then, time magazine national political correspondent molly ball discusses her new book on house speaker nancy pelosi. ♪ host: good morning. with an estimated 90,000 deaths in the u.s., that cdc is expecting the number two exceed over 100,000 by the end of june. the house in recess this week. it is sunday, may 17, and we welcome you to the washington journal. ,ince the start of the pandemic more than 1.5 million americans have come down with coronavirus. we will check in with foreign correspondents around the world to see how those countries are dealing with this global pandemic. we would love to hear from you.

(202) 748-8000 if you live in the east or central time zones, and (202) 748-8001 if you live in the mountain or pacific time zones. if you are watching or listening us outside of the united states, the number to call is (202) 748-8002. thanks for being with us. our social media, @cspanwj or facebook.com/cspan, or send us a text message at (202) 748-8003. here are the numbers courtesy of johns hopkins university. million cases of coronavirus, and the global death toll now in excess of 312000 in 188 countries and regions. fromorter joining us wellington, new zealand. good sunday evening to you, where you are at this morning. thank you for joining us. guest: thank you for having me. host: can you give us a sense of what has happened in new

zealand? i know the country was quick to respond and quick to reopen. guest: that's right. no country can say conclusively that they have [inaudible] thewe have contained community transmission of the virus. in march, when they realized there was a spread, there was a plan to lock down the country and new zealand was put into a one-month strict lockdown. some of the toughest measures globally, really, people locked in their homes for a month. it is a few factors, basically. it was decisive leadership by the prime minister, the geographic advantage new zealand has of being one of the southernmost island nations, that's very limited access, and that really helped in containing the virus as well. finally, the community got

together. they'll act -- they all locked themselves inside the house and stayed there until the transmission was broken. a little over a month after that, some of the restrictions were eased, and just last week, more restrictions were eased. now we are back in a position where people can visit bars -- not bars, restaurants, bars our next week, but restaurants. watching big economies like the u.s., it is a totally different story here, and there is a story to tell about how it was managed in new zealand. host: i'm curious, what was the general reaction among residents in new zealand? how did they accept all of this early on? guest: there was a big shock. new zealanders love the outdoors. like toe hiking, they go skiing, they sometimes like

boating, fishing. outdoor activities are a big thing in new zealand, so it was a big shock. straight,vernment was the idea was to go hard-core early. they kept telling the population, people that if you do this properly for a month, we may get out of it quickly. and it seems to me that the plan has worked. people came and agreed to this idea that was put forward by our prime minister, and they stay the course. we can sayooks like that new zealand has one of the lowest case numbers, numbers of cases of coronavirus and lowest numbers of deaths in the world. initially wastion a shock, but that help the government actually contain this. bureauur guest is the chief in new zealand for thomson reuters, and as we look at other countries, south korea also

really quick to respond. what was in the mindset of the government of new zealand to respond so early? a lot of criticism that other countries, including the u.s., were slow to respond. guest: [inaudible] quick to respond and took it seriously right from the beginning, and were able to contain this virus to an extent. of course, a second wave could be a totally different story, but people who took it seriously have been able to deal with it. that's probably what happened here. you have to remember that the way the government went forward with this is quite different than what you are seeing maybe in the u.s. and other big economies. the prime minister was constantly in touch with the chief medical advisor and all her decisions were based on sound medical advice. she did not really try to influence the decision at all. helps, because it

meant that medical professionals could actually handle this scenario. that is where a lot of [inaudible] having said that, the whole lockdown and the shutdown really did cripple the economy here. it is already a very small trade and tourism focused economy here , so the process of rebooting the economy, that is going to be the big challenge in the coming days. host: in this country, we have been spending trillions of dollars to boost the economy and help those impacted by this pandemic. what are we seeing in new zealand in terms of the government response to the people impacted by covid-19? last week the budget was announced, and there was a $50 billion covid package that was released. biggest amount new zealand has done in one budget

ever. the prime minister and the government says the response to to beonomy is going as focused as it was on the health aspect of this pandemic. so the expectation is they jumped in and government [inaudible] on top of the 50 billion, plus , we have seenies that happen a lot in the last month or two, and other relief measures for small businesses, for people who are unemployed, the unemployment rate is expected to peak really in the next few months. withhave come in subsidies, with a lot of packages, but we have to see how bad the impact is, and we will only know that in the coming weeks. host: it is sunday evening in wellington, new zealand, and our conversation with the bureau chief for thomson reuters.

thank you very much for being with us. guest: thank you. host: our phone lines are open. (202) 748-8000 for those in the eastern half of the country, and (202) 748-8001 for those in the mountain or pacific time zones. if you are outside the u.s., (202) 748-8002. follow us on twitter at @cspanwj , congressional democrats launching an investigation into the firing of inspector general. top democrats in the house and senate foreign affairs committee launching investigation yesterday into president trump's ofe friday night firing the inspector general. the senatemocrats on committee on foreign relations writing a letter to the white house, the state department, and i inspector general to preserve all records related to his dismissals and to turn them over

by friday, may 22. basis back the -- they suspect the firing might have been an active retaliation, as -- was investigating possible misuse of a political appointee at the state department to perform personal tasks for pompeo and his wife. trump fired the inspector general on friday night, saying in a letter to congress that he has no confidence in the state department ig, who has been -- has been in place since the obama administration. trump has been critical of the department since he was elected. caller: [inaudible] i'm glad to see you back. good morning. i want to make a quick comment. people, no matter what you think about this euros bill that pat -- this heroes bill that passed, people just want to get back to

work again, and i am one of them. my brother works at a grocery store, and [inaudible] so surreal to be working behind those glasses and wearing these masks all the time. i read an article the other day, where trump [inaudible] host: we are going to go next to asa in jefferson, texas. good morning. caller: hi. how are you doing? host: good, thank you. caller: good. i wanted to say that i feel like the united states response to the coronavirus has been very self-centered. we are doing a lot for ourselves , passing though stimulus packages, but we are not focusing too much on the global spread. i think with how globalized the always is these days, it has the potential to pop back and have a second wave come into the united states, not even necessarily because of something

we have done, but because it is able to get in from another country. i guess the other thing i want to say on that is even if we don't have a second spread in the united states because of something that is happening somewhere else in the world, the economic lockdowns and the shutdowns that happened in other countries that are fighting it will have economic repercussions on us. i know that 50% of u.s. exports go through developing nations, and those are the ones that are particularly vulnerable to the coronavirus. so if there economy were to be locked down for long periods of wouldn't be buying american products. even if we are able to reopen our economy, it would still take that hit. host: asa, thanks. the headline this morning, front page of the washington post, owners in homes violate

federal disease standards, and from fox news, the president ramping up on the purge of the firing of the latest inspector general, that's from the state department. carl is next, from hedge jill, west virginia. good morning. caller: good morning, steve. the way i see this thing, it is being politicized way too much. another thing, the trial lawyers are going to have a windfall on this whole thing. when it does get under control. they are going to file suits against just about every company or every -- they will absolutely bankrupt, like the boy scouts. they will absolutely bankrupt a lot of citizens. with lawsuits. i hope congress can get something through that will prevent this. thank you for the call.

this is from fox news, the number of confirmed cases of covid-19 since the 100th case, and the top line is the united states. you can follow online, from vox, vox.com. at the bottom, hong kong and taiwan with quick reaction and also flattening the curve very early on as a result of actions in those countries. our caller from hillsdale, michigan. good morning, sam. caller: good morning. i want to mention that i am reading a book right now, it is imprisonment of german submarines in american waters during the early parts of world war ii.

communities by the eastern sea defense command wanted to soften their lives so submarines could not see the ships -- there are lights -- ights so the l submarines could not see the ships. it reminded me of how people are responding to this run-up, , they want to be comfortable themselves but help the neighbors. host: who is the author of the book, do you know? caller: he is from saint augustine, florida. i do not know if he is still alive or not. michael gannon. call.thank you for the we focus on books every weekend and during this pandemic, also prime time in the evening when the senate is not in session on

c-span2, a chance for you to catch up on our book tv coverage. check it out on c-span.org. lucas is next from jackson, michigan. good morning. caller: good morning. i called today just because i know everyone is ready to open everything up, which i myself, but i asked all my republican to be cautious and not politicize this, you know? in lansing we are seeing all this at the capital, and it is concerning to me because, you know, i am running as a delegate and i know a lot of people in my neighborhood, republicans included, want to be safe. they don't want to rush this. thanks for the call. from the washington post, as obama tells the 2020 graduates if the world is going to get better, it is going to be up to you. he delivered to speeches, want to historically black colleges

and want to the class of 2020 -- one to historically black colleges and one to the class of 2020. here is what president obama told them. [video clip] >> doing what feels good, what is easy -- that is what kid like. unfortunately, a lot of important grown-ups, some with fancy titles and jobs, still think that way. which is why everything is screwed up. i hope you decide to ground yourself and values that last. like honesty, hard work, responsibility, fairness, .enerosity, respect for others you will not get it right every time. you'll make mistakes, like we all do. but if you listen to the truth that is inside yourself, even when it is hard, even when it is inconvenient, people will notice. they will gravitate towards you. and you'll be part of the solution instead of part of the problem.

finally, build a community. no one does big things by themselves. right now, when people are scared, it is easy to be cynical and say, let me look out for myself or my family, or people who look, think, or pray like me. but if we are going to get through these difficult times, if we are going to get to a world where everyone has opportunity and can afford college, we are going to save the environment and defeat future pandemics, we are going to have to do it together. host: that from president barack obama, his speech delivered last night, turning over the evening to the class of 2020, the high school graduating class. we are getting your reaction to the u.s. and the global coronavirus pandemic response. (202) 748-8000 if you live in the eastern half of the country. (202) 748-8001 for those of you out west. new york times sunday magazine,

there has to be some dignity to this, as funeral homes are overwhelmed by the dead bodies, eaterially in the gr new york city area. the inside story behind and word snowden anddward the nsa leaks, the great reckoning. more americans are unemployed anytime during the great depression. bloomberg businessweek is focusing on remdesivir and the story behind the pharmaceutical wasany -- at least somebody thinking ahead, from bloomberg trumpssweek, and what if wins? imagine the consequences of a second term. jack is next from michigan. good morning. caller: good morning. host: hey, do me a favor. turn your all you down on the set, otherwise we will hear some feedback. caller: just a minute. i thought i had it down. host: you sound good. go ahead. caller: i had a couple comments

i wanted to make on the virus -- i don't know if you don't know the answer to it or not, but a lot of the hospitals, especially in the areas where they've got it real bad, though i've been -- they've been closed down. i wonder if they are keeping any kind of record on the people who needed to get in the hospital who couldn't make it, if there is a faster way. i do not know if they are keeping a true record. i know they've got guidelines they have to go by, but i just wondered. if you give me about a half a , [inaudible] every time he gets on, all he wants to do, is badmouth trump. i can't remember what his name is -- i wanted to throw that out. thanks again for taking my call. jack, thank you.

