about 72 billion pounds of edible food tends to go to landfills, our organization recovers billions of pounds of that food and instead of going to landfill

goes to feed people who are hungry. when i mention the perfect storm, i didn't mention all of the elements of that storm but the challenges around restaurants and restaurant productivity are definitely causing a strain on our network as well. and you mentioned the dumping and those challenges there. and i want to identify the fact that feeding america has had long term partnerships with farmers, the dairy industry, etc. and we're working right now to try to come up with highly effective solutions in a really challenging environment. i don't believe any of those people who are dumping want to dump. they'd much prefer that that food find its way to people who can use it and we're working on some solutions to try to make that happen. host: "the new york times" this morning with statistics on that process. again, the lead piece, empty shelves but farms put food to waste. they write the amount of waste is staggering, the nation's

largest dairy cooperative, dairy farmers of america, estimate farmers are dumping as much as 3.7 million gallons of milk each day. a single chicken processor is smashing 750,000 unhatched eggs each week. many farmers donated part of the surplus food banks and meals on wheels programs which have been overwhelmed with demand but there's only so much perishable foods with charities with limited number of refrigerators that they can absorb. your thoughts? guest: that is accurate. one of the things not highlighted in your comments was the fact one of the challenges we'd have in the charitable food system would be the type of containers we need, the size, if you will. as you might imagine, these dairy farmers have things in bulk and our ability to take that on and put it in consumer sizing is challenging,

especially in an environment where we need to practice new safety protocols. so if you're standing six feet apart, if you have fewer volunteers, our ability to work with the product has been diminished. as i said before, i'm sure, as our farmers equally sure that there's a way for us to match these up better than we have, and we're going to work really hard to come up with some better solutions. host: let's go to calls. we hear frirs from even id in tacoma mark, maryland. thanks for waiting and go ahead with your comments. you're on the air. go ahead. caller: hello. host: you're on the air. go ahead. caller: i would like to suggest the farmers who are dumping all this milk and eggs and different things that they be given to restaurants that are preparing meals and so on so

that it could be shared to the people who see lines and lines of cars that people need food. so instead of the farmers dumping -- instead of the farmers dumping all this milk and eggs and so on it be shared so that it could be prepared and used. host: claire babineaux fontenot : have you had conversations with the farmers and potentially actions your organization could take to help them out with this? guest: we have. yes. i may have mentioned this earlier. we've had a long history of having partnerships that cut across just about every industry in the united states and that certainly includes farmers. and we're actively talking with farmers right now. what we have to do is change the whole logistical system for delivering these products to people who need them and

unfortunately, that has taken a also time but we're working with them. we're also appealing to the government to help us do that in a way that's sufficient. as i hope that your addence has seen there have been things we all agreed upon. we shouldn't have waste when people are facing hunger. and in the middle of the crisis i've seen quite a bit of bipartisanship consensus on trying to match it up and we're working now through a plan and hoping to get the logistics in place to deliver this quickly because there are people in crisis now and they can't wait. we're working very directly with farmers and work our way through. the federal government has a role to play and we're working on the dynamics of all those three. host: wild and wonderful. echoing your comments, every

day the u.s. throws away enough food to feed a nation, it's a travesty. bill next in albany, georgia. good morning. caller: i appreciate you taking my call. how are you doing? host: you bet. caller: i'm a disabled vet, older and my mom is 90 years old on oxygen. we have nonworking cars and you can't ride transportation now and we can't afford a taxi so we are really stuck. i get food stamps but not nearly enough with the extension that they give right now. it's hard. and i don't understand why we have military bases here and a marine base town the road, why you can't have them guys for people like us who have no transportation and can't deliver m.r.i. boxes to the door and drop them off. they don't have to do anything,

just drop them off the door and leave them there so we can have food. i called the food bank and no one will deliver no matter your situation. no one delivers food to you. we are stuck. e're in a bad situation. host: bill, good luck. guest: i recently visited albany, georgia. i was there last year. a remarkably resilient community who has had to deal with a lot of challenges coming on all at once. a lot of businesses have left the area. there are an inordinate number of children and elderly in albany. we've recently actually just refortified our efforts in albany in the hope of being ore helpful to that community.

