of the virus in their districts and actions congress is taking in response. ♪ host: good morning, everyone. we are going to begin this morning with the latest numbers on the coronavirus pandemic. nearly 47,000 deaths in the united states's. we want to talk with all of you this morning that have been impacted by covid-19. if you are personally affected, (202) 748-8000. if you have a friend or loved one in fact it, -- infected, (202) 748-8001. medical professionals, your line this morning is (202) 748-8002. you can also join the conversation if you text us at your first003, with

name, city and state, or you can orto twitter, @cspanwj, facebook.com/c-span. i want to begin with governor governoromo, them -- of new york yesterday, he talked about working with other states to help find and confine those with the virus. [video clip] >> 25%, 30% of the workforce that comes into new york city comes from outside new york city to work. who is supposed to trace me, westchester or new york? if i turn up positive, yeah, my residence in his -- is in westchester county but i worked in new york city and i would have contacted many more people in new york city than i did in westchester.

city,ork in new york that's when contacting people. i workedn suffolk, but in new york city. i'm a police officer who has a work in rockland, but i new york city. i'm a firefighter that lives in rockland but i work in new york city. i live in new jersey but i work new york city. i live in the city, but i work in connecticut. right? these interconnections, if you are going to do these tracing operations, you cannot do it your own county. you will quickly run into people who are crossed jurisdictional. so, understand that going in, blur the governmental jurisdictions. they don't really make sense. put everybody together, work together. have you been impacted by covid-19? we want to talk to you this lovedg, or if you have a

one or family member who has contracted the disease. marvin, philadelphia. who of your family and friends has or had covid-19? caller: two of my cousins. , they was living in new york city, but they survived it. did they have to go to the hospital? what was it like for them? cousin said she had to go to the hospital and felt like it was -- she was ready to die. she started using asthma medicine, they just told her to walk home. so did my other cousin, when he went back to pittsburgh, he was down for like six days or something like that and he started, every time he lost his breath he would use the asthma medication to work them through. he, did he get the

asthma medicine from a doctor? did they have it on hand? caller: he didn't get it from a doctor, he got it from a store. it was like a vaporizer or something. he said he added a tough time breathing every time he went under and he just started fighting it, i guess, i don't know. at the time when he caught it, this was before the pandemic even like, before they started shutting down the country, you know what i mean? weeks before they started shutting down the country. host: do they know how he contracted it? was in new york, she was in new york. they got it from someone down there. when he went back to pittsburgh, he's a construction worker, so he worked at the refinery that wentclosed down, but he back to pittsburgh and was down for like six days.

she ran a daycare. she was down for little while, to. host: did they infect others? caller: i don't know. host: were they able to get tests? caller: no. host: how do they know they had it? caller: that's just what they said they had. i don't know. they didn't get tested or nothing. they just said that they work through it. they said they felt like they were ready to die. the cold, the sweats. i don't know. host: when was this, what month? caller: this was like somewhere in the middle of january. host: all right. let's go to vincent, in the middle of january. instant has a loved one who has or has had covid-19, vincent? vincent, you are on the air, you have got to turn on that

television, just listen and speak through your phone. vincent, i'm going to put you on hold so that we can get this straightened out. in the meantime, let's show the viewers henry mcmaster, south carolina governor, noting yesterday that schools would be closed for the rest of the year because of the pandemic. [video clip] >> when i issue that order, to be next week, it will provide a number of things. one of them is flexibility for the district and for the superintendent and others involved, teachers, to allow for special-needs classes for children, perhaps some summer teaching of some kind, and other flexibilities that will allow them to do things that they need to do. help offset the threat that opening the schools backup would do.

also, we will encourage the school districts and the schools , the principles, the teachers, the parents and all involved to find ways to have graduation ceremonies. we have heard of a lot of imaginative, innovative plans as a part of american life. that's important to families and students as well. graduation, we understand that. we think it is very important. we will find ways that that can be accomplished. we know that is on the minds of everyone. republican south carolina governor henry mcmaster talking about shutting down the schools because of the pandemic. we are getting personal stories this morning. if you had covid-19, or if you have it now and are battling it at home, what is it like for you? if you have a friend or loved one infected. medical professionals this morning, we want to get your well.s on this as

bill is one of those medical professionals in norcross, georgia. go ahead. caller: first, i would like to say that i'm a pediatrician. i think this whole thing is overgrown. destroying the lives of children. , high seen teenagers school, they are falling behind in their schooling. areknow, the children who old enough to understand something but they are scared, they are not doing anything for them. so scared, they are not getting their babies theinated, not making sure children are getting proper medical care because they are afraid to go outside. this is not good for kids. it's terrible. get through the computer for the children with learning disabilities, again, not good.

children are not effective at all. what about the children who have asthma? caller: they are fine. children with asthma are fine. in fact, when they're having asthma attacks, they are not getting proper care because parents are scared to bring them to the office and have them checked out. host: how do you know if they are fine because -- when they have covid-19? i have diagnosed them with covid-19 and they were fine. under thein children age of 19 euros and the state of georgia. i fully applaud the governor for starting to change things. we will see what happens in a .eek or two if nothing happens, he will be right and everyone else will be wrong. this is our governor making an attempt to save our children. that's the most important thing. host: what do you make of the president yesterday at the

briefing reversing course, saying it's too soon for georgia governor camp -- governor camp to reopen the state? kemp to really mistake? caller: may i speak now? he's not a doctor, he's a builder. he doesn't understand that we are destroying the lives of children. what governor kemp is doing is trying to make an attempt to get things back to normal so that our children's lives, physical or mental, get back on a normal routine. host: got it. beaumont, texas. who do you know that has covid-19? grandfather,e a he's a truck driver and he went on a truck trip. he's in good health, works out and everything. he came back here and he got

sick. room.t to the emergency they said he had pneumonia. he went back home and got worse. then they said he had the virus. he's back home now and he's doing good. what did he tell you about what it was like? eight he was aching cap -- he was aching, paining. host: fully recovered? caller: he's getting around. thank the lord. how many weeks would you say that he was inflicted with the disease? you know, unable to operate like his normal self? caller: weeks.

isolated. host: do you know if he had anybody around him that could have been affected or was caller: not that i know of. his wife said she was tested and said she didn't have it. i guess he got on the road when he was driving. sonja, pennsylvania. good morning. -- host: sonja, pennsylvania. tell us your story. year's i was in miami and then around january 15 , the weekend of the 15th i was down in tampa. year's, sorry,ew for the super bowl for my birthday i went down to hollywood, florida. well, when i was in new york i was fine.

ok? and i normally always suffer from sinus infections, but when i got to florida i developed a cough and it was really bad. i always have a little cough. i have non-hodgkin's lymphoma. my birthday, my parents took me down to miami. like i said, to hollywood, florida. illuary 6 i was so deathly that my parents took me -- i'm a veteran, they took me to the v.a. hospital in miami. i told them not to come back with me because i knew it would be a minute and they took me to the back room and they gave me an x-ray. basically to get a cat scan. it was freaking me out. the last time this happened i got diagnosed with cancer. they said i had a severe upper respiratory infection.

they gave me a patent medicine that was absolutely remarkable because a got rid of the cough i have had all my life. it was kind of weird, everywhere i was has now come down with corona. even then, they were calling it a flulike, sars like, h1n1 novelty like. even though china at that point was already talking about coronavirus, they were not using that word when you saw the doctors? caller: no, ma'am. not at all. when i went down it was super bowl sunday and we were thinking, should we go? but we couldn't get a refund, so we went. host: has it been confirmed? the v.a. will not

confirm it at all, but i have the discharge papers and i have the wording on it. i could send you a copy. host: did you go home to ride it out? weler: my dad is a veteran, stayed in the hotel, he didn't want to go to the v.a., so all the medicine that i got, he got, my mom got him like the over-the-counter versions. but i'm the one that got sick. i got better within four days. my dad, he stayed sick for like two weeks. but my mom never got it. my dad had tonsils and i think they make a difference. i have tonsils, too. barbara, i got stuck,

georgia. barbara? you, too, also contracted covid-19? caller: yes, i did. host: when and how? caller: for my 60th birthday my children sent me on a cruise. they went with me. i came back and i had this horrible cough. couldn't breathe. doctor for times and he kept telling me i had bronchitis. it wasn't bronchitis. for the whole month of march all i did was cough. i couldn't stop, i couldn't breathe. they told me to keep taking my asthma medicine. i'm on three different ones.

they gave me something to stop the coughing and they gave me cough syrup, for a whole month to be like that. host: you were never tested? caller: they would not test me at all. host: because why? caller: they didn't have a test. host: they didn't have one. caller: correct. host: could you go get tested now to see if you have the coulddies? caller: i probably go get tested now. but it's like a thing where you have to sign up. my daughter did sign me up. but i never got a response back from that. eleanor, colorado springs. you have a friend or loved one? caller: yes, a friend of mine died yesterday from the covid virus. host: i'm so sorry. sister was his

friend, said he had a hard time breathing when she spoke with him. the family had to step in and bring the police. home, they were trying to hide it, wouldn't let the family see him. he got to the hospital and was diagnosed with it and yesterday he passed away. do your friends family think that it was because he didn't get proper care? i'm not sure, i haven't talked to his family directly. this is just my sister passing me the information. wouldn't allowe the people to check on him because they noticed he was having a hard time breathing and we kept pushing and got him to the hospital and he was diagnosed with the covid-19 virus. host: front page of "the wall

street journal," "senior homes struggling to get the testing confront to outbreaks." kim, louisiana. when and how did you get the disease? by 21 days of march i was out sick, in the flu, as with the flu, in the emergency room with respiratory pneumonia. they tested me in the hospital. my family doctor said it was the flu, but i've had the flu before. , it respiratory pneumonia was something i had never experienced before in my life. i'm 62 and i thought i was going to die. i had to go to the emergency room that night. tamiflu, thethe z-pak, some pet of antibiotic is really strong that had crazy

side effects. that was about 21 days in march. host: you did not have to be intubated, be on a ventilator, none of that? caller: this is before they were testing. especially in the small town i live in. i have the antibodies and i guess eventually i will get checked for it. host: have you looked into how you will get checked? yet.r: i haven't i have some good contacts that i can check out. i can find out how to get tested, i just haven't yet. i'm trying to let this all died down some, you know? all right. raymond, who do you know has or had covid-19? caller: three of my friends.

