>> henry ford and thomas edison took highly publicized camping trips together at the time of their fame. present harding even joined them on one trip. next sunday on q&a, a historian discusses his book "the vagabond," about summer road trips taken between the summer of 1914 and 1925. next sunday at 8:00 p.m. eastern and pacific on c-span. >> 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 call-in program, "washington journal," hearing your thoughts about the crisis. if you miss any of our live coverage, watch anytime on-demand at c-span.org/coronavirus. coming up on today's "washington

journal: we speak with "the hill's" reid wilson author on the coronavirus pandemic. afterwards we discussed key campaign 2020 with cook political report's jessica taylor. journal" is next. host: good morning on this monday, may 18. states across the country are reopening economies and lifting restrictions on activities like going to parks, golfing, dining out, shopping, and going to the gym. this is happening while the u.s. has seen over 1.4 million cases and nearly 90,000 deaths. we want to talk to all of you about reopening where you live. do you support or oppose the idea? if you support it? , 202-748-8000, if you are 202748-8001.ning,

at can also text us 202-748-8003. "new york times" put together an interactive map that shows states that are reopening in blue on your screen. those with regional openings are in yellow. light blue means they are reopening soon. , solid yellow, i should say, are still shutdown. regional openings have these lines through them -- a little difficult to see on your screen. that is what the map looks like right now. we are wondering how you all feel about reopening in your state and what it is like. ,e begin with ohio governor mike dewine, a republican. he was on cnn's "state of the union" yesterday i and asked wht it would be like what they would

be if cases spiked in the coming days. [video clip] >> we certainly hope we don't see that. what i have said to ohioans this week is that so much is in every individuals control. 11.7 million people in ohio. we have to continue to keep the space. i really urge people to wear a mask when they go out in public. every employee in ohio is wearing a mask today. i describethe way it, this is really the most crucial time, the most dangerous time, because we are opening back up, because we have to open back up, but at the same time, that creates more exposure, more opportunity for this virus to spread. so people have to add that extra layer. we are them to put masks on, do all the things that everyone now knows you have to do to keep that separated and to slow this

down. if you look at our numbers, we plateau. we have been at a plateau for about a month in regard to hospitalizations and deaths, same way in regard to cases. our replication rate is about 1:1, which is a lot better than it was, and we would like to get that down as well. we are trying to do two things at once and we are working on it . >> keeping that in mind, everything you just said, i would like you to look at these pictures from a bar in columbus, ohio on friday, the first day outdoor dining businesses were allowed to reopen. that is a big crowd of people. they don't seem to be wearing masks or separated from each other, six feet or whatever, not a lot of distance between patrons. does this concern you? >> absolutely. i saw those images very early. we had people there last night.

ownership,ws is the the people running the bar seem seat to get control of it last night. we didn't have to issue citations. we did issue a citation for another bar in columbus. and candidly, we have worked with the attorney general and we will do whatever we have to do. these things are in part -- wherever they occur. ultimately it will come to ohioans doing what ohioans have done for the last two months, and that is, by and large, done exactly what they should do, keep the distance. we are encouraging more people to wear a mask, as i said, but it will really be determined by what we do in the next month or so. what the fault looks like, when we hope to be a way to open schools, will depend on what we do right now and in the next month or so. host: governor mike dewine on

cnn's "face the nation" yesterday. the state of ohio opened up manufacturing distribution and construction companies, and in the last week, consumer retail and other services. we go to alan in brooklyn. alan, you oppose easing of stay-at-home restrictions. what did you think? others anshow you and image many people have seen in the papers this morning, of a park in brooklyn with the circles on the grass. people are supposed to stay in those circles. what do you think of this? caller: if someone could be plunked down from the sky in that circle, theoretically, that could work. but the process of getting to the location is something -- also. points where they are getting closer than they should be anywhere along the way from their home to that spot, that is a problem.

you have to ask yourself, what is the motivation of people asking us to loosen up? too soon the same people who seem to be focused much more on the worldwide desko in the united states death worldwide deaf told -- too soon ? the simple who seem to be focused much more on the worldwide death toll. my question is, is there something besides mere neglect going on here? does he intentionally want this thing to get worse so it will be a steeper rise in the stock market when it ends? is there some kind of insider motivation involving his people similar to what they are accused senator burr of? if we investigated his cell phones, will we find he is discussing him his friends in countries like china or russia or saudi arabia a chance to invest at a low point in our market and share in the profit? if he still thinks you can still

stand in the middle of fifth avenue and shoot anybody without penalty, may be ye is engaging in the same kind of behavior other people go to jail for, and knows he is insulated by senator mcconnell antiphon senate. , these things sound terrible to accuse anyone of but i am looking about what is happening and trying to find a rational explanation for it. it seems there might be very be no motives here. host: so do you think your governor, and the mayor are well?ng this caller: asbestos they can, given their powers and the territory they have jurisdiction over, but they are not going to help all of washington -- they are not giving us in helping al washington. host: next caller. you are opposed to reopening, why? caller: we have had too many deaths in new york city. there is no way in the world i would go back to a gym at this

point. it is just too dangerous. a lot of people are still not listening. and it is just too dangerous to go back. we will have a new normal when all of this is over. host: all right, and. this is what is happening in the state of new york from the "new york times," the governor announced a reopening of five regions. it will be limited to partial construction, manufacturing, and curbside retail and does not include major access. to public life new york city and the suburbs, the seized by the virus, are likely to be the last -- the seized by the -- besieged by the virus, are likely to be the last places to reopen. [video clip] >> do we know if the beaches will be grou reopened for memorial day? >> you grew up not far from cornell and. you know our beaches get very crowded very quickly.

we will not allow it. we are not opening on memorial day is a normally do. folks in local communities who walk on the beach or boardwalk, they can still do that, but no swimming, no lifeguards, gating. -- no congregating. nypd will be out there. if people listen to the rules, great. if not, we might have to keep people off the beach. we are so far from being out of the woods here in new york city. we are still the epicenter. until we are safe, no beaches open. host: the mayor yesterday it new york city. next color, you support reopening the state. what is happening in florida? caller: our beaches are open, we are back going to stores and everywhere, this whole thing is that it is politicized. the democrats would love to keep this closed until december so they can get online voting and a whole bunch of illegal voting, which is what they support. it is ridiculous.

if we don't have people going to work, we don't have jobs, we don't have a government that will be don't have a country. easy as that. also, we have to get back with trump. he doesn't know where he is half the time, what office he is for.ng we can't even get obama, 1.4 is the best we can do. back jobs, we have to get trump reelected, that is the main concern. host: john, have you gone out and gone to a retail store, etc.? caller: absolutely. i go out every day to a retail store. everywhere.s, i go yes we are completely open in florida. host: do you wear a mask and do you see others wearing masks? caller: i do wear a mask. sometimes i don't wear a mask all the time. where it is required, i wear a mask. that is another thing, if we want to lock down florida --

lockdown new york, california, jersey, connecticut, we can do that, but florida is open. host: have you gone to a restaurant yet? restaurant, most of our restaurants right now are starting to open up. there,% are allowed in but i have used them as far as pickup prior to the opening we had a few weeks ago. host: the "new york times" says the governor allowed restaurants to operate at 25% capacity in most counties starting may 4 and that miami-dade and broward counties are the last remaining holdouts still shut down. they can begin reopening this week. the beaches will remain closed. the go to bob in missouri. bob, what is it like in missouri? caller: well, we have opened up. i am one of the people who firmly believe we should have

never closed things down. people need to support themselves and their families. now they are screaming vaccine, vaccine, vaccine. . did you know there was never a vaccine for the spanish flu? and it was a virus, it went away on its own and it has never come back. and guess what, this is exactly what is going to happen to this thing. it is a virus. host: bob, how do you respond to people who say, yes, but it could kill a lot more people? caller: people die every day. we lose a lot of people from the regular flu every year. it is part of life. the people that have health ,ituations and the elderly, yes we should make an effort to take care of them. but the everyday healthy person out here that doesn't even know

they had it should be fine. that 97% of the people get it fully recover. it is a virus. it is one of these things we go through and have gone through before. host: all right, bob in missouri. we go to david in riverside, california. you also support reopening but your governor is saying no to that idea. caller: yes. we were one of the first states that were closed about two thehs ago, and our beaches, air if you have ever been on the beach blows very swiftly. you could make a case for staying indoors at times. isbiggest concern i think the most toward socialism with people like bernie sanders, but almost got the nomination for the democratic party. if we closed on the country, we are not free anymore.

david in california, as he said, one of the first states in the nation where all residents were ordered to stay home by governor newsome. the democratic governor says the state could tiptoe to reopening. last weeks, restaurants and shopping centers in the county that met certain criteria could reopen. this is a phased-in reopening, regional opening in california. valerie in florida, you supported as well. do you think your governor is doing an excellent job? far as the first florida caller, he echoed everything was going to say anyway. i would like you to go back to that map the presented in the beginning of the show which shows florida is not opening. florida is probably one of the first ones that did reopen a lot of things. we are doing it in phases. host: right, it is not completely in yellow -- it is

hard to see but it has blue and yellow stripes going through it, so it is a regional reopening is how the "new york times" is phrasing it. caller: yes, but when the first florida caller said to you ron desantis -- we go in phases here. he said we would be opening at 50% capacity as far as restaurants, and you went on to 4 did they until may have 24% less 25% capacity reopening. you have to get the facts a little bit straight. host: now it is 50%? caller: yes, but you did not let the other caller say that. and can you please show that map again, because as far as i can see, you have all the states in blue as far as they are opening, and they are the ones that are actually closed. so please show that map again. host: ok.

this is what it looks like. this is what the "new york times" put together. states in blue, they say are reopening. states with a yellow lines, regional reopening. yellow are the ones that are shut down. john in florida, why do you oppose using these stay-at-home restrictions? caller: i think you are better safe than sorry. need to be vigilant on getting your health right. closed we should stay because these are elderly and vulnerable people -- host: leninists in georgia. s in georgia, leni you oppose the at home restrictions. caller: yes. host: why?

caller: i am a retired nurse. i know about infection and how it spreads, especially something like this. miami-dade is the area that is close the most, and is because they have the biggest outbreak -- the area that is closed the most. also all the nursing homes are close in florida, which is why the map looks like it does. i was in florida yesterday, took some things to some friends, wo re a mask, had as minimal contact as possible, got back on the road, no contact, and went home. here in georgia, i think we haven't seen the numbers go up yet because it takes a little bit of time. but when it hits, it is going to hit hard from what i know from my friends, who are still in nursing. a lot of them work in hospice. we are having death after death after death. they are not being classified as covid because they have multiple organ failure -- i am sorry,

that is covid. yourjust think knowledge base, if you know about viruses and you know how they work and you know that this one is causing long-term effects , we don't know what it is doing to young people. a feeling a lot of young people will end up with copd very early. so. host: ok. as you know, the state of texas is also one of the early states to begin reopening their economy. the texas health department tweeting out -- 734 of the 1800 new cases, the largest spike the state had seen, are coming from potter and randall counties. counties, new cases are largely from targeted testing of employees at meat plants in the

area. more test results from plants are expected. dan in spokane, washington, you support reopening the economy. good morning to you. caller: good morning to you. let me first say, i am over 70 and have underlying conditions. i still support reopening. need to say this so i don't forget to say it, the days in my life are numbered by god. so let's get that out of the way. the whole thing was a mistake, this whole closing of everything was a mistake. we should have had targeted sectional and regional differences. virus fort a deadly people under 60, basically, so if we would have focused on the elderly we would have saved this economy. because we are killing people. these closures.