and what i'd encourage your caller to do is go to feedingamerica.org and put in your zip code. there's more than one set of food banks out there. he one i can put my name and recognition among is feeding america. there are a lot of wonderful ones out there but i have a personal relationship with feeding america food bank. feed america.org. there's a food locator inside that website. just put in your zip code and it will direct you to the food bank that serves that community you're in. you reach out directly and say aire babineaux-fontenot told me to do this. the caller also mentioned the military. i don't know if you've seen but there are lots of images of

members of the national guard in particular coming out and elping us, one, with our distributions, our pack and distributions because of our lack of volunteers and also that can emphasis on safety and we are doing some direct deliveries and meals on wheels in fact is another remarkable organization and they do direct delivery to seniors. i bet there's a way for us to come up with a better solution for that family. i can hear in his voice how much he wants to be able to help his mom and he, if i heard correctly, he's actually a veteran himself. there's so many reasons -- there's no one in this country who should not know where they're going to get their next meal from, no one. i must admit i have a special place in my heart for the elderly and those who served

with distinction. surely we'll find a way to help this caller and hopefully he'll do what i ask and if he can't find relief in that venue then try to find me, i'm the only babineaux-nont not i know that works in our whole network. so we'll try our best to find a way to help him and help his mom. host: there's a picture in "the wall street journal" on friday of a food distribution center in the nation's capital, a little help, provisions are packed at our food distribution center? washington, d.c. they point the nations fallen amid the outbreak. what about people who want to donate nonperishable canned goods and other nonperishables to their food distributors, what should they do. guest: we have 200 food banks. and not every situation is the same. those c.e.o.'s of those food banks know what they need. they know how they need it.

they can be very, very helpful. when i say the c.e.o.'s, there are teams of professionals that work inside those food banks, the leaders of whom are the c.e.o.'s are executive directors, so in the washington, d.c. area, there's a remarkable c.e.o. at capital area food bank in d.c. who not only works on challenges of people eat drag but who has done some really meaningful work in a short period of time around understanding what the systemic causes are for hunger in her community and they've come up with programmatic design and efforts that were making progress before this crisis and we'll be leaning on activist crisis as well. feeding america.org, go to your food bank locator and put in the zip code. if you're in the d.c. area, you'll find that that capital area food bank is the one that it will likely send you to and ask them, what do you need and they will be able to tell you what it is that they need.

host: gary calling from broken bow, oklahoma. hello there. caller: hello. couple comments and yesterday on c-span a lady gave out a phone number to help you get meals on wheels. what's amazing to me, she gave one phone number for the entire nation. the odds of getting through on that phone is more than winning the lottery. there's no access to let anyone know i'm a 67 years old, i have cancer, i can't hardly walk, i certainly can't walk to a grocery store. i can't properly feed myself.

host: when is the last time you were able to get food delivered r have someone buy it for you? caller: i never have. i never have. can buy my own food but i don't have access to it. i leave my house once every three weeks to go get chemo treatments. i have cancer in my hip. i can't barely walk. host: you're seeking assistance from meals on wheels program in your area? caller: that would be a godsend for me. i did not eat yesterday. ost: you didn't eat yesterday? caller: so far today i have nothing to eat. i have food in the freezer but like i said, i can't stand up

long enough to cook. host: we hope people hear this and i'll let you go here and hear from babineaux-fontenot. good luck. guest: i don't know what the proper protocol would be to able to zoom in in understanding exactly where this gentleman is and for privacy reasons i understand there would be things necessary to protect his interests. but i did hear that he's in broken bow, oklahoma, and feeding america has enjoyed a really, really deep and meaningful partnership with meals on wheels for a very long time. i know that they're really mission driven people who desperately want to be helpful for people, our aging population that work inside that organization. i will take it upon myself to reach out to the people that i know at meals on wheels and