we know hospitals have been impacted. we do not know it of any that are shutdown, though there might be more in world parts of the country. our next color from miami, florida. good morning. caller: how are you doing, steve? florida,great state of our governor, i would say he has done a great job, doing it as well as our mayor and county mayors, city mayors, they are slowly opening up the economy. the craziest part, florida has one of the worst unemployment, tatian systems there is. i applied march 21. the only thing i have heard, they finally received my .pplication may 6 i got an email confirmation. and i am self-employed and have been self-employed for 25 years. florida does not allow self-employed or independent contractors to be able to apply, but it is part of the cares act. eligible might not be

for state unemployment are eligible for federal unemployment assistance. i am a grant writer, so i really should be -- i've been helping a lot of businesses apply for the , local grants, city grants, county grants, i'm usually, and sending the email to them or the link that they can do it, or i go to their business and be able to fill out the application online for them, you know? i think the problem is in florida, we have had a lot of tests that have come back, false positive tests. i have not been tested and i am not going to get tested. i stay home, i am home now, but when i do go to work again i wear a mask. i think we just have to listen to the scientists. we have to be able to prepare ourselves, wash our hands, do

the things that are being requested of us, because where i live, miami-dade county is the epicenter of florida. host: you can follow us on our twitter page at @cspanwj. lisa has this point, the democrats have lost every point to attack the president, which is all this is. they seem to never tire of losing. we are checking in with foreign correspondents around the world. london is them bureau chief for the washington post, william booth. thank you for being with us. booth, let me first ask you about the prime minister. how is he doing today? i know he was in the hospital, now back to work a couple weeks ago. how is he doing now? guest: prime minister boris johnson is doing well. --did spend central nights several nights in the icu last month.

he was very sick. he confessed that it could have gone either way, meaning he could have died. but he is back on the job and seeming to be doing well. and his fiancee and just had a new baby, he is back at the podium, back leading the government. host: and how, from your standpoint, did that change his approach to this pandemic, having first-hand experience to the virus? big questions the that a lot of people are asking, how much this affected boris johnson himself. his government's approach going into the epidemic was, has been criticized as slow. they went into lockdown a little later than a lot of the rest of europe, but now they are coming out of the epidemic, out of the also.wn slower so some people are thinking that nalht be boris' perso

experience with the virus and how bad it could be. that is possible. but britain is clearly behind france and germany and spain today, on sunday, on the measures they are taking to ease the lockdown. you're in london on a sunday afternoon, what's open, what is closed? what can you do, if anything? you can go walking in the park now all you want. you can go up and down the streets. there is no limit on exercise or ,hat kind of thing, but the outside of the grocery stores and those kinds of food shops and pharmacies, most everything is still closed. there's lots of takeout going on, but britain is still pretty locked down. though that eased in the last week, where you saw a lot more people on the tube, our subway service in london, going to work. boris was telling people to get back to work if they can, and a

lot of them wanted to get back to work, go get a paycheck again. you feel like the lockdown life here has sort of opened up a bit. host: i want to get your reaction to this headline from a couple weeks ago. there was a global meeting dealing with the vaccine. the u.s. was absent. can you explain? guest: yes. this was a meeting done by the eu, with participants from around the world, and the u.k. was one of the cohosts. this was a pledging meeting, a meeting where the countries would come together and say, we million, $100 million, $10 million or $1 billion, whatever. the u.s. did not participate in the meeting. the u.s. argument was look, we give a lot. we are one of the main contributors to vaccine development and world health,

and that is all true, but it was he has a troubling sign that the u.s. was not a participant in this meeting, to have someone saying that out loud and showing the flag, for example. that was seen as a diss to the system and an america first response by the trump administration. host: and we are dealing with this at c-span as we cover congress in a very different way, with meetings and congressional hearings that are held by zoom. you write about it in parliament, which we are also covering when there are prime minister's questions. the u.k. parliament about a month ago voting democracy by zoom. what has that been like? guest: it has been very odd, because one of the great things about being the bureau chief for the washington post here in london is going to westminster 's --atching the president

sorry, the prime minister's questions. withlace is packed legislators, with lawmakers asking questions, standing up, popping up and down like porpoises, and this isn't happening now. parliament is functioning again, but it is a virtual parliament. so the parliament looks sort of happened the -- sort of half empty, it looks like the scene of a movie -- no one is in there on the green benches. the place looks different, feels different, and feels a little bit offputting, as i think parliament, westminster, like hospitals and nursing homes, was one of the big places where lots of infections happened. host: and the queen delivered a speech early on in this pandemic. put that in context -- how unusual is it for the queen, outside of christmas, for her to address the people of great

britain? guest: it is completely unusual. it is like a wartime sort of thing. the queen does not use her bully pulpit much. greeting,er christmas as you said, which is very nice and soft and very christmasy, for her to come out and tell the resilient, to be ,ough, to be kind to each other to display themselves as well as previous generations has was a big message to the british public. particularly those who like the queen, which is, you know, half or more than half the country. that was a big deal and that was a moment here in britain, when she went on the air. host: we are talking with william booth, the washington post bureau chief in london. is it now easier for you to travel to paris or elsewhere in europe?

guest: no. not yet. it is not easy for us in london to go anywhere. the flights have been restricted. there is not tons of them. europe still do it, but is not open yet by any means and the u.k. is not. ,oris johnson, in his speeches his remarks the other day, forng out the way forward getting out of unlocking the .ockdown, as they put it it would mean if you flew here from washington, you would be quarantined for 14 days. it would be monitored or voluntary, but you would have to give a good place where you would quarantine, and if you did not have a good place to quarantine, maybe the government would tell you where you were going to quarantine for 14 days. britain is not really open yet in that way. th, bureauiam boo

chief at the washington post in london, joining us on this sunday. thank you. guest: happy to do it. host: we are checking in with foreign correspondents around the world to find out how they are dealing with this pandemic. jackson is next up in north carolina. good morning. caller: good morning, steve. i don't hear anybody talking about this -- i have been program for many weeks now. if you tune into any channel, any at all on the tv program guide, you will see lots of big companies claiming they are here to help. all these big companies -- look at mcdonald's, for example. we are here for you. \

they sell burgers and you don't see them doing anything. i like is not spending all this money on advertising -- apple is one of them, donating all of these math. celebrities like jay-z and meek mill are donating all these masks, thousands to prisons, and i am happy to hear about that. but all these big companies like mcdonald's, one of the biggest fast food chains in the world, are not doing anything about this. this advertising stuff, no. we are here for you? that's not doing anything. that's all i'm going to say. host: this is from twitter, at @cspanwj. force the clorox .hinking ideas obama gave us the direct answer and trump's failure to implement it made him a killer of the thousand. that is from twitter,

and on twitter we will read your tweets. from new jersey, phil is next. good morning. caller: thank you, steve. by the way, that tweet is completely false, factually false. anyway, my concern is for the innocent teen years in our nursing homes and the biggest scandal in this disaster situation has been the fact that in pennsylvania and new york, governor andrew cuomo mandated virus patients actually be sent into nursing homes. that was a death sentence for the seniors who could not physically obviously fight off the virus. thousands ofsteve, residents in new york nursing homes died. there is currently an investigation regarding that. by the way, the nursing homes

pleaded with mr. cuomo to send the virus patients to the hospital ship hope or the center that president trump provided that cuomo refused. in pennsylvania, steve, governor wolf has also directed himself -- directed his health commissioner to send byron's patients intorus the lien nursing homes. the same disaster happens. his health commissioner -- i forget the woman's name -- she pulled her own mother out of the nursing home before following through on that directive. i am not a lawyer, but this sounds criminal to me. the call.k you for this is the associated press headline, puerto rico to hold a statewide referendum amid disillusion over the pandemic. --e is reporting from the ap for the first time in the island's history, the referendum

will ask a simple question -- should puerto rico be immediately admitted as a u.s. state? outrageduestion that he island's small group of independent some orders -- independent supporters, which support the status quo. it is a gamble, as member of the governor's pro-statehood party are --, given puerto rico has struggled to obtain federal dollars for a string of hurricanes and earthquakes. our next caller, audrey. hello. caller: yes, i'm audrey from west virginia. i'm 61 years old. i've been a democrat ever since i was old enough to vote, and now i am ashamed to say i am. i am turning republican. the democrats, every time this bill comes up to eight the people, they put everything in it that they can that will make sure that the republicans will

not approve it. they are not interested in helping the public. what they are interested in is promoting themselves and fighting against getting him reelected. i don't agree with this and i am ashamed of the way they are acting. i never knew that america had so many people that did not have common sense to know that the president would not actually mean for them to drink a cleaning fluid. inre is the common sense these people? why don't they open their eyes and see? the democrats, their main objective is to bring trump down. it is not to help the american people. host: audrey, thanks for the call. shelton is next from shreveport, louisiana. good morning. first of all, what came out of his mouth, about the cleaning fluid and uv light. what i want to say, it seems like the women of the world are leading, and we

are leaving from behind. leadership in the new zealand, germany, and scotland, and the frontline workers that are out here, risking their lives, regardless of people talking about they want to get their hair done and go to the beaches and gyms. they can wait on that. appalling is really when people say they don't want to help the documented workers, they are part of the human race and to me, they are citizens of our country. they pay taxes and we should be looking out with them. i don't like to see what has been happening here in the united states, with the police that are beating up minorities.

i watch the news and other countries, where the police have taken on a very different role. and are handing out masks hand sanitizer's to workers, people getting off the train and different stuff like that. shows thentry, it weakness of what has been happening by the removal of the industry out of our country and sending it overseas. we do not even have capacity to make masks on a mass scale. we do not have the reagents, we do not have the swabs -- we're turning into a service country. host: thanks for the call from louisiana. steve has this tweets -- the nursing homes are the patient's home, referring to the earlier

color, the nursing homes are not reinventing their own residence, do the right thing. get your facts straight. and trump junior posting a baseless claim about price -- vicet joe biden president joe biden, saying he is a pedophile. later saying it was just a joke, part of the trunk campaigns scorched-earth strategy to try and weaken a challenger. brian is next from minnesota. good morning. steve. good morning, i think you need to start getting some people on to answer true questions, and the true question is this. the question would be, is the corona-chinese-wuhan-virus, it is a natural occurrence, which would be one thing, or is it man-made? if it's man-made, we've got bigger problems than what you could shake a stick at. host: you know, dr. fauci had said it is not man-made. caller: he doesn't know that.

theyy knows that because do not have any identifications with the same virus, it was over ,00 miles away and there was no whatever you want to call it, the center they are selling it in wuhan. host: what is your source to that brad? well, i can't source the actual paper that wrote it or the person that said it. it is a fact. but i will tell you something, steve, you have to distance yourself on the washington post, new york times, msnbc and cnn. the true people that are controlling the democratic party. you are part of it. if you don't cut your ties, you are going to go right down with them too. host: we don't have any ties to the new york times or washington post. caller: let me look at your financials and find out anything that you've ever gotten. host: zero.

zero. we are funded completely by the cable industry. we have had zero dollars from any of those news organizations or networks. caller: c-span, i've been saying you have been gifting -- not true. is zero. for this network. not once. caller: can i look in your financials? host: absolutely. there is nothing there. so brad, what is your point? caller: if it is a natural occurrence of virus, you can't change a natural occurrence. host: sure. all i'm telling you, based on dr. anthony fauci, who is the leading expert on this, says it is not man-made. caller: it absolutely is man-made. i will bet you any amount of money you want to bet that it is man-made. host: brad, thanks for the call from minnesota.