[indiscernible] my pastor died yesterday. it's terrible. i also had two friends before that in the hospital, they had to put them in a coma. right now my wife has problems. but she to the doctor doesn't meet the criteria. they wouldn't give her a test.

so i don't know. [indiscernible] in detroit the police commissioner and his wife, their daughter, five years old died. [indiscernible] raymond there, southfield, michigan. more of your calls, coming up. first this moment from yesterday's white house coronavirus task force briefing, making the front pages of the newspapers. here is how "the washington post," puts it. "scientists can speak as long as they told the line. here's the moment from the briefing. [video clip] a good jobo has done

for us, dr. robert redfield, misquoted about the media. talking up the fall season and the virus. totally misquoted. spoke to him, he said it was ridiculous. he was talking about the flu and corona coming together at the same time and corona could be some flareups that we will take care of. we will knock it out fast. that's what he was referring to, coming together at the same time. rather than waiting, i would ask dr. redfield to come up and say a couple of words to straighten it out. explosion.ay big the headline from "the washington post" was totally inaccurate. the statement wasn't bad, but the headline was ridiculous. as i say, it's fake news. crazy,fake news like they had the wrong story, they were asked to change it and they wouldn't do it. it was false. that theuoted you

assault of the virus will be more difficult than the one we just went through. when i said this to others, they didn't understand what i meant. we're going to have a flu epidemic and coronavirus epidemic at the same time. is that what you said? >> that's what i was trying to say just a minute to go the issue i was talking about, about being more difficult, is we will have two viruses circulating at the same time. the spring that we just went through, we had the benefit of having the flu season ended. we could use all of our flu surveillance systems to say that this is coronavirus. next fall and winter we are going to have two viruses circulating and we will have to distinguish between which is the flu and which is the coronavirus. the comment i made is that it's more difficult. doesn't mean more impossible. doesn't mean more, as some have

said, worse, it just means difficult because we have to distinguish between the two. what i wanted to do and what i want to do again here is appeal to the american public. they can really help with mitigation. i need them to help now to best prepare us by getting the flu vaccine and taking the flu out of the picture. you may not even have corona coming back, just so you understand. >> that's the quote from "the washington post," you were accurately quoted? >> i'm accurately quoted in "the washington post." >> followed up by dr. fauci saying that we will have coronavirus in the fall. take a look. >> when you look at an outbreak, opposingdynamic forces each other. if you leave the virus to its own devices, it will take off if you do nothing to stop it.

if you put into place the kinds ,f things that we talk about first containment and then hopefully you don't get the mitigation but containment is important, those forces will determine whether you have a big outbreak. what dr. redfield was saying, first of all, is that we will have coronavirus in the fall. i am convinced of that because ofthe degree transmissibility it has, the global nature. what happens with that will depend on how we are able to contain it when it occurs. what we are saying is that in the fall we will be much better to do the kind of containment compared to what happened to us this winter. host: dr. anthony fauci, yesterday. we are getting your personal stories about battling covid-19,

whether you have battled it yourself, you had a loved one or a friend who battled it, or you are a medical professional. amy, new york. do you know when you contract that it? caller: -- contracted it? i was exposed to my doctor in new york city on march 30. sorry, march 9. he died on march 30. . wasn't told by then i tried to find out if that's why he died. i called the hospital he was affiliated with, len exhale. they were not able to find out. i called my personal family dr. this last week to try to get an antibody test. i haven't heard back yet. minor.had some symptoms, loss of taste, things like that. but i'm not concerned because i didn't have severe reaction.

but i would like to know. my status. i'm very upset that the doctors office lied to me and told me that he did not die, that he did not have coronavirus when i spoke to them, when i got the news that he died a few weeks ago. host: what have you been doing to protect yourself and your loved ones around you? caller: my background is science. i have a masters in teaching chemistry, which is the same realm, but i'm still very scientifically minded. i have been very careful since mid february. of this sinceare january. stop going to restaurants of my friends in february. stop going to times square, to airports. to big arenas. movie theaters. weeks, andast few

before, i think the general population got on board, just staying away from people. not writing public transportation. wearing a mask and gloves. trying to stop the cross-contamination when i come home. just growing -- going to the grocery store once every two weeks. on not to put a strain manhattan and the people out there doing their best to help us. that's what we need to do. i'm very alarmed that people are still gathering and not practicing six feet physical distance along both sides of the river, central park. i went to the grocery store this past wednesday, at my trader joe's. they had a deep clean on tuesday. i figured i would be better off. i was there an hour early, could get in and out.

just needed a couple of things, but i was alarmed waiting online and in-store that people come right up next to you. i had a big sign on the front and back of my winter coat, because it was 37 degrees when we were waiting in line that , sixautoimmune condition feet please. people still come right up to you. who? other customers? people working there? caller: no, not people working there. inside the store, other customers. this was during the hourly time for seniors and people with underlying conditions, like myself. i'm 59, going to be 59 . that was why i was there. workon the street, when we spreading quasi-six feet

, people passing on the street, they are coming like inches away from you. i would turn my back, of course wearing a mask, and when i got outside i saw people, most in manhattan are wearing masks, but i do still see people not wearing masks, going out for their morning coffee, drinking their coffee, eating the whatever that goes along with it. it's totally exposed. i just don't understand, i don't understand why they don't just wait until they get home intricate or whatnot. have anven that you underlying condition, why do you think you only have mild symptoms? caller: i didn't have the respiratory signs like a dry cough. you know, the trouble breathing. i just had, i did have a runny nose and a sore throat for three weeks.

like i said, i lost my taste. whichle bit of brain fog, i think that is getting better. i just wasn't incapacitated like i see and hear in the news and reading,sion and just you know, cdc reports, medical reports and stuff. my temperature twice a day. a friend of mine, when she heard that i lost my sense of taste, it was short-lived. high temperature didn't go above 98. i check my eyes every day. in the beginning when people thought they had it and later had it, they had this red corona hayes on the whites of their

eyes -- haze on the whites of their eyes. calling my parents in florida, i would facetime with them to make sure that i could see their eyes. host: understood. kirkland, washington state, where we saw the first patient. julie, who did you know that had the virus? >> i have nieces, nephews, in-laws, brothers, and sisters all infected. i have over 40 relatives and six different homes in the seattle the agel infected, from of two up to the age of 56. host: why so many, do you know? caller: one niece got coughed on in a grocery store and was sick three days later. it, herracted relatives, her children, her husband, it spread. it spread so much, it was

amazing how fast everyone caught it. just a home, people. stay home, wash your hands. it's all i have to say. today,n washington members of congress, some of gathering for legislation and the latest economic relief bill passed by the senate on monday. today is the vote in the house. they will gavel into session at 10 a.m. right here, you can watch the debate as it unfolds. this is the 320 billion for the paycheck protection program. $60 billion for small lenders and community financial institutions. $60 billion for the disaster loan program. $25 billion for testing.

yesterday we talked about the members voting on proxy voting that would allow one member here in the capital to vote for other members unable to attend the vote. they are now not going to have a vote on setting up proxy voting. -- decidedy started to form a bipartisan committee to look into the possibility of proxy or remote voting. groupt bipartisan includes steny hoyer, kevin , mr. mcgovern, the rules chair, a ranking member of the rules committee, bill ofgren, congressman davis illinois. those members are looking into a change for inside of the u.s. capitol to deal with legislation.

many of them are talking about more coming down the line. how do they vote without all of them gathering here in washington, d.c. for that vote? watch our coverage here on c-span, as the debate begins at 10 a.m. eastern time today, in the house, over this economic relief bill. barry, boca raton, florida. who do you know that has covid-19 question mark -- covid-19? caller: i have a big following on facebook. i saw a post one morning of a friend of mine, she posted she had covid-19. i absolutely felt terrible. so, i just reached out to her in a private exigent i said are you ok and everything. she was really struggling

breathing. very depressed. i made it my business to comfort her through social media, in a facebook message, like three or four times per day to see how she was doing. was tracking her for like a week . she was struggling really bad. she didn't have to get a ventilator or anything. at a bj's. i asked her how she contracted this and she said through another coworker. so, like i said, she was struggling with it. i guess she took whatever the doctor gave her. she got better within seven days to eight days and she said to me, you know, i feel good. she practically recovered after 10 days, almost 10 days.

and then it seemed like on the 11th or 12th day, i asked how she was doing and she said i went back to work. i said to her, i don't understand. this is someone who was struggling really bad, six or seven days ago. i mean, 10 days ago, now she is back. i didn't understand. i asked what the doctor recommendation was. she said her doctor said she could go back to work after 10 days of whatever and i just didn't understand. she lives in colorado. i didn't understand how they could let her back to work after having this, after such a short amount of time. shouldn't she have stayed home more? host: i don't know, barry. barry, boca raton, florida. here is katie welch with this text --

host: the front page of "the washington post," they have the story about the group behind the protests.

host: rod, maryland, good morning to you. you know someone who has had

covid-19? caller: yes, good morning. downster and her husband in maryland are in a nursing home. what happened was she and her were having these fevers, they couldn't breathe and stuff. what happened was one of the ,ooks, they had kept people out except the people that wanted to cook, they worked in the nursing home and they contracted the virus and eventually died. now, he's in-law intensive care in a nursing home , in a hospital down there. it has not affected her as badly, but they both tested positive and i'm just hoping they can find some kind of way

to find a cure for what's causing this. bobby, spanish fork. you know someone as well? go ahead. right.'s exactly a young philippine lady, roman catholic. she traveled to australia, she's the major breadwinner for her family that lives in perhaps not in abject poverty, but extraordinary poverty. poverty that people in the united states it don't understand. she speaks perfect english, taught herself. unfortunately five weeks ago she was afflicted with covid-19. she has been engaged in an absolutely ferocious battle in intensive care, integrated on ventilation for five weeks. she cannot have roman catholic priests, the most important thing in her life, she can't have been near her.

she sent a cryptic message to me a few weeks ago. she said she was losing hope and didn't think she was going to make it. i got word from her doctor that she has shown slight signs of recovery, but is in no way stabilized. the key message here, obviously, we are requesting prayers for her, but the president, congress, and everybody involved has made stakes. the key that people need to focus on, in my opinion, and in the opinion of dr. navarro, the trunk go to guy on china, fight the real enemy, fight being metaphorically at this point, the cover-up, the insidious, despicable cover-up that has been engaged in from the get go by tyrannical red china. xi jinping's phony utopia is responsible for what's happened.

this needs to be called to the four. everybody needs to be aware that red china is not the friend of the united states. they have done this, they are the cause of this and they need to be brought to pay for this. host: what could the united states due to hold china accountable? caller: i thought about that yesterday with president trump, ,ith his bellicose statements saying that we will fire on iran . we will take them down. i think it is slightly cynical, frankly. he has done a phenomenal job,

the president has, in many ways. particularly these of the red china. but it's cynical to think that we would only respond militarily to iran. they arestroy them, nobody. when it comes to china, we don't see that. perhaps not quite as openly aggressive in the south china sea and the taiwan strait. they are doing the same thing, similar things. all the time harassing our , getting more bold in the attack. we need to send something , congress and the president. senator marco rubio needs to be compliments for his consistent denunciation of red china. to answer your question, some might say this is extreme, but i don't think so. i think it's going there

quickly. for decades we had embargoes against the soviet union, yuba, south africa. i think that the american people are going to increasingly that's that red china, where you go. it's just a question of how fast you get there. can't cutsaying we off trade with red china. yes, we can. to answer your question, i think we need to have a complete divestment embargo against red china. it's coming. understood. understood, bobby. giving blankary of checks for state relief. mitch mcconnell says that some problems are self-inflicted and they have floated bankruptcy for the states. here is phil murphy reacting to the statements.

