president trump's decision to cut funding to the organization. on the latestross on the u.s. coronavirus response and efforts to keep nurses safe. ♪ host: president trump today set to announce his initial plans on you -- reopening u.s. society just over a month after announcing a national emergency over the coronavirus pandemic. this as the world's number of cases pass the 2 million mark. good morning, welcome to "washington journal." the president may brief members of congress in separate phone calls this morning. we will start the program asking u.s. ready to reopen? here's how to call. eastern and central time zones, (202) 748-8000.

mountain and pacific, that's (202) 748-8001. we welcome your comments by text. that's (202) 748-8003. .nd on twitter we are @cspanwj your facebook comments are welcome, journal@c-span.org -- facebook.com/c-span. members of congress, as we know, saying that the house will be back until may 4. our capitol hill producer theted yesterday about white house plans, a 10:00 a.m. conversation with the members of the house. at 11:00 a.m., president hosting a phone call with members of the senate. cnbc posting yesterday about the presidents briefing and his indication that the u.s. has passed the pico coronavirus outbreak. peak of coronavirus outbreak.

host: the report says that president trump says the u.s. has passed the peak of the infected asich has we mentioned more than 632,000 people in america. we will update those numbers for you momentarily. here's what the president said yesterday in his briefing. [video clip] american society is engaged and mobilized in a war against a invisible enemy. we must remain vigilant. it is clear our aggressive strategy is working and strongly working, i might add. new cases are declining throughout the new york metropolitan area. washington, d.c., baltimore, philadelphia, st. louis, showing great signs of progress and new cases in houston and new orleans are the climbing. the battle

but data suggests that nationwide we have passed the peak of new cases. hopefully that will continue and we will continue to make great progress. these incursion developments have put us in a strong position to finalize guidelines to states on reopening the country, which we will be announcing, talking about that tomorrow. we will be having a news conference tomorrow. sometime during the afternoon we will be announcing guidelines and we will be talking about and it's very exciting. it has been a horrible time to see such death and destruction. especially when you come out of what was the greatest economy in the history of the world. never been an economy like what we have produced but i think we will produce it again and produce it again very fast. host: just update, worldwide

numbers on the pandemic from johns hopkins university, 100 and 70,000 deaths in the world. over 30,000ber, deaths nationwide. , noww york city approaching 11,000. is the u.s. ready to reopen? that's a question for you this morning. tony is first up in bradenton, florida. caller: absolutely not. we have tests of 1% or less. there are millions of americans untested and he wants to open the country. are you kidding me? what's going to happen to us as a country? it's going to multiply. that number, 30 1000? this country will double or triple or worse, 10 times. worse than 9/11, 10 times the

9/11. when it was a little bit more than 2000, this is not right. i think trump, he needs to go. we need to kick him out. he's crazy. this report from nbc news in florida, a wealthy private community is testing every resident and worker for coronavirus antibodies and they say that everyone on fisher island, a private luxury community consistently ranked as one of the wealthiest zip codes in the u.s. is being tested for coronavirus antibodies. new york, dominic, go ahead. no, it shouldn't be open. but i will tell you something else, new york never shut down. i left messages on cuomo's phone, chuck schumer xfone.

why ain't they closing the new york lottery? everyone is playing their number. plays? african-americans, spanish americans. you get a few irish and german guys, but the people that play the number, they refused to shut it down. ago i talked to this old italian lady who plays her husband's number, he died last year. i haven't seen her in two weeks. he saidthe guy and yeah, she's in the hospital. cuomo never shut it down. the convenience store or eva data? caller: yeah, you go in there -- bodega? caller: yeah, six or seven guys are in there when you go in there. the guy behind the counter has a shield.

i will tell you the truth, there are people who are gone because of that and i think the blood is on cuomo's hands. but have a good day. all right. bob, logan, utah. good morning. the people before me said quite a bit. what i would like to say is that there are simple things that we can do that we are doing. when you go to the grocery store, i always put a mask on. all they have to do is have someone out there with a thermometer to see if i had a fever. that's so simple. i have this brother-in-law come back from italy. there was a test. they tested him with a thermometer. host: did they test them when they arrived in the u.s. or when he was departing? the four onlled c-span how they test.

they said that he would be tested thoroughly. they got off the plane, went over, rented a car and drove from new york to utah. they didn't have the virus. they were tested in italy and that was it. just a thermometer on the head. it must have something, a little thing like that could be something. i would like to have people call their stores, do something. we aren't quite ready to jump back into this. we've got to get the economy back to work, i know that. business leaders waiting and yesterday, the headline from "wall street journal," they tell them that -- they told president trump the testing is inadequate and that his administration needs to increase dramatically testing before the confident enough for be -- confident enough to return to work i will

host: is the u.s. ready to reopen? hello to pat in dallas, texas. caller: yes, good morning. yeah, i think that i the end of the month, probably so. all of my family, they are working. my daughter and her husband have a commercial electrical business.

they are working. an electrician. he's working. my other grandson works in i.t.. he's working. my granddaughter works for whole foods. i'm leaving people out, but everybody's working and when i go to the grocery store, i'm a senior citizen, i wear my mask and everybody else does. i come home, i put up my groceries and i wore she -- warsh my hands. i don't think we are totally ready to open up like restaurants and bars and all that, but at the end of the month i think we are ready to start working again. that's my opinion. and thank you for letting me speak. you bet. thanks for calling in. "the washington post" reported yesterday that the cdc and fema

have created a plan to reopen america. one of the authors on the piece is with us. good morning, thank you for being with us. happy to be here. that report they write about three areas. low, medium, and high areas of mitigation. what does that mean in terms of implementing reopening in the guest: so, they talk about these categories of mitigation, places where the virus never spread significantly. in those locations the document says you can we open sooner. moderate mitigation is called for in the former hotspots that are sort of now transitioning to better control. and then significant mitigation, meaning measures that still have , ise pretty strong

recommended in current or emerging hotspots. the overall document describes the various guidance that should be undertaken for each one of these communities. but for different settings. for schools, for workplaces, for restaurants and bars. it's general guidance. every locality and jurisdiction will have to decide for itself whether it has met those conditions and whether they should implement. again, it is always up to the locality. host: the plan promulgated by the center for disease control and conduct -- and prevention. and you have a link for that in your article. does this mean that cdc will be the lead agency in implementing the plans? or are these guidelines for other agencies and, obviously, state governments to implement?

well, i think we might be jumping the gun a little bit, this is the public health response of a master plan as far as i could determine. there are eight parts in the overall plan. and a cdc response and public health response is only two parts of it. so, whether the ultimate deciders in the white house decide to go forward with this will be up to them. is that this is what the public health agencies were tasked with coming up with, what they produced and what they set up and it has been looked at by the coronavirus task force members but ultimately what gets decided is we don't know. plan does the cdc stipulate how much testing has to occur in order for an area to be an area of low mitigation?

to reopen more quickly? what is the guidance on testing? the guidance on testing as part of the plan. you really need to scale up testing. they talk about phases. this is for a phase the reopening. the first phase is to prepare the nation to reopen with a communication campaign and community readiness area that is supposed to take place from now until may 1. and then from now until may 15 you really have to ramp up manufacturing of test gets and personal protective equipment and increased emergency funding for what we call contact tracing. new casesacking down of people who are infected, finding out who they were, who their contacts were, who could have potentially been exposed,

isolating the infected people and quarantining those who may get infected. it's a very time intensive, labor-intensive process. we wrote about that last week. there is no national strategy for that. some states have already begun to do it on their own, like massachusetts. the third phase would be gradual reopening. ramping up testing is key to just about everything. and you know it's not anywhere close. host: angela merkel this week said they meet -- they're planning to start real putting parts of german society next week. has the cdc or the u.s. garnered any ideas or lessons learned from the ways that countries korea, oury, south reopening phases of their society to reopen and our plan, in the cdc plan?

you know, i hope they would, but it has never been publicly articulated, so we don't know. i would hope that our smartest public health anchors would be looking elsewhere, but this plan doesn't really mention that. it doesn't give any dates for reopening but it specifies that it shouldn't happen before may 1 and it also said that anytime you do any kind of phased it'sach of reopening, going to raise significant risk of resurgence of the virus. so, they say you have to meet for conditions before any reopening can occur. they go through them and they are all kind of common sense things, right? incident of infection being low. a good system of surveillance, meaning tracking the increase of the disease. you have to have a public health system that can rapidly surge people to react to any new

increasing cases and you have to have enough hospital beds and staffing to scale up in case you have another surge in cases. sun, you can read her report and more in "the washington post," at washingtonpost.com. thank you. questions for you, is the u.s. ready to reopen? (202) 748-8000 four eastern and central time zones. , mountain and pacific. you can tweet us @cspanwj. this 1 --

host: let's hear from robert in syracuse, new york. good morning. caller: good morning, how are you? o pure family is doing good in saying safe -- and staying safe. thank you very much for that. caller: the economy in the virus, right? i'm a business owner upstate. i see people going to the grocery store. half of them are covering their face properly. the other half are not. you have to wear something on your face. you have to act as if you could be a carrier of the virus, ok? half the people protecting themselves, the other half are. this man called about the numbers and he's a far right wing idiot.

if it's on anybody, it's on the president and the white house. i want to tell you this about the economy and why we should be open. first of all, we could be using the virus to boost the economy. small business owners that don't have a lot of walk through the door population and traffic, yeah, they can start to open, like the lady down south with her family of electric company. companies that don't meet a lot of people daily with a regular job, they should be washing their hands regular and reopening. restaurantsgs like and the traffic in the shopping malls, they should not be open because obviously there are a don't people that still want to protect themselves. the other thing i want to bring up is this stimulus package, ok? we know now, my feeling is that the trump administration and mnuchin, they are screwing up all these paychecks out to the small business owners. it's all messed up.

people are getting declined. why does he want to push the economy so fast? the democrats tried to say that half $1ot have just trillion in your own pocket to do with what you want without any transparency. they tried to fight for transparency. the stimulus package and they gave up. they let trump have his way. he has always money that we have no idea what he's going to do it. seems to me that they don't want to pay out the other money they have already approved to give to the small business owners, ok? last thing i want to say, this is very important. why are we bailing out these huge profit leaking companies? hotels,se ships, the these companies like the universities all have cfos and investment planners. when times are good they are making huge profits on wall street. and then all of a sudden the times are bad and we have to bail them out? these other

people that crashed the markets and made the profits and the rest of the middle class that can't protect their 401(k) get hurt. when the markets rise back up like after 2008 and the financial crisis, they are the first ones to ride the way back up and make more profits. we have to learn by mistake. ok, robert, new york. also jerry in new york. real quick one. very simple. want to reopen the economy? withan track these people their iphones and the red hats. come out of the rally, wait a few weeks. see what happens, no one gets infected, open up everything. on twitter, zach about the small business lending program tweets -- the last update from

the small business administration. hear from sheila, next. go ahead. guest: am i on? host: you are on. go ahead, sheila. caller: i don't think we're ready to open. last saturday, i'm an elderly person. my neighbor, they came and got him. he's in the next apartment here. they came and got him at 5:30 on saturday morning.

and the ambulance took him. close rightre so here, i think i might have it, too. i heard on the news this morning that trump wants the senior citizens to die. int: sheila, have you been contact with your doctor or a medical professional about your condition? caller: yeah, i got an appointment on may 5 to see my doctor. previously,ointment but they canceled it. the: what did they say in meantime for you to do? did they indicate that you might be a candidate for testing, anything like that? caller: yeah, but i'm afraid. i've never been so scared my whole life.

company. insurance i got a 24-hour nurse line. host: what have they said? they suggested you get tested? caller: yeah. but i don't drive, of course. in carrollton, georgia -- caller: i can't even get anybody to take me to the store. i went there last tuesday to the grocery store. none of the employees in their had masks. host: whereabouts is carrollton, georgia? are right on the alabama border, about 50 miles from south of -- betterk, i hope you get and i hope you get medical treatment. south dakota.rom