people aren't going into medical checkups, not going in for exams, not going in for medical procedures. and it is going to increasingly kill more people with the poverty aspect of all of this. this was absolutely unnecessary to do it the way they did it, and i am sick and sorry for the thener people who -- and there is always the herd immunity issue. you have to get the healthy people to catch this thing. thats to happen so immunity gets into the whole culture, and, therefore, the virus will not have room to expand like it does. so the whole thing is nonsensical. it is unnecessary. and, in my opinion, sad for america that we did not do this in a thoughtful and scientific

way. host: ok. dan in spokane, washington. front page of "the financial times" mentions the impact of the economy. the federal reserve chair says u.s. recovery could take until the end of 2021, and we could see 25% unemployment, with 36 million jobless benefits claimed in weeks. the federal reserve chair has been calling on congress, saying, the policy makers may need to do more. last week the house-passed another economic stimulus trillion. "usa today" notes it passed 208-199 however, the senate says, they are not taking that legislation up. senate majority leader mitch mcconnell wants to see liability provisions put into any economic aid bill. has thisngton times

headline, the speaker says she is ready to negotiate with the g.o.p. on the next coronavirus rescue package, seeking more liability protections for business owners. this week in the senate you will see the senate begin to discuss their own piece of legislation, and we will see where it goes from there. mica in georgia, good morning to you. caller: good morning, greta. host: why do you think it is important to reopen the economy? caller: you know, i think we you know, the economy has got to get back, but it ain't worth of all the lives just to say of god dollar in my pocket. it is too many folks we just think about the economy. -- two say i've got a dollar in my pocket. dead, got 91,000 people

that is 91,000 families. they ain't fixing to go to work, they are fixing to go to a funeral. that is not helping the economy. we have got to do things wisely. for all of these people who think money, money, money, all of these folks drinking bleach, it ain't worth it. thank you. host: ok. deana in connecticut, you oppose. good morning to you. caller: yes. can i speak? host: yes, please. caller: so, i will not be on television, my voice -- no? host: you just have to listen to your phone and talk. caller: ok. i am very much afraid of this president because he wants to do good for the country and our people. that is why they blame him because people going to the bars or whatever and to the beaches 't wear a mask.

president said we should wear a mask. he cannot come every day and say thing over and over again. they not children. they grown up people. the government of each state should do some kind of force to own people. host: ok. the president today on his schedule has a meeting with restaurant executives. he will hear from them what the impact, the economic impact has been of shutting down and now states, ain some loving 25%-50% capacity at restaurants. he will hear from them today when he meets them. then the first lady and the president will be holding a video teleconference with governors and they will speak about farmers, ranchers my and the food chain supply as well. the president will host a meeting with the arkansas

republican -- arkansas governor is the hutchinson in arkansas and kansas governor laura kelly as well. you support easing restrictions. what is it like in michigan? caller: i think for us in michigan, our governor is doing the right thing, governor whitmer. but she is facing a lot of resistance from the republican-controlled senate. economyt opening up the for a bit different reason. first, i would like for all of us to stay focused and understand that donald trump is a russian-controlled asset, and i mean that seriously. host: all right, we will move on to a friend in wisconsin. you oppose easing? excuse me, i will pose easing the restrictions. i listen to c-span practically every morning, and i cannot

believe the colors that are calling in -- the callers that are calling in. some are taking this like it is an everyday, cold. do they realize how many people have died in the united states alone? do they realize how many people are suffering because of this? this virus? there are so many different symptoms. i mean, my god, i can't believe these people. here in fond du lac, the republican legislation went against the governor. the supreme court here, conservative supreme court, they took away and opened up the state more or less. thankfully, the locals -- the local government officials are having some common sense. i live across the street two blocks away from it ever and --

from the tavern. the day they opened up, the supreme court opened up the city, that bar was all night long practically, in and out, in and out, people flocking. can you imagine? can you imagine? it is unbelievable. these people the support donald trump believe everything he says. they don't think to do any research. i've got a daughter that is an essential worker, she works with the state, gretchen. she has asthma. i am terrified every single day. that she is working out there. best ialready that know a lady who had a mask on. she was going into the store and there was a guy standing outside the door with a maga hat on. he tried yanking the mask off of

her and called her a name. that is a kind of stuff that is in this country that is supporting donald trump. these people better wake up, because there is a dictator in the white house and he has these people so fooled they can't even think straight, not even with a deadly virus. not even a deadly pandemic is waking these people up. i am so sorry and so sorry for all the people that have this.ed because of i watched what happened in michigan with the state legislation and the bunch of -- took their assault rifles. it makes me sick what is going on in this country. i cannot believe that these older people that have lived in this country and took advantage of our democracy are so willing to toss it to the side for drama trump, who is in this for himself, -- for drama trump who is in this for himself. he is in this for russia and

putin, who knows what else but not for the american people. host: ok. these protests are happening in other countries as well. this is the "daily mail" out of london. thousands joined protests across germany over locked on measures. you also have this story in "the out of the u.k., scuffles as dozens of road testers including jeremy corbyn's brother whinge about coronavirus in the hyde park area. we will go to anthony in atlanta. like to what would you see done in the state of georgia? caller: we need to wait. we need to wait. the essential workers, all the people that have been calling in, i am guaranteeing you they are non-essential workers. essential workers, don't put your life on the line unless you think it is safe to go back to work.

don't choose between going back to work and the economy. trust yourself. put your life in your own hands. if you don't have to go back to work don't go back to work. host: what do you do for a living? caller: thank you. host: what do you do for a living? caller: i am a massage therapist. host: you are staying at home. caller: yes i am. daycially with memorial coming up, everyone is flocking to the beaches and getting out amongst each other. it's going to come back. if you think it's not, trust me it is very 91,000 already dead. be patient. thank you. host: are you collecting unemployment? caller: yes i am. it was hard getting it, but i am. host: are you making almost as much or around the same amount? say i am making

60% of what i was getting. i can survive on that until i'm able to go back to work. for now, i can't trust it right now. there is not enough testing out there. they are getting testing but there is not enough out there for people. for what i do, i am in direct contact with people and it is too risky. host: anthony in atlanta, georgia. reginald in dayton, ohio. support reopening the economy, go ahead. caller: good morning, thank you for taking my call. for easing some restrictions, but as the last gentlemen stated people do need care or theree will be a worse second wave. everyone is different. unemployment,e on

i work for an automotive parts manufacturing plant. they opened back up last week. we went through three weeks of tough time of not having money or getting unemployment. i feel like they are rushing things a bit and they need to take their time and stop listening to false narratives given by we all know who does that. all these people are brainwashed as the other callers said. the woman, i think she was correct in the fact that a lot of people listen to these misleading statements and don't do their own research. that is very dangerous for everybody else. they claim they are patriotic and love their country, but they should do their own research and stop being brainwashed. being thrown onto a false narrative. host: the caller brings up the auto industry.

big tests arrive as u.s. auto factories reopen across the states. new safety protocols in place, but lower demand and higher cost drives a host of could turns for that industry. yesterday the former cdc director was on fox news sunday. towas asked to respond states like georgia reopening and not seeing a spike in cases yet. here is what he had to say. specific to point to a state because there was a lot of criticism when georgia and its governor reopened a few weeks ago. they reopen salons and gyms. they even got criticism from president trump he was moving too fast. we have not seen the kind of spike that was widely feared with that reopening in georgia. that raises the question, are some public health experts being too alarmist about this? >> i don't think you can be too

alarmist about what this virus can do. look at new york city over the past two months. more than 20,000 deaths from this virus, it has been catastrophic. it is important to recognize there are things we can do to go out more safely. i have friends in georgia and they describe physical distancing in shops, people being very careful, that is important. mutates,ind the virus changes, and evolves. when it begins to spread again you will not see that for a few weeks. it takes a week to get sick and another week to get very sick. then you get other people sick. once there is the resumption of spread you might not see that for a month or two. there is a lag. host: the former cdc director on fox. lauderdale, florida, you oppose what your governor is doing easing restrictions and opening up. caller: i want to address up

a previous caller that said we should have some kind of herd immunity and get everyone as sick as quickly as possible. i don't see that being the case you need tocally flatten the curve and i think a lot of people ignore the fact that we don't have enough beds in icus, we don't have enough ventilators. regiones from region to and you do need to flatten the curve. that was the reason i called, i was concerned about making sure that people are aware that there is not enough capacity in the health care system to direct everyone to get the virus at the same time. host: tommy in georgia, you support reopening. why is that? caller: [indiscernible] suffering from where all the

textiles have shut down over the years -- without jobs. people have gone back to work -- [indiscernible] things and causing domestic violence and things like that. -- host: ok. doris from ocean gate, new jersey. you oppose. caller: thank you for taking my call. i believe that it is in human nature to believe that something is real if it happens to you. and to not believe something israel as long as you think you are safe. i live in new jersey and i can assure you that this is real. death that will climb is unnecessary. whered to be in a place

we can do contact tracing and isolation. place,e reach that people need to understand that it is real. areas thatd that in it is not real to people, that aey somehow wish to blame false narrative. in the valley of death in new jersey it is total disrespect to the people who .ave died to brush them away please listen. we are talking from the valley of death in new jersey. please believe in this. thank you for taking my call. host: do you know anyone that has contracted covid-19? caller: no, i am fortunate that

i do not know personally of anyone. factdoes not negate the that people have died. it doesn't mean that i need to know that person. that person's life has a value. it is not just a number. it has a value, it may not have a value to me but everyone has a value. host: diane in ann arbor, michigan. you oppose reopening. what are you concerned about? caller: i shared a thought and they accepted it in that i think we should check the demographics, people should be willing to give their demographic as to what age group they belong to. iam a senior citizen and don't have to go to work because of that because i am retired. it is real easy to send out

other people who are working age or whatever, to send them out in this pandemic. they should keep businesses going, they should keep retirements going. there and fund my 401(k), go out there and keep my corporation going so that i can receive a good retirement. i don't want that jeopardized. they are choosing between sending these young people out into danger while they sit at home tucked away where it is safe. that comeot of people from that point of view, that it is ok for me to sit tight but you should go out and i think the economy drives that attitude. even the stimulus payments i heard, well i am doing well but i took the check. to my did was i gave it grandchildren, they are the ones that are not doing as well and

won't do as well. donny from north carolina, you want to see states open up. we are slowly trying to open up which is a good thing. i support it 100%. callers,ay to all the this is a virus and as we all know we get sick if you are not careful. we are all free americans. we need to go back to work. if you feel like you don't want to go back to work you have every right not to work. that is what america is about, freedom. there are people who want to get back to work, let them go to work. they are willing to take their chances. they will not come to your house if you don't want to go back to work, it is your choice, that is

what america is about, choice and read him. we have to stop letting people tell us every move to make. we all have brains, we can use it. we can discern what is best for us. that is all i have to say. to the lady that lives in the valley of death, if she has the lord she doesn't have -- the fear is what people has so upset. the fear they have instilled on all of those people who cannot think for themselves and inform themselves of what they think they should do. it's an individual choice. we are america. we don't fall into a bunch of sheep being herded and being led by the people at the top who say we are all in this together but that is completely untrue. they haven't lost a paycheck or

anything in their lives. we have people in this world who were truly suffering. if you feel you need to go to work, go to work. if you feel it is too scary stay home. host: what do you do? caller: i am a firefighter. i am not going to work. i live in a small town. i will go to work if i have to but as of right now our town is only 200 people. we don't get a lot of calls. people are not out they are not doing anything to get called for. i am on the frontline. if i have to go i'm going to face people face-to-face. every american has a choice in what to do. you can stay home if you don't feel comfortable or go to work if you don't feel comfortable. wash your hands and take the precautions to keep yourself and others safe around you.