[video clip] i would say two things in reaction, senator. i'm not sure you are watching and i suspect you are not. still a level of responsibility associated with that and i don't care what party you are in. encouraging, asked the sulli engendering, hoping for bankruptcies of american states in the midst of the biggest health care crisis this country has ever faced is completely and utterly irresponsible. secondly, as usual, he's dead wrong. that won't happen. we won't go bankrupt. you have my word. but you know what will happen? gut the living daylights out of america from the services we need right now. we will cut, cut, cut, and cut.

we won't go bankrupt. we will leave our citizens in the lurch at their most profound hour of need. we will leave people on the beach, alone, helpless. that is what will happen in new jersey. i might add it, senator, without having spoken to your governor, that will happen in kentucky. "bailout the states," any more federal aid should come with strict conditions. mcconnell's larger point is that "states should not get no strings cash --

cindy, edgewood, new jersey, you are neck. -- you are next. these people protesting, i'm disgusted with it. i have had three or four family members who have passed from covid-19. i had a mother, a daughter, and a father who passed in two weeks, they were a family. i had an uncle that passed yesterday. did these people realize how being out here can affect so many other people? if they lose family members the way i have lost family members? they will understand. this has got to stop. these people need to stay home. i have been out of work for a month. i have been in this house.

i have two senior citizens i'm trying to keep away from this virus. two of them are 90 years old and i have a mother who is 97. i am so upset about the whole thing. these protesters, i'm sick of it . you have a wonderful day. host: mabel, pontiac, michigan. caller: hello? hello? host: we're listening, mabel. caller: my name is mabel lynch. i lost my son to covid-19. host: i'm so sorry, mabel. caller: he was 54 years old. [indiscernible] i don't know how to say it. he was just such a wonderful son.

people say that donald was fully responsible. the president and his lack of leadership should be held accountable for the decisions for his delayed action. he did not do anything. his company, his friends, and his cronies got ,ogether and sold their stock put it into the ventilation. walks into face masks. bought into swabs, test kits.

host: hadi you know that? information i have investigated. i have relatives in the medical field. having gone through the past reports that were received back in 2017, i can share that. donald trump knew about it. with information that ie cdc back in 2017 have investigated. many of the things that we are experiencing, he knew about it long before. he made a deal with china. i'm wondering about ethnic cleansing and a lot of different things after i read some of the reports. host: may i ask, do you know how

your son contracted the virus? caller: no, we don't know. knowe not really sure, you , how this situation came about. son was very busy. he worked in the automotive industry. he did a lot of traveling. we are not sure how it all came about. host: i am so sorry for your loss, mabel. in hampton, new hampshire. linda, you had or you have opened 19? caller: i believe i have had the covid-19. in sections. i got very sick in the middle of february, came in contact with someone during vacation in oregon, came back sick. i got very sick. it started with a runny nose and then a scratchy throat.

it immediately went into my chest. had respiratory issues. i was told to stay home and not to go anywhere. medicated myself for eight weeks. it's getting better there now. just had a cough. constant itchy stuff in my throat. i had that issue going on and my business has been affected. that my parents and my we are stuckvirus, in our house with the virus and getting better. host: are you going to try to get the antibody test? caller: i would want to know if i had it or not. i sure will. if it helps people, i love that side of it. i'm just very fortunate that i survived it.

i'm 65 years old. i have never been as sick as i was. horrible, horrible. don't wish it on anybody. when you know you have it, you know you have it. my business has also been affected. i have a seasonal business and hampton beach. i have not gotten any calls. i have literally been here 33 years. --s also my home pretty home. pretty scared about that part of my life. this virus is deadly, deadly. my chest, even my speaking has changed. it's really a bad virus out there. people really need to take it seriously. albany, georgia, andy. what do you do for living? i'm 80 years old, now.

i have retired. i was in new jersey working at the bergen pines county hospital . 40 years ago this virus came came aroundntists to show us the same virus as here. donald trump at that time had casinos. he was not president. this virus has now come here for 40 years. so, we need a scientist. i'm pretty sure they are not all dead. to find 40 years ago how the virus came. now, these people on this paper , they have today go back 40 years ago and find what happened and how it came to the united states. all right, annie.

david, detroit, you had covid-19? caller: yes, i was just released last evening. host: were you tested? caller: for 30 days. drugs.heavily sedated at 1.i didn't know reality. my doctor said that when you are care, you can have intensive care myopathy. the thing that was kind of was the fact that they didn't move us around. . came home last night

well, david. you patrick? my mother-in-law just passed away this morning from the covid. host: i'm so sorry. caller: i got to tell you, i'm so outraged at the media line to the american people. we know who the macro biologist was. they identified her. my friend who worked as a critical care doctor for 19 years, she said she has never heard a greater tsunami of lies that have been perpetrated. the funeral homes in china were running 24 hours a day.

the number of deaths in china plus.timated at 300,000 20 million people, according to the telecom industry, have vanished. we need to end all relationships with china. not even nazi, germany would engage in what the chinese are doing right now. now they are going into countries and in hostile takeovers using distressed assets. we should forbid all relationships, all economic relationships posted by matt we will continue our conversation about covid-19 host: we will continue our conversation about covid-19 with gregg gonsalves, assistant professor of epidemiology at yale school of public health, , and later, "washington

examiner" senior commentary writer tim carney discusses proposals to me up in the economy. but first, some of the criticism the u.s. has had about the w.h.o. set a very world clear expectations for how every country must disclose data to protect global health. for example, article six says each state party shall notify the world health organization within 24 hours of all events which may cost a public health emergency of international concern within its territory. rules providesame that countries must notify the world health organization of any unusual or unexpected because events such as sars, they close genetic cousin of covid-19. that causes those rules also see how the counter should evaluate went to notify the w.h.o. of unknown

causes. we strongly believe the chinese communist party did not report the outbreak of the new coronavirus in a timely fashion to the world health organization. article six of the ihr, which was part of this reform further mandates that the state party, which includes china, shall continue to communicate to the w.h.o. detailed public of information, that means it is an ongoing obligation. even after the ccp did notify of the w.h.o. of the coronavirus outbreak, it did not share all the information it had it did not. report sustained human to human transmission for a month until it was in every province inside of china. it censored those who tried to warn the world in order to halt the testing of the samples and it destroyed existing samples. still has not shared virus samples from inside china

with the rest of the world, making it impossible to track evolution.e's i am making a legal determination of china's 's,herence to the ihr regulatory arm, clearly failed. we also gave the director general of the w.h.o. encouragement and the ability to go public when a member country was not following those rules. that did not happen in this case either. that is why we continue to insist this is an ongoing requirement for transparency and openness according to the w.h.o. rules, and the w.h.o. has responsibility to continue to enforce them today. the transparency, getting them right is critical to saving lives today and in the future. >> "washington journal" continues. host: gregg gonsalves, assistant professor of epidemiology at yale school of public health and also codirector at the yale school

of public health, discusses the -- "public health ownership, " what is that? guest: we work to interface public health and social justice, realizing that public health is not just a technical, work thatrea of publices publis law and advocacy all across the board. host: what are you focusing now on the pandemic? guest: we have been trying to do a couple of things. colleague has been trying to dig back into our nation's political history to figure out what the roots are of the current crisis, and to understand a path forward in this short-term in combating the covid-19 pandemic in the

united states, and also to understand what a better future could be for us. the other kind of work we are doing is local, with community groups who are serving people who use drugs, people experiencing homelessness, to figure out how to better get the state response that they need. also thinking about the role of incarceration in this pandemic and trying to weigh in with governors and directors of correction across the country to see the the light of lessening people in jail. epidemiologist, why are these groups vulnerable to this kind of disease, this outbreak? things we, one of the learn in public health school is that there are social determinants of health. is not just the virus or your immune system that

determines whether you get sick well. it determines whether you die from any disease, whether it is cancer, h.i.v. or covid-19. groups disproportionately being affected by the covid-19 pandemic are people who work in african-american counties, districts and tones, they are more likely to die of covid th theira counterparts in predominately white counties across the u.s.n, and we're seeing the homeless people imprisoned, people who use drugs, who are extremely vulnerable to the disease, because they don't have the luxury of doing what many of us are doing, like social distancing from home. if you do not have a home, it is necessary to do that. host: why are these groups particularly vulnerable?

is it their immune system, the environment they live in? guest: it is not your immune .systems let's talk about it one by one. if you want to social distance and you are homeless, where are you going to go? the most likely place you go to is a homeless shelter but those are covered in settings where people are jammed and where the transition of the virus is izzy. if you are incarcerated -- transition -- transmission of the virus is easy. on aou are incarcerated, daily basis, you are concentrated. , we seeenvironment people experiencing homelessness or people are incarcerated in, they are predisposing them to transmission of sars-covid2 there is homelessness, there is

untreated drug use. host: you recently wrote an article for the nation and "testing, testing, 1, 2, 3, testing." what is the status of the testing, key?why is it guest: if you are a pilot getting into an airplane and you couldn't see two feet in front of you, you probably wouldn't go speeding off the runway into the great beyond. what we are doing in terms of our approach to the epidemic is --, because we still have not scaled the testing to the necessary. we don't have a good idea of how the epidemic has spread across the united states. where and how many people are infected in any given town, city, or state across the nation. we have about 147,000 tests done for a day in the u.s., which totals to about one million per week. experts are saying we need to-3 million tests per week across

the united states -- 2-3 million tests per week across the united states. if we are going to get out of social distancing, we need to see sustained reduction in cases around the country in our states.and towns, and and before we opened the door to business, we need to know where the lingering infections are. the only way to do that is to shift from testing on the in hospitals and health care centers because of the shortages of tests, to testing out in the community. understand, if it is a it a site for, is lingering infections with them about? cannot do that exploratory

fact-finding work, which is howortant to figure out there could be lingering infected people in our communities, put them in isolation while supporting them through that period, but also talking to their contacts, people who they met in the past week or two weeks, to see if they are also carrying the covid-19. host: we test to see who has it. but then, how do we test to see who can be part of the reopened economy? how do we test for antibodies? explain how that works. guest: there are two kinds of tests in the context of covid-19, one is a pcr test 'sesigned to target the virus genetic material and unique fingerprint and say, you or i are infected with the sars coronavirus 2 and we should self isolate or we have severe

symptoms -- or if we have severe symptoms, go to an emergency room. the antibody test is about a past infection usually. we develop two types of antibodies in the course of a response to an infection like covid-19. one develops a couple of days after infection, igm. igg develops over a longer time course and lingers long past a sickness or infection might happen. the idea is that testing for antibodies, we might be able to say that you and i have been exposed to the virus, had the virus or recovered from it and itght movie in years to -- and it might be immune to it . studies have shown that only 5% of patients who had recovered had antibodies at all. conferoronaviruses

transient immunity that lasts a few weeks to a few months. virus, the original one that spread over the world a few years ago perhaps confers immunity, but we don't know where on the spectrum of immune protection the current virus is. the other thing is that these tests have not been evaluated by the f.d.a. yet. the companies internally validate these assays and put them on the market, but they can give us false positives and false negatives. they haven't been good in any substantial way to use in the substantial discussions we are having now about putting people back to work. so the antibody tests are not ready for prime time at this moment. host: gregg gonsalves is our guest, epidemiologist at the yield school of public health. if you live in the eastern part 202-748-8000,y,