"smithfield foods in south dakota is the largest coronavirus hotspot in the u.s. helped asvirus team the 180 new, 80 of covid-19 cases are employees of the meat processing company update on thatis plant in sioux falls. [video clip] >> 518 employees have tested positive. 126 close contacts of those folks have tested positive as well. the number hospitalized has but we have seen a

handful of people hospitalized from that particular population. we do not have any confirmed deaths, yet, of anybody in the smithfield population. we will report and keep those numbers updated as we go along. know that thewe cdc is planning on visiting and from what we understand it is tomorrow that they will visit the plant. what is their mission in terms of visiting? what are they going to be doing? asked the cdc to come in and help provide technical assistance to the team that includes the state health of siouxt and the city falls and smithfield. they have brought in a team of experiences have from all different kinds of outbreak scenarios, including places that deal with animal health. so, they will start tomorrow

morning with a two or of the facility and will look at the operation. they call it from trunk to truck. from the time that they bring in animals to the time that a product is leaving the facility. they will look at every single process. look at the workspace. look at the way people can be protected and the ways smithfield has put what they are working on right now. they will come out with recommendations for what needs to happen so that can be a safe workplace moving forward and we can ensure that employees can come back to work and be safe and do the critical jobs that they do. we are optimistic, it's a collaborative effort. we think it's going to be very, very good to get that facility back up and running area -- running. host: south dakota, one of the states without a statewide stay-at-home order.

the governor of the state was asked why there wasn't an order at a news conference yesterday. [video clip] be fore will we need to a state shutdown, for you to make that decision? >> we need to look at the other states that have done that and what is happening in south dakota. seen such an outstanding call to action among the people of south dakota that we actually have more people staying home then many of the other states placeut in shelter in orders and put together a directive to tell people that they can't leave their homes. the way that people have stepped up in south dakota and taken it seriously is phenomenal and it has made all the difference in the world. i haven't seen a data set that told me it is necessary. it's not that i'm not teachable and not listening to people, i

am. i'm talking to other governors several times every day. i'm talking to experts that have looked at other countries and research on the best mitigation efforts and what's working. i want to remind everybody, though, that i can did or the placef what i put in today we have to sustain. i cannot put a shelter-in-place for just two or three days or even 10 days. it may be something that would have to stay in place until we reach the peak infection date. how long can i expect people to stay in their homes and still listen to the advice that we are giving? six hundred 44 total cases related to that plant in south dakota. here's how another companies handling plant safety. this is in plymouth, michigan. one doesn't ford motor

companies are experimenting with wearable social distancing devices that could be deployed more widely once the carmaker reopens idle manufacturing plants." is the u.s. real -- ready to reopen? and that's our this morning. linda, mississippi. caller: no. no, we're not. we have a leader that is ignorant. ignorant of what he's doing. he's worried about the economy. that the economy is going to be a mess but it is a mess now. he knows not how to get the economy going. it's not like turning on a switch. he needs to listen to his health advisors. not just because he wants the economy to come back so he can

get reelected. it's not about him. let me mention about those checks. lay getting money out of his folks in this country , his ego so big he won his name on it. when most of those checks come in, they won't see the name because it's direct deposit. need all this politics. the country needs help. do, peopleund as he need to cut him off. ok, bill, teaneck, new jersey, you're next. let me try to condense my comment. i think the smithfield plant situation is an unfortunate example of why our economy

shouldn't consider opening at this time. prerequisitemany processes, from a scientific and health perspective, that should be done before we consider doing even a marginal procedure of trying to open up the economy. it's just so unfortunate that nottics seems to override only science and medicine, but also common sense. i live in new jersey, i live in a town called teaneck, new jersey. we have been in the national because of how covid-19 has affected our community.

so you know, i can see it firsthand. some people might not know, but we are very close to new york city. governors, especially governor cuomo in new york, has inn doing an excellent job following the advice of the medical experts and the science experts. i don't think that we need to really focus so much on the politics of all of this. we have to get the health structure in this country in order. unfortunately our present administration has done so much destroy what was in place prior to the current administration coming into place to deal with pandemics. to get a look at

a lot of prerequisite science and health programs before we talk about opening up the economy at this point. host: christopher, st. mary's, georgia, welcome. toler: yes, please listen me. two things i am trying to get over to the united states. [indiscernible] and castor oil. to doctors don't tell you take some castor oil once a year to keep yourself from coming in all the time. that's the only thing that is the problem. if they go ahead and take some , everybody -- i mean pregnant women can't take it -- host: brenda, is the u.s. ready to reopen? caller: no, no, no. i'mve never seen anything,

62 years old, and i hope god i will live another 20 years, but living under this president i don't think we going to make it. let me just say this. it's a sad day. it's not about democrat, republican. about the people and the love for our people. and we're not ready. he lied from the beginning. now we in some crap. he does not know how to get us off of. even the doctor, he done got .cared he talking crazy now at the end because he probably scared of donald trump. is echoingdent trump his frustrations with congress in trying to get more action on the coronavirus. an additional spending legislation passed, the headline from roll call, trump threatens to force congress to adjourn.

make recess appointments during a crisis." on those, craig caplan with perspective on the numbers from the congressional research service. president obama had 32 recess appointments. george w. bush, where hundred 71. -- 171. president clinton, 139. that's overall recess appointments during their administration. here's what president trump said yesterday about it at the white house. [video clip] washingtontors left until may 4. the constitution provides a mechanism for the president to positions in such circumstances. it's called a recess appointment. the senate practice of dabbling into so-called pro forma sessions where no one is even there has prevented me from

using the constitutional authority that we are given, that we are given under the recess provisions. the senate should either fulfill its duty and vote or it should formally adjourned so that i can make recess appointments. we have a tremendous number of people that have to come into government. more so than ever before because of the virus and the problem. we have to do it. and we have to do whatever we have to do. it made it very difficult to run government. i don't think any administration has done anywhere near what we have done in three and a half years. every block, every week they put up roadblocks. whether it is russia, russia, russia, whether it is impeachment hoax or whatever it may be, it's always roadblocks and a waste of time. if the house will not agree to

that, i will exercise my constitutional authority to adjourn both chambers of congress. the current practice of leaving town while conducting phony pro forma sessions is a dereliction of duty that the american people cannot afford during this crisis. .t is a scam, what they do it's a scam and everybody knows it. some perspective on what the president may do from cq .ere call -- cq roll call

host: is the u.s. ready to reopen? on twitter we have host: to tina in kansas city,

missouri. good morning. good morning. i don't think that we should reopen. i don't think this president should be the one to say that we will reopen. he gave all of that to the governors and the mayors and they have been doing a darn good knowing when to close their particular cities and when not to. i think that they should still be in charge of when their particular cities are safe enough to reopen. i do not think that the president should be taking control at this point when he didn't have control of it in the beginning. i think the governors and the mayors that have been standing tall through this and handling it the best way they know how, and then working with other mayors, trying to protect her cities in their states, i think

they should be the ones to say when their particular city opens and not this president. i think when he hears from them that it's ok to go ahead, to say that we are open for business again and it looks all good. but to jump in there when people are just now trying to get things a little bit better, to just say that we are open, open everything, we're going to do it this way, i think he needs to step back and respect the governors. they listened to him in the beginning, they went and they ran with it, they worked together and they brought their constituents, their people up from the brinks the best they knew how and i think you should just leave them alone. they would have known when it was time to get back to work. they have been doing an outstanding job without him. thank you for taking my call. you bet. we had a caller there from teaneck talking about the deaths in the nursing homes.

we read yesterday about the deaths in the nursing home in richmond. this now from axios and the 5670ine -- at least nursing home residents have died from the coronavirus. cheriton, wyoming. go ahead, maria. caller: yes. i'm thinking that no, the government should not open up for work. those 600 people in south dakota are probably all minorities. i think the governor of south trump'ss drinking kool-aid, probably. i don't think trump knows what he's doing. i think he's very inept. shooting it out there, trying to get his people all lined up for his vote. but no, i don't think the government should open up. it puts us in a lot of problems with the state right next to us. thank you. michigan, good morning to

kevin. yeah, hi there. this goes out to all the people areedicaid, medicare, or tied to social security. what happens of we don't open this country and the country goes bankrupt? you think you are mad now because you are worried about some people dying? i understand that is a big deal, however there's more people dead they got killed from the common cold right now than the corona. if you kill our economy, you are not just killing the economy, you are killing a lot, lot more people than that. our governor in michigan has gone crazy, power crazy. i mean she's got stuff like these -- you can buy marijuana but not a gallon of paint to work on your house or anything. we just had a big protest yesterday in lansing. people are upset.

slowly opening, like the people that work outdoors, the carpenters, the long-haired people, landscape people, they can go to work and keep their distance. you can't keep the country shut down as bad as it is. or we are all going to lose. on the protest yesterday, we have images and video from twitter. capital protesters putting others at risk, with gretchen witmer saying that she respects the right to protest the believes that many of the thousands of people that gathered at the capitol yesterday put themselves at risk of contracting covid-19. she writes that they gave an update on combating the pandemic from across the street from the capital and as she spoke, the protest of that saw thousands of vehicles blocked the streets and hundreds gathering on the capitol lawn was winding down just outside.

that's from the detroit free press with images from the rally in michigan yesterday. ken, halsted, pennsylvania. go ahead. i find it laughable that the cdc and fema have a plan to reopen the country. where was the plan back in february to do mass testing? we are still running around with our hair on fire with regards to testing. right now in wilkes-barre there's all kinds of controversy around testing. across the country there is still controversy. if we had been testing in february, perhaps we could have opened. dakota arelike south playing russian roulette with coronavirus and we see what happened. now the president wants to play russian roulette with the whole country, the whole country. tongue in cheek, i would like to agree with my neighbor in new york who stated that perhaps trump should open up his campaign rallies again and let

those individuals test positive for this whole epidemic and see where it goes when people are out in public in mass groups. the headline this morning from "the new york times," testing is still the barrier to reopen. most of the country is not conducting off testing to track the path and an attrition of coronavirus in a way that would allow americans to safely return to work. host: shelton is in shreveport, louisiana. good morning. caller: [inaudible]

we need a plan. the president is not really offered a plan. testing, hemass talks about 1% of people being tested. california has 30,000 people living in it. on the scale, the testing that we have done is nothing. i watch the news in other countries. south korea is really on the ball in terms of coming up with the programs and plans for how they are going to reopen. another thing we have got to do is protect the health care workers. the doctors, the nurses, the

other health officials, they are doing ppe, personal protection equipment. he has been on these conferences , he's been attacking the press. he's been talking about meeting in theeeting with people oil industry. what's that all about? about building up military stock? we don't need bullets. are not like potatoes or french fries or anything like that. shelton mentioned south korea. the nation of south korea held national elections yesterday. they got medical checks at the polls and despite challenges, the turnout was 66%, the highest

and 24 years. here's how they did it. south koreans, including thousands under quarantine, voted yesterday as the country became the first to hold a national election in the midst of a coronavirus pandemic. the government put in an immense about a preparation to enable 44 million eligible voters to cast ance and they wrote that extensive package of safety measures was put in place to make sure that voters could leave their homes and join lines at the polling places without spreading infection.

host: jeff, carrollton, georgia, how are you? caller: find. [indiscernible] host: i'm sorry? caller: have you caught the disease yet, the virus? host: not that i know of. how about you? caller: we are all good here in carrollton georgia. -- carrollton, georgia. the country needs to reopen. it's got to. if we go broke, that's it, it's over. it's going to be every man for himself, you know? is thatg that i do know in the bible it says that when the government has lied to you and you realize it, it's too late. so, trump is doing a great job to reopen the country. i mean, we have got open borders to the south, open borders to the north. tuberculosis is back on the rise. coming more diseases are

into this country. this is a drop in the bucket of what's about to happen and i pray for everyone and i hope you stay safe, too. host: thank you, jeff. a text year from the east coast region of greater washington. host: to anthony in monument, colorado, good morning. caller: i think there is a , but ius among citizens don't think there is a national strategy. i think that's really a problem.