also reach out personally to the food bank that serves broken bow and see if there's a way for us to combine forces to make certain that we get to gary and to the other people like him who are out there. host: the good point on that, too. i'll ask our producer, claire, if you get that phone number and if it's ok to read on the air, assuming gary is continuing to watch, i'll ask our producer, perhaps we can get a phone number for the meals on wheels there in broken bow. he was talking i think perhaps of a nationwide toll-free he was unable to get through but if we can get a more specific phone number for broken bow or an email address, i think a phone number would be the best thing, gary, if you're watching, keep on watching and we'll try to do that before the end of the program. thanks for calling . let's get to larry in gladwin, michigan. you're on.

caller: hello. host: go ahead, larry. guest: my whole discussion is i go to the store to buy milk and all the shelves are empty and upsets me the farmers are throwing the milk on the ground and eggs. our whole town, you can't even go buy eggs up town, i have to o get them from the amish. host: we've talked about this a bit. it must be hard -- you mentioned the farmers being really in a tough situation over this but they really have no choice in terms of being able to deliver to organizations like you in the right sizes and amounts, correct? guest: it's a real challenge, it really is. but what i know, to acknowledge that something's difficult is only the first step. we then have a responsibility to work through those difficulties. and we've never had more of a responsibility to do that than we do right now. so we are actively engaged and

we have urgency to our engagement and it is happening on both sides and including the government in this as well. i think one of the things that i would -- you asked earlier .bout how people can help one of the things i implore people to think about, before this crisis happened, there were nearly 40 million people in this country who did not have consistent access to nutritious foods. 11 million of them were kids. almost six million were seniors. in a country that was throwing away 72 billion pounds of perfectly edible food a year and doesn't count household waste. there's systemic issues we need to address around food insecurity and what our estimations are, we've research scientists and remarkable people who work inside of our networks who have done impact analysis to try to understand

what do we think based upon what is normal today, the impact of a tradable food system will be over the course of the next six months because of this pandemic. and our early estimates are that's about 1.4 billion dollars. we also estimate that there will be about $17 million people who will be added to that already almost 40 million people who are food insecure. so i ask people, no matter what your politics are, i ask you that you remember these challenges that people are facing today and that we not forget about them when the health side of this challenge goes away. there will still be a food crisis in this country and it actually will have gotten worse because of this health crisis. so people can be informed about what is happening and if they can use their voices to ask the people who they care about, the

people they vote for, ask them what their positions are on some of these things. expect people to be bipartisanship and put all of the rest of it aside when it comes to making certain that the 22 million children in this country who rely upon free and reduced meals at school and for whom that meal is the only consistent access that they have to nutritious food in good times, i just hope that your listeners will join our network in being partners in ensuring that those kids can consistently rely upon food in the future as well when the pandemic, when the health scare is gone. and i'm confident in -- i have so much confidence in the american people and i've had people tell me, i must not be living in the same world they live in and i tell them you must not be living in the world i live in. i've been the beneficiary of remarkable generosity my whole

life. i see it every day in this work. i see people give a dime when they only have a dollar. i see people with a lot of wealth give a lot of money. and i value every contribution equally. and i see all of this generosity and it's because of the american spirit and our resilience that i'm confident we will find our way past this really difficult circumstance. i want to be -- in terms of the health care side of it, and the economy will get going again and investing, by the way, in the most vulnerable members of society because they have no other options is a great way to actually have an economic stimulus is to make certain that you have people who need to spend their money to go buy food, etc., they help to stimulate the economy as well. i'm just so hopeful that one of the things that we learn as a result of all of this pain is to continue to think about our neighbors and to think about how do we address some of these

systemic issues so we can help people to emerge from this crisis even better than they were before it happened. host: one more question for you. you mentioned the help of the u.s. military. barbara in cape girardo, have they reached out to the federal overnment to obtain from the distributing? guest: one of the supply is food we receive from the federal government. the number one source would be retail grossers, the second would be food we receive from the federal government. and then we are working on new innovative ways, public-private partnerships, how do we leverage the fact that there are these -- and leverage feels like the wrong term because it's a tragic circumstance but in this circumstance where we have all these restaurants who have to shutter and close their