202-748-8001,fic, and medical professionals, your line this morning is 202-748-8002. what do you make a rapid testing? do you trust rapid testing? guest: in my work, i don't trust, i verify. rapid testing needs to be caveated on the same reason we have been talking about antibody tests. you want to make sure that when you take a test at home, ready or not getting a false positive or false-negative. some of it has to do with sample collection. you don't recruit the sample in a particular way, you might not be able to get enough of to show you you are truly positive or truly negative. so again, we have known about

this virus for less than six months, we have had tests online for a little bit longer than that, and a little less than that. we need to vet these home tests in the same way that we do and we need to know that they work and they have high specificity and so that if you have a positive test, you know you are positive and if you get a negative test, you know that you are negative. to get aight need context where if you have a positive test, you have to go to a medical setting to know that you do have a positive test. host: we will go to john first in miami beach. good morning, you are on the air. caller: good morning. there was something that came out yesterday as a matter of fact, and it was that the

c.d.c. has just approved in addition to the one test it had approved earlier i think it was selig's, they just approved one manufacturer. there were two other manufacturers for antibody iests and in my opinion, think the antibody test, studies have shown that it could be from 3-30% of the population may have had a weak infection and not come down with covid-19. but there were three additional manufacturers that have just come out with tests just yesterday. guest: there are a lot of tests that have been given. the fda said, if you have evaluated them yourself, you can put them on the market. as far as i know, they have not been evaluated specifically by

the f.d.a. independently to validate their sensitivity. emptor for caveat deserting what he thinks and antibody test means given what we think and antibody test has. right now, there is a lot of uncertainty about the antibody testing. we shouldn't be jumping to any conclusions at the current moment. in new york, what is a question about testing? caller: california has a high homeless population. by definition, homeless people do not obey any of the rules. why aren't we seeing -- california's death rates should be a lot higher. they will not separate or do any protection or do anything. guest: so, many people

experiencing homelessness are concerned about their health, so we cannot make sleeping generalizations like that. the point is that we are seeing a certain number of deaths from hospitals, end up in in icus, and don't make it out of the icus. there is some sense that there are people dying at home but we are not hearing about, and if they are dying from the streets, we may not hear about that for some length in time. we are seeing in reported statistics may be an .underestimate we will not figure it out until we get further along in the epidemic. i think yesterday santa clara county reported to deaths from the virus early in february -- two deaths from the coronavirus early in february. upon further epidemiological investigation, it will add to

the current number of deaths coming into our health care systems, including from the homeless. host: a tweet from one of our viewers just as the number of antibodies varies from patient to patient, can the amount of virus very from exposure? can a person be more likely to die such as in a nursing home? guest: good question. the amount of virus you are exposed to might be a determining factor when they get infected with the coronavirus or you escape infection with it. yes, people carry different levels of the virus, at different points of disease. false-positive's in the context of pcr testing. even people with symptoms might not have enough recoverable virus in the sample that they have retrieved from their nasal passages to give you a positive test.

but if you have symptoms of the disease in the context of this pandemic, you probably should self isolate and keep an eye on their health, because the pcr test is also not 100% accurate in terms of the levels of false-positives it might offer in widespread testing. host: i want to show you what dr. birx in the white house coronavirus briefing said yesterday about proceeding with the guidance going forward for testing asymptomatic people. >> the state of california is now partially broken with the c.d.c. restrictions on who will get guidance on who will get testing because they want to test people without any symptoms at all in high-risk environments like a nursing home. the you agree with it? dr. birx: a not only do we agree with it was in all guidelines. i think we were the first group that said, testing is

symptomatic will be key. we have all had that, we think it is a significant contribution to infections. we went to the places where we thought it was the most critical to find cases the earliest. we have asked states in the guidelines to start with nursing homes, indigenous peoples, and people in underserved areas in cities to ensure we are monitoring for any type -- because we know that the asymptomatic piece might be the tip of the iceberg, in fact, the iceberg underneath the surface. but in parallel, we are working with states and local governments to define what that population is, by doing, in collaboration with states, working with them to reinforce this antibody testing but in a doreful way, where you dee antibody testing to increase specificity to the 99 plus range. you need to have a high-quality

test where you can really tell someone that they have had this before. we are waiting to have those two tests that we can do to really assure people. that was in the guidelines from the very beginning and we think it is fundamental both for right now and going through the fall, because that will be our early alert if any of the covid virus reappears. host: so, what did you hear that standsdr. birx out for you? guest: i heard two things that make sense, one is that we should be testing more widely, including people who may have mild infections or who potentially would have had asymptomatic infections but are in high-risk environments like apartment buildings, nursing homes, grocery stores. i heard her say that we need to get two antibody tests online to give us more faith in the results we see from them, and we're not there yet. what i did not hear is any

admission that governors, and statether local leaders are still crying out for more support for testing. while there may be enough of one component of the testing, the testing efforts in place, we are seeing shortages of swabs, p.p.e., the reagents that you need to mix up in the test tube to start the reaction to test for the virus. there has been no real plan articulated right now by the federal government to get us there. but governors and the mayors are saying, we don't have what we need to do this. the white house is saying, sure you do. your on your own, figure it out. i did not hear any leadership from dr. brooks on that best dr. burks -- from dr. birx on that. with the current level of

support from the federal government, to say that cities and states can do it on their own is not credible. host: another comment, why haven't i heard any link to the virus to genetics? some people get by with little problems and hard.ities get hit guest: as i was saying earlier in the program, there are a lot that,ctors that determine biological makeup, but also our social environment and our economic status. we are not going to know the genetic features of our immune systems or other parts of our physiological response to the , or our enhanced risk for a long while. said, isdo know, as i that african-americans have been hit hard by this disease.

i wouldn't look to buy a answer the question, i would look to to lookial justice -- at counties where we see weak public health structures, people subsisting on jobs that don't allow them to social distance in the way that none economically disadvantaged demographic populations might experience. some of the risks we are seeing among the african khamenei t have nothing to do -- we are seeing among the african-american community have nothing to do with race. if you look at the health indicators across the board, there has always been disparities on african-americans compared to their european-american peers. host: mr. gonsalves, what about what we eat? and who has access to certain foods versus people who can't afford or don't have access to

damian-boosting food? does that play a role at all? -boosting- to immune food? does that play a role at all? guest: i don't think there is such a thing as immune-boosting food. main point i would make is that somebody who isudies epidemiology disease that there is no such thing as immune-boosting foods. one thing that is important to think about in the context is nutrition. jobs, howe lost our are we going to put food on the table for our kids and our family in order to get through the next few weeks and months? access to food is more fundamental than even thinking about it in the context of whether it can boost your immune system or not. put food ont

the table, you are more likely to go back to work early or find odd jobs out of the house that allow you to break social distancing. so, making sure people have the additional support -- think of the food banks, think of the pantry.t the food that is not about immune-boosting food, it is about the necessity to put food on the table to feed your kids and your family. host: let's go to virginia in south carolina. caller: hello, thank you for taking my call. i was listening to your program about the effects that this virus is doing to the african-american race. that is a real concern. -- m wondering, host: we are listening. you are wondering if we want? if we: i am wondering isolate, weand

picking up the trash, cleaning the hotels, and we do a reverse thing, we let the people who can afford to stay in the home come out into those jobs. would it have the same effect? host: mr. gonsalves. guest: your caller is right on target, she is suggesting that african-american populations are predominantly in jobs that keep them from social distancing. working in grocery stores, they are doing work in hotels, they are doing work in public themices that don't allow to social distance and she is suggesting that if the shoe is andthe other foot, wealthier americans were doing these front-line service jobs, we would see more infections among them. it is actually true, and it leads us to the point i was earlier, that the risk

in african-american communities in terms of covid-19 is not about the virus or immune systems, it is above social and economic risks they are thrown into by virtue of economic and social circumstance. to have disparities we are seeing with covid-19 are exactly the same ones we are seeing in health across the united states in both chronic and infectious diseases. african-american and latino committees get hit hard -- communities get hit hard by health crises like this, as well as poor communities, such as in appalachia, where they are suffering from the opioid epidemic. economic and social circumstances often can determine whether you get sick or well, whether you get treatment or you don't get treatment. we are seeing that with the pandemic. host: nancy in pennsylvania, your question or comment about testing. ifller: yes, i was wondering

we could find out in any manner about the testing that is going on in our area, because i know for a fact that there is people coming up in the ambulance service or different things, and our numbers are not rising. is there a way the public can find out if we are getting any testing, much of any testing in this area, to really know the true numbers? people are afraid to go and get their appointments, regular to makethat they need sure that they are caring for themselves with their diabetic and bloodwork and things like that. thattesting is something we are going ahead with opening , and the testing has not been resolved to have more widespread testing,

especially when you have these people who are not symptomatic and they are going all around. we have incidents like tornadoes and people are all gathering, having to clean up after things like tragedies and andse unexpected things there is no testing for enough people to open up, when we know we might be spreading it by circumstances beyond our control. host: ok, i will have mr. gonzales jump in. guest: i agree with nancy 100%, we are opening up without knowing what is happening in communities. i would be talking to my local health department, my state health department, my governor, members of congress and to the white house and saying, where are the tests, because as they said, is like putting on a blindfold and getting in a car

and trying to drive on the highway at night. -- we cannot reopen our cities and towns until we know where the virus is out there in our communities? like everybody who is listening to your shell, like both of us -- listening to your show, and both of us, we want life to go back to the way it was, to go back to work and see our friends and family, but we want to do it in a responsible way and that will be linked to testing. otherwise, you are flying blind and you don't know where the risks are as you leave your house every day. not just to you, but risks to your family, your annalee parents or grandparents, people who may have -- to your parents or your grandparents, people who have chronic diseases. if you leave your house, you are walking into a situation filled with danger. if we had enough tests, we would be starting to understand what the risk is for all of us

as we leave the houses in the months or weeks ahead. host: first a lot in florida. caller: i would -- rusla in florida. caller: i would like to know buses.he plan is for guest: another good question. we need to think about infection control beyond p.p.e. remember, this is --[indiscernible] virus. it is not transmitted like tuberculosis through the air it, unlessll catch you are in very close proximity to somebody, but it is, if you cough or sneeze and leave some residue from those discharges on a car seat. asked somebody gets out of a taxi and you get into it, or

as somebodyr any -- gets out of a taxi and you get into it, or an uber, or any public environment. you could infect yourself. we need to think about how we clean.ur public services you go to grocery stores, we see them wiping down the cards, everyone is very masks, and we dividers at the checkout. as we open up, it is not going to be like in december or january 2020. we will have to invest in p.p.e. for the general public. here in connecticut, our governor and our mayor said, if you leave the house, you will be wearing a mask. they will have to think about how we are going to ramp that up in a larger way as we move into the next phase of confronting this epidemic, but also, decontaminating public places and public institutions

as people go back into them on a regular basis. until we know what our infections look like in the community, and we are sure that we have found our asymptomatics, isolated them and really put the virus under control. host: how long do you think that is, mr. gonsalves? guest: it is all contingent on the testing. right now we are in a holding pattern. the governors say and the cities say that we don't have have anyests, we don't nasal swabs, we don't have enough test tubes, who don't have th p.p.e. the white house is saying, sure do. until we get more tests out there, we will be in a holding pattern, unable to responsibly open up our states, towns and cities. we see georgia and florida rushing to judgment, texas rushing to judgment, which is imperiling residents in those states because they have no

idea what is happening out in the community. georgia in particular still has rising caseloads in the hospitals. i understand the desperation and the need and the desire to get back to work and school, get back to seeing the people we love. but until we have these tests online, it will be very difficult to open up responsibly without endangering or creating conditions for a virus.ence of the even if we do things really well, we could see this bias coming back in the fall as part of the flu season. and do you think your emergency rooms are overwhelmed? with the flu and coronavirus season together later this year -- we really haven't taken this should.ous as we ordinary americans are social distancing, doing amazing things, staying home and showing solidarity and generosity to each other. but we haven't seen the same in leadership in terms of the

healthg that local departments need for contact tracing and isolation of potential cases. carolinaame in north -- tim in north carolina. caller: good morning. i think with people being anxious to get back to normal, i think there will be a second wave of it. host: mr. gonsalves, a second wave if people try to reopen too soon. what does that look like? guest: we have been social distancing and helping our numbers down. think about opening up the doors and everybody running to the street with a percentage of those people carrying the virus unbeknownst to any of us. all of a sudden, we have more infections and we are putting them out into the public with others who are vulnerable to infection. we could see a return of the

virus in faces that do this without the guidance -- places that do this without the guidance of testing. resurgence.e a you will start to see cases beginning in the emergency rooms, in the icus and the hospitals. it is not rocket science. we have known this from basic public health for decades and decades. during the great influenza in 1918, the city of philadelphia decided to have its liberty day parade despite the fact they were in the middle of a flu pandemic. st. louis, missouri decided they would cancel public activities and parades at that time. philadelphia had one of the worst influenza pandemics during the 1918 great influenza while st. louis avoided that fate. we are asking states to do like st. louis, do the responsible

public health approach to infection control, and do your to get federal representatives on the ball with testing and providing the resources to do that. host: rick in florida. ?caller: are you a doctor may i call you doctor? guest: ethan kollie doctor, i am a ph -- you can call me doctor. md.m a phd, not an caller: you just said that there is no foot available to boost your immune system. with all the books behind you, how can you make that comment? do,st: what epidemiologists i don't treat patients, but i study data on disease, its causes and cures. what we do in our field is often about how you determine if a new drug, for instance, is safe and effective.