the effort to be put into putting a man on the moon? we should be doing that with trying to put these test together. for nine months you can test yourself all week long, if you want. host: thank you for the idea. as we have and try to do regularly over the last month, talk to your members of congress. we're fortunate enough to be walorski,jackie representing indiana. how are things going in your district? guest: we are one of the largest manufacturing districts in the u.s., and we are continuing to fight for ppe to make sure that our front-line health-care workers have everything they need. you know, hoosiers in the state of indiana are resilient.

i cannot say enough about the leadership and professionalism and of the stick to it of nests that our district has had in the health care. my comment on this question of , everyng, it's this hoosier can do their part. the social distancing is working to crush the numbers down. let's keep doing that. the faster we crush it down, that easier it is for the governor and the president to make the decision to open back up. if that is the clamor of the morning and that is what folks want to do, keep doing what we are doing. we can see the finish line. it's almost there. he making a difference, everyone do their part and we will be open before you know it. host: in terms of a national strategy, what would you like to hear from the president today? guest: that the plan has been working for social distancing. those of us who watch the numbers every day, we know it stayorked to stay home,

away from each other. hunker down. i want to hear from the president today where we go from here. what does the time i look like? what do the numbers need to be? i think responsible americans and hoosiers in my district will do what it take to make sure that we get there. we have heard reports that the payroll protection program is rapidly being used up. upst: it's being used because it is a popular program, a forgivable loan and necessary bridge for small businesses to make it through. we want that additional 200 and $50 billion to frontload the money out to the districts. so, i would urge speaker pelosi to get withhumer this program and get that money in there and stop playing politics with it. this is a much-needed popular program already working in the district with these manufacturing companies.

the money is in their accounts, they are holding onto their employees. that's what we designed this to do and it's working. the next deadline got moved to may 4. how realistic do you think that congress could return by may 4? i don't think we need to wait until then. unanimousus that the consent has worked on this and i think that leader mcconnell already brought it up. i know that kevin mccarthy has brought that up. is there really a need to try to bring people back pressure market can't we do this and get along, both parties? i would really urge the speaker to stop the political games and just unanimous consent this so that we can keep the country moving. this is about the american people, not about playing politics and stretching a decision into may. small business would say get it done and get politics out of this. host: in your district in your state, what's the story with

schools reopening? they have already made the decision for schools not to reopen this year. they will go through their summer and their spring break and reopen was unlikely in august. my husband is a public school teacher and he has been affected by that tremendously. [indiscernible] moving to virtual teaching kinds of things. things that we never thought about before. with interesting breakthroughs along the way. our kids are home. congressman, thank you for joining us this morning with an update from your district. guest: thank you. stay safe. host: paul calls us from west palm beach.

thank you for taking my call. it should not be a one-size-fits-all kind of thing. what's happening in new york is not what's happening in south dakota. the governors should play a major role in this. i think that president trump is doing a great job. the economy has opened up. in the business that i work in, things are moving fast. people are coming in doing business. that's the way it should be. if the leftists want to close things and they hate the president and everything he does dayuch, they hate it, every he conducts these meetings on msnbc, they don't even want to educate the people. i hope the country turns back. twitter, this is lindsay who says --

kelly, garden to grove, california. caller: i'd like to say that with regards to reopening, we should tell the medical experts not to make this an economic or political thing. one, it's going to have a second or a third wave that is going to hit much harder. second, i would like to address the representative regarding politicizing the losey and schumer, who are trying to protect the small businesses that are going to be left in the dark. we have very savvy, very cunning individuals that are extremely wealthy that are able to tap into this money much more readily than say a small business.

they are trying to institute to make sure the money gets into the right hands. rather than trying to get their cook or their stewart on board. that's my comment, i appreciate your time. host: kevin, california. caller: good morning. i feel the country is ready to reopen. we need to listen to medical professionals and the president. i feel that we also need more free media in the country. and fair media as well. not theirthe news and views. how they see things and how they feel things should be and how they feel the president should act.

i think he's doing a great job. thanks, kevin. more ahead here on "washington journal or next up we will join -- be joined by megan myers, who will talk about the role of the u.s. military during the brett schaefer joins us to talk about president trump's decision to cut funding to the world health organization. in an online interview with "politico," new york democrat ocasio-cortez spoke about the impact in her district. >> i represent new york's 14th congressional district out of the top 10 most impacted districts and zip codes in america. five of them are in new york 14. including the top three. all in my district. we are truly seeing the impact of this on the bronx half of the district. some of those zip codes, they span both the bronx and queens. on the bronx half of the district we're seeing mortality rates that are two times higher

than the rest of new york city. in queens, of course, many of us -- just how lete ravaged elmhurst hospital currently is, how ravaged many of these communities are. and really i respect working people which means i represent a lot of front line workers, i represent a lot of hospital workers, as well as grocery store workers, delivery workers, home health aides and more. and all of these people are in a profoundly dangerous position. we also know that this crisis is hitting us in the context of racial and income inequality and inequity. we are seeing that the death toll is reflecting those inequities as well. >> the president has said that he's given everything to governors that they need and has referenced andrew cuomo. he said he has begged for medical equipment. i want you to react to that but also, ame eye assume -- i'm

assuming you're talking to front line medical workers. are you hearing they have what they need? >> a lot ofous front line workers do not have what they need. we're hearing different things from hospitals. i think a lot of front line workers have just been concerned about having adequate supplies. but there are front line workers like home health aides that simply do not have the p.p.e. that they need. we're not just talking about the nurses and doctors in e.r.'s and i.c.u.'s. we're talking about home health aides that are going from apartment to apartment, from home to home, visiting the elderly and visiting folks with disabilities or other issues. and they don't have n-95 masks and they don't have the ability or the p.p.e. to be able to feel like they're confidently protecting themselves and the patients that they're treating. we're also hearing a lot about frankly the mental toll. what we're experiencing in new

york is on the scale of 9/11. it's happening over the course of two weeks instead of the course -- over the course of several hours. but we know that we are losing thousands of people in new york city. >> "washington journal" continues. host: we say good morning to meghann myers who is pentagon bureau chief for military times and we thought we'd start with reporting from yesterday about the number of cases, covid-19 cases, now passing 5,000. according to the defense department with that amount, that number, how well has the military been able to do their other jobs in addition to supporting the pandemic relief efforts? guest: i think that kind of remains to be seen for now. most of the essential functions of the defense department are still ongoing. there have been a little bit of a stoppage on training just for a couple weeks to figure out, for basic training, i mean, just for a couple weeks to figure out what kind of quarantine or screening or testing they want to do before they bring new

recruits into the military to make sure that everybody who is coming in is healthy and doesn't spread it to healthy troops who are already there. mostly they've been leaning on social distancing measures. so telework at home, where possible. a lot of people in the military do more or less do desk jobs. so ast as long as they can take accountability for making sure everybody's work is getting finished, they can work from home. and the people who really need to be in the pentagon or need to be onbase every day doing their job, they've taken as many precautions as they can to sanitize workspaces, now wearing face coverings and social distancing. a lot of the way the rest of us are really. host: the defense department, the daily update from yesterday says as of yesterday there are nearly 51,000 active d.o.d. personnel supporting their relief efforts across the u.s. what's the biggest challenge the military faces in their relief efforts? guest: the biggest challenge is probably keeping themselves healthy. also having to kind of stay

agile. because they are supposed to be -- the phrase they're using is they're trying to be ahead of need. so they've got 50,000 people deployed, a lot of those are national guard. a lot of those are reserve medical professionals. and so they are going into cities, sometimes in their community, sometimes they are going to los angeles or new york if they're reservists, nurses, doctors, to help with the medical response there. and so they are trying to keep themselves healthy. but also just keep their morale up, keep their resilience up because there's a good chance they're going to have to move on if they're not needed where they are, if it turns out there was less of a surge than that city thought there would be. and they're going to have to move on to the next city. so they need to stay healthy and well rested and all of that in order to keep continuing that mission. host: you're also reporting at militarytimes.com about the comments of the secretary of defense on the military's travel ban. the travel ban getting an

extension. what does their travel ban encompass and does that include active military operations? guest: it does include some active military operations. so, the way that it is termed is nonessential. most of that really, the biggest stoppage that that is creating for people is permanent change of station moves. which means -- you probably heard in the military every few years you get a new job, you maybe go across the world, across the state, across the country. and we're coming into that season where everyone is move on to their next job. right now they can't do that. or they started the process, they sent their family ahead of them, and then these service members themselves got stuck where they were. similar for training and for schools in the military. you know, life is constantly, if you're not deploying, you're preparing for a deployment, you're expanding your knowledge, you're expanding your skills in order to move up to the next rank. so -- a lot of that involves travel. it involves going temporarily to a unit.

so none of that is happening. but the essential missions, you know, we still have people in afghanistan and iraq and syria. some of those deployments are going to get extended. and they're going to have to figure out how long they can extend and how to safely switch those new troops out with -- those troops out with new troops. for all intents and purpose, things are running thetcht scaled back on things that they have deemed nonessential. but they can't do that forever. especially when it comes to stuff like training, basic training. everything needs to keep moving in order for everything to be a balanced force. host: we're joined this morning by meghann myers. we're talking about the role of the u.s. military in the pandemic response. we welcome you joining us in the conversation. those of you on eastern and 80. al time zones, phone mountain and pacific, 202-748-8001. if you're active military, 202-748-8002. i heard a briefing maybe a week

ago or so with the marine corps commandant about the challenges of recruiting and basic training at a time like this. the marine corps' a little different in that regard than the other services, correct? guest: in some ways. the marine corps is very young. but they were also one of the first -- well, the navy is the first service to put their boot camp on hold. the marine corps second. but they do have a very young force and they have most of their force gets out after the first four years. which means that they are constantly needing to bring in new young people to fill those lowest level jobs and they are by and large not retaining them after that first four years. so for them to shut down basic training can create a real gap for them in -- later this year, in the next couple of years. they have to be very careful about how much they're willing to throttle that pipeline, keeping in mind what it's going to do to them later on. host: have they shut down

recruiting as well, the marine corps? guest: they haven't. everyone has moved to virtual recruiting. the marine corps has a very robust program wherein if someone has already decided they want to sign up but they're not ready to ship to boot camp, they are in a pool program. they are ready to get to boot camp, they're studying. now they're not having face to facemask interactions with other recruiters but they are well prepared by the time that they get there. so that situation is probably going to go on a lot longer than it would have for a lot of other people while they figure out how they're going to open up boot camp, how many people they're going to bring in and how they're going to do that safely. host: probably the two most obvious public faces in the military as far as their support of the pandemic relief efforts are the medical -- temporary hospitals they've been building but the army corps of engineers, and of course the presence of the mercy and the comfort, the ships in los angeles and new york.