host: we will go to linda next in new jersey who opposes the easing of these restrictions. linda, good morning, your turn. caller: i have to say i do not feel that this is a constitutional right that we as the american public have. this is a health and safety issue. this disease is lethal. people are dying. when somebody sneezes or they cough the droplets from their mouth spread six feet or more. you don't even know it or realize it and you come in contact with this disease because of how it spreads. i understand about the economy, but you can't say, well, i have a right area this is not a right, this is a safety issue. helping many people not to get sick.

i cannot believe that the american public would step up to a television program and say, i am an american and i have a right. maybe you have a right but the millions behind you do not have the right to die. that is where the sensibility comes from. i have nothing against the president. i understand about the economy. becausethe health side they are out there trying to spare lives. what are you doing linda? caller: i have done cardiac ultrasounds but i am laid off. i cannot get unemployment because i am a vendor and we do not get unemployment. iget a social security check, am 70 years old. withhappy to wait this out

the safety of the public and humanity. they should ease these restrictions, the ones about barbershops, hair cutters, gyms, that is a prime place to pick this disease up. host: when you go out what do you do? caller: i glove up and mask up. i do what i have to do. and i domy groceries not socialize. we had a couple of scares when my husband was sick a few months ago with pneumonia. thank god it was not covid. sick with bad bronchitis and we were lucky. many people are not. host: you got tested for it? caller: yes i did. there are places that you have

to make an effort to go to, one is down in cape maine, new jersey. i cannot say enough about that wonderful establishment area if you think you have been exposed come down and make an appointment. you have to take more incentives and think about safety and economy. i would love to go back -- i made a great amount of money. we have to -- this is not the depression. ,his is not the housing bubble this is something very different. host: joan in delaware -- in michigan. up support opening economies. my concern is the children. the children are stuck at home.

i am concerned there is a lot of abuse going on with these children. they should be allowed to go to school. most of the school teachers are young and apparently they will it does not seem like anybody is concerned about the children trapped in their homes. i am retired so i don't have to go out. my kids take care of that. for these people that work paycheck-to-paycheck, they are falling in the cracks that is my concern. host: that is joan from michigan. next is joan in delaware. you support opening up the state. caller: yes.

i think we should be safe and slowly reopening. i was just laid off so now i am sitting at home. i don't want to be employed, i am 52 years old. i think there is too much misinformation out there that we are being given by political leaders and it is confusing people. in new york they are saying people who were staying at home ended up sick. i don't think you can ultimately confine people to never leave their homes so we may as well just start getting back out there and if you practiced safety i think you should be ok. doctor who said they are on the end of their pandemic. they don't believe there is

going to be a second wave. beene u.s. there has not consistent information and a lot of my friends believe there is an agenda. keep us locked into a to avoid the presidential election and the things they are proposing not related to this pandemic. i wouldn't get back to work -- i want to get back to work. i have adult children and i am afraid about how this will hurt their future. my daughter moved back from seattle at the end of january back to the east coast. she was sick for a week with the flu. we believe she had the coronavirus. i have heard this from other people. you are just furloughed. what do you do?

we lost joan. larry from savannah, georgia. larry supports reopening the economy. caller: good morning. thank god for the president and our governor. therego back to work now is a possibility we can recover. if we stay home too long i think we will pass a point where we cannot recover our economy. we close everything to remain the same for six months. i am concerned that if we stay home too long there will be a food shortage and people will start panicking -- are continually attacking the president.

some are even blaming him for the virus. time where wes a can unite and consider the economy recovering. host: larry, do you work. caller: no, i am retired. host: charles in staten island. charles, you oppose the easing of the stay-at-home restrictions, why is that? caller: because basically that your callers that are calling in saying to open up the country, they are forgetting if we open up this country our kids have to go back to school. once our kids go back to school they are subject to get this virus. if they get this virus and they get sick then they will say the government should have kept the country shut down. everybody is worrying about this almighty dollar. what about the kids, worry about the kids and your safety. that's all i have to say.

host: jeffrey from auburn, new york. you oppose as well. caller: good morning. i am a laid off cook. i don't believe we should reopen. again do you get if you gain the world and lose your soul? you only have your health once. some of these capitalistic republicans would step over the body of your dead grandmother in order to get a dollar. host: what does the owner of the restaurant you work at say about reopening? caller: i live in a small town of 25,000 people. the time see it is, by the economy really opens up again many of these restaurants are going to be bankrupt. it's a sad fact. i will leave you with one more bible quote. the poor will always be with you

and trump told the poor people they should go to work sick. juanita in alabama, good morning. what should happen in your state? you support opening up. caller: yes i do. as far as losing my soul i don't think i will lose my soul. to the guy from new york. i live in alabama. our governor is kay ivey. you can go in liquor stores and buy liquor, but you couldn't go to church. you can go get a tattoo but you can't go to church. go to church yesterday, the doors were left open, nobody touched the doorknobs. everything in the sanctuary was disinfected. we all stood six feet apart. we had a great service. host: did people wear masks, one

nita -- caller: some did, some did not. i am a singer so i did not. i was on the stage by myself. the piano player was by himself. i am retired. if these people will go out and go to the liquor store and buy liquor, but they won't go to work, that don't make sense to me. if you are able to go by liquor you can go to church -- work. doris from iron river, michigan. you do not want to see the states open. caller: i do not. we do not have one case in iron river, i don't want to play russian roulette with the babies. there is more important things in life than money. we have all been through this before, our ancestors lived through it.

we have to buckle down and listen to god. you can go to church in your home, you don't have to gather, god is with you, god is for you. i was disappointed because i live by wisconsin, maybe a couple of miles away. they opened up their bars, it's a shame they didn't open up their churches. if they can open up bars they could open up churches. i am a nondrinker. i am 67 years old. i have lived a fast life, god take me home before you take the babies. protect the babies. if you don't care about yourself you could be a carrier and poison all the rest of the people. until we find out what this is, think twice. god gave you a good mind, use your mind. god gave me a brain to think. i am not going to church, my

churches my house and god knows it. quit going to church, quit using the lord's name to sin. god does not want you to be stupid. i am sorry because i get upset about this. i have a miracle grandbaby that is now a nurse and she is working her buns off working through all this and trying not to catch it and bring it home to her baby. people don't realize we are in a crisis. i don't care for mr. trump. i did not care for hillary either. we need fresh meat in the white house, somebody younger. trump has no business to talk about another man in the same business he is. quit dividing us. we are altogether. if you turn us inside out you can't tell us apart. host: doris from iron river, michigan. steve from pennsylvania. caller: thank you for taking my

call. i oppose the situation of opening up the country. i am a trump supporter but he is wrong. he is looking at it through economic value. there is no economic value in death. there is no economic value and having our citizenry go out and put themselves on the line and possibly die. there is a situation that can only be handled with a vaccine, it's like flying an airplane without radar. i would not get in that airplane and i would not go out without a vaccine. host: steve from scranton, pennsylvania. from olympia, washington faith is watching and she supports reopening the economy. what is the plan for washington state? ourer: i don't agree with governor, jay inslee, closing everything down. i really think that we should reopen the economy. i also believe that all the

people in our country should somehow open their minds up to see the real results out there. hong kong has killed the virus. host: where did you read that? caller: essential oils. there are studies out there. america needs to look to jesus. these people that are saying things about the bars, that is i have heard testimony they can understand why the liquor stores are still open and tattoo parlors are still open, the marijuana dispensing places are still open, yet aaa, a place that needs to support people to stop drinking is closed. ,ll of our parks are closed

.ibraries are closed .he one lady had some sense people should know the statistics. this virus has a point to kill rate. realityd go for essential oils. it can stop you from getting the virus. they are using high-dose vitamin c in china. host: we are going to continue discussing the coronavirus pandemic with the read hill of the hill newspaper -- callsl take more of your coming up. ♪

>> tonight on the communicators, new yorker magazine writer andrew talks about his book, extremists,online techno utopias and the hijacking of the american conversation. >> they thought we will just disrupt everything and we will have every hierarchy that we know just come crashing down and whatever happens next, it will be fine but we don't know what it is. we now know in retrospect, it was not fine. into that power vacuum that silicon valley created came rushing these people i call the gatecrasher's which are nihilists, liars, bigots. communicators

tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span2. >> 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 call-in program. here are your thoughts about the coronavirus process and if you have missed any coverage, watch any time on demand at c-span.org/coronavirus. with the federal government at work in dcn throughout the country, use the congressional directory for contact information for members of congress, governors and federal agencies. order your copy online today at at an store -- cspanstore.org. >> "washington journal" continues. host: reid wilson is with us this morning, author of "epidemic: ebola and the global

scramble to prevent the next outbreak." also a national reporter with the hill. ebola and the global scramble to prevent the next killer outbreak, what was the scramble like? guest: the scramble has been going on for a couple decades. in the wake of the ebola outbreak in west africa that infected more than 128,000 people and killed more than 11,000, the world has undergone a change and they are understanding how pandemics have the potential to spread. we live in a different world than we did back in 1918 when the spanish flu struck or even the end of the 1960's when there were significant flu outbreaks. we are a globalized world. we travel all over the place. americans travel to every continent in the world and people in every continent travel here. that sort of interconnectedness means something pops up in a wet a planen china is only

flight away from the united states. something that a reps in the jungles of south america is only a short way away from the united states. the american cdc funded a bunch -cdc's in 49 countries around the world aiming to increase what they call surveillance, monitoring to make sure they are able to see when one of these novel viruses comes up and begins to spread. ended inrt basically most of those countries last year and that is a key part of this timeline. we don't know exactly when this coronavirus began to circulate in china. the first case they had that scientists have identified goes back to november 17, about a month and a half before the world health organization spotted a cluster in wuhan, china. mightpossible this virus

have been circulating long before that. done is thisd has sort of surveillance network to monitor for these diseases. we are not always funding it at the level it needs because as we have seen in the past and as we it -- this virus is controllable if it is spotted early, if the people who have it are contact traced and isolated and if authorities get their hands on the situation early before this becomes a mega outbreak. thiss all but certain virus was in the united states at least three weeks before the first positive case. if we had the testing capability and the ability to find that virus, we might not be in the -- we certainly wouldn't be in the position we are in today. host: from your reporting, what happened with testing and the cdc?