doors because they have low volume through their current ability to serve, how do we bring all of that to bear when we have a food crisis and we are definitely working on coming up with creative and innovative solutions to that, too. i thank your audience for sking that question as well. host: we thank you for being with us, claire babineaux-fontenot is the executive officer at feedamerica.org. there are over 15 minutes left in the program and we'll open up our phone lines for you and our question we started with this morning, should religious gatherings be exempt from stay at home orders? our lines for you 202-748-8000 for the eastern and central time zones, 202-748-8001, mountain and pacific and if you're a religion leader, that line is 202-748-8002. we'll be right back.

>> tonight at 9:00 eastern on "afterwards" former u.n. official michelle king with her book "the fix." >> we're often in denial women face. something i discovered in my own research is people assume amare stock recents, and there is a believe everybody is the same because everybody is treated in the same way and people don't have different experiences of work and with that kind of logic, we're not only denying difference but e're denying inequality. >> auch "afterwards" with michelle king tonight at 9:00 p.m. on book tv on c-span 2. ♪ >> television has changed since c-span began 41 years ago but our mission continues to provide an unfiltered view of government.

already this year we brought you primary election coverage, the impeachment process and now the federal response to the coronavirus. you can watch all of c-span's public affairs programming on television, online, or listen on our free radio app. and be a part of the national conversation through c-span's daily "washington journal" program or through our social media feeds. c-span, created by private industry. america's cable television company. as a public service. and brought to you today by your television provider. >> "washington journal" continues. host: a few more minutes left in the program, 15 minutes or so, 202-748-8000 for the eastern and central time zones, 202-748-8001, mountain and pacific. and if you are a religion eader of any type, 202-748-8002. the question, should religious organizations be exempt from the stay at home orders issued

now in all of the states across the country with wyoming being the last, this is the headline at the washingtontimes.com, william barr, the attorney general, very concerned about coronavirus religious freedom restrictions and in their article they write the attorney general said that the justice department will scrutinize emergency efforts to restrict religious liberty after the threat from the deadly coronavirus. quote, we're going to keep an eye on all these actions that restrict people's liberty he said in an interview with fox news laura ingram. nd from twitter, public health is not tyranny but common sense and promotes the common good. michelle in leavenworth, washington. michelle, you're first up. go ahead. have i believe that we a responsibility to be promoting faith, not fear.

there's a pandemic of fear going on. and today they're stripping away what makes us who we are. easter is about going to church for me. i'm not going to church and we're not going to brunch. d it seems really strange to essential businesses like the jet pro car wash is open, different things, the marijuana shop. i don't under how that can be open and yet we can't go worship. host: our capital hill producer greg kaplan tweeting an image of the democratic leader in the senate, chuck schumer. and schumer on saturday night sader to benefit the centers or disease control emergency response fund. bill, good morning.

caller: i believe you should stay away from the churches for a little while and perhaps give the government a chance to investigate the unemployment checks that aren't going out. it's a big scandal down here in florida. thanks to rick scott. host: bill, why aren't they going out, what's the story there? caller: rick scott on the unemployment system in the state of florida while he was governor and desantis knew all about it and stephanie murphy has introduced some legislation to investigate that. i'm not feeling too well. yeah. that's a big story. lyon, iris in south michigan. hi there. caller: good morning and happy easter to everybody and happy passover to my 2%.