how well in advance does the military plan for these in terms of a pandemic response? is this something they have ready to go and pull it off the shelf, this is what we do in to a f a response national pandemic like this? guest: they have plans for responses to national emergencies like this. pandemics, yes. they're always prepared how they're going to handle it the with the force and help externally. the more complex thing about the military is that these field hospitals that they're able to set up or these hospital ships that they're able to deploy, they are beds, they do have staff. but the military, especially the military's medical response, is really tailored toward trauma. because it's the military and that is -- their doctors and nurses are worried about attlefield injuries. their other specialty is family

medicine. dealing with the epidemiology nuances and glaring differences between that and the normal trauma centers that they're used to setting up has been a little they're challenge, but rolling with it. they went to new york and l.a. and said, we want to be an alternative to the hospital. we want your car accidents, we want your violent incidents. that sort of thing. noncontagious issues coming here. but it turned out they couldn't get many people onboard that way. they said, all right, we're going to start doing covid-19 here and we're going to take as many members -- measures as we possibly can to keep everyone safe. host: i want to ask you about an update on the former commander of the u.s.s. roosevelt. the fired captain. "the new york times" reporting that the navy is looking into whether it can reenstate the captain. can you give us an update on his -- reinstate the captain. can you give us an update on his

condition, where things stand and what may be ahead? guest: he should be in self-isolation now because he has tested positive. he's likely still on guam. i don't think they would have moved him back to san diego at this point. it would have been probably nonessential travel. unless he was really gravely ill. but guam is perfectly capable of handling that kind of illness. the investigation into -- not into his firing but the circumstances that led to him writing that email, finished last week and now it is with the secretary of the navy. he will add his comments, ask any questions he wants to ask. once that is approved, the secretary of defense will look at it too. the issue of whether he could be reinstated -- physicaly, yes. the secretary of defense has said he's not taking anything off the table. but he also cannot get involved in -- right now -- he can't get involved in the way that that investigation wraps up.

because he's part of the chain of command and it would be seen as undue command influence if the secretary of defense came out and said, i think he got a bum deal and i want to give him his job back. that would taint the entire process. so he's not going to do that. the more likely situation is that the cap rain that no if go back to the t.r. but -- captain will not go back to the t.r. but if they decide he isn't at great fault and it shouldn't be a career-ender, he may get major command again of another similarly large ship or an air wing. he was an aviator. but the likelihood that he goes back to command the t.r. is very low. just because you can't put the genie back in the bottle and they're trying to help the sailors move on. they do not want to reopen those wounds. it's kind of like, drive on, sort of situation. host: our guest, a former writer with the navy times, former senior reporter for the army times, now pentagon bureau chief for military times, meghann myers. the role of the u.s. military in

covid-19 pandemic. 202-748-8000, the eastern and central time zones. 202-748-8001, mountain and pasifpblgt here's tennessee. good morning. caller: good morning. i would like to know, you all just got through talking about the commander on that ship. i don't understand why that man was fired. because he told the truth. if he hadn't told us the truth, many more people on that ship would have had that. and people wouldn't have died. see, that's what's wrong with our government now. they lie to us. why not tell the truth? reinstate him back. his people want him back once he gets well. the man who fired him should be going -- getting ready to go to prison. he held us back. they knew this. they need to quit lying to us. they got you up there to spin the deal. we see through all this. even with the president. lying. saying open the space and people

started dying every day catching that disease. tell us the truth. that's all we want. thank you. host: meghann myers, any thoughts? guest: so, the thing about the reason that he was fired is it's a very like military sort of chain of command, this is how we do things process. so at the time when he was fired, the explanation was not that he had told the truth. it was who he had told it to. it was that he apparently, according to the former acting secretary of the navy, he had a direct line to a chief of staff and he did not say how dire he thought the situation was or the admiral who was in charge of his carrier strike group was down the hallway from him on the teddy roosevelt and he could have gone to him and brought his complaints. the issue was that he went outside the chain of command, he sent this email, this unsecured

email, to a few dozen people and one of them leaked it. so part of the reason clearly for that firing was an embarrassment on the part of the navy that they had their dirty laundry aired that way. but for a lot of people in the military, it also made sense that he would get fired just because, honestly, ship captains have been fired for a lot less. it's seen as not following procedures, a little bit reckless maybe. your civilian secretary, once your commanding officer loses a little bit of confidence in you, that's kind of it. it's hard to explain. but that is just kind of how it was worked nil the military and that's something you would expect in a lot of different corners. host: can you give us a sense of -- on another topic, the role of the national guard across the country, how many states are using the national guard in support of the pandemic relief? guest: at this point it's all

the states and territories, they have activated in some capacity their own people. it's largely not for medical support. a lot of it is for logistics. it is for putting out mobile testing sites, where those are available. delivering food and supplies to at-risk residents who aren't able to leave their house and don't have anyone else to bring that stuff to them. also helping support civilian agencies. that's largely what they're doing. local hospitals, fema, that sort of thing. just with man power and equipment. and logistics experience. host: we'll go to boca raton, florida. isaac, good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i just have a couple comments. during the cold war with the soviet union, the united states and also the west was afraid of biological warfare that might have occurred because they were developing so many weapons in

that way. now, we've been discussing the new cold war that's emerging with china and russia and -- but the discussion that we're not having with the american people is that the possibility of this being an agent, a bioagent, from china to the united states. it's a scary thing because i know we're trying to all cope with this. but there's a possibility. and we need to have our military , and i hope that they're prepared, for a possibility of a second wave of a mutated -- that could be manmade mutated attack. we're not having this discussion and it's scary. i just want your comments on that. host: meghann myers, i'll ask you in addition, what are the sort of things that military leaders are on alert for during this pandemic in terms of threats to the united states? we did see overnight that

iranian navy boats were coming very near to vess -- vessels in waters off iran. tell us a bit more. guest: that sort of thing, there's also a russian jet yesterday intercepted some of our personnel. those are things that happen a lot, particularly with russia and the iranian revolutionary guard. and those are things that we're prepared for. a lot of them are, you know, it's supposed to be provocative and kind of a show of force on their part. we deal with that stuff all year round. as far as preparing for pandemics, i think the plan that they had was the best thing they had at the time and now they're really looking for those lessons learned and figuring out, if there is a second wave -- and not necessarily in the context of it being an attack. obviously we have not -- we haven't really pinpointed where the virus came from, if it was intentional. obviously if it's meant to be an attack on the u.s., they missed

real hard and got the entire rest of the world and themselves first. so that's also an issue. but the idea that there would be kind of a second wave of this pandemic is very real. because everybody is trying to shelter in place right now. as we just have those discussions about opening up, we've got to be prepared for another, you know, round of thousands of people getting sick again after we do that. and the military will be right alongside the public health response to that. host: during the trump administration initially there was a notable break in the public briefings compared to the obama administration, in terms of press briefings. a headline here in "roll call" says the pentagon is juggling transparency and on view scation saying the pentagon maintains it's being as transparent as possible about the outbreak. from your perspective, since the pandemic began, since national emergency in particular, is the military -- are military leaders being more available and

briefing reports, -- reporters, keeping in touch with the reporters and the public more? guest: they are being exponentially more physically available in terms of having briefings. but at the same time that doesn't necessarily mean that all of the information that you wish you could have, you know, is readily available and is coming out of pentagon briefings. so they've gotten -- had dozens -- aders and had multiple sometimes multiple times out answering questions but they don't always have the information that ready. there were some medical professionals who were based in new york, we had a call with them a couple days ago and i asked, can you tell me how many of these reservists have gotten sick with covid-19 since they've been working in new york city? and they couldn't tell me. the pentagon has also decided -- and for national security risk reasons, that they don't want installations and combatant command posting or releasing

regional counts of covid-19 infections because they don't want to give anybody any ideas about italy -- our position in italy is weak or our position in afghanistan is weak, if there ends up being a huge cluster in afghanistan. so they are available, but it's not a complete ask me anything sort of situation. they're still being very careful about the information they're releasing. host: tuesday's briefing with the chair of the joint chiefs general, he talked about the coronavirus and its impact on the military. here's what he said. >> when we get on the backside of this, whenever that happens, we intend to lead an after-action review, a term you're familiar with. the military does this frequently. we hope to lead an interagency whole of government type of after-action review. because there's going to be lots of lessons learned at the operational, logistical level, public affairs, narratives.

how you deal with subs and ships and planes and brigades and so on and so forth. so there's going to be a lot of lessons learned. too early to do that. people are collecting. we have activated some of our lessoned learns units to do that. we intend to do that rigorously. your question about, is it back to business as usual? no. i don't see that. i don't see how the effect this has had on the economy, the fact that you're sitting here all six feet apart, people wearing masks, the shutdown for all intents and purposes of major metropolitan areas. the impacts that this is having overseas, there are countries out there and states that are very fragile, that are in various states of civil war or they have violence internal to their societies. there's significant stress as a result of this covid-19 virus on the politics, internal politics of other countries. there's significant stress on their economies, on resources. there's an increased probability or at least a risk of

instability, significant instability in some countries. so no. it's not going to be business as usual. we have to take a hard look at how we as a military, we as a department of defense, conduct operations in the future and what we need to do in terms of applying those lessoned learned and implement them so we can continue to be effective. in a quote-unquote post-covid world or the next part of it. host: meghann myers, pentagon bureau chief for military times. a lot there on the joint chief's chair, plate there in the minuted a a -- and a half of comments or so. guest: yeah. he's right in terms of the lessoned learned from this are going to be very powerful. but also, we're dealing with this right now. and whether it's may, whether it's later this summer, we are going to get back on our feet ventually.

the larger issue and the thing that general milley deals with is what about the rest of the world? what about when developing countries really hit the peak of their infections and what is that going to mean for their governments and social structures and could there be regime change even if -- in one of these countries if things go that south? those are the kind of things that are going to be the really long-term effects in terms of our national security interests. really how this ends up affecting the rest of the world. host: let's hear from russ tin, virginia. caller: hi. this is ken. the chinese have asked for the medical records of the 300-person u.s. delegation that participated in the world military games in wuhan last october. as far as i know, we've refused to provide them with that information. would it be the pentagon that's prohibiting that or the c.d.c. or what? guest: that would be the

pentagon's decision, yeah. never mind having to scrub identification and stuff from all of those medical records. i think that's kind of -- it's an abject rejection of the theory that thank we somehow did this to china. that we brought it to china. i don't think they want to give them that inch. host: let's go to new york city. caller: hi. i wanted to ask about the impact f the coronavirus on the acquisition plans of the army, their big six modernization plans. and also in particular the impact on the navy, on the ford, you know, class carrier and its problems and it's other block, by now, the other block sister ships. and as well as the frigate. thank you. guest: all that stuff is a

little bit still in flux right now. there have been some army futures command has come out and said, hey, we're still working on our stuff. we're still doing testing. we're still doing the back-end office work that goes into putting those things together. luckily the love that stuff can be done from home. but in terms of when things are actually being built, people are going to work. people are wearing gloves and masks -- masks, they're social distancing. there will be a hit to it but it's hard to tell right now how much that's going to push anything out. host: a picture this morning of texas army national guard members, they're unpacking canned goods in east texas food bank in tyler, texas. typically with the national guard in states, how long does a governor call up the national guard for? guest: generally it would probably be under a month. and a lot of that has to do with the fact that people in the national guard have civilian jobs. after 30 days on active duty,

there are all sorts of benefits that they are entitled to that they wouldn't be if it were just for a couple of weeks. at this point, this is going to be months. this is not an immediate response to a hurricane, for instance, where you have search and rescue and humanitarian aid and then the civilian agencies get back on their feet and you can go home. this is not something they have seen before, something that they've confronted. i think they are prepared to be out there for quite a while. if that's what's necessary. host: your reporting from last week about the army corps of engineers, militarytimes.com, beginning to run out of time build medical facilities ahead of peak infections and a look at one of the mobile hospitals there in new york that the corps has built. tell people why the army corps of engineers is the lead military agency in terms of setting up hospitals and things like that. it doesn't come right to mind when you think of the corps of

engineers. guest: the funny thing is about a month ago when this all this started to kick off and people were starting to turn their head and be like, ooh, the military has a lot of capacity for building medical support, that sort of thing. the secretary of defense was very open about saying, we should be the last line of defense. you know, -- especially when it comes to the corps of engineers. i think the thing to understand about them is they don't actually build anything. they are engineers. so they come up with plans and they can do the administration of contracts. that's the way they're doing the border wall right now. it's not actually army corps of engineers personnel who have hands on it. they just are running things and being the administration of it. so that is also the same thing they're doing with these hospitals. or with these conversions, most of them. you know, dormitories, hotels, convention centers. they come in and say, ok, this is what you need to have here in order to turn it into the kind of facility you want.