guest: it is not just the cdc that is involved. what the cdc does in a novel case like this, when they have a new virus is they will develop a diagnostic test quickly, and then it is up to the fda to bring that task to the private industries and the private industries that build their own the cbc test basically seeds the test laboratories. precedento historical for the cdc building a test that then scales to the scope and size we need to control a virus and monitor it across the world. the disconnect here appears to be somewhere between the fda and the commercial companies that didn't race to fill that void and create these diagnostic tests that could be used by private laboratories across the country.

that is going to be a big part of the investigating of how this went so wrong. host: do we know why these private companies did not race to fill that void as you said? guest: not yet. it is something of a mystery. typically in the past it has fallen to senior officials of the fda and the department of health and human services to gather those companies together and light a fire under them and say it is time to ramp up building the testing capacity. -- now we havee tons of diagnostic tests. the fda has factory -- fast-track a number of them. cdc made thise test that turned out to be corrupted. there were three elements and wasn'tthe elements properly working. there were a lot of false negatives and false positives. basically the cdc testing didn't work but there was no back end

fill from the private industry until the fda gave the emergency use authorization in late february. basically we lost this month of time when we should have been testing as many people as possible so we could have found the virus when it was contained in tiny clusters as opposed to when it was turning to overwhelm our hospitals. host: we want to invite our viewers to join in on this conversation. lessons learned from the ebola outbreak to the coronavirus pandemic we are seeing now. if you live in the eastern or central part of the country, (202)-748-8000. mountain and pacific, (202)-748-8001. reid wilson is our guest this morning. what was the response to the ebola outbreak? what were the lessons learned from it? guest: the response was overwhelming. this is an outbreak to hit three of the most impoverished countries in the world, liberia,

sierra leone and guinea. the life expectancy in those countries is 25 years less than the u.s. and 30 years less than the most advanced countries in the world. the response was global, immediate and overwhelming. states sent 3000 troops to liberia which is not something we have ever done before in response to a virus. they deployed more than 1400 people from the cdc which had never happened before. the cdc wasn't that sort of organization. the french deployed to guinea. we saw this overwhelming response. i should not minimize this at all. we saw people racing back to the countries and staying in their countries at times when they could have left to save their own people. the real heroes for the people who were walking towards the fire in their own countries to

try and save them. a lot of them did not survive the virus. the lessons we learned were pretty monumental. to democratize information which is something we need to see more of. people are smart and if they are told how to protect themselves, they will take the steps, in some cases violating their own thousands of years of cultural tradition in the case of say, burying or washing a body after death. in the case of the ebola virus, that is how people -- that is how most cases were spreading, people washing the bodies in preparation for the burial. when public health officials in liberia told people to stop doing that and allow safe burial teams to handle dead bodies, that saved thousands of lives and it goes to show that if

competent and reasonable information is presented in a calm and logical way, the public will understand and take the steps necessary to protect themselves and kill the virus. host: we will go to calls. sergio in florida. good morning to you. your question or comment? caller: good morning. good morning to you all, how are you? host: doing well. what is your question or comment? caller: how are you today reid? guest: i'm doing fine today. what have you got? caller: a couple questions. how do we learn from it and if ebola is more effective than the corona. and ebola coronavirus

virus are from different families. the difference is a coronavirus is very easy to contract to contract -- very easy to contract but it is very less deadly. the mortality rate is somewhere between half a percent and 1%. the ebola virus by contrast if untreated, the mortality rate can be 80% or 90%. coronavirus is easy to contract but will public not kill you. the ebola virus is very difficult to contract. you actually have to touch blood or bodily fluids of someone who has it but it is highly deadly if you do get infected. the prospects for a vaccine are interesting and i think this is thatt of the communication public health officials are struggling to convey.

are eight to 18 months away from a vaccine, which is probably what the more optimistic estimates are, it would be the fastest element of any vaccine in human history, the fast -- the fastest vaccine previously developed was for the moms over the course of about four years in the 1950's. the good news is we are significantly more advanced than we were in the 1950's but vaccines are not like treatment. they have a new bar they have to clear in order to get approved and become effective. for a treatment, you are treating something and somebody who already has the virus. you are not introducing them to anything new, any new threat. for a vaccine, you are introducing something new into somebody's body. that can be pretty dangerous.

an improperly designed vaccine can do more harm than good, which means there are several more layer's of testing a vaccine has to go through and of the 100 plus vaccines that are in design and develop it right now, the fast majority of them are going -- the majority of them are going to fail. when it shots on goal comes to the vaccine, and it would be great if we could have 10 or 15 different vaccines that work but they are all going to have different efficacy rates. there are vaccines will for things like the flu that only cover a third to half of us who get the vaccine in the first place. all of these things are going to have different efficacy rates. they will be available at different times and once they are approved, they then have to be developed. just because you approve a vaccine does not mean you automatically created 7 million

doses -- 7 billion doses we are going to need around the world. we are a ways away from a vaccine. if one thing is not being communicated effectively to the american people or to people around the world it's the fact that we are not going to have a vaccine tomorrow or next week or next month or even by the end of the year and even if we did, it will still take a substantial a lot of time to develop and this tribute and basically get it -- and distribute and basically get it to all of us and into all of our doctors offices. we also have to hope the people he actually -- that people actually take it. it is a huge puzzle with a lot of different challenges and one we have to be realistic about. host: rosemary is next in west virginia.

caller: hi. host: good morning. go ahead. welcome to the conversation. caller: my concern is that people are panicking. i am a dialysis patient. i have to go out. i have to survive. nobody wants no one to die, but that is life. that is a part of life. people are dying from different things. and they told me to take a flu shot in 90 -- in 1996. i got the flu after i took the shot. i haven't taken a flu shot since then. you cannot blame from for everything. the swinecame out -- fluke, ebola, all of these things come and they go. some people survive, some don't. children are dying, grown folks are dying. everything from one thing or another. host: reid wilson, this is a comet that has come up throughout the show -- a comment

that has come up throughout the show. can you explain heard immunity? guest: herd immunity is a troubling concept, imagine a population of 100 people. if a new virus is introduced, 100 of those 100 people are susceptible to getting it. once 20 of them get it and recover, that only 80 of those 100 people are susceptible to get it. eventually the population of those who are susceptible become small enough that they won't come in to contact. the odds of one person coming into contact with somebody who has the virus who is susceptible shrinks until eventually the virus has nowhere else to go. viruse like a fire in the has burned up all the wood. when there is no more wood to burn, the virus eventually burns out.

immunitypt of herd comes from herds of sheep and cattle. we are not sheep and cattle. the value of a life is substantially different as you can imagine. thing that she brought up is this notion of dialysis and people having to go out. one troubling thing about this virus is that people are suddenly afraid to seek care. not may be ok if you are going to your doctor's office to check out your flu and you are recovering at home, but it is not ok when you may be suffering from a cardiac problem or a stroke. i was talking to an er doctor in new york. he said in the early days of this, he didn't understand where all the heart attacks had gone. it was as if people stopped having heart attacks and were only having coronavirus. of course that is not the case.

people are having these cardiac problems and they are afraid to go to the hospital. one thing we saw in west africa -- the more people former director of the cdc likes to say more people died because of the ebola virus than from the ebola virus. what that means is more people died from things like malaria or cholera or some of these common diseases people know how to treat but they weren't seeking treatment because they were afraid to go to a hospital setting because they were worried that ebola was present. we may be seeing a significant amount of excess deaths coming from things like heart disease and hypertension, things that would be treatable if people sought treatment that they are not seeking treatment because of the coronavirus. that is a troubling thing, and it is why we are seeing a lot of rural communities, hospital systems having some real problems keeping their funding. hospitals in boston are talking

about losing $5 billion in lost services provided through the next couple of months. we had a caller talking about the henry ford clinic in detroit in the last hour, they just laid in the middle of a public health pandemic. why are they doing that? because nobody is seeking treatment for these other things. nobody is having the elective surgeries that are the bread and butter of your typical hospital systems. there is a real risk that more people will die because of the coronavirus than from the coronavirus. wouldntially more people die than would have otherwise because they are not seeking treatment for the stuff they need to seek treatment for. host: we will go to texas, lloyd. caller: good morning. i would say i agree with a lot but whateid was saying

is really scary is all the miss -- all of the misinformation. ask one of the callers where did she read something and she just talking to a point where she done -- she did not even address where she got her information. there is so much gross misinformation and people are just running rampant with the fact that this information is coming through social media, coming through word-of-mouth but there is no fact of where the stuff is coming from and the information that is actually true and valid is not being recognized because of the abundance of misinformation being spewed. host: reid wilson, your thoughts on that? guest: that is a good point and something that public health officials know about and have been paying a lot of attention to. a very smart woman at the world health organization calls this

the infodemic, it happens every time there is an epidemic. mids -- misinformation gets out there as broadly as possible and in some cases it can be damaging but not deadly. --ebody seeking treatment seeking the wrong kind of medicine or something like that. somebody here is that essential oils can solve something when they can't or something like that. in other cases, it can be massively destructive to the response, to health care workers and things like that. is an ebola outbreak that is winding down in the democratic republic of congo. they are beset by ethnic violence and have been for decades. saw which was like six months ago, there have been 200 attacks on health care workers and health facilities because there were rumors that they are bringing the ebola

virus to congo. people have died because of these fake rumors. example ofextreme this, but we have also seen -- the world health organization said last week they have seen more than 30 attacks in 11 countries around the world on health care facilities and there have been dozens of attacks in the united states on asian andicans and hasidic choose -- hasidic jews and minorities being blamed for a virus that had nothing to do with their ethnicity. misinformation can go from a minor annoyance to a life-threatening disaster in just a short time. has no agenda. it just is. meanwhile a lie does have an agenda and can have a political

advantage over truth. that is a scary thought. we need to be paying attention to the actual experts who are talking about what we know about the virus. fauci orke anthony robert redfield in his top two lieutenants. -- and his top two lieutenants. thing that i find fascinating about this. we are learning about this coronavirus at an unprecedented clip, faster than we have ever learned about any pathogen or virus in world history. as an example, in 2009 the new england journal of medicine published 54 articles on h1n1 that might have been a pandemic. it turned out not to be as bad as people feared but it could have been. april, the middle of

new england journal of medicine had already published 64 items on the coronavirus. they published dozens more in the weeks since. basically we are learning a ton about this virus. we are also learning how much we don't know. we started off by diagnosing people with a fever, a cough, fatigue. cause know this virus can things that look like heart attacks and things that look like strokes or actual strokes. pinkeye is a potential symptom as well. as if this it is virus is sitting at the intersection of every single one of our internal systems and just decides which one to attack at any given person. foran be totally different two people who might otherwise be equally susceptible or equally resilient. virus learning about this

but it remains a complete mystery in a lot of respects. host: jackie in ohio, good morning. caller: good morning. host: go ahead with your comment or question. is at thinkomment we should go back to work. assistant and i make more on unemployment and i still believe the economy needs to go back to work. my big thing is i am sitting here and these people are whining about how the government is responsible for them. we were only off work for a month. me youalways taught should be able to take care of yourself for at least three months. say some buddy broke their arm or got sick, anything could happen. you could lose your job. you should be able to take care of yourself for a good three months. you should have enough money in the bank.