yes, i believe that people should be able to go to their place of worship. it's the only place we have connection. we're being told not to talk to anybody, to shelter in place, going out is getting idiculous. i do believe if you can stand in crowds in florida to get some paperwork or get your money and certain places are getting money and they are not tanding six feet apart and these -- there's congregation in places, you should be able to go to your place of worship which is the only connection you have with any sanity in these crazy times. so if not, why not. if we're going to get sick,

we're going to get sick. tell us at least what it is we have. it could be tuberculosis for all you know. they put so many code names on everything, you don't know what you got. and they're experimenting with it. why is there a number 19? why do they call it coronavirus . and then there's code v-19. what's the other 20, 50, how many hundreds, you don't give names to everything? we're losing connection. is that what you want, a world of silence on the internet? you can't even go to a funeral. host: that's iris in michigan. detroit metro times, the headline about their governor, governor whitmer criticized for exempting churches from a stay at home order. to matt in wesley chapel, florida. good morning. caller: good morning. host: make sure you mute your sound and go ahead with your comment. caller: i don't believe people should be going out to church.

i mean, we're trying to save lives here. why take the risk? and the other thing is everybody is quick to blame trump. every president of every country is behind on this virus. it is what it is. it happened, now we just have to all work together and get through it. wish everybody all the best. host: a follow-up to a caller we had in your previous segment. gary from broken bow, arizona, who is having trouble getting food from the meals on wheels program, gary, if you're listening, we found a program in broken bow, the eastern oklahoma, the community food bank of eastern oklahoma. nd their phone line is 918-585-2800. again, this is the community food bank of eastern oklahoma. so call them, 918-585-2800 and hope that helps out. we'll go to matthew next in round pond, maine.

good morning, matthew. caller: good morning. we have a lighthouse at the end of the peninsula and there was just a large group of people for the sun rise service, depending on which way the wind blows, the virus could be spreading. and i'd like to pound out matthew 6:6, when you pray go into the room and close the door and pray to your father who is unseen and your father who sees what it done in secret will reward you. these people are selfish and just killing people. it's unnecessary. you can pray and celebrate easter with your bible, with your cross at your house. you have a channel for the catholic channel and protestant channel on spectrum cable. you don't need to put people's lives at risk on your own life and thank you very much for c-span, god bless you. host: to barry next in cross hill, south carolina. hi there. caller: how are you doing? host: fine, thank you.

caller: in 2008 i died and when i went to the other side they told me if you want to pray to god, you just get down on your knees if you're in the yard or in your car or if you're in your lounge chair at home. you start talking, he's going to listen. these people are going to these churches, like this guy said, it's selfish and unbelievable to me somebody would risk their grandma and grandpa and brothers and sisters' lives when they can do the same thing at home. thank you very much. host: barry, a tweet here from elizabeth on the postal service and she writes not much will compare to the total mayhem republicans could cause letting the usps postal service die and they never understood what all they did because it's a nonprofit or they're not interested, millions of house bound americans get their prescriptions, usps even mails cremated ashes. and on that, an update on the funding for the postal service from "the washington post" this

morning, white house pans bailout for beleaguered post office, through rain, sleet, hail and even a pandemic, mail carriers serve every address in the united states but the coronavirus crisis is shaking the foundation of the u.s. postal service in new and dire ways and write the postal service decades' long financial troubles have worsened dramatically as the volume of the kind of mail that pays the agency's bills, first class and marketing mail has withered during the pandemic and needs an infusion of money and president trump blocked emergency funding for the agency that employs around 600,000 workers and repeating instead the false claim higher rates for internet shipping companies, amazon a fedex and ups would right the service's budget. read the entire argument at washingtonpost.com. we'll hear from annette next in madison, georgia. good morning. caller: yes, as an ordained minister, i believe that yes,

religious people as well as people in the united states, we have rights. however, our rights are not absolute. mainly, for instance, if we were going to physically harm someone, we do not have the right to do that except in the case of self-defense. so therefore, if we appear in public and we know we're putting someone else's lives at risk, we do not have those rights. those rights are removed and that's the christian thing to do. host: ok. to michael, lehigh, oklahoma. good morning, michael. go ahead. caller: i don't think anybody ought to be exempt for nothing. i think they should take consideration of everybody around them and stay home and get rid of this thing. it's nobody's fault. it just happened. host: our question for you this morning, should religious organizations be exempt from the stay at home orders? we've got a couple more calls and we'll hear from bob next in marshall, virginia.