chief -- bureau chief for thomson reuters in sweden joins us. thank you. guest: thanks for having me, steve. host: sweden has been getting a lot of attention based on its early response, or lack thereof, to social distancing. guest: it is a bit more complicated than that. we have not had a lock down, like in many european countries and the united states. we have had very clear guidelines to keep social distancing. and people have been distancing themselves a lot. it's just another way of going about trying to achieve the same thing, but in sort of a less intrusive manner. the virus, the spread is slowing in sweden, but we do have a higher number of deaths than an

hour northern neighboring countries. our northern neighboring countries. host: how much higher? guest: it is a lot less in norway, denmark, our neighbors, thent is also a lot less the u.k., germany, italy and spain. what did norway do that sweden did not? guest: they did a full lockdown very early on, like most of europe, and they are now in the process of opening up to other countries. the swedish health agency response to this, this is not a sustainable way of treating this decision. sooner or later we will have to open up and there is no reason to believe that the virus will behave any differently once we do open up. -- the idea is to

have a sustainable way of dealing with the spread of the intrusive ass less possible, but also one you are able to sustain over a long period of time, which full shutdowns might not be sustainable over any length of time. host: we were talking with william booth of the washington post moments ago. he said it is very difficult if not impossible to travel from london to europe. what about across scandinavia? the other countries, you have been able to travel into sweden throughout the pandemic if you are within the european union. the european union as a whole has had a travel ban from outside of europe, but there have been no travel restrictions going into sweden.

but other nordic countries have struggle restrictions -- have that isestrictions and because the spread is higher in sweden than their countries, so [inaudible] economists time, the in the nordics are very intertwined, so they are also for theto open up economy at some point. host: this is part of the debate that we followed early this pandemic, but remind our audience what the arguments were by this we dish government not to have a more restrictive lockdown across the country -- by the swedish government not to have a more restrictive lockdown across the country. caller: any measures have to be sustainable over a long period of time. the virus is not going to go away because you shut down for one or two months. the virus is likely to come

back. also, we should not take , but perhaps in sweden we can achieve roughly the same targets by less intrusive means. swedes in general are pretty good at following rules. they have a very high trust in government in sweden. we are also not as densely populated as many countries are, so we have a large proportion of single person households, which measure anintrusive unsustainable practice in sweden, but not necessarily in other places. host: we are talking to the , whospondent in sweden works for thomson reuters. give us an idea of what it is like in sweden on a sunday afternoon. what can you do?

caller: pretty much everything is open. there are some restrictions in restaurants. they only serve seated customers, you have to keep a distance, roughly five feet from people you don't know. other than that, there is no againstey advise travel outside of your region, because it is difficult to get back. some things in health care are shut down, they postponed operations that are not earned because thegent hospitals needed to treat covid patients, but other than that, my kids are still in school. they see their friends every day.

things are not that different. people are self quarantining a lot. nott of restaurants are doing great, but they are open. olander, we appreciate your time on this sunday. thank you. guest: thanks for having me. our: jody has this to earlier caller, saying thinking the virus is man-made is giving man more credit than we deserve. there is no proof for what he claims, and then attacks c-span? rat is not going to be convinced -- brad is not going to be convinced, he does not have the facts or money to win a bet. this is from another viewer, saying we should have hung up on him. the person said it would increase the value of listening to dump trump supporters. richard is from cleveland, ohio, and the global response to this pandemic is our focus this morning. good morning.

caller: good morning, how are you doing? host: fine, richard, how are you? caller: there seems to be a lot of frustration going on and not enough columnists to bring -- calmness to bring out. i want to say to the whole, everybody that spoke on your show today, we need to just calm down and get a system together. we need to get together black, white, foreign governments, city, state, counties, and start taking care and looking at this problem we have. we need to all get together and do the right thing. host: thank you, richard. barney is next from florida. good morning. caller: hello? host: good morning. caller: i appreciate that guy who just hung up, but if you got

the president of the united states without wearing a mask, he is supposed to be the leader -- that is ridiculous. , to be the number one leader of the free world with the highest death rate, the highest infection rate, that is ridiculous. all i've got to say is, the republican party, trump lied. americans died. host: we will go next to robert in springville, alabama. david is next in somers, new york. good morning. caller: good morning, how are you? host: good. caller: i am calling basically about the statistics. nhat did fdr say, the dam

lies and statistics? the death tolls we are showing, the number of infected, all the details we are trying to maintain right now seems to be flawed. colorado just reduced their death rate by 20%. we take everything into consideration when a person dies -- it is assumed that if there is comorbidity, that the cause is covid, when they are totaling up the numbers. not getting, and we won't probably for five or 10 years, accurate numbers. so it is kind of fear mongering in my mind to be showing constantly these charts, like the box charts you show. which show the rate of infections. and how many people have the disease. and comments like hong kong, they were out there early

stopping the virus so their rates were much lower. do we know that? they have a much smaller community. they have only 30 points of entry into the country -- into the city, i should say, and it is controlled much better than the united states, which has all these areas where people can come into. we had no idea. this may have been here -- now they were saying the virus was in france in december. so all of these details we are getting are going to be revised and the fear mongering that comes from the epidemiologists, like this guy niall ferguson in england, who violates the isolation rules and has to resign because he, you know has made these claims and does not .ven follow them himself all of this information that is coming out does not seem to be vetted properly. we cannot get the number of deaths in the nursing homes

in new york state, cuomo won't allow that number to come out. deaths that 40% of all in new york state are coming out of nursing homes. host: in some cases, even higher. caller: yes. why are we looking at those facts and stealing with the realities that people are seeing? i'm frustrated by all the facts we are getting and the fact that facts, thatt the we do not know what is real. i heard a couple of contrarians. the guy fromou had sweden on, that was fantastic. you rarely hear the different approaches we might take, because what might happen when they are talking about this second wave, this fear and the scaring of what is going to happen next fall. what did we just go through?

we went through a flu season. i do not see any breakdown of covid versus normal flu. how do we know that half of these deaths are coming from the normal flu season, where we have anywhere from 20,000 to 80,000 people die? host: i will leave it there. thanks for the call from somers, new york. this is a tweet from the president yesterday, taking aim at the world health organization and china. why is china, with a population much bigger than ours, paying world health the organization, united nations, and the wto, where they are a developing country. molly ball will be joining us in the 9:00 hour, with more on her book about nancy pelosi. we are focusing on the u.s. and the global response to this pandemic. -- maury ishe phone

on the phone from georgia. good morning. caller: good morning. this proves that trump was right about restarting the american middle class, with nafta and the tpp and negotiating with china, to bring jobs back to the united shapes but there has been a proposition the whole time, president theton and ignoring -- mainstream media keeps their constituents shackled, completely ignorant through misinformation and lies. for three years, she claims to have evidence of collusion, which he did not. they testify that there was no collusion, but when he went on mainstream media, they alluded to collusion by the president. to me, they want to keep the country close because if they open the country up again, there

would be network sports, opportunities for commercials, for trump and his team will expose many of the lies that have been told over the last three years, and this resistance is now costing america. the president talked about hydrochloric when and to use that -- hydrochloric -- hydroxychloroquine and when to use that. a congressman from detroit used the presidentd that it saved her life, but we are resisting using this. i would say what the president said -- he said if it does work, it would be a shame if we didn't do it earlier. that's what's been going on. they have been resisting this president from day one because they want to conceal the globalization of america and the united states becoming a service economy, and we are paying a

horrible price for it. so many of our people are ignorant of the facts. we are losing jobs. we have people on jobs training lesser, training their replacement that makes less money. somebody has to do something about this. this president has been trying, but the mainstream media, the deep state resistance movement that hillary clinton joined israel. it,fbi has been following the doj, 17 intelligence agencies have all been a part of this. host: i will leave it there. thanks for the call. we have checked in with reporters from wellington, new zealand, london, england, and stockholm, sweden. we turn our attention to asia, the wall street bureau chief in seal, south korea -- in seoul, south korea. with theu begin contact tracing that has been

really refined in south korea? how does that work and how does that help reopen the economy in seoul and elsewhere across the economy? guest: we had a second cluster of cases emerge over the past 10 days or so. the contact tracing would be unrecognizable in many places of the west. korea had its own failure five years ago with the middle eastern respiratory system, mers outbreak. it gave medical officials omniscient power to look into people's cell phones, bank accounts, security camera footage, and they can create a pretty crystal-clear picture of where a person has been into they have interacted with yuri this has given the government of quick strike ability to react when there was an outbreak, but also as we push open the economy and society, the ability to respond to returning infections.

the resta's lesson to of the world, to act fast. what are lessons that can be applied here in the united states? beyond contact tracing, the wide availability of testing. in might be a little too late for the west and the u.s. to wrap this up, but they are trying. the ability to figure out who has the disease and who does not , it allows health officials, governments, the people living in the country to know with some precision where you can go, where you can't go, do i have it, could i be spreading it to others? we were able to knit this in the bud earlier -- nip this in the bud earlier than what we have seen in other places of the world. host: an kim jong-un, and he basically disappeared but is now back on the national stage.

but as you posted today, the problems in north korea did not disappear. what is the status of things in that country and where was kim jong-un? i don't think the world yet knows where he was during his three-week absence or his more than two-week absence now from the public eye. north korea has not reported a single case of covid-19 yet. that is a claim that anyone who knows anything about the country's health care system or looks at a map and sees the proximity to south korea, china and russia, they see it as very dubious. jong-un, there was global speculation, a global guessing game of is he alive, is he dead, is he somewhere in between? the host: what's it like today? seoul, south korea? if you walk down the streets, what's open?

what closed? guest: i've been out all weekend. when you're out with friend or family, you know, it seems like er couple minutes you're turning to each other and making the joke, so much for social distancing. we were on the precipus of reopening the economy about ten days ago when this new cluster of cases tied to some nightclubs first emerged. it did put the country in a sense of pause for a bit, but being out this weekend the bars are full, the restaurants are certainly active. i've seen people at parks. i think the backdrop for this, though, we really suffered outside of china the biggest outbreak early on and the government had proven they know how to do these things and act quickly, as my story pointed out, with testing, with contact tracing. so i think there is perhaps a false sense of security but there's a sense of security that even individually if i get it i would be able to find a

hospital bed, figure out my diagnosis quickly. but also societywise, i think there's a high amount of confidence that the government could address this in the weeks and months ahead. >> when there is a vaccine, walk us through how it will be distributed across south korea. >> i would imagine south korea would be at the front of the line. they've been so efficient in terms of conducting other elements of the crose treatment whether a-- coronavirus treatment, whether avoiding a backlog of beds or making sure personnel are deployed in the right areas, i'm sure south korea would get the vaccine alongside other countries of its magnitude, of its ilk. and we have a nationalized health care system and whether it's face masks or tests they've shutdown them to be very speedy and efficient at distributing it to the public. >> and this photograph, how south korea responded. are face masks going to be the

new norm? >> well, it's really reuping the old norm. we've worn face masks for many years, whether you have the flu or air quality is bad, there is a custom of this in korea in many parts of asia reltive to the west. that was the one item that atleash initially, it wasn't toilet paper or hand sanitizer, it was face masks. the government basically rationed and took over production of the product and they first started dispensing two a week, then three a week, increasing it since. they're back on the shelves largely. i would imagine the vaccine, when it comes, would have a similar rollout. >> timothy martin the bureau chief in sutesdz, south korea. we thank you for being with us. guest: thank you. and stay safe. host: this is from jim.