we use randomized control trials. we put one group on the treatment and the other group not on the treatment and then we see what happens over the course of six months or a year depending on the disease. that is how we evaluate the new treatments online for coronavirus whether it is hydroxychloroquine, that the president has been talking about. we do it in a scientific way to ensure we are not fooling ourselves. which is often what you see in medicine, is that somebody will get that are even without a treatment. if you talk to doctors who are working in emergency room's and icus now, some people are spontaneously getting better just because their immune system is able to fight the coronavirus. i have nothing against nutritional therapy or alternative, complementary medicines. i would say, put them to the same scrutiny that we do for medicines for cancer, for

h.i.v. and coronavirus. put them in a randomized, controlled trial and verified based on the evidence whether or not they work. i would say give them a fair chance, but right now there is scientific literature -- very little evidence in the scientific literature that immune-boosting foods will help you with the coronavirus. host: regard to frank in poughkeepsie, new york. caller: good morning, doctor. with sometimesrespect, i think you academics do more harm than good. since the initial inoculation of the population several months ago, there is a factor where people are getting the disease, going to the hospital and dying. , with time,carriers they get over the disease. doing that period of time,

there is a probability that they are infecting other people. however, it is a declining number. you can't disinfect everything. and the most important thing than an individual can do is protect yourself, all right? wear your mask, what your hands, carry some disinfecting wipes when you go to a restaurant, something that we are all going to want to do. you can't decontaminate everything. now, concurrently with that, certainly, testing is essential. restrict you can't your life and the economy while you are trying to do clinical trials. this is a war. in the military, we find it field-expedient. if we find something that

works, we experiment with it and we use it. if it doesn't work, we discard it. if it works, we use it in our arsenal on a case-by-case basis. that is a situation with this hydrochloric when. there is no doubt that it works best with this hydrochloric hydrochloroquine. there is no doubt that it works. it has been used all over metropolitan new york successfully in a proper fashion early on in the disease. so there will be some miraculous recoveries, but we are talking about numbers here. host: frank, the associated press has this headline from yesterday -- "more deaths and will benefit from malaria drug -- the drug you are referring ."o -- in the v.a. virus study mr. gonsalves, to his point about trying things, when you are in a situation. guest: i agree with the caller

that academics sometimes -- in what they are talking about, but for 30 years, since the late 1980's, i have been part of the response to the aids epidemic. i remember in the 1980's when people were desperate for new cures. people were mixing up concoctions in their bathtubs to try to fight the virus, and none of them worked. i understand the desperation, the hopes and aspirations tied to trying to find a way to cure or treat your friends and family and loved ones in the context of an emergency. i totally get it. what we learned from the aids epidemic is that just because a drug is helpful for one disease, like hydroxychloroquine in the case of malaria or lupus, does not mean it is effective for other diseases. we learn from history, from the wars against other diseases, that things can do more harm than good in the context of

clinical medicine. when we do not put them to the test in clinical trials. just yesterday, the national institutes of health recommended against hydroxychloroquine. the v.a. study suggested people did worse on hydroxychloroquine than they did on the standard supportive care. so i am a big proponent of pushing through the critical stuff possible when learning new treatments and offering expanded access to experimental agents to people who have no other recourse. but it is russian roulette in a certain sense. people say, what do i have to lose? as i said, many people may recover from a severe bout of coronavirus without any help at all. makew drug could things worse than nothing at

all. host: there is also a new study out looking at patients in new ofrk that found that 88% covid patients on ventilators died. what do you think, as an epidemiologist, what does it say about the disease? , it is hardn't know to comment on without the data in front of me. by people who go on ventilators are in severe respiratory distress. this means, from my perspective, i hate to circle back to the testing, is that there is a whole set of people that could be in that situation down the road from a resurgence of the virus if we are not careful, moving ahead in a planned, organized fashion. your previous caller was a war footing for the coronavirus.

in war, you use intelligence to figure out where the enemy is. in this case, we don't know is.re the enemy the people who will suffer most are people who are over 55, 75 and 85, people with underlying conditions like obesity and diabetes, and people with immunodeficiency diseases could end up on these ventilators and never get off them. which is why if we reopened the economy, which we are all a go to do -- nobody wants to see us shot-in for months or weeks on end, we just need the testing to guide us through this moment, to make sure we will not send more people to the icu because we decided to reopen our states, cities and towns early without the guidance of that intelligence, that military intelligence that we need against this viral foe. host: assistant professor of epidemiology at the yale school of public health , we thank you for your time this morning. guest: thanks for having me.

host: breaking news on unemployment numbers from "forbes," another 4.4 million workers filed unemployment claims as the labor crisis deepens. total unemployment at 26.4 million people who have lost their jobs. we are going to talk about reopening the economy up next with "washington examiner" senior commentary writer tim carney. but first, yesterday, the president and the first lady dissipated in a treeplanting ceremony on the south lawn of the white house in celebration of earth day. here are some remarks from the president. 80 obama pres. trump: we celebrate that america leads the in environme, which is so true. i see the love and devotion that so many people like, give., like you we continue to have among the cleanest air and cleanest water

anywhere in the planet earth. we are also honoring our country's heritage of conservation, including through the support of one trillion trees, that is the want trillion tree initiative, which is a very big deal. we will be planting of a a period of time, one trillion trees. that is a lot of trees, kevin. how do we do that? do you have any ideas? >>[indiscernible] pres. trump: that is great, that will be exciting. as a sign of our dedication, in a few moments, the first lady and i will plant a maple tree. wherever the tree is -- where is this tree right now? that is a beautiful, straight trunk. that is a aaa tree. that's great. as our nation grows stronger in the years and months to come -- and we will, edgar, stronger than ever -- bigger and stronger than ever before --

with the concept of the states , su an incredible spirit this, tree will stand tall and beautiful for future generations looking at it and they will wonder, i wonder who planted that tree. and we will say, it was karen and david and mike and the whole group of other people. we really appreciate it. they will be admiring this tree and admiring nine more trees. we are planting 10 beautiful specimen trees. all specimens. people may think that is an exaggeration or a trump term. they are actually specimens. they cost more money. i buy a lot of them. ♪ "washingtonwa journal" prime time, a special evening washington journal on pandemic.avirus up next, a governor joins us to discuss the covid-19 response in his state. and historian author and

commentator doris kearns goodwin will talk about her 2018 book, "leadership in turbulent times are: join the conversation tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. ♪ >> "the presidents" just paperback, provides the biographies of every president, organized in ranking lower much cited historian survey. visit c-span.org/the presidents and order your copy today, or wherever books are sold. journal" continues. us,t: tim carney is joining he is a senior political columnist for the "washington examiner, here to talk about proposals for reopening the economy. let's begin with the unemployment numbers, 4.4 million people filed for unemployment this week,

bringing the total to 26 million. euros thoughts. guest: -- your thoughts. guest: this is what we thought would happen. it is absolutely devastating. there will be whole neighborhoods where most people are out of a job. and that has obvious ripple effects, where they are unable to spend an a drive down consumer spending and further hurts the economy. but the hope is that it springs back. we turn this all off like a light switch sometime in mid-march, but it will not be easy to spring back. what congress has been trying to do is send a bunch of money to these employers so they can keep people on payroll. obviously, that has had limited success. that means be small businesses staff.aid off their when you get to the point where you're allowed to reopen your dry cleaner or your chinese

restaurant, you don't have the employees anymore, so it takes a long time to ramp back up. you might have to recruit. those employees might have moved to be with family or someone else. so those unemployment figures are not going to just reverse when the crowd -- the cloud of this virus gets lifted. host: when is the time to reopen the economy? we have states across the country with different plans, phases we have some trying to reopen right now. what makes the most sense? guest: i am glad you asked that question. there is not one answer. a good starting point would be colleague, scott gottlieb, former head of the food and drug administration, he wrote a paper that describes multiple phases of this whole effort to battle the virus. phase one is broad lockdown in every state. is a steady opening up of more things, not

everything, and not back to normal. that is where we have more broad-based testing than we have now, a more steady decline in the number of new rates. he says if we go to the weeks with new cases going down then you open up. but here is the thing, we have sort of hit international plateau in the number of cases. we may have just hit a plateau in the number of deaths, but there are still going to be places where it is still getting worse, such as montgomery county, maryland, where i live where it looks like new cases are still bigger each day than it was before. so some places, ironically, places that have already been hardest-hit, those will open up earlier than places that haven't been hit yet, because it has to be case-by-case. we will not just flip it back on. you can open more outdoor

places and allow more outdoor activities would be the first thing, open other businesses but still keep everybody six feet apart. prevent long-term exposure with two people in the same indoor place for half an hour or 45 minutes. sit-down restaurants indoors, it may be a long time before they reopen. we have to look for a sustained reduction in the daily number cases, make sure the hospital systems will not be overwhelmed if we get a little bounce back up, that is another key. then if we start to open up, start with the slowly safer activities then progressively get back to normal. phase four is back to normal. that might be fall or later. host: we have divided the lines this morning two ways. one, if you are for reopening your state economy, we want you to dial in at 202-748-8000. if you think it is too soon to reopen, dial in at 202-748-8001.