and then they have the contracting relationship and the contracting infrastructure to get those things built. a month ago, secretary he is per was saying, it might make more octor esper was saying it mike may it might make more sense if they do it their own. the army corps of engineers got the call and they went so that's what they're doing. in a lot of cases, they aren't even doing the contracting for some of these places. they're just giving their plans to municipalities, to states, and saying, this is the configuration that we've come up with. these are the materials you're going to need. this is all of what's involved and, here, take this to your contractors and they can build it for you. host: richard in new york. you're on. caller: good morning. i saw a program recently on c-span2. a professor for massachusetts. he says the next war, he wrote a book about it, is going to be biotech.

ith china. good morning. -- host: richard, just make sure you mute your television. you're getting a little confused. mute your audio. go ahead with your comment. we heard your first part. go ahead. caller: ok. i watched i believe c-span2 recently. there's a professor from massachusetts. 2005 that thek in next war is going to be biotech. i believe china was a third world country about 50 years ago. and i think, all our companies wept over there for cheap labor and also china is building two aircraft carriers and they're taking over ports in the philippines. i want to know if you know anything about that. host: meghann myers. guest: i think in terms of pandemics or biological agents

and all of that, you know, being major factor in a war, in a war with someone like china, that's absolutely something that the pentagon is conscientious of and has been making plans for, for decades. the idea that -- even the idea that you might have to fight -- [indiscernible] -- someday, whether it's intentional or happens to be during an epidemic, those are all things that they have under consideration and that they plan for. host: julie is next in spooner, wisconsin. good morning. caller: good morning. i'm from spooner and we don't have a national guard here. and so there's nobody delivering food. but we got the most wonderful people here. we've had people helping us by getting us food and stuff. , to uess my thing is anybody, keep up and keep the

strength. because there's a lot of good going on. it's not all, you know, this pandemic and stuff. so we're trying to keep healthy and do what we have to do. host: all right, julie. meghann myers, a question from you on our text from peter in provincetown. he says last weeks, for the first time, the air force conducted a medical evacuation of u.s. personnel with covid-19 from afghanistan. to germany. especially designed multipatient pod was inserted to an air force cargo plane to accomplish this mission. is the air force and its air national guard component combeering up for a larger scale -- component gearing up for a larger scale medivac mission of this type? guest: absolutely. that has to be part of the calculus the entire time. we have people who are very remote and you have to figure out a way to go get them and to bring them to safety, bring them to medical care and not infect anybody else along the way.

obviously coming up with some sort of isolation pod to be able to do that is brilliant because that is what you're going to have to do in order to ensure that none of those air crew and no medical personnel that you have onboard are unnecessarily exposed. host: in general, are u.s. military operations proceeding as normal? the one caller talked about china. are those u.s. missions in the south china sea, are air missions continuing and operations in afghanistan continuing as normal? guest: yes. generally. so ships, we have ships all over the world pretty much all the time. everybody's getting under way and coming home on schedule. they're having to do a little bit of extension here and there in terms of making sure they have some sort of quarantine period. when they're going out when they're coming back in. the sherman carrier striker is now sitting in the atlantic. they were supposed to come home but they'll be sitting in the atlantic to make sure that they are safe in case they need to respond to something. they don't want to bring them home and potentially compromise

the crew. in terms of counterterror in afghanistan, in dealing with kind of the dustups we've been having with iran, there was talk a few weeks ago about whether those missions had been scaled back at all. those are not things that the pentagon is super transparent about, for good reason. about what their plans are. but there had been a kind of tactical pause for a minute just to make sure that everybody -- not only that they were healthy, but to have contingency plan in case they weren't healthy. but for all intents and purposes, the -- we're still turning out deployments where we can and we still have our forces all over the world where they were. host: where is the navy on the next carrier to be launched? has that been launched? what's that carrier's name and has that been delayed by the pandemic? guest: the next carrier deployment? host: yes. guest: you know, i'm not sure. i think if truman is coming back

to the west coast, there hasn't thatany sort of indication nig is going to be held up -- that anything is going to be held up. they had one up in the seattle area. they had one positive but from what i understand from the briefing the other day, the positive was in a sailor who not yet checked on to the ship. so he'd never been there. he's never exposed anybody. as far as they're concerned, they're getting ready to go and they're going to spend two weeks in isolation before they go out. there will be screenings, we'll see the pentagon has been talking some this week about trying to ramp up testing. so we'll see if they're going to get to test everybody before they go. obviously thousands of people and it could take a long time. but that's something they're considering. host: let's hear from seattle next. this is terry. good morning. you're on with meghann myers. caller: hello? host: go ahead. you're on the air.

caller: ok. i wanted to say, with the military, i was just trying to turn my tv down. you know, and i've been listening to what everybody's been saying and i talked with the lady just before. unless there's a cure, unless there's a cure, a serum, how are we going to conduct the military like we did before this pandemic hit? i mean, i don't see military people wearing masks. the general wasn't wearing a mask, he wasn't wearing gloves. military people have to be around each other. you have to recruit people in, they're in recruits, they have to fight each other, they have to learn how to do different things. unless there is a serum. thank you. host: thank you. we talked about some of those issues. but, meghann myers, your thoughts. guest: yeah. so we're not going to be safe and feel comfortable until there is a vaccine and that could be a

year, a year and a half out. the reason that general milley wasn't wearing mask in the briefing the other day is because the guidance is if you can maintain six feet, you don't need the mask. so the pentagon briefing room is like very carefully mapped out to make sure that nobody's coming within six feet of each other. that's the way it is in every unit in the military right now. if you cannot, if your workspace, like you said, if in most cases your workspace doesn't allow for that kind of distancing so you are wearing a maskment and they are undertaking special disinfection procedures mull approximately times a day to make sure -- multiple times a day to make sure they're safe. right now that's all they can do. having more testing will help so we can get a better idea of how far it has spread. testing to be testing able to hone in on who is not at risk anymore. that will make a big difference. but for like the rest of america, for the rest of the world, it is going to be a consideration. it is going to hamstring some things for quite a while.

until you can get everybody vaccinated. host: meghann myers, who is the pentagon bureau chief for military times -- militarytimes.com. read more at milltary -- militarytimes.com. meghann myers, thanks for taking time with us this morning. guest: thanks for having me. host: on the way, we're joined next by brett schaefer. he joins us to talk about trump's -- president trump's decision to cut funding for the w.h.o. after that, jean ross. next we're joined by matt lee talking about what's happening with their thousands of americans stranded overseas during the pandemic. matt lee, thax for being on the phone with us -- thanks for being on the phone with us this morning. >> my pleasure, good morning. host: give us an idea of the numbers of people and what's being done to get them back. >> this has been really -- [indiscernible] -- effort that the state department has taken on here since the end of

january, when the first repatriation/evacuations began. the last count that we got was that they have gotten back over 61,000 americans who were either stranded overseas because of the virus or wanting to come back and there was no way to get -- for them to get back. so that's quite a few. the numbers, you know, there are a million or so outside of the states at any one time. maybe even more. there's not really any good estimate because, you know, americans aren't required to register with u.s. embassies abroad when they're traveling. so it's very hard to get a good estimate of the total number of americans outside of the country or in fact the total number of americans who are in fact stranded because countries have shut down their borders. but one thing that particularly

interesting, in peru where there was a very sudden decision by the government to close its borders and shut down international air traffic, the state department had estimated that there were about 5,000 americans there. but as of tuesday, i believe, they had repatriated over 7,000. o the estimates are not exact. host: so are embassies and consulates overseas, they're obviously the primary focal point for figuring out how many folks in each country are there. who is leading the effort to send planes? the state department planes, military planes? reporter: there's a combination. they've been using charter commercial aircraft. been some state me department planes or i should say rather planes that are contracted by the state

department for emergency medical evacuations. and then there have been some military flights, particularly out of central america. and as well, there have been repatriations on d.h.s. planes that have been sending deportees, people that the u.s. is deporting back to central america, on their return flight, they've been bringing americans home from countries like el salvador, guatemala and honduras. o it's really a combination of all of those various elements, as well as commercial flights that they're trying to arrange, sometimes charts -- charters om areas that are not always well served by carriers that have direct flights or connections to the u.s. host: in a letter from the senator of connecticut to the secretary of state, he says in this letter, he said in a tweet

about the letter that thousands of americans are still stranded overseas and lack the funds to pay the sky-high cost to get back. i'm demanding secretary pompeo take steps to provide channel relief or waive fees for travel home. for these -- most of these folks, there is a cost involved in these flights, correct? reporter: yes. there is. even if it's a u.s. government chartered plane, what happens is you are required to sign a promissory note. you don't have to pay cash up front but remember required to repay the cost of the flight. for commercial flights it's a bit different because you're dealing directly with an airline and of course in any kind of crisis situation, you run into problems where there are -- there's price gouging. airlines ramp up their fares for

these flights. there isn't a huge amount that the government can do about the ommercial flights, but charter flights, there is the option for relief there. host: one more thing here, what's interest your understanding of when those -- what's your understanding of when those folks arrive back to the u.s.? are they tested for temperature or covid-19? reporter: again, if they're coming back on an emergency medical evacuation flight, with their -- they're monitored throughout that flight. by medical personnel. on commercial flights, once they get back, they're subject to -- subject to whatever screening is required at their port of entry. , j.f.k. or dulles or houston miami, they have to go through the same kinds of screening that

any other international passenger would have to go through. host: matt lee, long-time diplomatic writer for the associated press with an update. thank you so much for being with us this morning. reporter: thank you. host: and we are joined next by brett schaefer who is with the heritage foundation. he's their international regulatory affairs fellow. here with us next to talk about president trump's decision to withhold funding from the world health organization. brett schaefer, thanks for being ere. can you hear me ok? guest: i should. host: great. let me ask you first of all, were you surprised by president trump's announcement? guest: i was surprised a little bit about the timing of it. i know that there had been consideration of cutting funding to the world health organization but the decision to cut funding right now in the midst of the covid-19 outbreak in so many

countries around the world did take me by surprise. that doesn't mean that the president doesn't have legitimate criticism of the world health organization. particularly his willingness to take -- its willingness to take chinese claims and data at face value, which caused enormous damage economically around the world and enormous loss of life in many countriers, including the united states. so he has a legitimate reason to be very upset with the organization. but the decision to cut funding at this moment when so many countries are going to rely on the world health organization in the upcoming months did take me a bit by surprise. host: there's a headline that says trump vs. w.h.o. the latest twist in a shifting shine of policy. do you think the w.h.o. decision was largely about china and not about the health organization itself? guest: well, you have to understand that the world health organization, like many international organizations, has a very large political component

to it. the organization is governed by the member states. it relies on the member states to provide funding for it. but it also, because it doesn't have any real authority of its own to conduct investigations or to gather information independently, it relies on governments to provide it with that information. with countries like the united states or the united kingdom or many other countries around the world, which are fairly transparent and willing to work with this organization in a very cooperative way, that's not much of a problem. but with a country like china, which has a long history of deny to conceal and wrongdoing or missteps domestically or in the image that it presents to the world, this can lead to enormous complications. what happened here, clearly, was that china tried to deny what was going on domestically and to down play the threat to the international community of the covid-19 outbreak. and the world health organization unfortunately had to rely on chinese information