back to your phone calls. jim, good morning. caller: good morning. thanks for hearing my comments. i was surprised to hear hillary clinton pointing the finger at mr. trump because i do believe bill clinton signed the biggest trade agreement with china, went from 5 billion to 400-some billion. his signing of that deal. and i don't understand how a civilized country can deal with people that eat bats. that's mind boggling. but let me -- i listened to a gentleman a little while ago and he said that this is manmade. let me specify, it was a woman eating that bat, not a man. it was a woman. and the democrats are so prone

to help us out why don't they take the cap off that social security so that millionaires and billionaires can pay their own fair share? they're democrats. run that one by. host: thanks for the call. robert next. caller: inaudible host: we're going to dwayne next in mississippi. caller: good morning thanks for slg me on. there's a few things i wanted to say. i know trump is getting a lot of blame but i wish the media would be fair and clear about what's going on. and like that guy from georgia called in and said it was excellent call, why in the world did chris cuomo send sick people to the old folks home knowing what happened in washington state? i know you're not going to answer it. host: first it's andrew cuomo.

chris cuomo is a cnn host. caller: ok, i'm sorry andrew cuomo. could somebody answer that for me? that's one thing. why did he do that knowing what happened in washington state why would you do that? host: where should he have sent them? they were living in a nursing home. caller: no. he sent sick patients to the nursing home. that's what i'm talking about and you know that for a fact. i ask people what they would do go look and it up for themselves. don't even listen to me. look it up for themselves. this man sent sick patients to the old folks home. they talk about these democrats don't want nobody to die but they're for abortion. come on,man. let's be honest about what's going on. host: so we can deal with the facts. your source is what? caller: let me pull it up. i'm looking at it. this is new york news channel 4 new york news, cuomo reverses

nursing home directive to take covid-19 patients requiring more staff and testing. this man sent sick people to old folks homes. go look it up for yourself. i'm not lying, sir. host: i know you're not lying. my point is they were there already. but we'll let your point go. we'll go to coleman. caller: good morning. ve got experience a with the covid. in january in las vegas we were inundated in that conference with chinese and it was at a peak of the china situation in december, and then that conference took place january 6 through the 12th of this year. we had 20 people in our booth

at ces and all -- we all assumed we got the flu. now, later there was a test of one of the participants when ever he returned to china and it was communicated back that we were all experiencing the virus, the covid virus. i was taking zikem and everybody was handling that situation because, in conferences and like that, you have high activity. to veryone was able function except one that had to stay in the room. my point is there was no publicity on this. there's been no discussion on here we had a million people under the roofs of the convention centers? las vegas with about 400,000

coming in reportedly at that time from china, and those are statistics that are proveable. and we were surrounded by chinese booths and people. so my point is that here's a real petry dish of everybody that goes from all over the country to las vegas for that convention and then it was spread from there and i did probably infect my wife. but we all -- host: how are you feeling today? caller: oh, fine. we got over it. was a reaction of your high activity, as long as you keep going and consider it a flu, no one knew we had the coronavirus. host: this is the headline from

cnn. mitt romney calling trump ig firing a threat to accountable democracy. rlier day chuck grassley expressing concern about the president's rationale for firing saying. that from senator chuck grassley. we'll go to hune, texas. good morning. caller: good morning. glad you take my call. -- we ng to see what a

are in the 20th century now and if people, all of this is happening so very badly here and they act like it's always, hair people talking about like it's the democrats' fault. we're supposed to be working together now. we all are in this. i've got friends that had that. some are republican, some are democrat. trump needs to stop acting like it's their fault and everything else and blaming president obama and all this stuff here. we need to get -- this is reality here. we can't put -- he may be giving it to somebody or whatever. people o go on and -- have lost their job and -- and ere he is trump always talking

about [inaudible] we're going to open back up. and the man standing behind him now that i'm looking at on my tv had said you cannot do this. the republicans need to stand up against this man and do what the doctors and things say so we can get now. a lot of places are opening up in texas. they went out. everybody needs to go -- i'm staying in, just coming out to get some sun and bring that in. i wipe down everything that my the grocery from store and everything. you don't know who's touched it or anything. and to wait until then the groc of rushing to that and get it under control and keep getting control and then open it up and more comes out. they need to do better than

they are doing here and stop blaming the democrats for everything. this is not a democrat thing right here with the -- it's not a republican. and if trump keeps blaming everybody else -- they need to get together here and do what's best. they need to get these people money to get to hospitals and everything that they need. these tests. try to get it in early and get it taken care of. host: thank you for the call. this is from the "washington post."

carter from vermont. good morning. caller: good morning, sir. i would like to ask about the -- nancy pelosi. why can't we work together as a country and just help the american people out? host: thanks for coal.

joel from virginia. good morning. caller: good morning. two things that i think are obvious in this whole situation. it's really uplifting to hear other callers talking about the need to work together. i think we have a real problem with our congress, our senate and our house of representatives, and embracing that, simply because these folks are entrenched. until we have congressional term limits these people are going to play that game and the audacity that they think we don't hear the sound bites last month and then look at something totally the opposite the next month -- i'm talking about republicans and democrats. i voted for both parties in presidential elections since i've been able to vote. it's sickening that they think we are that naive and that ignorant not to be able to realize that. that said, this pandemic, yes

it did come from china. but we're partly responsible for it as well. we should have known getting into what they call the global economy, the global markets. what they didn't tell us when they put that in place back in the 90s and started heading in that direction, they were talking about exploiting global labor. that's it. that's the whole thing right there. we need to rethink our total way we do business internationally. the way we do everything in this country. host: thanks for call. john in houston, texas. good morning. caller: good morning. school house rocks, i'm on the bill. all those things were very, very supplemental to my education growing up. in 2000s. is acting nt trump

retro actively with his policies. everything is going back and undo what has been placed in law. the affordable care act and tax on that, on policies, for instance. ou know, when obama was -- took office in 2009, home equity was around $6 trillion. trillion with a t. in 1e9 it was -- 2019 it was $16 trillion. we know the fallout from the subprime loan for people with prime credit and all of those shenanigans that went on with the -- during the bush -- george w. bush administration. and these disaster capitalists, we have disaster capitalists now tap calizing on these disasters. unfortunately, most have been

under republican regimes. now, i'm not going to demonize the republicans because -- in this sense. we know that the radical republicans who were basically abolitionists, that, the adlay stevens on the world and frederick douglases pushed through the 14 and 15 amendment. they were very prevalent in that cause. taze we have people saying liberal is a dirty word and conservative is nice. conservatives love to kick the can. conservative means that when, for instance, the institution wanted to gradually giver -- abolish slavery over the next 100, 200 years. push it the road so where you are not doing anything. and the mitt romneys and many of these republicans and even

democrats should look at the issue of forward thinking. rhett rooktively it's illegal or unconstitutional for the congress. .ost: from yahoo news fay from ithaca, new york. good morning. >> good morning. i want to say i love c-span. i haven't been able to get through for a couple months so i have a few things if you can allow me to say them. number one, i really believe that this virus could have been controlled. the warning signs from the very beginning when the doctor in wuhan sounded the alarm and then was silenced. there should have been a lockdown of international travel right away. if things got locked down right

away i think this wouldn't have spread. the thing that unnerves me is that so many scientists knew this was coming. they knew even fauci said that, even gates said that this virus is a matter of when it was coming. so if that's the case, with all the knowledge that we have these days, you know, with past epidemics, just like new zealand like you had them on before, i mean, they were able to contain it. i mean, we knew that flights were coming out. that vowled have been locked down. the other thing i wanted to say is in terms of the bat going -- an animal, you had -- a doctor and a research who wrote a book talking about this. pengalin, there was an episode talking about that, a

woman trying to save them in africa. the chinese are decimating them or just like the african horns, tusks for medicinen and for also eating them. there are things that we need to be talking about that are not being talked about. know that these animals are -- had spread the virus with these wet markets. and the other last thing please let me say, i've been very concerned about the cell phone technology, steve. i know this is a very sensitive topic because people love these technologies. but they have not proven safe. and people use their cell phones to shop and they touch them and i think this is another thing nobody's talking about how the virus is being spread. i for one do not have a cell

phone. i don't want a cell phone. i don't want to use anything wireless. and we don't know if this is reducing our immune system. please, steve, bring people on your program to talk about these issues. the cell phone -- these wireless technologies have not been proven safe and i'm not anti-technology which is why the very reason why we should have stopped this virus. we are more -- we know more in 2020 than ever before in history. and this could have been prevented. and one last thing host: real quick. final point. caller: thank you. host: thank you for the call. of course if you have a cell phone the c.d.c. is recommending that you wipe it down with an alcohol swab or soap and water or a cloth to keep it clean and to do so on a regular and repeated basis. from politico.com. germans being german about

coronavirus. and joining us from berlin the chief correspondent for politico. good sunday afternoon to you. thank you for being with us. guest: nice to be with you today. host: let's talk about germans' overall response to this pandemic. what has it been on a personal level, those you've talked to? guest: well, i would say that the beginning the germans generally underestimated the severity of the crisis just as everyone else did. it wasn't until the beginning of march when you saw the explosion of covid in northern italy and you saw the prime minister in italy effectively put the northern part of the country under quarantine that the germans really woke up to what was happening. and from that point on i believe it was march 8th, they really scrambled to put measures into place to start to

combat the virus. but prior to that we didn't really hear much from senior politicians. angela merkel barely addressed the issue. beyond that people weren't very worried. [inaudible] that have proved effective. host: as we check in with foreign correspondents around the world, the same question i've been asking. as you travel the streets of berlin on sunday, what's opened, what's closed, where are the restrictions? guest: well, today sunday generally things are closed anyway so you're not going to see a lot of shops open. but as of friday, the government in berman has allowed most restaurants to open again, bars are open again. this is with some restrictions. they've asked people to

continue to maintain these distance rules. the six feet roughly. and that means you can't have as many people in restaurants and you also ask to tell the restaurant when you arrive what your name is, where you live, and your telephone number. this is th isn't mandatory but it is something that most people seem to be doing. and you know, i guess this is one of the larger kind of longer term concerns here about people's privacy and data protection and so forth. so for now that aspect is voluntary. but generally speaking it's been quite a change over the past couple of days because the entire city was shut down for weeks, as has been most of the world. and from one day to the next it does seem like things have kind of opened up. the shops are all open again, the restaurants, and there are

a lot of people out and about because the weather has been quite good. host: when there is a vaccine what's the plan to distribute it and to whom? who are the priority patients in the next year, year-and-a-half, when it's available? guest: they haven't really des closed that yet to be honest. i think that it will be handled by the regions. germany like the u.s. is run really by the regional states and the health departments in those states would be the ones running this process. and i suspect that priority would be given to those most in danger of dying of covid. so it would be the elderly in particular who would be given the vaccine first. there's a lot of concern here i think as there is elsewhere that it could be quite a long time before we have a vaccine. so people are continuing to

stick to the distancing measures. and despite this opening that we've seen over the last couple of days there's still a lot of worry that they will see another wave here that they are not out of the woods yet. host: what is the biggest question facing european governments on this sunday in terms of moving ahead? is it the restrictions? is it the vaccination process? the contact testing? what are the big priorities? guest: well, i think the big priority is to see if this opening that we've seen not just in germany but in a number of other european countries over the past week or so and it's going to continue, if that leads to a second wave or not. because the economic impact has been absolutely devastating just as it has been in the u.s. so there's a lot of pressure to get the economy going again. and the question is, at what cost will that come? the problem is that there is no

magic formula. a lot of what we've seen with these measures is just trial and error essentially. and no one really knows what works. no one really knows for sure, for example, why germany has a lower death rate than a lot of the neighboring countries. this is something that might take months before scientists can really point to the crucial factors here. so this is a process of trial and error. and i think at the moment what they're trying to do is calibrate the opening to the point where they can get the economy going and not ala lot of people are getting infected or not above this r factor of one, which so far has been the case in germany. but the problem is there's a lag time so we won't really know for another two weeks what impact opening that we're seeing now is really having. host: and the background of the german chancellor angela merkel as a scientists, how does that fit into the equation of her response to this pandemic?