governmente the because they can't afford to be off work for a month? it is insane. everybody needs to be responsible. if you have a business, you should have money in the bank. i also have some rentals. if something goes wrong, i can't blame anyone else. host: reid wilson. guest: one thing that has struck me about the downturn here, the economic downturn is how different it is from the last recession. , people recession hit at the top, first. lehman brothers collapsing, things like that. impact trickled down to everybody else in the workforce and it was those everyone else who took so long to recover. it was only in the last six months or so that we served to see those at the bottom

experiencing real wage growth for the first time since the recession and basically the onus being on employers to provide higher salaries and better jobs because employees had so many options for where they could go. this downturn has targeted those very people who had just finished recovering from the last recession first and immediately. something like 40% of low-wage workers are out of work. that is in the space of two months. to her point about people need to have money in the bank to take care of themselves, this targeted the people who are least likely to have that money in the bank in the first place and that is what makes this doubly tragic. host: sharon in oklahoma. good morning. caller: good morning. know wondering -- i

everybody else has so much running through their heads these days. there are sosted many people out there like this. those that are supposed to be in , everybody is fumbling the ball. nobody can hang on to it. nobody knows nothing. facebook is just a hot mess. if you listen to all these people that are getting hysterical. just use common sense and do the best you can. people do not apply discipline. it has long fell away. host: reid wilson, when ebola hit in these countries in africa, how did their governments respond? did they have stay-at-home restrictions put in place? guest: responses in all three

countries were different, primarily because the virus hit all three countries in different ways. in a lot of ways, the response from the liberia government in particular mirrors what we saw in the united states in the first couple of months when the federal government was downplaying the severity of this virus and at times denying it would infect a significant number of americans. in liberia, they were worried and tourismts dollars which was a growing part of their economy. there was a point earlier on in their outbreak where they basically denied that they had any ebola cases whatsoever despite the fact that it was clear and obvious that a fever was raging in several rural counties. quarantines and locking people down come out there was a real trust deficit

between the federal government and thehree countries more tribal regions elsewhere and that is sort of a legacy of colonialism and how those countries were founded. the governing classes in all three tend to be the descendents of slaves who went back to africa in the early part of the 1800s and they went back but there already people living there, and so there has been this historic distrust between those who live on the coast, they sort of political elite and the more tribal regions in different parts of the country. that distrust got worse and worse the higher up you went. the president and the heads of the more traditional tribal clans barely spoke, and that

hindered the response in a lot of ways and is sort of reminiscent of the relationship between the federal government here and state governors across the country who have had to struggle and scramble when they don't get the supplies they actually need. , ourhing we have seen leaders failing us but let's shining light on some of those getting it right. in places like new hampshire, maryland, asked juice it's in washington state, governors have gone to significant lengths to secure the goods that they actually need. i told a story last week of the governor of new hampshire who had sourced personal protective gear from china through a company based in new hampshire. the guy who invented the segway has been flying plane loads of personal protective gear into new hampshire and they have

gotten so good at it that a couple weeks ago the state of new hampshire sold 4.5 million masks to the department of federal -- to the department of veterans affairs. governor larry hogan in maryland secured something like half a million test kits from south korea. his wife is korean and she used business contacts to help import those test kits from a place that when maryland could not get any from the federal government themselves, so there are some leaders who got quite creative to protect their states and they deserve some shout outs. this is not a partisan sing. the governor of new hampshire and maryland are both republicans. californiawsom of and the governor of washington state have done the same thing in sourcing personal protective gear from other countries as well.

when the federal government has not always been there, the governors themselves have been a good job of stepping up and making sure their states have enough. host: what about the international response? what is the world health organization's role during a pandemic like this and how have they responded? guest: that is the reverse of what we have seen -- what we saw during the ebola outbreak. when ebola broke out, the who was caught flat-footed. they were agency that was more reduced -- more used to -- keeping statistics on heart disease around the world. they really transformed themselves and they have created this surveillance network. i mentioned their first sighting of a typical -- sighting of atypical pneumonia in wuhan. that was the first time anybody saw anything wrong in china. it was the world health organization that sounded the

first alarm and forced china to release the genetic sequence of this virus so that we could create a diagnostic test and get it operating. they are moving millions of pounds for hundreds of tons of personal protective gear, testing equipment, all around the world. they just delivered more than one million pounds of personal protective gear to haiti which is in desperate need of medical supplies, not even when we are talking about a pandemic, so the world health organization has really stepped up their game and they have done so even as they have come under pressure from the united states. the trump administration is withholding funding from the who and that is interesting timing to say the least, but the fact is, they were the first ones to sound the alarm about this. they warned the united states about this earlier than we do

about it and they have stepped up their game even as they have come under this intense scrutiny goingiticism and they are to make mistakes. everybody makes mistakes and a high-pressure situation like this and there are going to be postmortems and studies about what they could have done better and that is important because there is going to be annexed time. the next time might not be coronavirus. it could be a new strain of flu, it could be anything. the world health organization is always warning people about what they call disease x, the next big disease and we all have to be prepared and investing in global public health right now -- if we spend billions of dollars bolstering global health systems around the world it will pay off in trillions of dollars in the united states alone if we are able to spot and stop the

next disease before it breaks out like this one has. host: the world health organization today held a world health assembly. addressing the assembly is the chinese president. here is through a translator, talking about the world economy and supporting an investigation into the handling of the pandemic. [video clip] >> china supports the idea of a comprehensive review of the global response to covid-19 after it is brought under control. to sum up the experience and address the deficiencies. this work should be based on science and professionalism conducted in objective and impartial manners. we must restore economic and social development while working on an ongoing basis to contain the virus. countries where conditions

permit may reopen businesses and schools in an orderly fashion in observance of professional recommendations. in the meantime, international micronet -- macroeconomic policy should be stepped back and the global industrial supply chain kept stable if we are to restore growth to the economy of the world. host: reid wilson, your reaction? guest: china is coming under pressure, not just from the united states but from the australian government and others over their initial handling. the first case that we know about likely happened in about mid-november in wuhan. there may be several months more that happenedn before that. we do know china did not bring

this to the world's attention until who sorted asking questions on december 31. they may have known something was wrong and the good news is they brought it up within a couple months, when asked. that is a pretty stark contrast to the sars outbreak in 2003 when they basically pretended nothing was wrong until about 6000 people were investigated when they raised their hand answered asking for help. that is the old way. the new way, the appropriate way of responding to an outbreak is to raise alarms immediately at the global level so that you can bring in health inspectors from across the globe. one thing that happened in west africa is the obama administration really pushed and sendget involved doctors and supplies and funding to these three west african

nations. their message was if you want to act like a superpower, you have to act superpower and that means helping the tiny countries when there is a need. the chinese equivalent to the cdc is one of the better run ones in the world. they know they have this problem of the wet markets and the interaction between inner -- interaction between humans and animals that causes a virus to jump and win a virus jumps species, they know they need to be surveilling these markets. they are getting better at it but clearly the transparency is not what the world wants or needs out of china and that is why they are facing calls for this investigation. of course president xi once the investigation to be impartial and run through the who and the who has become this battleground between the united states and china just as the u.s. froze

funding, china announced they will increase funding to the who , which is going to be the next battlefield that the u.s. and china fight over. host: we will go to california. michael is watching. caller: i would like to ask your question. what is the difference of having millions of americans shopping going backand people to work? i don't know the difference because we have people doing both. they want people around the country to not go back to work but to go shopping. it is a catch-22. is there a difference? host: reid wilson, are you tracking this? guest: one thing we have to pay attention to is that simply reopening the economy -- it is not like flipping a switch. --is not as if governor x

governor newsom in california can say the economy is reopen, everything goes back to normal. i'm going to be one of those people that sits at home for three weeks after that because i have no interest in going to eat at a restaurant right now. i will do the take-out thing but people are still scared of this virus and reasonably so. i understand that and i understand the urge to get back to work. there are a lot of people hurting. jobs are going away. simply reopening the economy doesn't mean the customers are going to flock back. given the economy totally closed means there are going to be a lot of -- a lot more suffering. neither of those is a good thing but those of the choices we now face. host: joe in massachusetts. good morning. caller: good morning.

and a question. i know you talked about particular states for the governor is doing a great job and you mentioned massachusetts. i think baker is doing a fantastic job. i have one comment for general americans. country, keep it closed, it goes back and forth and the reality is there are 50 states and 50 different situations. i would recommend to all americans, turn off most of the media and just listen to your governors. the governors are the ones who have a horse in this race. they are the only ones who know the immediate situation in each state. new york city is a whole lot inferent than a rancher out wyoming. just listen to your governors and forget about all the other stuff. a quick question, who had a

thatne early on in america was faulty. we lost about eight weeks getting it going. should we have used the existing vaccine or did we lose valuable time and the other one is, i heard you talking about who. have they been scapegoated by this administration or have they done a pretty good job worldwide? vaccine, the who didn't have a vaccine. there is a difference between a diagnostic test that basically tests whether or not you have that. company whoman developed that pretty quickly and that has been the basis for the testing that has happened in most other countries around the world. south korea and even china and places like that have adopted that type of test. decided ton cdc

develop their own test. we still don't know why. tohave our questions to ask figure out why that might be the case but the fact is they did not use the same type of test that the germans did. different from a treatment or a vaccine, neither of which we have yet. those are still in development and they will take quite a while to develop. has the who been scapegoated? they have. they are an agency that has very little power and they have been painted as this sort of global overarching agency with a tremendous amount of power. they basically have two options. they have a carrot and a stick. they can see -- they can say to a country, you are doing really well and here is some incentive to continue and we will praise you publicly or they can shame you publicly. that is their only options. they don't have a huge budget.