there, where the world health organization went wrong is that it took chinese statements and information at face value when there was evidence both historically and concurrently that they should not do so. for instance, historically china , in the sars outbreak, was unwilling to be transparent during that outbreak and denied and onify skated for months in providing information to the world health organization. that led to the spread of that disease and hundreds of deaths. so the world health organization knew in the past that china wasn't willing to be transparent and cooperative. but it took chinese statements at face value this time. moreover, there was information provided by taiwan that this disease was a potential pandemic and that there was evidence of human to human transmission, even while china was denying that to the world health organization. instead of taking that information from taiwan and using it to perhaps question what it was hearing from china,

the world health organization just parroted chinese statements saying that there was no evidence of human to human transmission and we're all paying the price for that. host: some perspective on funding for the world health organization. this from the world economic forum. united states of america, and his is a total -- this is from 2018 budget, roughly $400 million a year funded by the united states. the largest funder. the second largest funder at over $200 million is the bill and melinda gates foundation. the u.k., germany -- china's contribution under $100 million annually. brett schaefer, what do you think the proper role of the world health organization during a pandemic, this pandemic in particular, should be? guest: well, the world health organization is supposed to be our early warning system for these sorts of things. it's supposed to track potential pandemics. it's supposed to launch and send teams of experts into the

countries to take a look at the situation directly, to assess the threat that the disease poses to the international community. and then work with other member states to arrest and control that threat if necessary. in this case, the world health organization wasn't even able to send an expert team into china until mid february because the chinese government wouldn't let them. instead of calling the chinese government to account for that lack of cooperation, lack of transparency, they instead, like i said, praised china for its transparaphernalia, they praised china for taking unprecedented steps in controlling this outbreak, all of which we know now to be untrue and unwarranted. host: the headline in financial times, trump condemned for w.h.o. fund freeze as coronavirus rages. the president saying, quote, american taxpayers provide between $400 million and $500 million per uniyear to the

w.h.o. in contrast to china which gives less than $40 million a year. host: do you think the trump administration, the president is in a position to get support, to pressure the w.h.o. for more transparency? particularly on the issues you've pointed out about lack of information from taiwan. guest: sure. i think that -- if you take back or go back a couple of days rather. there was increasing outrage on the part of not just developed countries like the united kingdom or other european countries, but developing countries in africa and other places in reaction to china's

lack of cooperation, lack of transparency, and its role in facilitating the spread of covid-19. and that was building. i think the u.s. government could have really taken that and added to that momentum and gotten some significant changes to the world health organization, could have gotten support for a thorough investigation, independent, external investigation into the actions of the world health organization. and the potential influence of china over its decision making. unfortunately with the announcement that the u.s. is going to cut funding, now everybody is focused on that. i think the u.s. unfortunately has diverted attention from where it should be by its decision to halt funding immediately. i think the better step would have been to inform the world and other countries and the world health organization that future u.s. funding is dependent on reforms and external independent investigation of what happened here.

the focus should be going forward, not necessarily on the immediate response. because while the united states and other countries have the resources to deal with their outbreaks domestically, even though here in the united states and in other countries that is straining us considerably, countries like developing countries in africa, latin america and asia, they're going to depend on the world health organization to help them in their response. and they're going to interpret the anoumsment by the administration -- announcement by the administrations a abandoning them and -- in the time of their need. that's not the way to get their cooperation. we should be focused on trying to, a, get the investigation done when -- down the road when this crisis is passed. b, get the reforms to the world health organization necessary to represent -- prevent a repetition of this problem. and c, focus and promote our efforts to work with other

countries to try and help them deal with this current crisis. host: brett schaefer is our guest. he's an international regulatory affairs fellow at the heritage foundation and we're talking about the role of the world health organization and the president's announcement on defunding that organization, withholding funding from that organization. welcome your phone calls an comments, 202-748-8000 is the number to call for eastern and central time zones. 202-748-8001, mountain and pacific. brett schaefer, i want to show you a tweet or read a tweet from president trump. this is less than two months ago. he said that the coronavirus is very much under control in the u.s.a. we are in contact with everyone and all relevant countries. c.d.c. and world health have been working hard, very hard and very smart. what went wrong do you think? you talked about the issue with the information from taiwan. but w.h.o. seemed to fall out of favor quickly with the president.

guest: i think we're sort of dealing with the ramifications of both the world health organization's incredulousness and china's lack of transparency. based on the information that china was saying in december, the outbreak was very small. china was saying there was no evidence of human to human transmission. they didn't even tell the world health organization about the disease until december 31 and that was weeks after they knew internally that there were cases that were erupting in wuhan. and that there was evidence of human to human transmission. they refused to tell that and share that information with the broader international community. the world health organization on january 14 tweeted out that there was no evidence of human to human transmission, despite the fact that china knew that there was. so what the president was basing his comments on at that point was the information available. and the information available was obviously false because china was not being transparent.

now we know very much better that china was not being truthful in this and i think that if the world community had known that this was a very significant disease, a very deadly disease, and one that was very contagious, in the late part of december, i think the response from other countries in the united states would have been very -- and the united states would have been very different. host: do you think the world health organization will be more forth come being that data? -- forthcoming about that data? guest: i think they're going to have to be. even though the united states has been out in the forefront demanding an investigation and demanding access to information about what the world health organization knew, and how complicit it was in helping china not tell the truth about this matter, i think that other countries themselves are going to increasingly demand that information as well, as their deaths mount, as the economic costs of this disease mounts. not just in europe and the united states and other

developed countries which we've been seeing in reporting, but it's now starting to surge in places like africa and latin america and they're going to be dealing with this disease themselves and they're going to want explanations as well. host: we have several calls waiting. i did want to play the response from dr. tedros, the w.h.o. director-general, to the president's decision. here's what he said. >> the united states of america has been a longstanding and generous friend to the w.h.o. and we hope it will continue to be so. we regret the decision of the president of the united states to order a halt in funding to the world health organization. we support from the people and government of the united states, w.h.o. works to improve the

health of many of the world's poorest and most vulnerable people. w.h.o. is not only fighting covid-19. we're also working to address polio, measles, malaria, ebola, h.i.v., tuberculosis, malnutrition, cancer, diabetes, mental health and many other diseases and conditions. we also work with countries to strengthen health systems and improve access to life-saving health services. w.h.o. is reviewing the impact of our work, of any withdrawal of u.s. funding and we'll work with our partners to fill any financial gaps we face and to ensure our work continues uninterrupted. our commitment to public health,

science and to serving all the people of the world without fear or favor remains absolute. our mission and mandate are to work with all nations equally, without regard to size of their populations or economies. covid-19 does not discriminate between rich nations and poor. large nations and small. it does not discriminate between nationalities, ethnicities or ideologies. neither do we. this is a time for all of us to be united in our common struggle against a common threat. host: brett schaefer with the heritage foundation. what did you hear there in comments from the director-general? guest: there's a lot to agree with but there's also a lot to disagree with. what i noticed in particular is

that he did not take responsibility for his own organization's missteps in the early part of this disease. but also he started listing off a number of things organizatio's missteps in the early part of the disease. he started listing things the world health organization does and i think it's a legitimate spendingto ask, is it money on things that shouldn't be? i took a look at the broader 15%et and a looks like only of the world health organization's resources go to actually combating pandemics or preparing countries to deal with pandemics. the organization's resources go to the overhead, things like violence and injuries and road safety. like equity, human rights, reproductive mental

health and substance abuse. these things are all health issues. a threat to really international health? are they a threat to go across borders or are they issues largely of domestic concern and should they be on the world health organization's radar and consuming so much of its time and resources? i would argue the organization should be focused predominantly thehe threat of pandemics, threat of communicable diseases and those international threats that can spread from one country to another. host: we mentioned the bill and melinda gates foundation. bill gates tweeting after the news yesterday, halting funding for the world health organization during the world health crisis is as dangerous as it sounds. spread of slowing the covid-19. the world needs the who now more than ever.

rose int caller, chicago. yesterday i called the c-span line after your show because of the numerous times you showed trump in the rose garden speaking about the who show thence did c-span numerous times trump claimed china was being straight up dishonest with him. , trump claimed that west virginia had no cases. why is that? where is the testing in this country? what is trump doing with the south korean tests that he bought and he's going to disburse? where is testing in this country? in the united states of america, where is the testing, brett?

why is trump -- there was a reporter in the rose garden that he going towhat was do about china lying to him. do you recall that, brett? trump saying how president xi jinping -- host: we will get a response from our guest. guest: unfortunately i'm not an expert on the u.s. domestic response. i'm in international organizations expert. i have been focused on the world health organization. i'm sure c-span has or will have another expert in the future that can talk about the u.s. domestic response to that. in sierra vista, arizona. caller: great job. let's stay on topic and get back

to the role and running of world health organization. host: make sure you mute your volume there. go ahead. with brettgree wholeheartedly. i have no problem with the president holding up funding to an organization that is run by a bunch of corrupt cronies. now if they get rid of the current management and put new management in that really is transparent and not leaning towards china as their favorite then we can -- favored country, then we can resume sending u.s. dollars. brett, i think you should head up the world health organization because everything you're saying tells me that you would be the right guy because you would look into the things that the who

wants to spend money on and then you can say wait, hold up the purse strings a minute. is that more important than this over here? let's look at this logically or whatever. i like that smile on your face, too. i'm glad i put one there. host: brett schaefer, who decides and prioritizes where that money is spent? guest: i appreciate the caller's confidence in my abilities, but i'm far from the best person to head up the world health organization. question,e to your the member states do. the world health organization's budget is determined by the member states. oftentimes the united states would like to have different priorities in terms of how funds are allocated but it's overruled by the other countries and it

has to work with them to do that. in addition, a significant is voluntaryey contributions that member states can dedicate to whatever purpose they want. if a country comes in and says we want to focus on this particular disease or cancer or all the other things that the director general highlighted in his remarks, that's what the organization will dedicate those resources to. this is not just a problem of the bureaucracy of the world health organization. the united states has to more effectively convince member states that their resources go to what we are dealing with right now which is the threat of andrnational pandemic preparing countries to respond to this in a very quick and effective way. that means more cooperation, more transparency rather than

things that don't represent a threat that spreads from one country to another. host: the who is an arm of the united nations. when and why was it founded? guest: the world health organization is sort of an outgrowth or replacement to a preceding health organization, the league of nations. it was set up in 1948. it was set up to deal with international health issues. it waslarly at that time for combating smallpox, polio and other diseases that were international in scope and very devastating. they built a great deal of goodwill early on in eradicating smallpox. they have done a wonderful job containing the spread of polio over the years. still spend a great deal of

money on that campaign to finally eradicate polio. in more recent years they focused on different issues. they have a program for violence and injuries such as trying to improve road safety. i'm all in favor of road safety, but that's not necessarily something that can be transmitted from one country to another and it also is not necessarily something the organization should focus on in my opinion. on the true focused threat to international health which is a disease that can spread from one country to another and harm and kill individuals in great numbers. host: carla is calling from missouri. caller: good morning. thank god for c-span. i have been reduced to just listening to c-span for all of my news.

i would like to ask him a question. i may be wrong, but it seems to me after he made the comment that he would preferred that trump had waited until the pandemic was resolved to cut off funds, but didn't trump say in one of his news conferences that he was willing to help individual countries with both during thisuipment problem? i'm going to hang up and listen. thank you. guest: the caller is absolutely right. the united states has done enormous amounts to try to help countries bilaterally. and unitedepartment states agency for international development and other parts of the u.s. government have provided over 500 million dollars to countries individually to help them deal with covid-19. and this is at the generosity of the american people and this i think needs to be promoted

because the united states is receiving a lot of criticism, most hypocritically by china which has called on the united states to honor its obligations to the world health organization regardless of the fact that it doesn't provide a 10th of what the u.s. does and is responsible. right now it's receiving criticism for the president's announcement and the united states is doing quite a bit to help countries deal with covid-19 bilaterally from our government to their government and also continuing to support other international andnizations like unicef the world health organization. the united states is providing money to the covid-19 response earlier this year.