guest: i think that's a bit of an overblown theory, to be honest. i think the reality is that she's a very pragmatic politician, always has been. she hasn't worked as a scientists i think for 30 years, for over 30 years. but that is certainly her training. i think germans in general have a lot of respect for science. they don't tend to question it maybe to the degree that some others would. so they accept the authority of the scientific community. they looked up to doctors, there's a german sort of figure very similar to dr. fauci here who people listen to, and have turned to for advice throughout this crisis. so i think these are factors that kind of have helped the government convince the public to go along with these measures, although even here you're starting to see protests, you're starting to

see people complaining about the severity even though there's an opening now. and, you know, this is going to continue. i think the longer this goes on. because there are skeptics here who say that these measures went much too far and were unnecessary ultimately, especially when you look at the low death rate germany has seen. host: one final question, because there are a number of military bases, u.s. bases in germany. what are you seeing there? guest: well, those bases are mostly in the western part of the country. they're all in the western part of the country and sort of at the southwest. and they have the advantage that they can seal themselves off literally from the surrounding communities. so my understanding is that's exactly what's happened. you know, you don't have people going out as much as you normally would. so they have this advantage that it's quite easy for them to isolate because they have

everything that they need on base. obviously people like to leave the base when they can and i think that is opening up again. but there have been restrictions from what i gather on their movements. host: matthew joining us from berlin, germany, the chief european correspondent for politico. thanks for being with us on this sunday. we appreciate it. guest: thanks for having me. host: back tocaller: good morni. thanks for taking my call. i think the administration has actually been terrible on the response to this, and they have radio rightng hate in with them. rush limbaugh downs the experts every day -- fauci and birx, they don't know anything. they do not have any clue what

is going on according to him. and this is a man undergoing cancer treatment. i am sure he would run right out that she says basically this virus is a hoax. i am sure he will run right out and try to get infected with it. you know that's not true. but this is what is coming out of right wing hate radio on this. you have these people show up at these demonstrations with their assault weapons and military style uniforms and i have no clue what that has to do with opening up his misses. i am in an area in pennsylvania called -- it's in the yellow zone, which means caution. not everything is open. no restaurants, movie theaters, or salons or hair -- you know, i can't get a haircut. i would like to have one, but i can't. that is simply how it is. you can't just go and open everything up and have this turn into a real disaster. host: things for the call.

phyllis george, the former first kentucky, married to then governor brown, went on to make a name for herself on cbs sports. she passed away at the age of 70. she was battling a blood disorder. thedaughter pamela brown is white house correspondent for cnn. phyllis george passed away at the age of 70. our next call is from hawaii. roger, good morning to you. caller: good morning. host: go ahead, roger. caller: i want to make a comment about donald trump making all of these uninformed comment. he has no backing whatsoever as far as intelligence or schooling or anything to make the comments about thisg epidemic. he should be listening exclusively to dr. fauci for

these types of facts. host: thanks, roger. by the way, i note on the house in the senate. the senate is back this week. the house had a very brief session -- the house had a session on friday that was not brief. it was lengthy. there will be some pro forma sessions this week, but the house is not expected to return until wednesday after memorial day. a live view of the u.s. capitol this sunday morning. we are getting the response to the pandemic. lance is joining us from st. petersburg, florida. good morning. caller: i just want to make mention a couple points -- actually three. throughout all this coverage, i have yet to hear any politicians speak aboutoutlets the founding of this country and what this country was founded on

of liberty, the constitution, and the bill of rights. it is almost as if every civil liberty that has been given to us by the creator has been erased. it's perplexing to me that nobody has given that any type of civil liberties -- i'm a truck driver. lance, i am going to have to let you go because we lost you. i got the essence of your point. we got feedback on yourself him. is joining us. good morning. caller: good morning. i would like to give a little bit more information to a gentleman who called earlier in the program. i am looking at "the wall street journal."

to pullabout 10 seconds up this article. i can walk to this nursing home. i think is very unfair that you did not elaborate that man to elaborate on what he thought. host: what do you think? investigateeed to why new york state's record of death is so much higher than every other state in the country. including oregon. you know, washington, oregon, and california. and i do not like the way you handle that call and you cut him off, and i think that was terrible. you for thethank call. we appreciate it. trish is in seattle, washington. good morning, trish. good morning, everyone. i have a unique perspective. i am a case manager for an insurance company that manages mostly medicare patients and one

of the concerns i have, and i don't think people have come to reckon with yet is the unemployment rate. and with the unemployment rate, that means 33 million, 35 million people who are now uninsured -- and so, therefore if they can go to the doctor, they can get their diabetes medication refilled because they do have insurance now. becauseateral damage this country we do not have universal health care is an absolute tragedy. i do not think those numbers will ever be reconciled into the covid virus total deaths, but is something we need to consider. i know just dealing with my patience in dealing with the patients and on with the clinics, the clinic

hours are reduced. the doctors have taken a pay cut. the staff is not working. they are being released. how's that going to affect health care in this country which, then, if we don't have healthy people they can't go because they have these comorbidities. they are not getting their medication for high blood pressure, copd, congestive heart failure. it's something we have to think about seriously right now because those numbers are going to grow exponentially in the years to come until we get a universal health care system. that's why i understand that germany, for example -- they don't have the height rate of death -- the high rate of death because the people who do have those comorbidities and are then at more extreme cases that will pick up the covid virus -- host: just, i will leave you

there. thank you very much for the call. -- trish, i will leave you there. joining us, the new york times bureau chief, andrew. adam host:. -- guest: adam. adam, i apologize. this article says the coronavirus may have appeared in france as early as december. guest: there may have been a case as early as december in paris. it's not certain. in any case it's not likely to be the origin of the subsequent spread of the virus in france. that is pretty conclusively traced back to chinese tourists in february. in bordeaux and then paris. december is likely to have been an isolated case.

host: when did the french government issue the lockdown across the country? mid-march. march 16. probably four or five days too late. host: why do you say that? guest: if they had done it earlier they would not have seen the relatively elevated death toll they are seeing now. there are other factors that play into that. you have to give the french overall, i would say, a b or b plus. germany, buts better than spain, italy, or the united states. host: we are talking with adam, parisew york times" bureau chief. are outside.e you what are the restrictions if you want to travel through the streets? there are no

restrictions. they were lifted about a week ago. people are free to circulate, if they like. the part that is still closed is a problem in one of the world's .ensest cities young people have been congregating on the river banks, which are not closed anymore. the parks are closed. up until a week ago you had to sign your own form issued by the interior ministry, listing one why you shoulds be outdoors. that has been done away with. so people could go out and about . people are a lot less tragic than normal. some storms -- some stores have opened up. business is not really picked up

the way it was going before the epidemic. mr. cancian: -- host: what about places like the louvre, street cafés? guest: street cafés are still closed. there is no date for when they might open. the museums are also closed. i ameason why you think outside is because for the first time you can actually hear birds in paris because there's so but i'm notic, actually outside. i'm inside. what about the country's ability to test? where is france at the moment? it is better than it was at the beginning. it is probably not where it should be. certainly better than the u.s. the problem the french has been that they don't have the

industrial capacity anymore to manufacture the ingredients needed in these tests. the french would be industrializing. host: the president over the weekend taking aim at the world health organization. what is the view of it in france? well, the french are critical of the who, but they believe it's a vital partnering tool in the situation at the moment.

certainly we agree with the approach that the who was far the beginning. but the who is now an essential and to in fighting this suppress it, to deprive it of oxygen is deeply foolish in the french view. host: adam joining us from paris, the new york times bureau chief. his work available at nytimes.com. thank you very much for being with us. have a good afternoon. guest: no problem. host: good morning, robert. morning, steve. steve, i have a few points i want to make here.

here is the story -- this is the one that is listening to you and cnn.to you guys there with you get someone on their to explain -- this is out of their book. if you get someone to explain leviticus 1 to 14, chapter 26, verse 23 through 42, ii 14s, 25, chronicles through 23, and ezekiel -- you will understand why we got this virus here in the united states. the people following trump will win the world and lose their souls. bible and you follow a

man like mr. trump, he is going to break the united states because he filed bankruptcy already. he is going to break this united states of america and you have people following him right on down into the hole. and that's my point that i wanted to make this morning. from lynchburg, virginia. joining us on the phone from madrid, spain, we have the madrid correspondent for "the financial times." thank you for being with us. guest: my pleasure. host: why has spain been among the hardest hit countries in europe? guest: there are reasons for that. ashould say that spain is much better place than it was two months ago. also, spain is a country where there is a real kind of communal living. people live rather like they

live in manhattan, and very, apartments, buildings. people live on the streets. it was, to be honest, one of the first countries that was hit in it was not a west, country that had the luxury to get ready for this. it was nowhere near as ready as singapore or territories in asia that had the experience, took the pandemic more seriously than in the west. but those of the reasons why spain found itself in such a very bad place in march and april. host: earlier this month, keith

johnson with the dispatch -- "sorry, americans, you have not even had a real lockdown. what is the point? what is the message? spain at the moment is kind of a semi-success. it had one of the harshest lockdowns on earth. people were not able to leave their houses, their flats, their apartments for something like 6, 7 weeks. and their apartments are pretty small. you're not allowed to exercise. you are only allowed to go out groceriese dog or get or go to the pharmacy is. it was a very, very tough lockdown for a country where -- and not too much of that. that lockdown has had consequences. after -- weonths are about six weeks after the

peak of deaths, which have come down from 950 a day april 2 to just 87 people in the last day or so. if you look at excess deaths, because there's also some problems with coronavirus testing, the best way to see the manyt of the virus is how more people than normal are dying? about twice as many people were at its worst.mal that is from all causes. twice as many people were dying a day. in the most significant parts of the country, madrid, barcelona, it was many more times that. the same number of people dying as normally die into may. so the rate has come right down in spain. this tough lockdown has really worked through it but now it becomes problematic because now we are seeing all the loosenersy about how to

the lockdown, how fast to loosen the lockdown. now people are less scared. with as is back in spain vengeance. a headline from abc news. one spanish woman, one hundred 13 years old, survived coronavirus. what is the back story? -- old, survived coronavirus. what is the back story? knows that ife you're 70 or older or 80 or older it will be more of a challenge to get through this thing. but of course, there are cases on either side of the divide. there are healthy people in their 30's, sometimes 20's who succumb to it and extremely old whole -- as in this case -- survived. the sheer number of cases of coronavirus in spain -- we are talking to hundred 30,000 people means there it --

are extraordinary stories on either side of the divide. but you can't be sure what is going to happen. one of the reasons that spaniards are relatively disciplined, when you go on the streets here, people do seem to social distance. spain is out of the woods with this particular outbreak, but everyone knows the country is until ale to the virus vaccine is found. there was a study done last week that discovered only 5% of the population had been infected. 19 out of 20 people could still be infected. there's no way, there's no way there will be a silver bullet with this disease. final question.