toy don't have the ability place sanctions or kind -- one countries or anything like that -- sanctions on countries or anything like that. they can just determine what best practices are out there and they can shift personal protective gear. a lot of this effort, the who's effort against the coronavirus is being run by americans. the head of the technical side of the response, the person responsible for leading the global scientific efforts to discover this disease and understand it is an american. she is from upstate new york. we spent about an hour on the phone a couple days ago. she was telling me about her big italian family in upstate new york. ofis not like a bunch faceless foreigners dictating to the u.s. what we ought to do. americans onsome

the emergencies program. it is a remarkably international response being run by some really dedicated americans who are doing their best to stop this virus around the globe. host: reid wilson's book is out in paperback, "epidemic: ebola and the global scramble to prevent the next outbreak." you can also follow his reporting if you go to thehill.com. we are going to take a break. when we come back, do you support or oppose states reopening up their economies? if you support, (202)-748-8000. if you oppose, (202)-748-8001. we will be right back. ♪ >> tonight on the communicators, new yorker magazine writer andrew moran's talks about his book, antisocial, online extremists, techno utopias, and

the hijacking of the american conversation. >> they thought we will disrupt everything and we will have every hierarchy that we know just come crashing down and whatever happens next will be fun. retrospect, it was not fine and into that power vacuum that silicon valley created came rushing these people i call the gate crashers, which are nihilists, trolls, liars, propagandists. >> watch the communicators tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span2. >> 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 call-in program, hearing your thoughts about the coronavirus crisis. if you missed any of our live coverage, watch any time on

demand at c-span.org/coronavirus. >> with the federal government at work in d.c. and throughout the country, use the congressional directory for contact information for members of congress, governors and federal agencies. order your copy online today at c-spanstore.org. "> "washington journal continues. host: states are beginning to ease stay-at-home restrictions across the country. we want to get your reaction to that. how is it going? we will go to roland in virginia. what do you think? do you support this idea of opening up businesses to mark quick -- opening up businesses? churches,sinesses and everything that was open before

the american -- before the coronavirus. europe is opening across the board. we are playing politics with the american economy. it is time for america to open up. reid is inadvertently backing trump. politics.e playing trump is not helping the nation. you should bring another conservative. wilson is a reporter. what do you do for a living? caller: i work in the hospital and i go to work everyday. i have contact with people. i work with them all the time. are you getting tested

before caller: caller: you go in? you getting are tested before you go in? caller: yes. we have to wash our hands, right your temperature down, test the patient. we are all doing well. host: bill in pennsylvania, you also support easing restrictions. good morning to you. caller: good morning and thanks for taking my call. i have to agree with that last caller. it seemed like your guest sure was negative about the trump administration. i am not a big trump person myself but i can tell you that from day one, we need to put the blame where the blame should be. it is communist china. when people talk about china, they should put communist in front of it, because a lot of people don't realize that.

going back in the history of this pandemic, first of all, we know that china hid this virus from the world for about two months and then your last guest did not mention this but china went out and gobbled up all of ppe they could get. worthought up $2 billion of masks, and then your last guest was saying how nice china is, they are sending these masks and ppe around. fromdn't mention that but what i have read and heard, this pandemic has taken anywhere from $5 trillion to $8 trillion out of the united states economy. i am retired. my wife is retired. we can afford to sit at home and wait this out. we are older folks.

i look around lewistown, pennsylvania and i can tell you there are people hurting here and they need to get back to their jobs and a lot of these jobs, over 100,000 small businesses in the united states since the pandemic that have just gone under. we are doing what we are supposed to do and when we go out, we wash our hands. we haven't done any grocery shopping. my wife calls walmart once a week and puts her order in and we drive up and they put it in the back of the car. mask --y is wearing a not everybody but -- host: will you and your wife continue to shop that way? caller: yeah. we will continue to wear a mask. we will continue to wash our hands. we will continue to use walmart to buy our groceries. i want to mention one thing.

turnede months ago, we the tv on and we got the news and we always watched c-span. we turnago we heard -- on msnbc and cnn, both of those stations were telling the american public that over 2 million americans were gonna die and now the number is down to around 150,000. this is why we don't have confidence in journalism and like that last guest you had on, they were so many holes in his theory, what he was saying. he didn't mention china -- communist china buying up all of the ppe. our hospitals around here -- we have 57 cases in mifflin county. we have not had one death in mifflin county but get our governor in harrisburg who is calling all the shots for these people ine and i know this state who have applied for unemployment two months ago and

have not gotten one dime of unemployment because the bureaucracy in harrisburg -- every time i saw the president, he melts off sometimes but every time i saw him, he was backed up by scientists, doctors, he had the professionals backing him up and we are going to get over this in america is going to come out on the other cited that but a couple months ago, it was going to be 2 million americans dead and this is why the american public is so confused and a lot of it has to do with journalists like that last gentlemen. -- gentleman. host: the federal reserve interview on six t minutes made the front page of the financial times. powell warns that the u.s. recovery could take until the end of 2021. maryland in illinois. you oppose.

reopening why is that -- you are -- you oppose reopening. why is that? caller: i am not opposed totally. i think that last gentle man -- gentleman was so wrong. where did he get the information about the 2 million from china? the ppe, whatever it is called? where did he get his information? you have to trust the scientists. on, mr.tleman that was wilson, he had it nailed. i wish i could talk to and find out, did he try and talk to this administration? he knew what he was talking about. marilyn, you are in a state that has remained shut down. extending the stay-at-home order through the

end of may but he loosened restrictions on certain outdoor activities. he has also ordered residents to wear masks. do you agree with his decision? caller: 120%. gentleman who called in and works in a , there were regulations, there were rules that he had to go through to get into that hospital. then why are we doing that in a restaurant, in a bar? through plainville and i saw at least 50 people standing around in front of a bar. i don't know if they were protesting. i don't know if they were being let in but half of them were not wearing masks.

fumbledinistration has from the beginning and they are scrambling to catch up. what is their agenda? the little people, the essential people. host: i'm going to go to crystal in florida who opposes easing restrictions. caller: i do. i want to say that i have about five or six different family members that were devastated by the virus. second i am going to say that i don't think we should even consider reopening until we have a policy and protections in place for frontline workers and persons that are driving the buses and the trains, etc. i think your guest was wonderful. also florida is not completely opened up even though they talk open,the last counties to

they do not mention palm beach which is where mar-a-lago is. we are not open here. maybe they will open this week. your guest was 100% on the money. obama obviously contained ebola and if we had the administration that we have now handling , we wouldlike ebola probably not be here. host: i will leave it there. we will go to california where there are regional openings in that state. do you support what the governor is doing there? ifing regional areas open up they meet certain criteria? caller: half and half. i am not aod job but fan of his.

grocery stores and liquor stores are open. what else is left? host: abby in south carolina. caller: good morning. host: do you want to see the economies open up? caller: i don't think they should have ever shut down. all this talk about going back to work and the almighty dollar. you have to give this a little more thought. the politicians, the corporations, they are the only ones profiting from the shut down. all of us regular people who need the reopening to happen, they are not after the almighty dollar. they simply need their livelihood. they need to be able to provide for their families the basic needs. medications, if they are cut off can have deadly

consequences. my husband is in a nursing home. he stopped taking his medication for his seizures. he went in the hospital in icu. -- natural virus. it would have ran its course. we have to think about the future generations. we have to allow our immunities to evolve. host: david in los angeles. you are opposed to easing restrictions. caller: i hope you give me a little time like you did the guy from pennsylvania.

he pulled out all of this misinformation to counter what the expert had said. are, like the lady who just got off. she's getting her information from fox. depending on where you get your will determine how you are reacting to this. which is really deadly within itself. and this so upsets me that you can just about here these fox people. have freedom of propaganda. we have freedom of the press. and the reason we don't have freedom of propaganda is because propaganda gets you what this foolish woman just said and the guy from pennsylvania. these people are totally protected. those who have to have

some government assistance. and like the expert was saying, this pandemic is affecting those who have leased. -- least. to be forced back into an economy to make a decision whether or not you can eat or die. these kinds of decisions should not be made in a civilized society. and so we have our experts. and we do have them. but do we listen to them? no. we listen to fools like the people who just called and who is being fed information that is deadly. host: more of your calls coming phone isg us on the congressman adrian smith, republican of nebraska. how did you vote on friday on

that $3 trillion economic aid package? caller: i voted no. too far inwent way many respects and contained a lot of material unrelated to covid. i think the dollar spending raises a lot of concerns and we can be more strategic about helping folks across america. >> what would you agree to in that legislation if republicans in the senate control that chamber, if they were to include some provisions what would you want them to include? the first thing that should be done with legislation like and onlyo pare it down to items related to covid and the stimulus for the economy because of covid. so i think scaling down those

dollars and having more discussions. this is something that we should do as a congress, as a house, have more discussion via technology rather than waiting to see what comes from the speaker's office and then being told to vote for it by the speaker. i just think we can do a lot better than that. >> what covid provisions would you like to see? americans? checks to more loans to small businesses? >> i think loans to small businesses would be appropriate and above all we want to practice fiscal restraint and realize that some spending might be necessary but let's not go too far. i think loans to small businesses because businesses are experiencing different times covidkinds of impact from . we can and should have more

discussions as colleagues via technology that we know is available. host: would you support aid to states? >> i want to be very careful here because there are states in different situations of need. there were states wanting federal assistance with a lot of their pension programs even before covid hit. and we need to i think expect some reforms before any kind of federal intervention is offered because these are very important topics that impact a lot of people and different states operate different ways and that's the beauty of america. expect taxpayers from states who have a solid pension more ino expect to pay other states that chose a

different path. they need i think to reform their systems. i think the sooner the better. host: described the industries in your district and how has the pandemic impacted than? -- them? of the mosts one agricultural areas. situation hasg been very important to realize that we need to make sure that we have sources of protein for and even beyond. plants are no stranger to bio security. think they have handled things fairly well considering all of the circumstances. we know everyone needs to eat

and we have seen enough disk -- disruption in supply chains. host: you have several meatpacking plants in your district. everybody's back to work? >> correct. we have federal -- several plans. one in dakota city nebraska feeds about 18 million people per day. daysclosed down for a few to make sure that everything was appropriate but they are back online. we wouldt that plant see an even far worse situation at the meat counter than what we are seeing now. host: how many cases have you seen in your district? >> the number of cases are a few hundred.

our communities are responding. i thinkealth districts have been very engaged and we are i think making a positive .ifference individual citizens and communities are taking this very seriously. host: what are your constituents telling you that they need from the federal government? folks are really weighing in differently. i have some meetings to talk to some communities about expanded manufacturing opportunities to basically bring back some of the manufacturing that left our country especially with the pp. i think not that long ago america was facing a worker and now we have high unemployment rates. i think we can see some shift in

employment coming up because i think we will see manufacturing come back to america in a very productive way and an affordable way as well being able to implement some technology and at the same time putting a lot of americans back to work. host: what businesses you fear will not come back in your area? little bit concerned that there will be so much online shopping that retail merchants will face an even more difficult time perhaps. i also am hopeful that there because of this distancing that has taken part there will be a thirst for reentering the market square so to speak and engage with folks face-to-face. heart growes the fonder and i think that exchange

especially in the marketplace will have some resurgence. at the same time i am concerned about that shift to the online economy that has been good for us as well and there is certainly a role for that and i hope that communities and retailers can be appropriately prepared. thank you so much for giving us an update. we appreciate your time. tonya in rose hill, north carolina. you support reopening the economies. tell us why. caller: good morning pete i thought i dialed up a number. host: you oppose then. caller: i wanted to agree with the guest you had earlier. i couldn't get in on that one. but i meant that i don't support it. this is ani do, but

area that has a lot of meatpacking and agriculture. testing these people like they should. people like the man from nebraska, i don't think he's telling all of it. they won't even give you ideas for how many people are infected in these places. and that's what concerns me. here they had a court that overturned his thing of the churches. i am at high risk. i'm blind also. just feel that things aren't going right like it should from the top. president trump is our president also. i'm a democrat. but he should be representing

all people. host: gym in indiana is next. you support easing of stay-at-home restrictions. tell us why. caller: i've been doing everything they said to do. stay home. host: and? caller: trump is doing a wonderful job. statewhy do you think the of indiana should be open for business? caller: i think it should open a little bit, not a whole lot. done is not anir essential thing you can have your neighbor do that. there's a lot of things that should not be opened up right now. host: ok. jim in new york. caller: i live in central new york. the widespread

pandemic like they did downstate. i hate the fact that we are sometimes being treated the same way as new york city which quite honestly i'm sick of cuomo. if he had bought ventilators before the pandemic and been prepared and not sent sick patients back to the nursing homes things would be a lot better in new york. guy puttingthis aspersions on those that watch fox news earlier made the life-and-death situations should not be made by people and he said that should be a government decision. i guarantee he supports the taking of babies and abortion. so he's a hypocrite and -- that's all i wanted to say. kaisha in alabama. what do you want to happen in alabama?

