says, this report that he is suspending his campaign that is absolutely false. almost, my time is up. i want to thank for all the people that helped us on the show today, susan, lauren, john lonski, one and all. thank you. neil, it's yours. neil: thank you very much. we're waiting for this coronavirus press briefing right now. the administration as you know, stuart, outlined it very cleanly and clearly here, upwards of trillion dollars in stimulus that could come in tranches. wash upon post reported $2,000 in checks upwards to 100 million americans. if it holds true with the instant credit line checks made available to americans, roughly 1/3 of americans get these. could be more, could be fewer. simply no way of knowing it. would be coupled with 300, $400 million worth of stimulus to the small businesses. the senate is looking to vote on the house bill later today that irons some of this out but not

all of this out. stocks are in and out of touching 7% fall i don't have that would trigger another circuit breaker. at the worst we were down 6.7%. now down about 5 1/2%. that translates into a dow barely above 20,000. the same drama, surreal one continues to play out across the country. i want to show you what is happening this is new york's times square, this has been pretty much the -- you're not seeing many people drawn to the crossroad of america, among some of the busiest thorough fares on the planet. you're seeing similar situations play out in seattle, washington. you're also seeing it play out in the likes of hoboken new jersey where the mayor there has, is saying that people should go ahead and obviously self-quarantine themselves, if you will, or self-isolate. new york governor cuomo by the way has distanced himself from

new york city mayor de blasio who is advocated an across the board crackdown, a lockdown here, that would call for pretty much everyone, at least in manhattan, at least in the five boroughs of new york city staying largely in their homes. that is something he says is not necessary right now. we're told the governor rules on these things. the american offer input and he governor has decided that is not going to happen. ahead of the press briefing from the coronavirus virus task force, go to john bussey and dan getter who joins me on skype. gentlemen, good to have you both of you. every day, forget the market, but every day we get reminder how unnerving and surreal, john this, is getting, some of the busiest cities in the world are at a standstill, ghost towns,

what do you make of it? >> yeah. cities at a standstill. businesses at a standstill which means paychecks are at a standstill. that is what the administration is trying to contend with, neil. they are worried as business simply shut down, working capital, that is the capital that companies have to meet payroll and pay the electric bill is going to dry up really quickly. that is why you're seeing this 850 billion-dollar stimulus quickly escalate to one trillion in estimates for the airline industry, for small businesses and for individuals. the administration's worried people simply won't have enough money to make ends meet and businesses won't either. so that is what that stimulus package is all about. stuart: neil: dan, what difference do you think the stimulus package will make to wall street? when i herd these come up in the past, yesterday was a bit of an anomaly, normally markets have

been moving on progress with the virus, not necessarily progress on economic stimulus to deal with the virus, what do you think? >> i think, neil, that until we start to get some positive news or some certainty regarding how we're going to be able to contain this virus, i don't think wall street is going to respond postively. when we're talking about the type of stimulus of one trillion dollars that the government appears to be prepared to put into the economy, everything that we need to do, basically, throw the kitchen sink, to save the economy, i mean if wall street is not going to see a reversal based upon the extraordinary measures that the federal government is willing to take, i don't think there is anything else that can happen. i think that we're just in a momentum period going the wrong

way. and we're not going to get a stopgap until we get something tangible related to controlling this virus. neil: you know, one of the things we're learning as we're waiting to hear from this press session on coronavirus, maybe the president himself will join this, is that they are going to be spending a lot of money, upwards of a trillion dollars. that is just for starters, john, one of the things bandied about from "washington post," everyone in america, at least 1/3 of americans getting 2,000-dollar checks. $300 million would be earmarked, i don't mean to play on word here, that is just for starters. how much are the markets, do you think looking to digest on that? i mean one of the reasons why we had a backup in interest rates today. there will be a lot, you know, heavy spending going on here, what do you think? >> yeah. that's right. and heavy support also, neil. heavy spending in the form of

direct payments to individuals. that is what the administration wants to do. the question how fast can that be done? it will be means-tested. they don't want to pay wealthy people if they don't have to be. they want to make sure people who need money will get it but how fast can that happen? and when secretary mnuchin talks about really soon, it is probably going to be a little longer than really soon. the other thing that's happening is that the support that is coming in is from the fed. the fed is looking at the financial markets and worried about any part of the financial markets seizing up as businesses draw down the credit lines very quickly to try to meet payrolls, pay the electric bills, pay their expenses. so the fed is infusing a lot of liquidity into the system. i think having learned from the financial crisis in 2007 and 2008 it needs to act quickly and robustly.

all of this, market looking at, i would imagine, saying great, that there seems to be -- neil: john, sorry to jump on you my friend. the president now addressing the nation. >> i would like to begin by announcing some important developments in our war against the chinese virus. we'll be invoking the defense production act just in case we need it. in other words, i think you all know what it is and it can do a lot of good things if we need it and we will, we will have it all completed, signing it in just a little while right after i'm finished with this conference. i'm signing it. it is prepared to go. we i will be invoking the defense product act. last week i signed an emergency declaration under the stafford act which as you know we invoked previously which activated fema's national response coordination center.