also text us your opinion with your first name, city and state, at 202-748-8003, or go twitter@cspanwj or facebook.com/c-span and we can read your comments there. we heard from mitch mcconnell and others, leaders in the senate saying, they are reluctant to give states money. you have heard from governors saying come we need the federal government to step in, $500 billion to help us out to cover the cost of dealing with the pandemic. what are your thoughts on giving states money? you have heard the leader of the senate and others say, we are going to bail out states like illinois or michigan who have had pension troubles with no accountability, and they are not for that. guest: it is a bit of a quandary because we want all the money being sent out the ,door being spent by congress as our taxpayer money, we want

it to address the problems created by the virus. specifically, as i have written in a couple of "washington examiner" pieces, this money should be thought of as saying, we in the central government needed you guys to shut everything down. so we are going to compensate you for the shutdown. but whether you're looking at states like illinois that have been widely overspending, irresponsible pensions, just nearly insolvent, or when you look at companies like boeing who have had problems of their own making because of the airplanes the manufactured that crashed just by pilots trying to fight it, these are entities that were already in trouble. and they come asking for an extra bailout, we are thinking, wait a second, are you just seeing the virus as an opportunity to catch up your problems? i am trying to explain mcconnell's thinking. the other hand of it is, this is a really bad pandemic.

state governments are spending a lot of money to try to fight it. may be now is not the time to sort of be giving a moral lecture to irresponsible state governments. i understand his argument, but i also come added from the perspective of, you could try to enforce some accountability to make sure this money is the pandemic's response, make sure that they stop their irresponsible activity. so i understand where mcconnell is coming from, but i also don't think now is the time to be stingy. host: maria in new jersey, you think it is too soon to reopen the economy. tell us why. caller: it is too soon to open up, because i have a back ground in respiratory care and i noticed in my patients, when i was working -- i am retired now -- would have recurring illnesses.

so i am concerned about the fact that you could come down with the covid-19 virus again and thereby infect more people. and until we have testing that can show us where the hotspots are and tracing to find out how to contain it, i am very concerned that if we open up to early, we will be in a very -- if we open up too early, we will be in a very precarious situations. host: lewis believes we need to reopen the economy, in kissimmee, florida. why? caller: it boils down to the fact that the longer we keep ourselves closed off, more and more people will be without jobs. and if they don't have an income, how are they supposed to actually take care of their families in other ways, such as buying food, for example? i feel like this is very dangerous way. it is getting us to head towards a direction where there

actually will probably be more deaths because of starvation, just there would have been with the covid alone. host: your thoughts. valid: i think it is very to worry about the lockdown its health harming people beyond just the virus. year,ook i wrote last "alienated america," was about how people suffer from being isolated. and this was before the lockdown. but things like suicides, drug overdoses, alcohol-related deaths, even people just descended into a bad health -- overweight, diabetes -- and dying from those, those are problems that are greatly exacerbated by loneliness and isolation. to the degree that this lockdown is itself causing more

people to be more lonely and more isolated, the lockdown will also cost lives. i think i'm a and we don't have proof of this, i think the -- and we-- i think don't have proof of this -- i think the lockdown will save lives. wearing masks in public will save lives. we need to make sure we have less people stuck in a crowded room with other people upon extended period of time, if we can avoid that, that would be the best way to avoid the spread. that gets back to the first question, which is, to what infectedan somebody develop some immunity to it? that is a huge question. this virus did not exist in humans before five months ago, four months ago. so now, we are costly learning more about it. it is interesting, from a scientific perspective, the hypotheses, the tests of those,

that is a scary thing for us because we don't know how this virus will change over time, so we don't know to what extent there will be reinfection. but i do agree that we have to worry about the human -- deaths from extended isolation. what i would focus on is what can you do to allow more people to break out of their homes, break out of isolation but that itself is not also very risky. one thing might be outdoor activities that can be communal that do not involve touching or it mightbut outdoors spread less and so let people have more social interaction to break down on our roaming. then there is the economy part of it and the hunger. let as many people get back to work as possible. that would allow the federal government to get more money out

the door to the people who cannot get back to work and get that money out quickly. in chicago, with as little testing as we have done, opening up will help the virus spread. the administration has proved this is political. referring to the front page story in the new york times, the official who led the federal agency involved in testing said on wednesday that he was removed after a press for rigorous vetting of hydroxychloroquine, an anti-embraced by the president. thiss abruptly dismissed the deputymoved as assistant secretary of preparedness and response. ohio, you say ohio.

why? caller: truthfully, if you sit in the house by yourself when you are lonely, my husband passed away so i am by myself all the time, i can get out and walk around the park and get outside of the house. i know what it is for me but i i had i imagine that if small kids in the house and you are telling me that they cannot go out in the yard and play, that scares the daylights out of me. you are confining these children to stay in the house. them goingching outside and playing is not something you should ever want to do which is a shame. everyone should be out enjoying this country. that means get in the car and go to the park. that means taking your kids for a walk around the park. what is so wrong with that that you have to stay in the house completely isolated? you cannot

even though to the grocery. , they are in new york telling on people if they get together with their kids in the yard. give me a break. this is the united states of america. we were built on families and we are destroying our families because more kids are being abused. more wives are being abused. it scares me that governors like the one in michigan will not even let you buy seeds to plant your garden. she told me i could not plant my seeds, i am sorry. that is un-american and it scares me to death that one woman could tell me that i cannot plant. i do not live in michigan. host: thank you for the call. tim carney, your thoughts. guest: just to clarify couple of things, i agree that people need to get outdoors.

being home alone is bad, it is mentally upsetting. it is offensive to our freedom. it is bad for your health. that said, if you do have a backyard, no one is stopping you from playing in your backyard. i am in maryland. i am blessed with a backyard and my kids play in it plenty. lots of stays with a stay-at-home order have an exception for exercise which i think is very important where you can go out and walk around. unfortunately many states are closing down the parks and beaches and that would be best for taking a walk spread out from somebody. there was recently an outrage in big-city media that beaches were reopening in florida. when you look at it, you realize a beach is the widest walking trail in america. in new york, they are going on the west side highway where the

trail is eight feet wide. that will be more crowded than a beach which is hundreds of feet wide. i agree, people need exercise. some of these governors are really overreaching. larry hogan i think is doing a very good job. outdoorof the activities exhibited to only i amise, that means if sitting alone on the bank of extreme with nobody around me that that is technically prohibited unless i am doing it to feed my family. if i wanted to catch and release, that would be prohibited. is someinction governors are prohibiting activities that are unessential even if they have no reason to believe that it is unsafe. sometimes some beach activity would be unsafe. some fishing activity on a really crowded. , would be- pier unsafe.

if i made it likely that someone would have to rescue me, that would be unsafe. the governors will move toward an action where they say this activity which may not be totally essential is at least safe so go ahead and do it. whitmer, youetchen can plant your seeds. plant them now before it is too late in the spring. what she does is shut down garden isle of stores like home depot or walmart or a store like that. don't wantg is, we you going to the store unless you are there to buy something essential. in practice it is a condescending sadism that keep you from going out and shopping in that aisle. i do think gretchen whitmer has overreached and she is limiting activity without any reason to think that that activity poses a

significant risk of spreading the virus. that is the first step that i hope governors would start rolling back now is allowing , madamtivity even if you governor, do not believe it is essential. host: rob in missouri. too soon to open up the economy. why is that? caller: good morning. i think that we need to listen to the epidemiologists and doctors and healthcare workers on the front lines. where peopletime who follow conspiracy who think we are in a lockdown police state spreading hysteria, that may be common. what we need our leaders with one voice like our mayor quentin lucas who is making sure that he is following the advice of the doctors. they are doing that around here.

nobody is complaining that we are in a police state. there was a small protest but it was insignificant. what we need our leaders with thingice, not saying one one day and saying another thing another day. we do not need media like fox news who minimize the effects of this virus. they are spreading fear, hysteria, conspiracy. i think that is what we need to cap down on. we need to make sure that we don't let that happen because it is not helpful. we need more testing before we do that. drea int's hear from maryland. go ahead. caller: i think it is too soon to open up the states because one, we are not even ready for phase one. wheree not been 14 days

the deaths have been down. death rates are going up. people having the illness are going up. now household pets are getting coronavirus. we don't know exactly what causes it. we don't know how it is spread. we don't know who has it. i am outside every day getting exercise. we can go out and exercise. people are not doing the social distancing like they should so i think it is too early to open up the states. carney?. guest: there is evidence of a plateau on a national level which is to say on april 4, this , theyng by the numbers are about the same at covid tracking websites. had 34,000 new cases.

it has been lower than that everyday. some days up, sundays down. in general, the number of new , we were growing exponentially from early march to early april. virus,can expect from a one person who got sick was infecting two others and so you were doubling every three to half to four days. now we are not at that point. the number of new cases is not doubling -- the number of total cases is not doubling. the number of new cases is flat. that is not true everywhere. in maryland, the doubling rates have slowed down but we are still at the point where more people are diagnosed newly with the virus than they were the day before. this is a very infectious virus. this is not just the flu. this is more contagious than the flu.

and it seems more deadly than the flu if you get it. for young people, it might be less deadly than the flu but for people with underlying conditions, it is more deadly. underlying conditions does not -- it could mean you have hypertension. it could mean diabetes. the reason for the states like the state of maryland issuing stay-at-home orders, and forcing social distance, asking you to wear a mask if you are going to go into any sort of store or metro or anything like that is because this is a very deadly disease. it is not just that if you infect one less person, that is one less person infected, that is one less person that that person can in turn infect. i agree it has been necessary to put these into place. but i would like the governors to start thinking, what are the safe activities that we can

start allowing maybe in one part of the state where we have already hit a peak or maybe another part of the state where it is easier for people to be physically spread out. it is not flipping a light switch on-and-off. it kind of was a light switch flipped off in mid-march after tom hanks got it and the mba shutdown. -- nba shutdown. getting back to normal is not going to be suddenly we are all doing what we were doing on march 1. it would be a slow reopening and that can be done carefully by slowly dipping your toe into the ocean. host: richard in california. too soon to open up the economy. why do you say that? caller: i'm a healthcare worker. i am more66 so vulnerable and i live in a very populated area in california. the mitigation here is working.

i still don't think people are taking it as seriously as they should. the whole point is we don't know who is infected because we don't have enough test. you got open up an economy or business unless you test your employees to know if they are positive. exposures, one at the job and one with my roommate here. it took me two weeks to get a test and i had to use my own time off of work to mitigate. we have not even finished the first wave. the coronavirus is here. it is probably 40 times more exposures than what has been tested. we will have a second wave and we will have a third wave. the only way to battle that is all of the social distancing and we might as well be more cautious than less. you can go take a walk, but no crowds, no tight situations where you are more than six feet

from people until we get a total testing program which is a total failure of trump's administration and i can list all of their failures from the beginning. host: i will leave it there to go to scott who says reopen the government in new york. go ahead. caller: i thought the lockdown was kind of a joke because you can go out and exercise but you cannot work or anything like that. exercise, you are kind of mingling with other people. it is counterproductive to the lockdown itself and you are actually spreading the disease around when you go outside and mingle with other people for when you are jogging, there are people jogging behind you and you are spreading the disease around. it is kind of counterproductive. news reports over , it just brought more

hysteria. to endim carney, i want with the cover of the washington examiner after coronavirus. what will it look like? of guessworks one and predicting the future. -- sort of guesswork. will stateshings is keep using some of their newfound power. i think that a lot of the shutdowns have been necessary to stop the spread of this virus. i worry about the next governor to use it to stop climate change or something like that. we have to ask about that. the economy, right now the federal government is pumping a bunch of money into employers so that they can keep people on staff.