caller: i would like to see everybody -- everything open back up because life is going on. the people wanting to stay in our people that don't really have to get out and work and look for a job. that's why i feel like we should go ahead and open up because we all have to continue our life. we can't let our life be put on hold from a pandemic of experts. we don't even know the qualification of all the experts that are out here saying what is going on with the virus. ondon't know what's going with the qualifications of the people making the decisions for americans that need to have funds, that need to have food for their families. host: in delaware. you also support opening up dismisses. caller: we have an idiot for

governor. withe we the people and all of this there are no experts and we need to be allowed, this is all about getting trump. he was so pleased with the economy and they have tried to get him for over three and a half years. this is an amazing country we live in and it's a wonderful thing to be able to voice your opinions. abc, nbc andty is cbs all are fake news. they tell us lies. have no confidence whatsoever into any of the information that they put out. i feel very strongly that we need to be allowed to be grown-ups, not infanta lysed. host: joann ward is joining us,

senior political correspondent with yahoo! news, to talk about the pandemic and political conventions. what is the status of the republican and democratic conventions? >> the status of both conventions as they are very much up in the air. the democrats already moved there is from july to august. the democrats i think are being a little bit more forthcoming it's veryreality that likely that their convention in milwaukee will be largely virtual with maybe some physical components. republicans are still talking about their convention in charlotte as if it is supposed to go ahead. people that i have spoken to pretty high up in the republican party acknowledged privately that given the fact that major

sports and other kind of mass gatherings are not going to be back to full capacity, the ability to gather. tens of thousands of people in one place even by late summer, they had knowledge that the is likely convention going to be largely virtual like the democrats is looking to be as well. host: if there's going to be some kind of in person component to these preventions -- conventions, what precautions are they taking? >> i think the precautions are the same that you are seeing societywide. the basic practices of social distancing, masks, that sort of thing. the primary focus of the in-person components is going to be those basic hygiene practices along with probably testing if they can deploy that amount of testing and maybe the amount of

testing they have will dictate the amount of people they can gather in charlotte and milwaukee. i think limiting the number of people is going to be big as well. of peoplehe amount having to travel in and out of those cities as well. our viewers what happens at these conventions. what business is conducted and can it be done virtually? >> that's a great question because it really gets to why we have conventions anymore in the first place. because quite frankly, since the 70's conventions have been sort of outmoded. outdated. after the montgomery commission following the 1968 convention, primaries became the way by which parties chose their nominee. until 68 where the place where the parties gathered to deliberate and choose their nominee. since then it has been mostly a

tv show. business, the of main one is just a roll call delegates chosen through the primary system basically vote in favor of the nominee. the nominee has to have the majority of the delegates. saw some attempts by trumprump forces to deny the majority of the delegates. the last time we really saw any drum at a convention prior to when tedi think 1980 kennedy tried to take the nomination from jimmy carter. delegates can choose their nominee or vote on the nominee remotely if the party votes to change the rules to allow them. the democrats just last week held a rules committee meeting

and voted to allow themselves the flexibility to do that. situationreally see a , something that probably should have happened a long time ago in terms of blowing up the old model, going to a new sort of event which is probably more produced, more suited for television than just people coming out to a podium and speaking. that could be the result of what we see here. we see in this case joe biden or the president except the nomination from their party via zoom? insiden't have any information on how that's going to work. i don't think the parties know exactly how that's going to happen. i don't think that a big moment like accepting the nomination will be staged in such a way as to minimize it. i think they will want to stage those moments in a way that

really magnifies it and draws an audience because the biggest thing these conventions now are is just a public relations opportunity for each party and each party's nominee. think maybe they do it in the convention hall in milwaukee and charlotte but maybe they do it completely somewhere else. we talked to one democratic digital strategist who suggested having biden accept the nomination in front of the grand canyon or something dramatic like that. will probably be mostly streamed and videotaped and then sent out through that and probably not in front of a large crowd. being are asking about it by zoom that way, may be. it's not going to be from his library. host: what is the economic impact on these cities? >> no doubt it's going to be less and it would have been.

that's part of why i think each party wants to try to do as much as they can. probably trywill to stay in these convention centers to follow through on their contracts which were placed along time ago to use these arenas and i think they will try to bring as much commerce as they can to these verys but it's going to be much smaller than it would have been if you had a whole convention with tens of thousands of people coming. you can follow joann john wardsrting -- reporting. turnwe come back, we will our attention to more campaign 2020 and look at the senate battleground contest. we will be joined by jessica

taylor of the cook political report. yesterdaydrew cuomo giving an update on where his state is with covid-19. look at the facts today. total hospitalization is down. good news. change is down. new covid hospitalizations are down. so it's a good day across the plate. interesting to see how the decline has been relatively flat. what was the decline going to look like, the contour of the mountain. look how long it takes on the way down compared to on the way up. that's why those spikes are dangerous.

number of deaths are down. 139. at a different time and place if i had that news to deliver, that would be incredibly shocking to people. only in this environment is it not shocking. and relative to where we were it's good news. we are right about where we were when we started. we just want to make sure we never go back to where we were. course reopening or not, everybody wants to reopen. nobody wants to reopen more than i do. the question is how. we have said five upstate regions are reopening. there's a dashboard with all the facts and data.

there has been a shift in the capital region and in western new york where on the seven metrics they are now qualified for reopening, there is still a need to increase tracing, the number of people who are prepared to do tracing and that is a pure administrative function. and we will be working with both capital region and western new york to get that tracing up. but that is a purely administrative function. in the capital district we need 383 tracers. we need an additional 166 identified. antern new york we need additional 352. we will be talking to the regional heads today to find

those additional personnel and get them trained and ready. function thaty has to be performed for those regions to open and that is something that we anticipated and that's just administrative and working together with the regions so we can get that done. >> washington journal continues. host: jessica taylor is the senate and governor's editor for cook political report. let's go over the battleground for this fall when it comes to the senate. how many seats to the democrats need? how many seats do the republicans need? a right now republicans have three seat majority and they are defending almost, republicans are defending almost double the number of seats that democrats are. in order for democrats to win back the majority, they need to flip three states -- seats in

addition to the white house. there's multiple pathways for democrats right now to do that. seatse as many as 10 competitively, at least a 50-50 shot that democrats at this point could pick up the senate based on the fact that democrats are almost entirely on offense whereas republicans are entirely on defense. host: let's looking the state of running martha mcsally against mark kelly. where do you put this race? is a tossup. colorado, arizona, north carolina and maine. it's a tossup that is definitely

leaning in democrats direction. sally has a couple things going against her. she was just appointed to the seat and it is harder for appointed senators to win. she's also coming off a very competitive race in 2018 that had a lot of negative spending against her. democrats, even republicans will admit that their best recruit is in arizona, former astronaut mark kelly, the husband of gabrielle giffords. been active in gun-control measures ever since she was nearly assassinated in 2011. money, hesed the most has outraised her consistently. he has more money than her in the bank. we have seen pretty consistent polls that show her with a lead.

a state that is a battleground at the presidential level. it will be a very competitive state. ripe foroming more democrats. i think that we are going to, this is going to be another real battle. very historicsome republicans that have held the seat. terry goldwater. john mccain. so many of these republicans have had to run for the right and embrace donald trump. i think that's becoming a little harder. she had to do this in order to win her primary in 2018. to was unable to move back the center. we are seeing her try to a little bit maybe but she needs the republican base. all of these senators still need the republican base. we see them risking turning off

independence and disaffected republicans. host: we invite you to join the conversation. democrats (202) 748-8000. republicans (202) 748-8001. independence (202) 748-8002. let's talk about colorado. why is cory gardner vulnerable? >> this is the seat that hillary clinton one by five points. when we look at the trend there as well another state that is moving in democrats direction that both parties expect president trump to lose this time around. it's a state that democrats won the governor's mansion very handily. it's a state that is becoming harder and harder for

republicans and cory gardner is said theyhey both weren't going to vote for president trump in 2016. primary challenge or losing the republican base. he had to walk both sides of the line and that's really hard to do if you are a senator republican right now. primary but john hickenlooper who had a brief run for president, he is someone who is still very popular in the states. this is a state that moving in their direction i think cory gardner is probably the most vulnerable republican this cycle. host: are national republicans putting money into this race to

help cory gardner? >> he has good fundraising. we will see whether that lasts down the line. there comes a point where you have to triage some of these races. i have had republicans tell me they see him as pretty gone. i think a lot of these trendlines and where things stand for republicans at large right now with the coronavirus. that is likely to trickle down to these republicans as well. collins susan vulnerable?

>> she has cast a very centrist profile. [inaudible] -- brett kavanaugh and then she voted to acquit president trump on impeachment. she raised a lot of money for her likely opponent serengeti and. she has an additional $4 million with theor her nomination. this is going to be the most expensive senate race that we have seen.

[indiscernible] again, this is becoming so much of the national election. she has been able to make it a referendum on her. increasinglyis becoming a referendum on the republican party and president trump. an expensiveuld be race. raising susan collins 2.4 million. her likely opponent serengeti million and 4.7 million in the first quarter of fundraising of 2020. let's talk about north carolina before we get calls. thom tillis, republican incumbent.