what is the summer going to look like in spain? we don't know. spain is beginning a slow, slow loosening of the lockdown. the population is in this more relaxed situation. you can have meetings with people although you have to have two meters distance. restaurants can serve people outdoors. that affects about 70% of spain. it does not include madrid. it does not include barcelona, the most affected areas, but it's part of the slow growth that the government hopes driving end of june or july will get back to the new normal and that's when people will be able to travel around the country. we will be able to have something more like a normal life, but of course there will be rules in terms of wearing masks, social distance.

that is going to be a little bit of normal tourism, but really a very strange distance. we do not expect international tourism to come back in a way this summer. perhaps a little bit. very, veryvery, tentative steps toward the normal. three weeks ahead of the curve from the u.k. and probably a little bit ahead of the curve from the u.s.. it is looking about 10 weeks into the future. att: his work is available ft.com. they give joining us. guest: my pleasure. host: we welcome our callers outside the united states. mark is on the phone. where are you in england right now? are near where the romans landed. host: good afternoon to you. caller: good afternoon. there is aed to say,

specter when i think about these things in america -- i'm an american living in britain so i get different people's ideas as well as american ones. the specter in this discussion -- there's a lot of talk of freedom. really, americans are very proud of our freedom and very proud of our constitution. our constitution is well over 200 years old now. but i don't think we realize the fact that we have men writing the constitution and extolling freedom that had slaves, that had people chained up. we also, even in the north, had a long tradition of indentured servants. and we still think in america that it's tolerable to have people working in our society and living in our society they get paid such little money that they cannot afford health care. in other places that is considered intolerable.

and this virus affects everybody, of course, and you it in an upscale department store as well as you can catch it in a walmart. it might teach us something about how we are all in this together. and we say we are all in this together but we don't really quite believe it because if we tolerate people in our society that can't afford, have no chance of affording basic things , it's pretty dangerous as well because it affects the healthy, rich people, too because the virus is quite indiscriminate. you may be able to get a better edge by living in a upscale neighborhood, but you can still catch it. i really think we ought to take to heart the quality that we always talk about and the freedom. freedom is only good for exercising. it ought to give us an opportunity to rethink. we lost the call.

thank you for the call from england. from the front page of "the new the cases in the u.s. slowly closing the risk for complacency. ron joins us from pittsburgh, pennsylvania. good morning. caller: hello. host: you are on the air. go ahead. caller: i am calling in reference to a couple callers who are commenting on the virus in the nursing home -- host: right. caller: i was listening to a press conference. what they were saying was death, there were so many people come into the hospital with it, i guess they would have to be on the ventilators.

so, they were at nursing homes to require a certain type of care. they identify those nursing and basically quarantine in isolates in the hospital this section where they would just be those who had the virus -- [indiscernible] they would receive that, plus they would be quarantined away .rom the rest of the patients in both, as the governor explained, were hotspots for covid-19. ronald, thank you for the call. it's a good reminder if you want to watch the briefings with the governors, including governor andrew cuomo, all of them are available on her website.

you can find them at c-span.org/coronavirus. joining us on the phone from cheng, and he is with "the wall street journal." thank for being with us. guest: thanks for having me. curious, what do the chinese people get as far as information about this virus and its source? and what about the reaction around the world? i think thest: narrative in china is there were lapses in the beginning that were the fault of local , but that once the national authorities, xi jinping and some of the city leaders got wind of this, they acted decisively and vanquished this virus. of pushthere was a lot early on in terms of trying to figure out whether this came from a wet market, what sort of

animal might it have come from, you've got the humans and all the rest of it, but we have been reporting the trail has run dry there. i think they stopped pursuing that as vigorously as they had at first. of course, that coincides with the time you see the blame game go on between china and the u.s. on the origins of this. what islls its people happening. the world's most prosperous nation is struggling with this virus, but they beat it. as youlsh: -- host: point out in your piece, a lot of blame blame -- blame game in this country and pointing the finger to china. yeah, i don'tst: know where it started. i know senator tom cotton has , therentioning, you know

has been a lot of tension. it is the highest level biosafety lab in the world. we have the smoking gun evidence that that is where it came from. you see the chinese fire back in suggest it may have been imported by u.s. military members participating in military games and will hide. there's not a whole lot of solid evidence on your side. i'm not sure i would hold the press for that given how much animosity there is. not: can you travel to wuhan w? guest: yes. we just sent two of our team of her's there. they were there for more than a month. they just came back to beijing a month ago.

dad to clear 14 days of 19. the only problem is, once you leave, they will be confined to a hotel room and they will check on your health until 14 days have passed. we don't have anyone there now. course, it is >> it is mostly lifted. i was out today. supermarket,nto a no problem. most restaurants are now open. at first they would stop you from sitting in groups of more than three people, but that is mostly gone now. those people are wearing face masks and practicing social distancing. normal life is mostly back to normal. the obstacle is there is very little international travel, and that is what china has clamped down because they claim to have

mostly eliminated the virus within the country. now that there is that it comes back in, by the chinese nationals or others flying into china. that is the biggest restriction, that they cannot fly into hong kong or tokyo very easily. host: you mentioned this earlier, but we have had a lot of color saying this is a man-made virus. based on what you know right now, your answer to that is? i am not an epidemiologist that i'm trying to get my head around some of this science. there is plenty of disagreement even among the experts, and we may never know the true source. like most diseases that we have seen over the centuries, we do not really know who patient zero thinknd in some cases we we do, but i think given how much time has passed since this

virus first emerged sometime last year and given that china actually has destroyed a lot of the sample and a lot of the animals that may have been a part of this, they did that not necessarily because they were trying to hide evidence, but because they were worried that might spread if they were to allow these animals to remain out there and potentially able to spread more. host: and the other part of the equation, you mentioned tom cotton and his agitation to allow those who have suffered as a result of the virus to suit china. will beijing pay any price for this? guest: it depends on the u.s. court system whether or not a .udge will look upon this that is also beyond me. i am not an expert in that

realm. think it will get a reaction from beijing, and now the warning is that they may take more countermeasures. some of them have been aimed at us in the media and some have techaimed at the trade and . so it looks like we have a cycle here. we really do not know what will happen next, but we know it is likely to get worse before it gets better. beijing a journalist in , what is your looming question in the week ahead? a busythis week is quite one. we have the world health assembly at the beginning, there's a question over whether taiwan will be allowed to participate for that is really a question that will be left up to aging because the organization is a u.n. agency, and china has

a lot of clout. towards the end of the week we get the biggest political media of the year, sort of the legislative session where you leaders talkus about what their economic goals are for the year. you will be seeing whether or not there's any rhetoric aimed at the u.s.. we will watch to see whether china sets a goal for the economy. we are not sure it will this year because it has been such an unprecedented year. we have a busy week. next sunday it could be a very different relationship. cheng, thank you for your time. will go to florida next. good morning. caller: i had a couple of comments --

host: i think we lost her. let's go to mike in texas. you had a color little bit ago talking about not having proper health care for people, and it is immoral not to have that. i would argue that the united states as a country, the military defends every global trade route around the world, trade route is defended by the united states. i would argue that our priorities, you cannot do everything. you can't have immigration the way we have it in the united states, free-flowing practically , since 1965, and not have costs that overwhelm us.

as far as china, they are not transparent. are they going to openly be transparent and allow the doctors to be interviewed about what happened? of course not. it is like a bank robber, do you think they will leave a trail for the police to investigate and see what was going on? 50% of the cases in the united states are on the east coast, actually more than that. we have a diverse population here, and there are different counties that have no cases at all or very few they should be able to take practical measures to open up their counties and cities and so forth as they seek that. no one once the virus, but we cannot have 33% unemployment rate we have to get back to work. joining us from brazil, he professorciated -- a

for the associated press. can you harass? -- can you hear us? what is the state of brazil today? is spreadingirus faster all over the world, but it is a bit delayed here. they are now more than 200,000 cases in brazil and more than 15,000 deaths. growing and there is a lot of concern about how to handle this because there's mixed messages from the federal localment and state and authorities. host: one of the headlines a couple of days ago as the health minister was fired after a dispute, what is the back story?

president has been dismissive of this virus from the beginning, from first denying the severity and then denying that the lockdown measures were worth it, that they were going to be in too much economic pain. the first minister was fired a month ago for backing recommendations that people stay at home and restrictions on is this. minister, andalth that minister was supposed to sort of balance the equation between saving the economy and saving lives. unfortunately he and the president appeared to hit an impasse where the president was pushing for widespread prescription of chloroquine, and the health minister would not

get behind that. notold one paper he would damage his reputation by doing so. eventually he could not take it any longer and he quit. did, thes he government started incorporating chloroquine statistics in their bulletins and seems to be ready to roll this out. host: are there restrictions in brazil, and what do they look like? caller: it varies from state to state. the federal government had opposed the restrictions for the , notreasons mentioned winning to cause a collapse in the economy. thethe states have jurisdiction to do this. smitty --one small one small city that enclosed the

lockdown for a half a day, and then some imposed letdowns in the capital. in ninere letdowns other cities, and you can see it is almost like resilience staggering toward lockdown. generally speaking, most states have restrictions on business allowing only the most essential companies and stores to be operating and recommend people stay at home rather than oblige them to do so. the question over what is essential is a hot one. last week the president issued a decree saying beauty salons and gyms and barbershops should be considered essential services, which the governors bulkeley said they would ignore. you are in rio de janeiro,

so what it is like on a typical sunday? the thing we see is this mixed messaging between governors and the president is having an impact on the extent to which people who quarantine, and on a sunday, what you see is a lot of people going out. they will be wearing masks in most cases, but they are still going out to run, to just be outside. no one is on the beaches because that is being enforced, but no one is being forced to say home -- to stay home. ,ou have a lot of people out and that is the reality of mixed messages. say, the icuing to

units are almost completely maxed out. we went in went yesterday, it receivened on may 4 to overflow and it is already at 90% capacity. they were expecting it to be full in a couple of hours or days. thursday there were more than 300 people waiting for a bed. people in thest peak of the crisis that is a ways off. the hospitals are approaching capacities, and still people are unsafe. diller joins us from rio de janeiro. thank you for your time. entitledook is

"pelosi" by molly ball. she will be joining us in a moment. .e will be back ♪ >> tonight on q&a, sue seneca halen discusses her book about a 1973 experiment led by a stanford psychologist testing psychiatric hospitals. >> because he had a wide influence on so much of what we contend with today, so much that we see today, it was touched in some ways by this study and a lot of public opinion about psychiatry and institutions, they were in part shaped by this study. in questioning it, we have to

back and question some of our assumptions, and i hope that this gives us the opportunity to go back and reassess in a way to move forward because you cannot move forward on a rocky foundation. legitimate, was not we really have to rethink some of the collusion's -- conclusions that it presented. >> c-span has unfiltered coverage of the federal response to the coronavirus pandemic with white house briefings, updates from governors and congress, and our daily program "washington journal" hearing your thoughts about the virus. if you miss any of our live coverage, watch anytime on c-span.org /coronavirus. joining us here in washington is molly ball, a national

political correspondent and author of the new book "pelosi. " what led to this book? guest: nancy pelosi had never been on the cover of time or any national magazine despite having become the first woman speaker of the house, and we felt like it was time to take a look at the whole person, the profile. so i was assigned the piece but i was not all that interested in her and it was only when i andted interviewing her looking into her background that i realized -- obviously someone who will go down in american history both as a groundbreaking figure as the first woman speaker and i think one of the most congressional figures in her time.