are: how many americans part of the who? guest: i don't know off the top of my head. i'm sorry. john in binghamton, new york. good morning. i have to ask, how did south korea start their process of testing and so forth. they were head of the ballgame. the united states knew about that. fdadoctor ahead of the claims that on january 22, they were considering developing tests for this and then there was an in-house memo from one of trump's staff members talking about this being a pandemic. now mr. shafer is saying the was notalth center apologizing for overlooking what china had done. apologize forn't

anything that he has done to lead us to this. quite frankly mr. schafer, i find you to be very bipartisan and your perspective on this. person in your position should be as such in what you are claiming. response, brett schaefer? guest: i'm not quite sure i understood the end of the callers comment. korea, someto south countries that were surrounding china, south korea, singapore, japan, others, their response is more immediate in part because they were much more significantly impacted by pandemicspidemics or or diseases coming out of china. they were prepared from those previous experiences and much more willing to act quickly to a potential threat because they had been impacted before.

i would urge the viewers if they are interested in south korea's response to this and the methods that they have used to go to heritage.org. we have an expert who has been writing quite a bit about south korea's response to covid-19. host: a headline in the washington post. sayou know how much of a congress has in terms of appropriations? how can the president make a decision about withholding funding if that were the case? guest: congress does appropriations in different ways. sometimes they can be very , $100 goes towards this particular activity. what congress did

is appropriated money to a called theunt contributions international organization. i don't believe they specified the world health organization receive any particular amount under that heading. is administration's argument yes, you appropriated money for international organizations but it's up to us to decide how to .est allocate that money this is more a case where congress wasn't very specific and i do not believe there is the type of tight direction that you implied from your question in the appropriations currently. a couple of comments on twitter. maybe gaetz could explain what who is doing to slow the spread because i have no idea what they are doing. iss one says the blame game

lame. work with them and support their research but the u.s. has only itself to blame. guest: it's a very serious situation. a lot of people have been very harmed by this circumstance and giving into a back-and-forth nott lame -- blame is particularly helpful or useful. i also think we need to acknowledge that what has gone wrong in terms of this what ther outbreak, world health organization did and what it did not do. not just to ascribe blame to it but to address the problem for the future. this is not the only disease that we are going to be facing in the upcoming five to 20 years. we need to understand how this organization did not respond

effectively so that we can respond more effectively in the future. host: j is next in indiana. caller: hello. thanks for taking my call. my comments are addressed to what the speaker said about state department giving money to various countries for their health program. if i recall, there are always strings attached to the funds given from the state department to various countries and they generally have to do with reproductive rights. they are generally not given to organizations or countries which permit abortion practices even in developing countries with a high incidence of fistula among young mothers. recall also, funds were

cut from state department to these organizations and countries under the george h to be bush administration and the george w. bush administration. hoping we can continue to fund the world health organization which is in may be a better position to decide what services and they will make the decision. to find thentinue world health organization and thank you host: brett schaefer. guest: the united states has historically been the biggest funder of the world health organization. from ars might benefit little bit of a breakdown in terms of how the u.s. funds the organization. there's two pods. contributions that the member states are supposed to pay the organization to fund its core

activities. then there's voluntary contributions that the united states provides above and beyond that. years, thest two united states has provided 20 2% of the core budget of the organization. it also provided 75% of its contribution to the organization have been voluntary. things that we don't actually have to pay but we do because we want to support some of the activities the organization is doing. we are incredibly generous to the organization. we provide 15% of its entire budget. a billionunder dollars over the past two years. the idea that the united states is not providing money to the world health organization historically is just incorrect. i think that we also need to separate the response to covid-19 from reproductive health. has providedates

half a billion dollars to countries to help them deal with this particular disease and that's not going to be focused on reproductive health. it's going to be focused on helping them treat the victims of covid-19. host: the headline from brett schaefer is now is not yet the time to cut funding to the world health organization. in losear from david angeles. caller: i would like to point out and i hope you can give me a few minutes here. the heritage foundation, we are confused and made to be confused in relationship to conservative liberal labels if you will. as opposed to the heritage foundation, primary contributors are corporate america.

and who they represent and are funded by is corporate america. i would like to go back to this thing the lady was talking about strings attached. these strings are what trump is demonstrating today. to whichlly phenomenon corporate america used by our government. like people like trump. to do our bidding lest we withhold funding or if you do our bidding, we will give you funding. host: brett schaefer. any final thoughts on that? guest: if the listeners want to take a look at who are donors are, they can go to heritage.org. over 90% of our contributions come from individual donors. they don't come from corporations. we are an organization that has

over 500,000 individual members and they support us very generously and we appreciate that. is seniort schaefer research fellow in international regulatory affairs writing about the world health organization. thanks for being with us. guest: thank you very much. host: news about unemployment. another 5.2 million jobless claims filed last week amid coronavirus crisis. with more than 16 million jobless claims filed, more jobs have been lost in the last month than were gained since the great recession. coming up next on c-span's washington journal, we will talk about those in the frontline in the fight against the pandemic with national nurses united president jean ross. usa today hosted an online conversation on the coronavirus response with former ohio

governor john kasich and former virginia governor sharon mcauliffe. >> obviously right now everybody is going to be watching how the president is going to handle this all the way through to the conclusion. but at the end of it, i was thinking back just yesterday. i remember when george bush had a 90% approval rating after the original iraq war. but the economy wasn't doing very well. it was interesting that bill clinton understood that it was all about the economy. i think at this point in time people are focused on how he's , how he'she virus projecting his leadership and at some point i think we are going to get through this but come november, the question may be

more about how is the economic situation then it is the virus. going tohat's really be important going forward and i know that terry is imminently involved with the biden campaign is how does joe biden project himself as the leader for the next four years? how is he able to talk about not just this situation but any situation that can arise economic something involving a military conflict. i think it's going to be incumbent on jove to be able to show that he has the leadership ability. virus. right now it's later on it's going to be about the pocketbook. it always seems to come down to the pocketbook in virtually every election. what donor mcauliffe, you think? >> clearly it's all about the

virus. when we get closer to the election, having president trump handle it and there will be a discussion about what happened in january and february. did the government do everything they needed to do. did we effectively get the ventilators. did we get the personal protective gear out. did we get the masks. to getdy is still trying masks and ventilators and so forth. ast will be the discussion it relates to the coronavirus as we get into october versus joe biden. going toink it's all be about the economy. none of us sitting here today knows what's going to happen. until we can get them back to work. many of them will never come back. biden really has to

lean in. >> c-span has round-the-clock coverage of the federal response to the coronavirus pandemic. it's all available on demand at c-span.org/coronavirus. watch white house briefings, updates from governors and state spread withrack the interactive maps. watch on-demand anytime unfiltered at c-span.org/coronavirus. journal continues. host: we welcome jean ross, president of national nurses united. tell us about your organization and how many members you have. the largest registered nurses union in the country. ofwere founded at the end 2009 and we have over 150,000 members at this point. members,those 150,000

the ones that are currently working, how many do you think are actively engaged in this fight against the pandemic? >> it's the bulk of us. i can't give you an exact number. not only are we involved, we saw a need for nurses across the country calling us and emailing , wes to what should we do don't have enough protective equipment. what do we do. so we put together a texting program and every day we text nurses across the country whether they are members of ours or not and we have right now over 500 volunteers doing that and we have reached over 750,000 nurses in the country whether or not they are members. rapidlyu have had to ramp up your own response.

serving folks who are not your members. >> correct. we always see a need for nurses to stick together across the country. what we find is it doesn't really matter where you are. the samee all facing issues not just during this , worldwide. host: typically your organization is involved in what range of issues? do you do negotiations for labor bargaining for example? >> we do indeed. we learned a long time ago and our members understand that when it comes to doing our main job which is to advocate for patients and the public health, you can't just do that from events aside. you are lucky if you have a contract with provisions that allow you to speak out when a patient is in danger.

out without loss of your job. we have a variety of issues that we lobby for because they'll affect a patient's health. so anything to do with socioeconomic status, having universal health care system, medicare for all. i think we have all seen recently how you cannot rely on being employed to have insurance in this country. those kinds of things are important to us and that's what we lobby for. the new yorke in times says nurses and doctors speaking up on safety no risk their jobs. hospitals have disciplined and went staff members who workplace concerns about coronavirus. >> if you are not one of our members, get onto our website. covid at national nurses

united.org if you are a nurse. otherwise it's national nurses united.org. our members all understand we go by the precautionary principle. meaning since we don't know everything there is to know about this virus yet, you go with the highest standard of protective equipment. that's what your employer should be providing for you and that's what you should insist on. especially if you are being put in harm's way by knowing the patient you're going to care for is covid-19 positive or it is suspected that that person is. you should have the proper ppe. you should have proper isolation and negative pressure rooms to place that person in while they have covid-19 and you have the right to insist on that. add job is to care for and advocate for the patient. to supplyer's job is that equipment. host: our guest is the president

of national nurses united. we are talking about nurses and the response to the pandemic. (202) 748-8000 in the eastern and central time zones. (202) 748-8001 mountain and pacific. nurses,e of you who are particularly active still working but former nurses welcome as well, (202) 748-8002. registered nurses not just serving in hospitals but in nursing homes. the figure of nursing home deaths across the country is approaching 6000. large deaths in places like silver spring, maryland, richmond, new -- virginia and new jersey. what could have been done better in these nursing homes? it seems like an extraordinary number. 6000 deaths.

this virus orwas career, long-term facilities, nursing homes, they are in close proximity. everyone should have had a plan. nurses have been begging and demanding a plan for years. certainly since ebola. when you have patients in close proximity like in long-term care , you need a way of isolating. you need a way of containing and making sure that the staff that cares for a positive patient does not go on to care for others. there was no planning. to make matters worse, we live in a country where profit is king. so instead of looking out for the welfare of the people caring for patients and clients and the clients and patients themselves, we are looking at the bottom line. so even before there was this supposed shortage of equipment we were constantly being told

you can't have this, you don't need that because they are looking out for their budget. host: this was even before the pandemic started. >> yes. those of us that have a union and can speak up have said for years, something is going to happen. we need to have a plan. we need to be trained on it. you have to be able to show that you can get us this equipment. the hospitals in this country principleerate on a like maybe car manufacturers do. it's called just in time. why should we have equipment lying there and supply in case you need it? see what that's left us with. have plenty of calls waiting period -- calls waiting.

the line for nurses is (202) 748-8002. representing us nurses -- i'm an lpn. there's not a lot of disclosure work inacilities and i a subacute rehab long-term care facility. lifecare actually. who has been in the press for having some deaths. in our area in massachusetts as well there have been a lot of deaths and there's one facility in particular where a nurse was a whistleblower because they were not disclosing anything the workers were exposed to hand in my case i work for lifecare in another facility and the culture of secrecy is prevalent there, too. arere all wondering, there a lot of deaths and we are going into work not knowing what we're

going to face. apersonally have identified couple of patients who needed to be tested and ended up coming up positive so i was there. n95 masks. had we just had paper masks. the ppe is not sufficient. care, ionder long-term know the hospitals are facing it in a big way as well. long-term care we are facing it. and wet have a union don't have a chance of establishing a union. do we have rights to know what we are facing when we go into work? host: thanks susan. jean ross. >> that is such a dilemma for nurses and that's why we work so hard to organize nurses. job to say something

to protect yourself and those patients and you can get fired for it. that's the pickle they put us in. you must do this and this is what will probably happen if you do. there is right to know language. it's an osha standard that is federal. certainly a contagious patient is something you should know about it and they should be doing the right thing. are's one of the reasons we having such success with the nurses calling and emailing us. they want to know how do i stand up for myself and that patient. what do i do to care for those people. very difficult position to be in and my heart goes out to but you still must do what you must do as your nurse practice act states. host: lots of nurses on the line including eric from laurel, maryland.