go ahead. caller: yeah, these people like the woman a couple three callers ago who called up and was literally lecturing us. i'd like to point out three things to her and i hope people listen to what i'm about to say because this is very, very accurate in terms of historically what happened in past pandemics. in the pandemic of the early part of the 1900s there was pushback like this and the result was tense of millions of people dying. during the plague of the late 1340's to the early 1350's, the religious leaders were in charge and they called for the people to congregate and the result was the planet losing a good percentage of its population. wake up, my god. host: to austin, arkansas, we hear from diane next. good morning. caller: hello, thank for you taking my call. host: sure. caller: here in arkansas, the churches are still gathering,

they're gathering in cars in the parking lot and not getting out of their cars. and i don't think that we should have the right to make people not congregate. we can do it in a respectable way that's respecting the health of everybody else. we can stay in our cars. we can let one person in at a time and have them sit 10 or 15 feet away. but that's the constitutional right, if the government him starts running over the hurches, where will they stop? that's just my comment. host: appreciate you calling in. we'll go to frank next up in morrison, tennessee. welcome. caller: yes. i wanted to comment about the lady that was on before pertaining to the food. i'm full time farmer. i've been for over 50 years. there's not anything that we are growing out here or

raising. we grow dairy cattle, beef cattle, wheat, soy beans, different produce. there's not anything out here that we are producing today that's making any money. so i don't understand why they can't pay up for food here. and another thing is we have a tremendous problem with labor. and you know, people say they can't afford to buy food. we can put people to work. we cannot find people to show up for work. host: not only has it gotten harder in the last month during the pandemic to find those folks? caller: no, we've had that problem for the last -- before no, sir.ame in here, these people are just not going to do this kind of work. and we pay good money, too. they can make good money on what we do up here. host: how big is your farm?

caller: 5,000 acres. we can't find people to show up for work here. and there is as an abundance of food up here. the second thing and i'll be quiet, the commodities markets are falling dramatically. they're falling dramatically. there ain't a shortage of food out here, why in the world are the prices on these commodities dropping? some of them havesome of them hs much as 30% or 40%. host: thanks for sharing your experience this morning. that will wrap it up for washington journal this morning. we did want to tell you about tomorrow's program. kaiser health news will join us to talk about the latest on the coronavirus fight against the pandemic. we will also hear from the economic policy director at the bipartisan policy center, talking about the fed and what the fed can do during the

pandemic and other economic news related to the coronavirus. that will do it for this morning's program. we hope you are with us tomorrow morning at 7:00 eastern and for our primetime program. happy easter to you. have a great weekend. ♪ [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2020] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> c-span has round-the-clock coverage of the federal response to the coronavirus pandemic. it is all available on demand at c-span.org/coronavirus. briefings, house updates from governors and state officials, track the spread through the u.s. and the world with interactive maps. watch on demand any time.

unfiltered at c-span.org/coronavirus. monday night on the communicators, american economic liberties project founder sarah miller on big tech companies as monopolies and the impact of corporate concentration. >> now there are essentially a couple strategies. are you going to sell to facebook or to google? what that has done is warped with ability of innovators in silicon valley to actually innovate according to market needs and ideas. guessing,veryone is how can i develop something facebook will buy or google will buy? that is not necessarily how we want and innovation sector to function. >> watch the communicators monday night at 8:00 eastern on c-span2. ♪ >> a special evening addition of

washington journal on the federal response to the coronavirus crisis. join us at eight :00 p.m. eastern with dr. anthony fauci, the director of the national institute of allergies and infectious diseases and a member of the white house coronavirus task force and director of the infectious diseases division at the university of alabama at birmingham school of medicine on the national fight against the coronavirus and his own experience contracting and recovering from the disease. join the conversation about the coronavirus crisis on washington journal prime time monday night at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. states to closely watch was kansas, where the decision came down late yesterday from the supreme court. of the a recording public radio station in kansas city. court preserves a ban on large church services