unemployment benefits are often larger than what someone was earning as a rate. that can be good if your goal is to keep people from going to work to stop spreading the virus. when the virus is gone, there is a push to keep unemployment benefits at that level. that is a goal of a lot of people on the left because they feel it will have the government driving up wages. if that happens, that is going to have a very interesting, i think detrimental effect on the economy and an interesting effect. a lot of emergency policies are being put in place. we saw how these massive crises led to expansion of government power in a way that i think is detrimental. i think the security theater and tsa after 9/11 was an overreach that hurt us and not really kept us safe. i think the expansion of the

rep. torres: state after the financial crisis was also -- regulatory state. is there political will to make sure that the coronavirus expansion of government power will not be made into some permanent expansion of government power. that is what i personally am worrying about after coronavirus. host: tim carney is a senior political columnist with the washington examiner. you can go online to read his writing. thank you for your time. guest: thank you very much. host: we will take a short break. when we come back we will turn our attention to what is happening in the house today. lawmakers gathering to vote on this latest coronavirus relief bill. most of the money going to small business a protection program. there is money for hospitals and more testing. we want your thoughts on it. what else do you want to see from congress to help you during

this pandemic? eastern central part of the country dial in at (202) 748-8000. mountain pacific areas, (202) 748-8001. get your calls in a minute. colorado is moving from stay-at-home to something called safer at home which is a phase reopening of the economy. the colorado governor at a news conference on wednesday explaining what that means. [video clip] >> we need to limit our social interactions to dust -- just those in your household. the most vulnerable are people safety five and up, people with chronic illnesses and for seniors and those with chronic illnesses, may will look like april. it is just as dangerous. it will look the same and we need to make sure our seniors, those with pre-existing conditions stay at home except when absolutely necessary.

your lives, the lives of the .ost vulnerable our success is at stake of keeping our loved ones safe. it is about personal responsibility and doing what is best for our communities. doing what is best means taking extreme precautions. that means wearing masks when you're out. it means limiting your social interactions as we reintroduce many of these activities back into our lives that are necessary for the long haul. let me show you what that is going to look like. as i mentioned, vulnerable populations, stay-at-home except when absolutely necessary. no gatherings larger than 10 businesses. critical businesses remain open. those are the ones you have been visiting if you have gone out at all. anial distancing, masks for -- employees.

and then phase in public openings with strict precautions. similar to the precautions you have already seen in your grocery store. as customers you should be wearing masks. people in the stores will be wearing masks. that is an important piece of making sure this works. restaurants and bars remain closed. we are still developing what those guidelines will look like. they will continue with takeout and delivery and we work toward a phase reopening, we are not ruling out that reopening during this period. these larger social environments like nightclubs remain closed. elective and dental procedures begin again with strong precautions and make sure we have adequate personal objective equipment. forourse medical grade mask dental and elective procedures. we need to make sure that whoever is providing those services has those. course we need so many and we

continue to do so many mask for covid patients at our major hospitals. announcer: washington journal continues. guest: the house today -- host: the house will gather to vote on the latest coronavirus relief bill. they are coming into session in 40 minutes. we will have coverage of the debate and the vote. keep your television here to watch that. they will be voting on the $484 billion that the senate approved on monday. they are expected to deliver this to the president. the president is expected to sign it. thebillion dollars is for paycheck protection program. $60 billion for small lenders. $75 billion for hospitals. $60 billion for the disaster loan program and $25 billion for testing. we want your reaction to what you are seeing from washington.

do you like what they have put together so far? what else do you need? americans out there, what else do you need to deal with the financial and health fallout of this pandemic? linda in missouri, good morning. you are up first. that thesehink stimulus bills which is adding to our debt, i understand that they needed to help small businesses. i think that they are forgetting a really big piece of the population. one is the older senior citizens. i don't think that has been addressed. you give a stimulus check, yes and you do get social security so something is coming in. what people don't realize that your healthcare, much of your

money is taking out of the social security check. there are many people that just live on that social security check that are basically living in poverty. i don't think that they have really addressed the senior as much as they have done for some others. i don't think that has really ever been addressed on your program and i would like to see that addressed. host: do you think more cash payments for americans including those on social security? caller: i think more cash payments should have gone to people that are on social meansty who have no other to supplement their social security. host: they were supposed to have received them. the first $1200 check was supposed to go to people on social security. caller: they get the $1200. when you look at the stimulus

package and watch everything that is going on as far as where that money is going, i don't have reallyhey totally addressed those that are most vulnerable. host: we heard your point. we will go to arizona. do you agree with how congress has responded and what more do you want to see from members of congress? the money should go to state and local governments to take care of state and local small business. i think this is a money grab by wall street. i have seen some businesses have got the money. congress should have some oversight and claw back some of that money to corporations that did not need it or deserve it and use that money. until i say some oversight, i don't trust this administration to do anything right as far as money goes.

that it is a money grab since like 2008, goldman sachs, all of the big banks, they got rich. nothing happened to them. corporations are still going to get this money that don't deserve it and don't need it. host: there is a washington post article today, how will the new aid for small businesses work? which businesses qualify in the article, small businesses, nonprofit organizations that meet the sba standard definitions. veterans organizations with fewer than 500 employees are eligible for loans under the program. self-employed individuals, independent contractors and sole proprietors are also eligible. to receive a loan, your company must have been in business as of february 15. churches also qualify to the extent that they meet the other requirements of the cares act.

large hotel and restaurant chains can get loans for individual locations although that practice has been met with controversy. we will go to rick in north carolina. hi, rick. caller: i have been laid off for two months. i have not gotten any money from unemployment. i still have not gotten my stimulus check. host: do you know why? caller: i have tried numerous -- on the phone, email, four times via email, phone. everything and still have not received anything. trump said at a press briefing three or four weeks ago, if you want to go direct to the people and they were like, we had to go through the state and everything like that. i don't know how much longer i will be able to take of this. it seems like the small guys will get rubbed out of this. it is ridiculous what is going on. it is not going to stop.

it is going to go through november with the mail in ballots. this is ridiculous. host: this is the wall street journal. payroll tax waiver floated as a stimulus idea. a fresh injection of small-business aid. lawmakers are contemplating a faster way to supply the next round of relief. one idea is put the existing payroll tax system into reverse. the federal government could deliver quick subsidies to employers by telling them to stop sending money from workers paychecks. that could be a more efficient way of subsidizing the salaries of workers. the paycheck protection program crated by congress last month. supporters say that popular program once run by the sba requires employers to apply for loans through banks and wait for approval before money is delivered. employers who qualify for the subsidy will stop sending withheld taxes to the government while paying employees who are not working. ?hat do you think of that idea?

margaret in massachusetts. good morning. the house will vote today on the relief bill for small businesses. what else do you want congress to do? caller: can you hear me ok? host: yes we can. caller: i heard mr. mnuchin state that the check would be coming right away. i got on the website, put in my bank information and every day i go on once per day like they instruct you. nothing yet. yet, i paid my taxes online and they have all my information. i am a retired government worker. i don't understand what the delay on this is. i would like to ask if you know if they are giving another stimulus check with this updated bill? host: not just one from what i understand. the legislation they are voting

on today that the senate approved on monday does not have another stimulus check for americans. that is something being discussed on capitol hill according to news reports that members of congress would like to see in the next round of economic aid. house 30 minutes from the for today's session. lawmakers coming to washington. they will be coming into the p vote. mccarthy, kevin explained the need for congress to return to work and outline the safety measures put in place for today's vote. how can we operate the capitol? the states are not opening up all at once, but in phases. we could have committees do the critical work. you could have committees working today. we could put you in the auditorium. we have social distancing just as we are in this press

conference. we can have social distancing. we can work in public and work through that while congress is not voting. work the committee process and when the bill comes forth, you can bring them in. tomorrow we will give you an example of that. it will be nine different sections of members to come vote with timeslot. you come in certain doors and out the others. the others will be alphabetical and you will be given a timeslot to come. this nation has been through so much, we have overcome every obstacle. the last thing we would want is congress to stay home and not act. the nation needs us to and we can do it in a safe manner. that may mean just bringing certain committees back and working until we get to the point of a bill. host: that was kevin mccarthy. joining us from tennessee, steve

the memphissents area of the ninth district. now.re in tennessee right how come you are not in washington? guest: well, you are wrong. host: you are in washington. guest: i'm on the 13th floor of the museum building. host: so you are in washington. how will you make your way to capitol hill to vote and how will you vote on this legislation? guest: i have a 1986 cadillac and assuming it starts, i will drive. if it does not, i will walk. i will vote for it. there might be a couple of republicans that object for some reason. we have to do something to move the country forward. i am not pleased with what we are doing. i wish we were voting on proxy voting which would allow certain people that are quarantined or

in vulnerable circumstances be able to vote through a proxy and not have to make the trip through the airport and be up here among other congress people where there is a threat of so many people together from all over the country getting the coronavirus. that step was taken off because pelosi wanted every thing to be bipartisan. on the bill, i think the paycheck protection program has gone through blueblood borrowers. the bankers take care of their customers. the small businessman is not helped. this bill does help small business and democrats have insisted that at least $60 billion go to community banks and credit unions and smaller institutions to get to women and minorities and veterans who are

shut out often in the first tranche of money. and also see some money go to the healthcare workers on the front lines to hospitals and healthcare workers for ppe which is so very. another $60 billion is the emergency disaster program. that will help small businesses better. the money that the democrats got additional $110 billion on top of the $250 billion will go where it is intended to. we of course never should have got the 20 million. some hotel in dallas got $45 million. i have seen law firms get money. i have seen wealthy people who can easily get through this get money. giving the bank some money and having them operate like government officials -- that is what mitch mcconnell wanted. host: what is it like in your

district, in your state and what are your thoughts on your governor wanting to reopen the economy there? have you hit the peak in your state? guest: we are not supposed to hit the peak until mid may or early june. cases go up every day. we are not supposed to come off even under the president's guidelines unless you have two weeks of declining coronavirus cases. we have not had that. we are moving up. this is under the state governor who is oriented toward business and small business and resisted shutting the state down at all. i had to make a call to anderson cooper and other social media to get his attention and i think the public got his attention. we have a doctor in middle tennessee who led 2000 doctors who sent him a letter and pushed him along.

it was an op-ed story in the washington post today, medical experts say this is a serious mistake. and it is a serious mistake. the public understands and for some reason our governor does not understand it. but either way, it is wrong. host: we are asking our viewers what else they want from washington. what do they need to deal with the financial fallout of this pandemic? what else could they see washington due in the coming weeks? guest: i think in the future there will be another cares bill. mcconnell wants to slow walk it. speaker pelosi is full steam ahead to help the working man and get the economy going. i think we need to have more individual checks sent to

members of our country. not go through the bank. that needs to stop. i think the checks for $1200 where show business. it is a token amount. it will help somebody living near poverty wages. that $75,000 for single . it goes a little bit higher than that. some of those people do not really need that as much. i think we should be making $2000 checks and we ought to be and getting money directly into people's hands that they can stand and get the money into the economy. we need to go bottom up and get it into the hands of the most needy people., -- the suggestion about a new program to go through the state

makes a little sense. states are better equipped and maybe they can get it out better. at least bailing out the banks. representative steve cohen, mike rat. we thank you for your time this morning. -- democrat. in a few minutes, we will be talking with jim jordan of ohio and get his thoughts on this legislation. in the meantime, what else do you want to see? kevin in nebraska. good morning. go ahead. caller: can you hear me? host: yes i can. bill that has bailouts for major corporations need to stop because they have enough money to get through this. for majorsee a bill

corporations that need to be providing masks. i understand there is a shortage. i was just in a walmart in every single employee had a mask. host: joan in missouri, what do you think washington should be doing for americans? caller: what do i think? host: yes, go ahead. trump oughtink that to let the scientists find a cure for the virus. that's one thing i think. missouri -- tim. good morning. caller: actually, i am in ohio. host: springfield, ohio. caller: i would like to add something to that lady who called about the senior citizens struggling.