would like to thank c-span for finally having someone from the nurses association represent the nurses. sure she's there for every single health care professional working inside of the hospital or nursing home. one of the concerns that i have is the stimulus packages. it seems like the nurses are from receiving a stimulus check because they make too much money. isead yesterday that there chatter as far as the montgomery g.i. bill. do you think that is something you can take to your lobbyist in order to see if we can actually get something. we are of course putting our lives on the line.

there has been some discussion of some sort of bonus pay. nurses and other health care workers actually are not afraid to go in and do this work. it's our job. we are used to it. we also are not afraid because we know we are protected when we use the proper equipment. we have been able to sustain moneys according to our union contract and unemployment for some nurses who have been in essence furloughed because they have canceled all elective surgeries. i believe there is something in the works about that and they are calling it i believe bonus pay. asks, is it true that many corporate run nursing homes refuse to test now? >> actually that is what nurses

are telling us. that is what we are hearing. we can't be everywhere, but we do have eyes everywhere and those people that respond to us do tell us things like that. our nurses in our hospitals who have contracted covid-19 have had to fight to get tested. and if testing ever gets done like it needs to be right now, the president should be ramping up the defense production at speak to get the ppe to us. there should also be a temporary osha standard for an emergency that says you will tell hospitals they must supply the highest level of ppe for nurses and other health care workers. we touched on this a little bit in terms of personal protection.

what's your understanding of why -- you talked about just in time delivery at hospitals for equipment. why has there been such a difficulty getting masks and other personal protective equipment into hospitals? >> i know probably what most people know from watching the news. there seems to be competition. i don't understand that. -- somere is a pandemic sort of leadership from the top saying this is the equipment we need to read and you don't argue about it where it's necessary and move it to other areas when they need it. and there should be no question. we shouldn't be arguing over whether the standard is too high or not. we understand what it takes to protect us.

we read. we keep up. know what it takes to keep us safe. cdc shouldn't be lessening its standards because the hospital association calls in and tells them to. the publicte so much who we know have our back. you docate for you as for us and we appreciate that. but words are words. when it comes to the government and our employers saying how precious a resource we are then treating us the way we are, actions speak louder than words. host: susan is calling next. she's a nurse in north carolina. caller: you said exactly what i feel. i've been a nurse for 25 years. i've worked all over the country. under silence. we take care of people on the cannot say even before this virus, we did not

have the ppe that we needed in different areas of the country. this is really shining a light on what is going on in this country as far as health care. we know from the inside, you are telling everyone and everyone needs to speak out because eventually the majority of us are going to end up in the hospital. again, thank you. host: bill is next in manchester, pennsylvania. in the i used to work maintenance department at a hospital. differentrained about protection as necessary and i can imagine right now that there's a lot of people using this right and left who would not normally be using them. want to say, you hear about in nurses not having ppe

around smaller places and even the bigger hospitals. was watching the c-span and governor cuomo says as soon as the hospitals say they need it, we give it to them. the president said the same thing. what i'm suggesting is that these people you are hearing from, the smaller nurses and smaller facilities, mom and pop , that your union find a way to bypass the hospitals management and go directly to the governor and pass along these requests and that -- get the equipment to the facilities that need it. that's all. thank you.

>> we are exhausting every avenue open to us. we have written to the president. we have been in contact with the governor. you are right. what you hear certainly from the president and other politicians that the equipment is there. there is not a shortage. nobody has not gotten what they needed. i don't know who they are talking to. they are probably talking to the management of the hospitals. we really need to ask the people working on the front lines. doctorsludes nurses and and maintenance people and the kitchen staff and housekeeping who clean the facility. they will tell you despite what you hear on the news, it is not getting to us and it is piecemeal. we hear stories from our nurses that on certain units, there is no argument. the manager says you are going n95's.and 95 --

it's traveling on the soles of shoes. you need bootie's. other managers are saying, we are concerning. -- conserving. we are going to run out. you can't have that. that is ridiculous. we are not at the point in this war where we have to do battlefield triage. ramp up the manufacture of that equipment so that we have it. host: tell us why those n95 masks are so important versus regular mask? >> the masks you are being asked to wear is to protect other people from you. that's a worthwhile thing to do. masks will eliminate some kind of droplet. the n95 has a filter in it that helps filter out the virus.

and they are sealed, fit, tested to you. they need to remain that way so that nothing can get in. see the nurses and health care workers on tv and they have mask marks. that's a nice tight seal. in the absence of that you could have powered air purifying respirators which look like a clear hood shell around your face. that doesn't let anything in because you need a shield or goggles. thatthe construction masks we've been given, there is emergency standard that says ok, you can use them. even the ones at construction sites don't have the same filtering capabilities that an n95 surgical mask would. host: a look at hundreds of

masks decontaminated. in washington, laura. go ahead. to let theust wanted nurses know that we all appreciate everything that they've done and what can we do. i have several times had to bug the governor in washington state to even supply equipment for our and stuff. what is a motivating factor for these people to get stuff out? that's my comment and my western. thinking. -- and my question. thank you. you mean get the information. that's why we are doing this. callu are a nurse, you can covid at national nurses united.org. if you are the public, you can

orprotect nurses.org national nurses united.org. if you are a nurse they will give you someone to talk to or email access so that you can ask questions and see how you can help. for the public, we know you are behind us. thank you very much. and just keep hammering home and .utting the pressure on call your congress people. say i don't care what i hear on tv. the nurses are saying the equipment is not there. they need it and they need the right kind. cdc should go on the precautionary principle. this is the equipment you need instead of dumbing down to a lesser standard lobby that president to get that defense production act moving. we do need that. we need the equipment now.

there will be waves of this. we know that. as far as the osha standard, we need a temporary emergency osha standard that requires hospital employers to use and hand out to the nurses and other health care workers the highest level of protective equipment. we know what we need. supply it. host: new york times with the headline, u.s. blocks many nurses and doctors ensnared by prevent them from working in hospitals where they are needed to respond to the coronavirus. mark on twitter asks, is there a shortage of nurses in america? immigrationve an policy that prioritizes medical personnel? time there has been such

a thing as a nurse shortage it has pretty much been engineered. it is employers that say there is one. unless nurses tell you there is a shortage, there isn't really one. what we have is limited ability to have the adequate number of staff that we need. why we have the racial law in california. nurses know how many patients they can safely care for at one time and they know according to their specialty whether i'm ,orking on surgical unit or icu i might need one nurse for one patient. in or i might need only one patient to a nurse. on a medical surgical unit i could maybe handle four or five. that is optimum quality care. when we operate on the profit principle, we are never going to get that because money is always

a motive. not the safety of the patient. not the safety of a health care worker including nurses, but always money. and this pandemic started, we started from behind. adequate supply of nurses always. there are people who want to go into this profession. it's very rewarding even in times of a pandemic. to you have to put your head the grindstone and admit public, help us. you know that there should be a standard that a nurse should not care for more than a certain number of patients and the nurses will tell you what that number is. here's mark in massachusetts. caller: i'm a caregiver. my late mother was an rn and i'm the middle son taking care of an

elderly father right now. being tolerant and being cared is a full-time job. me, inrse, my mom taught hospitals at home, it is 24 hours, seven days a week with an elderly father. morningrom 6:00 in the until 3:00 in the morning making sure everything she needs is cared for. us yet in thisit house. are under the dad effect that there's no virus inside of us. int: we will go to danny palestine, west virginia. wondering, the nurses don't have the right ppe

but yet they are out protesting with face masks on. where are they getting a face mask? host: which protests are you talking about? >> you are showing them on the tv. they are holding signs. they need the right ppe but at the same time they have masks on. ross, your response. >> most of the nurses are wearing bandanas and handmade masks. they have also been donated to us. as i mentioned before, when they are outside separated from each other like we require for physical distancing, they are sending you a message asking to protect you from them. and those masks are important. when the word came down that probably it's important when you out in public, when you go to the grocery store to please put a mask on, that is what you are

doing. you are caring for your neighbor. are caring for your fellow citizens when you do that. thereurses are out protesting, that is what they are doing. host: what are members telling about getting tested for covid-19? >> it's all across the board. we have a rather heart-wrenching story from one of our california nurses who was taking care of a covid patient. she exhibited symptoms and she was rightfully sent home for 14 days for self-quarantine. that doesn't always happen either. and the county because the county was administering the test agreed that she needed one. and then they came back and said something crazy like, if you had

the proper ppe that you couldn't have gotten covid so they weren't going to test her. so it depends on where you are. it depends on the county, it depends on your employer. this is what is sadly lacking in this country. the top no plan from as to who should be gets tested. they should be ramping up right .way at a minimum health care workers should be tested right now whether they are symptomatic or not. host: this just published by politico, bill gates makes coronavirus contribution. the bill and melinda gates foundation pledged $100 million in february and committed another $150 million on wednesday. 400total u.s. budget around to $500 million annually. this is bethesda, maryland. judy. go ahead.

caller: thank you. news -- masters nurse and i worked in the emergency room. i was 20 years in the emergency room. and i saw it all. [laughter] i'm now retired. making this phone call nurse andm a retired -- host: what's your question or comment for jean ross? comment is thank you, thank you, thank you. host: ok. what are some innovative ways that members are approaching this pandemic in terms of

treating patients or keeping themselves safe? >> it's really difficult for nurses right now. be able to comfort your patients. garbedre lucky you are appropriately. you try to limit your exposure especially if you're going in and out of one of those protective negative pressure rooms. that makes it more difficult. you're being told to save your equipment. i know there has been a lot of talk about sterilizing and reusing n95 masks. there hasn't been a method that we have looked at yet that says that is safe. it can degrade the material of the mask. it can degrade the filter in the mask. it can eat away at the elastic.

some of the chemicals stay in the mask and can harm you. even if theree is is equipment there to reuse it. that's not ok. thing that the nurses complain of most is what i've already mentioned, the protective equipment. but also the inability to do their job as well as they could if they could get closer to that patient. mind because those patients are so isolated, they can't even have family members there. the nurse is like the only family they've got. it's heartbreaking. nurses are not used to so much death. we have patients who die, but not so many in a shift in a day. it's very difficult. from mary is joining us hollywood, florida. why is there a competition between giving all

these masks to the different hospitals? don't the nurses give up their lives for us? why is this going on? their from your mouth to ears. please help. it is wrong. it's just wrong. but the whole system in this country in the health care system is wrong. it's just illuminated for everybody that it doesn't matter what state you live in. it doesn't matter what your gender is. what your nationality is, your ethnicity. no no bounds and if you are in an unfortunate, let's say you are black. we just saw the statistics. even things we knew before. it wasn't just nurses. we knew that certain groups were not as successfully treated as others and we know why. lobby for to why we

things outside of health care. to help people in these ascumstances not be effective as the rest of us are. host: francis is in troy, ohio. caller: good morning. comment is i want to thank all the nurses. i was a nurse for 28 years and i'm retired. i'm an old lady. but anyway what i'm thinking ,bout is the thing about it is they are putting out another thing with the congress and one thing that's holding it up is the republicans are not agreeing that some of that money should be going to the nursing staff and the health workers. and that's what's holding it up. it,small businessman need too. but the nursing staff, they need it also. host: jean ross, what's your understanding of how much money has gone to medical

professionals, nurses in particular in the spending guest: i do not know that there has been anything carved out with his back to that. i agree that most of the money should be going to people who cannot work right now. as difficult as this has been for us as nurses, not just nurses and healthcare workers, look at grocery workers. look at those people who are considered essential. my son works in a grocery store six or seven times per week. that money should be geared to that, absolutely. as i mentioned, there is some sort of talk about bonus pay for healthcare workers. keep in mind as difficult as it is for us, we are earning an income. moreof us need