fema is now fully engaged at the highest levels. today fema is activated in every region, we are at level one, level one being the highest level which we will work with and we've been working with fema. i have done a lot of work with fema. they're incredible. it is always been on hurricanes or tornadoes. they're right now in tennessee a large group working in tennessee. have been incredible. it was tragic event. alabama last year also a tornado and then obviously the numerous hurricanes in different locations that were, in some cases very devastating. in every case, fema came through. this is a very different kind of a work for fema, but they will come through, as they always do. we have tremendous people, tremendous talent in fema. we're sending upon request two hospital ships.

they're being prepared right now. they're massive ships. they are the big white ships with the red cross on the sides. one is called the mercy and the other is called the comfort and, they are in tip stop shape. they soon will be. they're getting ready to come to new york. i spoke with governor cuomo bit. he is excited about it. we haven't made the final determination where it will go on the west coast. the comfort is located now in san diego and it is going to be, it, we'll be picking the destination fairly shortly. so those two ships are being prepared to go and they can be launched over the next week or so depending on need. earlier this week the first clinical trial of the vaccine candidate for the virus began in washington state as you probably know. the genetic sequence of the virus was first published in january but thanks to the

unprecedented partnership between the fdanih, and the private sector we reached human trials for the vaccine just eight weeks later that is a record by many, many months. it used to take years to do this, and now we did it in a very short while. that is the fastest development in history of what we're doing with regard to the vaccine, making very, very big progress. today i can announce further steps to expand testing capacity. we're working with several groups to determine if the self-swab, much easier process than the current process that's not very nice to do, i can tell you because i did it but we have a current process that is a little bit difficult. if you have it done the, the groups are working on determining if a self-swab by an individual is as effective as the other. the other is very effective,

very accurate but we're going to see if we can do a self-swab which would be a lot more popular, i can tell you that. so, and that would be administered also by a health official but it would be a lot easier to do. the, the fact is the health professionals it, would free up a lot, let me just say, the self-swab is what it its. a self-swab. you do it yourself. the other has to be issued by a health professional and it's something that is quite difficult and we think it is working out for the self-swab and if it would test positive the people would go, they would do what they have to do but we think that is probably working out. i have asked the fda to cut through the red tape and reduce regulatory barriers. we are looking at some very exciting things and i'm going to be holding a second news conference, either today, we'll

talk about the fda, some things are happening that are quite exciting. and we're going to be doing that either later today or early tomorrow, fairly early tomorrow. so we'll see what happens but the fda, my instructions is, i've been working, very, very hard on a number of developments and we'll be discussing them with you later today or tomorrow. and this afternoon i will be meeting with nurses on the front lines of the battle against the virus. they're truly american heroes. they want to get it done. they're incredible people. so we are going to be meeting with nurses and actually look forward to that. they're very brave. they're taking a lot of risk and they have done an incredible job and they never complain. today i'm also announcing that the department of housing and urban development is providing immediate relief to renters and homeowners by suspending all foreclosures and evictions until the end of april. so we're working very closely

with dr. ben carson and everybody from hud. every generation of americans has been called to make shared sacrifices for the good of the nation. in world war ii young people in their teenage years volunteered to fight. they wanted to fight so badly because they loved our country. workers refused to go home and slept on factory floors to keep assembly lines running. the numbers of ships that they built during world war ii to this day has never, nothing like that has ever been equaled. they were doing ships on literally a daily basis. nobody ever seen anything like it and to this day nobody has seen anything like it what they were able to do during world war ii. you no it is our time. we must sacrifice together because we're all in this together and we'll come through together. it is the invisible enemy. that is always the toughest enemy, the invisible enemy but we're going to defeat the invisible enemy.

i think we'll do it even faster than we thought and it will be a complete victory t -- it will be a total victory. we'll have a second conference having to do with the fda and this. potentially be a very exciting news conference. we will do it as quickly as we can, whether it is today and tomorrow. i will, with that ask mike pence to say a few words. and thank you very much. >> thank you, mr. president. the white house coronavirus task force met this morning and now that we have cases in all 50 states we're continuing to move out on the president's call to bring the full resources of the federal government, the full partnership with every state and territory, the full power of the american economy to support businesses and families. as the president says, to us, and to everyday, we'll do whatever it takes. we're all in this together. yesterday the president met with

the tourism industry executives and also had an engaging discussion with all the top companies in our industrial and medical supply chain. now the president as you all are aware also announced today that by mutual consent of the northern border to canada will be closed to nonessential travel this does not include essential travel or transit of good but it was through mutual discussion that took place this morning between the president and prime minister trudeau and department of homeland security will be affect waiting that decision. president spoke with top business leaders again today to speak about the supply chain in the country and for our part we're going to be conducting a conference call later today with state and local health officials to renew our ongoing commitment of cooperation and collaboration. as the president said last week in signing the stafford act he stood up the national response