the profile was published and i decided it was worth expanding into this book. host: how much access did you have to the speaker? guest: she did cooperate with this book. she gave me a series of interviews. as i recount, she is not the most transparent person, not someone who will let her hair down and tell you everything she thinks. but she did give me a series of interviews that i felt were revealing and added to the portrait. she came to washington representing san francisco back in 1987, and you write the following, in that year she realized that she was anything but an airhead. she barely slept, and she was liberated from the family responsibilities, she seemed to do nothing but work with a maniacal level of energy. behind her back, they called her the energizer honey. common team,is a

her incredible level of energy. by the time she came to congress in 1987, she was 47 and she had raised five children and seen them pretty much out of the house. after being time, done with her family responsibilities, she was a longtime volunteer. but the word airhead was something she had run up against and she ran for chair of the national committee, and it was something that one official said behind her back about her. i think it was symbolic about the perceptions that she had to bite as she rose in politics because she was a well-dressed middle-age woman, and it was not wantpeople to just to take her seriously. it meant that she had to work hard to get people to see her as a substantive person, somebody

who knew what she was doing. host: as you point out in the book, back in the 60's, both she and steny hoyer at the same internship. what is the relationship between the two? they are both from the baltimore area. was a working-class kid from the suburbs, and they both, when they graduated college, worked on the staff of the maryland senator daniel brewster, separated by a wall, and they were aware of each other. nobody ever would have thought that these two young adults would become the number one and two democratic leaders in the house of representatives, particularly nancy, number one, did have instances

against each other. the first time when she ran into thousand one, that was a hard-fought campaign, and there are sort of rival camps, and they will both tell you that they have developed a good working relationship. a lot of members of the caucus feel the same way, that their strengths complement each other, their different visions make very good combination. i think there will always be some tension there. every once in a while to this pelosi takel see some excuse to make life a little bit more difficult, and it seems like they will never lose that sense of competition. us.: molly ball is joining in her book she writes the following, blog -- pelosi --

the grumpy old man. that's right, he was sort of a conservative democrat and i think she would have described him as a little bit chauvinistic , sort of this graphic text marine. the opposite profile of a liberal woman from san francisco. they developed a good report early on and he really helped served as a validator for her with those other men. the grumpy old men of the democratic caucus, a lot sit in the part of the house for cuppa that's of a new corner. he brokered introductions for her not only with the older male parts, but the more conservative democrats. aen she did start seeking spot in leadership, those relationships can crucial. what he would always say to people was, don't think she's from san francisco. she is from baltimore, the point

being she came out of this machine of politics of the democratic machine she grew up in. she wasn't the liberal that people might have suspected. host: also you say the story of nancy is the story of a person who shattered the marble ceiling and glazed a new trail for women and a career that stamped american history, a story about politics, a story that will shape american politics in the trump era. it was not tics because washington. it was hers. presidentabout the and the negotiations on the stemless bill that passed in the house on friday. >> i do not have any idea what the president does. >> he said the house is on vacation. >> don't waste our time on what he says. we are try to get a job done

with the american people, to bring people together. we have our differences of opinion. we have a strong agreement that we have a responsibility to meet. i'm the appropriate or, that's how it was forged in congress, so i know left to our own devices, we can reach agreement and have all along. ,o we want to get to that place and we will see how we can resolve our differences. heartbreak inf our country, from the loss of a loved one, the sadness over losing a business where prospect of losing a business, so people want to know what we are here to do for them. they do not care about who said what about whom at the white house. that is an important, with all due respect to your question. host: your reaction?

guest: that is a classic nancy pelosi comment, don't bother meet with all of that noise. call me when you want to get something done, and you want to have a negotiation. as a detail in the book, from her perspective she has gotten the better end of the deal in negotiations with the white house and the republicans. she is very good. she is always able to keep her troops in line behind her. she has been able to help make sure that the formal care act is not repealed. she has been able to -- the affordable care act is not repealed. negotiations,irus i think there are unhappy factions, but she believes she is maximized her leverage to get

the best deal possible for the priorities that she cares about. she and the president have not spoken in some time. he has decided that he basically will not speak to her anymore because he is mad about impeachment. she is willing to sit down and have the negotiation, and she has been complaining about recently about the republicans do not even want to have a talk. busy makings are laws, pushing things to the house, and the republicans are saying we do not want to do anything right now. host: the phone lines are open. (202) 748-8000 is for democrats, (202) 748-8001 for republicans. the conversation with molly ball and we will get to your conversation in a moment. there is a photograph, the speaker of the house is looking directly at the president on the issue of syria.

everyone else is seated. does that tell you about the speaker? guest: that picture was published by the president, by the white house. it only came to light because the president tweeted it, and it was funny that it seemed to register with a lot of people in the opposite way, liberals especially enjoyed that visual of her, the only woman around , a bunch of men start up at the floor, and she is the one who is standing up to the president, putting her finger in her -- she --face did what in his face. fire with caught people because of the visual, and she even needed her twitter

header for a little bit. it tells you how her image has changed since she has become speaker again. even amongtime democrats they were not too sure about her, thought maybe she was too old. you heard that from a lot of people on the left. you hear less of that now. here has been an embrace of in particular because so much of the politics has been driven by a wave of liberal women activism. i had a chance to ask her about that picture, what she thought about the way it resonated with people. i was trying to get her to reflect on her image. that is not something she really does. rather than talk about with the picture represented, where her mind went immediately was just to the strategy. i could not believe the president published a picture. she did not -- he did not understand what is in

his interest. she is always thinking about strategy, not really interested in symbolism. us fromb joins massachusetts. good morning. caller: good morning. book up toitten this when nancy pelosi just tore up the president's speech? guest: that is a good question. ends withs, but it impeachment. print i thedy in time that happened. -- by the time that happened. maybe i will be able to add another chapter, but that was another encounter between the speaker and the president. honestly, it shows as much as she has tried to take the high

saying she is not bothered by all of his insults, he did seem to get under her skin a little bit and i think that is in a way that was rarely seen. there are theories about why she did that, but what i can tell is that it really was spontaneous, and she really was offended by the speech and by his use of the house chamber to put on what she campaign a show, a rally for the state of the union. host: frank joins us from missouri. good morning. caller: good morning. i just want to opine that the steps that we took in the beginning were not effective. if we were going to have a shut down, i do not understand why taco bell drive-through's were open, but the churches were closed. i that --

what we are being led to believe mostlyow, these are just feel-good measures that are being taken and there is no real effectiveness to tracing or mass testing as a real thing that we can implement. i do not think we can do it. i also think that america, we've been trained to think in 60 minute episodes. law and order tells us everything can be figured out in 60 minutes. that is not the case. millions could die from the increased poverty over the next decade versus the effects of this virus right now. i just do not think enough time is being spent discussing this. his point, molly ball, on the cover story of time, more americans are unemployed then at any time since the great depression. --aker pelosi

dead on arrival in the u.s. senate. caller: -- guest: that is right. at first there was a real bipartisan effort to get some of these early bills through the congress, but now we are seeing a much more polarized and partisan debate with liberals increasingly emphasizing the need to keep the country shut down and increase our ability to cope with the virus, whether that is supporting people so they do not fall into poverty or increasing the capacity of the health-care system to do things like test and trace and treat people. you do have republicans saying we cannot go too far here, we should not allow this to become an excuse to just pass a bunch of liberal policies and hand out a bunch of money. emphasizing the need to get back

to work and restart the economy, i will say there is a reason why a taco bell drive-through would be open and nature to be closed that is because the church is a place where people congregate indoors. everything we've seen about the virus says that it spreads when people are together indoors. none of that happens in a taco bell drive-through. a lot of other countries have been able to ramp up their andity to test and trace not only flatten the curve but start reopening. what we have seen in our reporting is that the united states has not been able to build up the capacity. that does not mean we cannot. host: you point out when she was elected in the special election, she was one of only when three women in the house of representatives. today there is 127. that affect nancy pelosi

as a freshman representative? guest: i think it had a huge effect on her career. for one thing, when the women's members, youy 23 will not get very far by summoning the sisterhood. it was crucial that she be able to work with men and get men to take her seriously and to listen to her. her approach to that was that fix thenot going to problems she saw around her. she was going to have to deal with it for priority is educating divisional men who might say something down, but trying to get things done. the other thing is she devoted herself in the early years to focusing on policy. she was not claiming the leadership ladder in the early years. she had been in congress for more than 10 years before she decided to run for a leadership

position. she was focused on the most important committees and doing the most substantive work. as you heard her saying in the clip you played, she was an or and that really was the education for her in terms of being able to understand policy. very detail oriented mind and a phenomenal memory, so she is able to go through a document like the budget and remember everything. that is really how she was able to earn the respect of a lot of those men who might have written her off as an airhead, to show that she knew herself -- new her stuff -- knew her stuff.

withr: my whole idea speaker pelosi he is she is too old, and everything she wants to do is impossible. she continues to do it. common critique of hurt not only that she is too old, which he does not like that criticism in part because she waited until later in life to start her political career. that is not how it works, you do not get to knock 20 years off your age just because you feel like you started late, but she would point out she is only a couple years older than mitch mcconnell, and yet somehow he does not seem to get this criticism. there's a lot of angst about the fact that not only nancy pelosi, tenants, and that

means that younger members who are promising, and other stuff on policy, might be able to be effective cannot move up that ladder. that is really frustrating if you are a young democratic member of congress that was a big part of the reason there was a drive to oust nancy pelosi, but it is testament to the goodwill that she has that she was able to defeat those efforts. she does remain leader of the democrats. host: does she serve another term? guest: she does not talk about that. she gets a little snappish if you bring it up. whene new reporting that she began this term of her speakership, she was only planning to stay for one term. as part of the negotiations to regain the speakership, she accepted a four year limit, which would be two terms. she told people that it was not

much of a concession because she was only planning to stay one term anyway. she has stayed on in the past when people did not expect her to. one thing she said about 2016 is the reason she stayed on was that if she had not, they would be no woman in the room during the negotiations between the president and the top leaders of congress. she is the only woman in the room, and she remains the only woman to lead her party in congress. nominee the democratic is a man again, there will not be a woman president again, have to wonder if she will have concern about that that might lead her to hold on just a little bit longer. i cannot begin to predict what she will do. she grilling -- is she grooming anyone to replace her? she is not.