every senior citizen that i know that is on social security, $1200 has received help, or anything like that. that is not the reason why i called. the reason i called was is the side effect of all of this money in theut to places stores and if you are on a fixed income, it is eating you alive. some kind ofto see price controls. a box of cookies used to be $2.12. it went up to $3.12. little stuff like that is killing us. martin from oregon. we will go to you next. thatr: i saw this morning ,ancy pelosi looked really bad

like she had the virus, and she could not make it there and they took away her speakership to vote on this money and it all went to the banks. has created this crisis to get him reelected. he could have acted on it and he has not. in toledo, ohio. caller: yes, hi. i want to address the small businesses that do not have a location outside of their home in ohio and i also have a daughter in new mexico. they are not really able to get through the small business stimulus loans package because they don't have people on staff that can help them with that. if the unemployment would get in place, they would be able to make it through this because they don't need to pay a lease or anything like that.

current ohio site says they are waiting for guidelines and trying to build a program so there is no way they can even apply yet. we are talking about this as we learned this morning that additional 4.4 million workers last week filed for unemployment claims bringing the total number to over 26 million. susan in new york sends us a text saying the stimulus bill failed to support state and local governments. the one the house is going on today. mitch mcconnell is saying it is the -- unlikely to happen in future bills. do you know how many jobs we lost when states cannot balance their budgets? william in atlanta, good morning to you. what do you want from washington? caller: anyone making over $1 million a year whether it is corporate executives or athletes

or entertainers, that they pay 90% taxes for anything over $1 million per year. that will help the federal deficit definitely. host: jamie in maryland. caller: i just wanted to say that i think deferred payments for mortgages and everything that everyone has for three or thinkonths on this, i that would have went further than a stimulus. are the stimulus, you putting american people on the hook for whether it would be $4 trillion. all of these kinds of things whereas if you just froze everything for three or four months, this way -- when you are doing a stimulus is hard to meet people's needs. you may be sending them too much money.

you really cannot send them too much money but most likely it will be too little money. this way if you just froze things and on top of that if you did food assistance for folks that need food and that kind of thing. hazard pay for essential employees, give them a few more dollars on top of their pay that they were talking about four, that kind of thing. before.ng about it doesn't have to be this big comp located thing that everyone will be on the hook for later. the banks will get their money so those three or four months would be on the back end of it all as soon as everything got back together. now it is going to be a complicated situation and i just don't think that the stemless goes as far as deferment. host: ok. we will go to sam next who is in indiana. good morning to you. welcome to the conversation.

the house will vote on the latest economic aid bill. do you think it is enough? what else do you want to see from washington? caller: i think the government needs to be focused on the next 30 days ahead of us because it is important. i truly believe that within the next ready days that we should -- next 30 days that we should get the public focused on getting back to work but also our government needs to focus on the healthcare system. our medical needs the most money right now that they can have to take care of people that are in ill andso -- that are people who are going to get ill because the virus is not going anywhere. there is hardly any treatment for it and the healthcare system is being stressed -- it is insurmountable the amount of stress they are dealing with. i think our government needs to focus a lot of money and time

into the healthcare system because the virus is not going anywhere. the sooner we can get people back to work and get our healthcare system ready for anyone that is going to be ill, i think the public can slowly get back to normal. host: gail in maryland. your thoughts this morning. caller: i was supposed to get the $1200. my husband was supposed to get $1200. i heard steve mnuchin say it on one of those press releases and he says it is in the mail. it is going to come to your --le if it is direct -- two taxesand i had my 2018 that i did. i had my 2019 taxes that i did and my husband and i have not seen anything by mail or by the bank. i have a feeling because last

night i was watching some show on tv and they were saying that if you are rating for that -- waiting for that stimulus, you might not see it until 2021 or 2022. i don't understand that. host: was there an explanation why it would be delayed? caller: they don't have any more money and all of the money they are going to give to these hotels and restaurants and rich people. they get it first because that is what nancy pelosi wanted. host: we are talking about separate pots of money that congress allocated. where did you watch this or read this? youer: i want to say because when i turned my tv on this morning, c-span was on. i might have had it on another channel. my husband and i are on a fixed

theme and we did not get last two things. the thousand dollars. we did not even get that. host: laura, pennsylvania. hi. iller: i am 82 years old and am on a fixed income, social security. i have not received my $1200 either. if you go into the computer, my daughter did and it says that they cannot find me. host: where did she go to get that information? caller: i don't know. she was on the phone. i don't know how to use a computer myself. i contacted the bank and it is not at the bank. i have filed every year since i retired. i don't understand why they could not find me. i got my return for this year

already. $300. host: have you reached out to your local politician or your member of congress? caller: i don't know who that is. i don't know how to get in touch with him. host: he is your senator. maybe your daughter can help you find his number. and yourtart there member of the house that represents your district. weighed in south carolina. .i, wade caller: thank you for taking my call. i was calling about the stimulus. i wish he would do a show just asking people have they gotten their stimulus because i don't know anyone that has. i have asked people. i think we are being bamboozled. they tell you they are going to do this and then all of a sudden they are opening up states. us $300h wanted to send

in 2000 seven, everyone in the country got checks in two weeks. we could go to walmart, kmart. getting pretty pathetic. since, i have not worked march 15. it is not easy to get by when you are not getting a paycheck. and it is not your fault that you are not. we are being bamboozled. occupation?s your i am self-employed and have been since 1982. the only government check i ever got since 1982 was the $300 from bush. coming,l people it is but it never arrives. it is just not right. host: wade in south carolina.

more of your calls coming up at first congressman jim jordan and a ranking member of the judiciary committee. congressman, how do you plan to vote on this legislation? what is your view of this $44 484 billion?$ guest: i plan to support it. i view this under the constitution this government is taking -- this government is the one who has mandated these not operate because of this virus and so the government has an obligation. i don't like all of the spending we are doing this is something that you have to do for the small business owners across this country who have been impacted by this virus and government's telling them they cannot operate their business. host: what was not included was

money for local state and governments. what was your view on including that in another economic aid bill going forward? guest: leader mcconnell said it yesterday. we have to remember we are spending more money than we have ever spent in the history of this country on the last several bills. we also have to remember the huge debt burden we are leaving ourselves and the next generation of americans. when you have a debt that is slightly bigger than our annual gdp, that is dangerous. we have to be cognizant of that. let's focus on helping small businesses and families who have been impacted by this. the local government question is another question entirely. those whoressman, for may have watched those testified against creating a subcommittee look into the response to the

pandemic, explain why. guest: we have 8 different entities already in the process of oversight. we have lisa let committee which is a subcommittee of the standing committee which i happen to be on for over 12 years. we have that committee. we have the subcommittees of the standard committees that each have a subcommittee that does oversight. we created three different entities to provide oversight. he carries explanation. at commission.s we have 8 different entities doing oversight as we speak and yet we need a ninth. the ninth will be working for joe biden and we know it because pelosi will be the chairman. clyburn who is the biggest

supporter of joe biden, he is the guy who has sealed the deal for biden winning the nomination of the number credit party. it is another political designed for impeaching the president during the summer before the election. host: do you believe standing committees should be investing -- have oversight? what do you want the committee to investigate? guest: i got this question from a reporter. what would you be doing, i said it is simple. we should be looking at the world health organization that text taxpayer money and was lying to the american people. i had a collie who said it best. hearings on having the world health organization. judiciary committee, we should be having hearings on the loss of liberty that we see happening around the country.

in michigan, for example, you have a cabin on the lake, you are not allowed to drive your own cabin within the state that you live. they say you can go to the store, you can buy food, but you cannot bite paint to fix up -- you cannot bite paint -- buy paint to fix up the debt -- deck on your own home. if you can go to the social store -- grocery store and maintain social distance, you can do the same. that is what the judiciary committee, the committee charged with protecting liberties should be having hearings on right now. we have not had any. host: do you agree with some governors that a time to reopening the -- do you agree with governors that are trying to reopen the economy and their states? guest: we have people who have

never stopped working the last five weeks. they have figured out how to do this in a safe manner. the people who are hauling our food -- the people in the front lines of the healthcare industry, the people working in the fluid processing press, the individuals in warehouses and grocery stores, they figured it out. why can't the rest of the country? i certainly think it is time to get back to work. the best example should be congress. the house is back voting on this bill and we are going to do it. i was in the hearing last night where we maintained social distance and we conducted the business of the people. congress should set the example and get back to work. yes, it is time to get back to work. host: we have heard from governors saying a lot of the people who are getting sick are the essential workers. they are exposed because they don't have the luxury of staying home.

if we reopen the economy and people go back to work, wouldn't that follow logic that more people would be sick? guest: 20 to exercise common sense and we need to understand some places in the country are different than others. ohio is different than new york. that ando understand do this in a common sense fashion. but we needed to do it because as the president said several weeks ago and has repeatedly said, we cannot make the cure worse than the disease. this disease is bad. but we have to understand that and deal with it. we also have to understand that there are implications and consequences for keeping our economy closed and we need to get back to work asap. the template that the white house laid out seems to be a good template to follow so let's begin and limiting phase one and get this country moving again. host: jim jordan, we have to let you get back to work. i know the house is dabbling in

in a couple of minutes. thank you for your time. .-gaveling we go to michelle in michigan. what do you think about washington is going? caller: i think they are doing fine. i think this ought to be made more individualized. for example, the counties that i lived in in michigan have two cases of the virus. me has one case of the virus. cannot a painter to come into my house because he is not allowed to do anything. real whack job a and she has put restrictions on people that are just outrageous. for example, you cannot buy seeds. the people who do not live on a

lake, quite a few of them, are relatively poor. they grow their own food every summer. they won't let you buy vegetable seeds. host: i want to just let the previously -- previous caller who does not know what her representative is. our producer figured it out. it is scott perry. he represents pennsylvania's 10th district. if you can reach out to him, he might be able to help you with that check. the house is about to gavel in for its morning session. the debate will begin on this for $84 billion bill -- $484 billion. the vote is expected today. our coverage will be uninterrupted here on c-span. you will be able to watch

throughout the day as the members of congress debate and then they vote in sections as we heard from congressman mccarthy. they will be coming into the chamber in alphabetical groups and they have slot times from 2:00 to 2:10. look at the list. it is in alphabetical order as kevin mccarthy laid out. the group nine is those that missed the earlier group. this is how the vote will occur today in the house. the president is expected to sign this legislation when it gets to his desk and we will see what happens next from congress. let's take you to the floor of the house of representatives where they are about to gavel in.

the speaker pro tempore: the house will be in order. the chair lays before the house a communication from the speaker. the clerk: the speaker's rooms, washington, d.c. april 23, 2020. i hereby appoint the honorable kathy castor to act as splote on this day. signed, nancy pelosi, speaker of the house of representatives. 7 the speaker pro tempore: the a ay