>> last year he had a brief moment where he opposed president trump using -- trying to find the border wall by taking money from military and he got a primary challenge for that that was spending a lot of money and i think just now he has sort of begun to rebuild his image with republicans and conservatives. carolina is going to be the state that largely decides the presidential race and possibly controls the senate. he's running against a former and cunningham is sort of running as a moderate. they're going to try to tie him to the national democratic party. it's been interesting that this is the only state where governors races at the top of the to -- ticket.

cooper has gotten very high marks for his handling of we also saw in cory gardner's first ad in colorado that he used clips of democratic governor changing -- praising him. it's interesting that both of these senators that are very vulnerable are trying to latch on to these more popular democratic governors to varnish their bipartisan credentials. we have seen very tight pulling with tillis closely trailing very narrowly. true tossup.bly a host: we are taking your calls, comments and questions about the battleground for the senate.

we will go to brian in topeka, kansas. what do you think about the senate? caller: good morning c-span. i believe every republican up,tor and house is especially in the midwest. i just watched the adrian smith talking about not bailing out the states that are in need, new york, new jersey. what he needs to remember is in new york and new jersey pays the farmers, too. farmers had their hands out for years. so it goes around. down south you've got hurricanes coming. it's just ridiculous. and i would like to know about the update about the poultry plants were legal immigrants

were arrested. are talking about campaign 2020. the political fallout of funding or the economic relief packages that we are seeing coming out of washington. how is this playing out for each party's base? >> they are each trying to use it to their advantage. you are seeing republicans tout the initial bill they passed that gave a lot of americans [indiscernible] and mcconnell's ads really focused on that, painting him as an architect of this. democrats have tried to use comments that he's made suggesting they should be on their own. kansas is an interesting state that we are watching.

it should be a very solid republican state. they have an open senate seat where pat roberts is retiring. [indiscernible] they have the former secretary of state very controversial. [indiscernible] [indiscernible]

-- they really sort of believed that he would come in and be their savior in this race because if kobach is the nominee democrats also have a very a doctor,date, she's a state legislator who is a former republican. [inaudible]

[inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] -- less than two weeks now. host: jessica taylor is the senate and governor's with the cook political report. i apologize but we are going to have to end our conversation. we are having some technical difficulties understanding you. we are going to have to try again another day. my apologies to you. >> that's ok. follow jessica taylor's reporting at cook political report. updates on ther battleground for this senate. we will go back to our conversation earlier with all of you about reopening states. you have seen many of the governors across the country

using those stay-at-home restrictions allowing you to go out to the parks, go dining. go shopping. do you support or oppose these moves? support.-8000 (202) 748-8001 oppose. has a map of the states that have opened up as well as those that remain closing. only two states have yet to begin reopening. stay-at-home order shelter-in-place orders around the country have been lifted in almost every state. some restrictions on businesses and public places have been eased. state officials are keeping an ion health data. more than 80,000 americans have died. nearing 90000 and

tens of millions of people have filed for unemployment. michael in smithfield, north carolina. you oppose opening up. by? -- why? caller: based on the data that we have now, i oppose, i support ofning up within the context the sun and the weather. the summer is going to help control this virus down. historically we do have spikes. so we have to be very careful. at the same time for people's mental health reasons and other reasons, the country has to start lifting these restrictions on us. and that's why. max in mechanicsville, maryland. live in maryland and i was under the impression that

some of the stay-at-home orders and restrictions were lifted last friday. i don't notice people going out. a little bit at the stores people were kind of shopping. but people have to go back out. i don't think people realize what they are doing to themselves. stay in, don't go to work. the government is not going to take care of you no matter how many trillions of dollars they give to businesses to come up with a vaccine, you've got to remember it there is no one to take care of you but yourself. if you stay inside and don't go back to your life, it's going to be something that no one has seen since the great depression which is not acceptable. you have to ask yourself, look at the numbers. our country has over half the cases reported and almost half the fatalities. that's disproportionate to the number of people in our country. so something is going on and people have to come together and get back to work and fix this. whatever that means.

in highland park, illinois. you oppose easing the restrictions. why? caller: because i will give you nine analogy. let's say there is an elementary school and each teacher was which studentsde would have measles vaccinations and which ones would not. you would have some people getting sick and some people not getting sick and the ones who got sick would get very sick. so i think there should be a national policy that covers every state. i will give you another analogy. producesate automobiles but another state has sick people not going to work, were they going to do with the cars? they are not going to be able to sell the cars. this disparate kind of approach to this problem i think is very foolish. host: richard in santa fe, new

mexico. good morning. why do you oppose easing of the restrictions? it'sr: i oppose because going to be a lot of people dying because of this thing going on and the president that we have doesn't care about the people. he case about the money. i think it's more important to save lives than to save money. with this president that we have, he's an idiot. he's a person that doesn't know nothing what's going on. host: what do you do for a living? >> i'm a roofer. host: are you still working? caller: yes. i worked by myself. i do patchwork and things like that. i work myself on top of a roof so there is no danger exposing to each other. host: have you seen demand go up or decrease as people are at home? people should

stay-at-home. host: but for your business, are more people calling you or less people? caller: about the same. when it rains there's more people calling. but that's not the problem. the problem is the people that are going to be dying. kids are going to be dying. it's more important than all these people that think that opening up and letting their kids die, they are not thinking about the kids. they are not thinking about the elder people. nobody but the money. the money is not that important. host: wendy in rapid city, michigan. caller: definitely opposed to opening it up until the science tells us to. our government has been besieged and they have been

hanging here by a noose barbie dolls and things like that. i would remind every arrogant and self-righteous person, your rights and were mine begin. maskyou go out without a and touch everything with your infected hands, you are killing other people and you are killing yourself. officers of the court have been floating authority as well. this is sexism. andes, prosecutors sheriff's take an oath of to uphold the constitution of the united states. the governor is the ceo of that state. michigan, poorly educated violent demonstrators who are scared to death of everything and living at the edge of society appear inside our capital armed with automatic

weapons. they are intimidating our legislators so much, they are showing up for work in bulletproof jackets. host: ana is an queensberry, new york. do you think governor cuomo is doing a good job? how would you great him? -- grade him? caller: i support the lessening of the restrictions completely. theyld like to know what would do about the out-of-state. because where i'm located, i'm between at least three major tourism towns. and they depend on the economy. of course upstate new york always gets the you know what and if the stick. to lessen theoing restrictions and everyone is going to be coming up to us. we have already been considered one of the main hotspots and this place is going to be like a

living petri dish. thing i do oppose. the lessening of restrictions wouldn't be as bad as the last caller had just touched on as far as people being responsible when out in the community. the social distancing is not being practiced. one of the main hotspots up here, we have an ice cream store. there was not a single mask there. i just drove right on by. and i'm a local. and i love their ice cream. but people are not doing what they should be doing when they are out in public and they are risking their own lives. they are also risking us that are practicing social distancing. developmentally disabled population and nothing is ever said about how bad it is getting within the population and i also consider a conspiracy because they have known about this virus much longer than you or anyone else has reported on.

they have been experimenting with it for years before this broke out. host: where did read that? caller: i have my sources just like you do. to bertha in go richmond, virginia. caller: i definitely oppose the opening of the stores here in virginia. i'm in richmond and governor northam has extended our stay-at-home order which i definitely approve of. i am so afraid. i'm a senior. i'm 65. and i am afraid to go out. not only because of the social distancing. was down in north carolina and she said she was at the beaches. no one had on a mask. she said absolutely no one. ownybody was doing their thing as if nothing has happened. that's the part that scares me. jack in ohio.

you oppose lifting restrictions as well. caller: absolutely. host: by? -- why? theer: we have to listen to professionals here. we have been told from day one. that one guy. host: dr. fauci? caller: he warned us about a second follow-up on this thing. people are going right back to the same baloney they did before. we are going to have an outbreak and we are going to lose it. i think we should listen to the professionals. then q. linda inwill go to minnesota. -- thank you. host: we will go to linda in minnesota. caller: i oppose. host: what's it like in bim and g? caller: absolutely nothing different. this has to have something to do

with politics. for 40 years i've lived here and this was a democratic area. and i guarantee two years ago we would all be wearing masks. now we have went republican paid there is nobody wearing masks. there is nobody that cares. i'm doing nothing different. i will not leave my home. i just won't. i don't care what they say. listen to the experts. earlier you had a collar that called from pennsylvania who wants to claim that it was the liberal media. cnn, nbc that claims the 2 million lives. that was a quote from the president. from april 10. he was the one that made the quote about the 2.2 million if we did nothing in mitigation. so they just went with it because they heard from the president about it. also i heard yesterday that fox news is not going back to business even though fox is

telling everybody else that it's time to go back. nobody at fox is there except a few essentials that have to be there. toy cap saying that we need personal responsibility with our people out in the public. dayok a drive the other because last week -- today i tested positive. i was tested last week. so i'm sitting at home now. we went for a drive the other day. in the car you notice men and their noses,ing doing all these gross things. not washing their hands. personal responsibility, i would like to see it. host: you tested positive for covid-19? we lost linda. gary in mechanicsville, maryland. you support easing up.

caller: i support lifting restrictions so everybody can go back to work. i think the hydroxychloroquine is out there and it works as long as people can get a prescription from their doctor quick enough. i think there is a window like within a week or two after you become ill and that has been downplayed. national product called -- natural product that people should look up. it's called black elderberry. it knocks the points off the virus so that it can't infect you any further. it was found out about 10 years ago and israel and it helps people that have all kinds of viruses. people need to look that up. lack elderberry extract. are opposed. caller: i don't think any state should reopen until first of all, science shows that it is safe to reopen. if people from the get-go when

out and wore their masks it wouldn't have spread so rapidly and the president who is to be working for the people has taken upon himself to fire everybody that is trying to cross his path. so until we get an administration that is going to work with the people, we should not reopen anything. that is protecting all of america. host: linda is next. also opposes reopening of economies. why is that? caller: the american people are spoiled and i don't want to sound like i'm too judgmental, but i think they are really really stupid and gullible. i just feel that this is so dangerous. it's only been a short amount of time, but people want to go out to the bowling alley or go here or go there.

that's ridiculous. that is not worth losing your life over. and that's why i oppose it so much. host: john in oklahoma. good morning. caller: thanks for taking my call. host: you oppose opening up. caller: yes. i think this is a terrible thing. i would like to change a quick subject real quick to the cdc military employee that was killed. he disappeared and ended up dying. i'm wondering if it had something to do with this whole coronavirus thing. maybe he found out something and possibly -- what if that trip to that hospital that donald trump took about five or six months ago, was that a quick -- host: let's get in morgan

quickly. you oppose opening up the state economies. why? caller: we need to do what we have to do to get over this. we will get over this, but people need to do what they need to do. at the other countries. they did what they had to do and now they are opening up safely and the right way. that's how you do it. i want one of these trumpeters to tell me out of all the countries that have been hit by this that there president or their prime minister, the first thing to come out there mouth is that it was a hoax and the second thing is it's going to disappear in a month, don't worry about it. host: we will leave it at that. we will be back here tomorrow morning 7:00 a.m. eastern time for more of your calls. enjoy your day. ♪ [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy.

visit ncicap.org] announcer: attorney general william barr and fbi director christopher wray will brief reporters today, due to start at 11:00 a.m. eastern. here on c-span. announcer: federal reserve chairman 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 government coronavirus response. coverage begins tuesday at 10:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. she span.org. or you can listen live on the free c-span radio app.

c-span has unfiltered coverage of the federal response to the coronavirus pandemic. with white house briefings, of dates from governors and congress. and our daily call-in program, "washington journal," here your thoughts about the coronavirus crisis. if you missed any of our live coverage, watch any time on demand at c-span.org/coronavirus. on friday night, after the house approved a $3 trillion coronavirus economic aid package, majority leader steny hoyer and minority whip steve scalise previewed the upcoming legislative schedule. the majority leader announced the house will not be in legislative session this week. here is that floor exchange. >> madame speaker, i am going to be yielding to the republican whip in just a second, but i

will announce the schedule for the weeks to come come as we face the crisis of covid-19, the house must do its duty in full and do so in a way that contributes to the safety and welfare of our people. not in any way that harms it. i want to thank each member of the house for returning to d.c. to vote on this important legislation. madam speaker, members are advised, no votes are expected in the house next week. members are further advised that the house will be in session wednesday, may 27, and may 28. as everyone knows, the senate has amended the house passed the fisa bill, an important piece of legislation, which will require the house to act again. i expect that to be considered on the 27th. i also expect conversations to continue on additional legislation