it is not her job to mentor and train someone. she does have a lot of favorites and people that she mentors and people that she helps. i have asked her this question specifically white black, why haven't you groomed a successor? one thing that she says also is i was, but he left. he was a democratic member of congress who is moving up in leadership but who got frustrated with how long it was taking for the top leaders to move on and ran for senate instead. that is where he is now. you see more effects of the bottleneck of leadership in the caucus, that a lot of promising

members who could've been successors eventually decided it was taking too long. will go to janice from louisiana. good morning. caller: i just wanted to make a statement that i think that age should not have anything to do with what she is doing. she knew whatg, she was going to be confronted with, dealing with the president, so she handled it all appropriate because everybody to doants to allow him anything he want to do to keep him from getting mad. ball?molly guest: whatever you think of her, you have to admit she is extremely tough. that is something that the democrats appreciate because she

is able to stand up to the present and confront him in a way that really no one else has been able to do, so those images of her standing up to the president, whether it is that meeting where she is pointing at him or whether it is the image of hercover of my book walking out of that meeting him, i think those images really resonate with a lot of liberals because they are desperate to .ee some kind of force that is why democrats are in control of the house today, because the american people put them in charge in those midterm elections in 2018. i think nancy pelosi takes that seriously, representing the other america, the america that is not fond of the president. have a caller from california. about: i am curious

whether the author knows anything about whether nancy pelosi knows why general flynn has not been court-martialed. that is a quite specific question. i do not know the answer. a court-martial is a military process that i do not think the speaker of the house would have anything to do with. she is quite concerned about what she sees as the threat to the rule of law at the trump administration represents, and that was the genesis of the impeachment drive. she did put out a statement expressing concern about the developments, including the latest dismissal of the inspector general. you saw her slow walking impeachment for a long time, to the frustration of a lot of democrats. her line was always that it was just going to be divisive and pointless.

she eventually felt it had to be done, but i think with all of she says, if you want to stop dixie, you got to do something about the election in november. baltimoregrew up in and her father was the mayor. in the book you write, her parents were indeed raising her to be holy. they thought she might become a nun she kept telling people something different, i'm going to be a priest. her mother finally corrected her. she then announced she was planning to go into politics instead. part of her ringing -- notref her upbringing was dame. here's part of that interview. i am so sad. i mother and i went to the institute of notre dame so it

had a revered place in our hearts. so this is a very important place to our family. my brother passed away in the fall which was very sad for all of us. he was a beautiful daily communicant, and supportive of interestls, and taking in this institute, the school sisters of notre dame in such a beautiful way. , we were across the street from the projects. it was a school that stood fry very long time. , they didme schools move to the suburbs outside the

city a bit, and that institute stay downtown. it was a wonderful place to go read it to us what we needed to learn academically and it taught us the values. it was a place where we went to mass every day as well. mass. hot chocolate after that was the thing i remember with great joy. i love chocolate, and i love mass. host: another reference to the chocolate. as you hear who -- or talk about that, that really shaped who she is today. guest: absolutely. she was very devoted to her indies, and she was educated an all-girls school bite nuns. she was not interested in becoming a nun as her parents hope she might. she never really considered that as a career path. she always wanted more

independence than she was allowed to have as a little girl in the 40's and 50's. , sheher father was mayor was seven when he was elected, he had a driver who worked for the city who would take her to and from school because the school was across town. she found this really embarrassing. she did not want to be the princess of the city that everybody thought she was better than everyone else. she would make that driver stop a few blocks away and she would walk up to the school like everyone else so that she did not seem like she was putting herself above anyone. the nuns of the school, she talks about them a lot, how they shaped her and her education. at the same time she went to break free of some of that, have her own life. she did not want to become a new. she took a different path. she goesl the story as

to trinity college, she wanted to go there, and hung her father said what? want: her father did not her to move, and he said she would leave to go to college over my dead body, and her mother responded, that could be arranged. you can see the very strong-willed character of her mother. she did go away to college, even though it was just an hour down the road. my question and my interestingwhat is about these biographies, they basically discuss the political acumen, the intelligence of the individual. what seems to be missing is the issue of fundraising and how key that is for -- to attain congressional leadership. she has been very successful,

but that is left out. i think we are doing a disparate -- the service, the american media is, when what is driving so much of political activity in washington is fundraising, money. when that is left out, we are now pretty far along in the discussion, and molly has not talked about this at all. it seems to be she is just this gusty woman who was able to byieve this stature basically, and i am sure she is, but leaving that out i think is a disservice because that what seems to be driving american politics in such a big way. should point out fundraising is a big part of the book as well. do you want to address that? guest: i do encourage you to read the book because there is plenty about that and about her

career as a fundraiser, which is one of the way she got to congress. she made a lot of connections and was able to call in a lot of favors. at the same time, i do not think it is accurate to say just because people raise money, they must be corrupt and acting only on the interest of their donors. very few people have been the as much as nancy pelosi. she has had hundreds of dollars spent against her, so this idea that seat -- that she is just somewhat working for the big corporations, i think the big corporations would find that hilarious. it is not as simple as just to say big corporations give her money and she goes off and does their bidding. she is not as far as some would

she is not as far to the left as some would like. she has advocated for various policies that would do something to reduce the influence of money in politics. she has been stymied in those efforts. i think she would agree with the caller that there is too much influence for money in politics, but the system being the way it is, she does not believe that the democrats should disarm. she think it is important for them to win and that means competing on the yield that exists, and then perhaps they can do something on these issues. host: there was a moment that you write about in the book with tom marino and she called him an insignificant person and she is

chasing him across the house floor. set up but this was all about. guest: that is one of my favorite clips. ofcy pelosi is the leader the democratic minority, the democrats having lost the house in 2010, so obama is still president. the democrats are getting frustrated and tired of being in the minority, particulate with the house being as partisan and dysfunctional as it had become. i think it really shows you how she has sort of reach the end of her rope. tom marino, speaking on the house floor, and he was insulting her directly, and accusing her of not caring about the immigration issue, not doing enough to help the immigrants that she talks about, not having calming --ng, a

isommon accusation, so this sort of a version of the accusation he was making. he was accusing her of not knowing her stuff, so i thought she found that particularly galling. so she chased him across the floor, and she's got her finger in his face and she is saying, you are an insignificant person. this is one of her favorite insults, frankly. she has used it many times. you can just see that this was someone who had gotten under her skin. host: our guest is time magazine's molly ball, and here is that moment. .> we do not have law and order we have destroys -- distressed, and my colleagues on the other side do not want to do anything about it. something i find quite

interesting, under the leadership of the former speaker and under the ship -- leadership of their former leader in 2009 and 2010 they had the house and the senate and the white house and they knew this problem existed. they did not have the strength to go after it back then, but now they are trying to make a political issue out of it. what we need to do is pass this legislation and make sure these children get back to their families. we need to line up and protect this border from people coming across. i did the research on it. you might want to try it. you might want to try it, madame leader, do the research. that is one thing that you do not do. it works both ways. with that i urge my colleagues to vote for this legislation

because apparently i hit the right nerve. i yield back. back thelvania yields balance of its time. [applause] there is that moment on the video library. let's get back to your phone calls. this is lisa from new york. caller: good morning. i am looking forward to reading this book because what a disappointment i am feeling with the white man calling into the show. i really want to say that i am hoping and wondering if molly has any idea, what does it take to get people in the senate to fight for this wonderful bill that nancy pelosi just put forward? wonderfulall of these

far-left, they want to call themselves, progressives? i argue they are not. going to stand up and fight for this bailout? i think it is not a matter of how hard the senators are willing to fight. it is up to the leadership to decide whether to put this bill on the floor or do anything with it. rich mcconnell has made it clear that he is not interested in engaging with this in any way. i think democratic senators can scream all they want and it will not make any impression upon the republican leader. at the democrats are attempting to use this as a vehicle to make a point, send a message to say we are doing something for the situation that the american people are in, and the republicans are saying nothing

needs to be done. that is a political point that they are chang to make. so far it as fallen on deaf ears in the white house, but we will see whether it leads to a negotiation, with the democrats are able to use this bill to put pressure on the white house and the senate so they do come to the table. most people believe they will do something eventually. they just are not feeling urgency to deal with this. host: mike is nest joining us from seattle. caller: i hope nancy does something really good for the people before she leaves office because she has a history of making problems and spending money. it is like an athlete that has been around way too long, and the american people have had enough. to gabriel,l go good morning.

say thankjust want to you for everything you have done. you have just been wonderful. ali, i had a question about how the messaging comes across from nancy pelosi because quite often it is difficult for them to get traction with any messages. i wonder when you look at the republicans who are effective at getting some one minor to stick, nancy pelosi struggles with this. i think it has to do with them being out of touch. i would like your comments. her communication style is frequently criticized. i do not know that it has anything to do with how in touch she is. she is just not probably going to be remembered as a great political or tour -- orator.

hows also, i do not know you can say the democrats are not being heard when they did just when a very significant victory in the only national election held since trump was elected. there are some voters who are listening to the democrats. in fact they had a string of victories since 2016. someone is hearing the message. it is getting across. nancy pelosi has been the architect of a lot of these strategies. she has been advocating for a moderate message rather than a far-left message. she is been advocating for a message on issues, particular health care, rather than focusing on the president and his deficiencies. from her perspective, it has contributed to the victories the democrats have enjoyed. how did she meet her

husband? guest: they took a summer school class together. he went to georgetown, and one summer, when she was in college, she stayed in washington and took a summer class at .eorgetown they knew each other a little bit from that, and then they had some mutual friends. they were introduced that way. they started dating, and the rest is history. they met in washington and then when she graduated and they got married, they moved to new york where he worked in banking. were some of the children born, they moved to san francisco. from our last call is harrisburg, pennsylvania. caller: the bottom line is people do not like her.

she is below mitch mcconnell. you could double her popularity and it does not even reach trump. she makes a fool of herself all the time and she just seems to be like someone who is enamored by people like your guest, and that is it. generally the american public despises her. this depends on which paul you look at. in recent years she has been among the more popular congressional leaders. i'm not trying to argue that she is popular, but she has become more popular recently. she is all had a very polarizing public persona. her allies will argue that that is mostly the republicans's fault for airing these attack ads against her. she professes to be unbothered by it. she is not interested in her public reputation. she is interested in what she can get done at the house.

that is the role of a leader. it is true that there are a lot of people who do not like nancy pelosi. i think she would say, so what, is that what people remember about the great leaders of history? it is what about they got done, what they accomplished. she would argue that she has accomplished quite a lot. conclude where you conclude the book and paraphrase this story, and you read the following, during her first it as speaker, she traveled there in a few hours i excellency tog payload. in the and, -- in the end, it did not matter what they called her. her up in a sums nutshell. she ignores all of the name-calling and the abuse, the people who have negative opinions about her.

she has always focused on results and on getting things done. her abilities to do that are pretty unparalleled in the modern era. host: what was the story all about? about? to afghanistan. she stopped in kuwait first and the kuwaitis treated her almost as royalty. was in the military plane that was supposed to take her to the airbase, they started trying to take her somewhere else instead and she was telling the pilot you're supposed to take me to bagram and he didn't believe her so he got on the radio and said payload is saying we are supposed to go to bagram. wentfunny that her title from excellency to payload in a metal -- matter of minutes. host: the book is called pelosi.

thank you for joining us. we are back tomorrow morning with another rendition -- addition of the washington journal. we will look at the senate and governors races as this election continues to unfold. our coverage is available online at c-span.org/coronavirus. thanks for joining us. enjoy the rest of your weekend and have a great week ahead. ♪ >> c-span has unfiltered coverage of the federal response to the coronavirus pandemic with

white house briefings, updates from governors in congress and our daily call-in program, washington journal. hearing your thoughts about the coronavirus crisis. time on demand at c-span.org/coronavirus. federal reserve chair jerome powell and treasury secretary steven mnuchin testify remotely before the senate banking committee about the $2 trillion cares act which passed in march as part of the governments coronavirus response. live coverage begins tuesday at 10:00 a.m. eastern on c-span, c-span.org, or you can listen live on the free c-span radio app. >> on friday, the house passed a $3 trillion coronavirus economic aid package. the fifth such bill passed by that body.