coordination center and today at the president's direction fema has gone to level one. fema's mission is to support disasters that are locally executed, stayed-managed and federally supported and tomorrow the president will host all the nation's governors from a videoconference at fema to insure that they have full connection to all of the activated regions for fema going forward. with regard to testing i'm pleased to report that we're increasing the number of tests being performed by the thousands every day, thanks to the public/private partnership that president trump forged with commercial laboratories around the country. our health experts tell us to remind every american, it is important to remember people without symptoms should not get tested. we want to make sure the supply of testing is there for those that need it most or are

symptomatic or in the vulnerable population. dr. debra birx in a moment will talk about the progress we're making on infection, the infection rate, recommendations to every american and important new findings about the impact on youth that we're gaining from data coming in from europe that will be important to, every american. on the subject of supplies, the president has hour task force extremely focused. as the president mentioned, that he is invoking the defense production act today. secretary esper in a few moments will describe ongoing efforts that the department of defense is taking to make medical resources available. secretary robert wilkie will announce decisions va made to expand hospital capacity within their system. also with regard to medical personnel at the president's direction hhs is issuing a regulation today that will allow all doctors and medical

professionals to practice across state lines to meet needs of hospitals that may arise in adjoining areas. in addition to that we are again today asking every american and our medical community leaders and hospitals to partner with us in delaying elective procedures across the country in our health care system to insure medical supplies and medical capacity go where they're needed most. seema verma will describe guidance cms will be issuing on that front. finally i just want to remind every american of the president's 15-day guidance to slow the spread. we're grateful for members of the media and the general public that are adhering to these, sharing them with neighbors and friend. all of the experts continue to believe, if every american will do their part, embrace and put into practice these principles, that we can significantly limit the reach of the coronavirus in the weeks and months ahead.

thank you, mr. president. >> thank you very much. dr. birx, please. >> thank you. thank you, mr. president and mr. vice president. so you know we continue to look at data every single stay. there are concerning reports coming out of france and italy about some young people getting seriously ill, and very seriously ill in the icus. we think part of this may be people heeded early data coming out of china and coming out of south korea about the elderly or those with preexisting medical witness were at particular risk. it may have been that the millenial generation, our largest generation, our future generation, that will carry us through for the next multiple decade, there may be disproportional infections among that group. even if it is a rare occurrence, it may be seen more frequently in that group and be evident now.

so we're looking at that information very carefully. we have not seen any significant mortality in the children but we are concerned about early reports coming out of italy and france. again i'm going to call on the generation that's part of that group that brought us innovation, particularly throughout all their ability to look around corners and skip through games, always went level by level, i didn't realize you could go to level 3, to level 7. that is what they taught us. they look for things we don't see. we need them to be healthy. not only calling on you to heed what is in the guidance but really insure that each and everyone much you are protecting each other. so we cannot have these large gatherings that continue to occur around the country for people off work, to be socializing in large groups and spreading the virus. you have the potential then to spread it to someone who has a

condition none of us knew about and cause them to have a disasterous outcome. finally on the testing piece, and what we're learning, last week in bringing the private sector, i think what has been exciting to me over the last 2 1/2 weeks is to see the administration harness the full capacity of the private sector, understanding a lot of our solutions we need to confront this virus rely on the private sector. bringing private sector commercial labs was critical to this process. we are now beginning to see that they have spread out in a prioritized way because we asked them to prioritize regions mostly infected. you may still have difficulty getting tests in areas that do not have significant cases. we had them prioritize regions where we need diagnosis and their dying no, sirtic percent -- south korea was under 4%. so 96% of people were negative. the last report we've seen from

the laboratories have about a 7 plus percent positivity rate. still 93% or 92% are negative. but i think that is encouraging to me personally we're prioritizing appropriately to those areas that have the greatest need. today and yesterday therm ma fisher pushed out most of their laboratory testing capacity and that will dramatic criminal increase the platform and the ability to run additional tests in addition to roche. i appreciate everybody's attention to these numbers. i'm excited that we prioritized where the need was the greatest but again, please follow the guidance and please make sure in every report you're putting out you're talking about the presidential guidance to actually stop the spread of this virus. thank you. >> thank you, debra, thank you very much. >> thank you, mr. president. good afternoon, everyone and i want to provide an update on

dod's coronavirus efforts as we continue to focus on our three priorities. that is first of all protecting our personnel and their families, second, safeguarding the national security capabilities and third, supporting administration whole of government approach. i do want to assure the american people that the united states military remains ready and capable of defending the country and our interests abroad. with that the department is leaning forward in the response to covid-19. we issued international, domestic travel conditions to dod families that should dramatically introduce exposure to the virus. those have been in place some time now. as i announced yesterday the department of defense will make available up to five million n95 masks an personal protective equipment from our strategic reserves to the department of health and human services for distribution. the first one million masks will be made available immediately. we're prepared to distribute to hhs up to 2,000 operational

deployable ventilators for use as needed. i was at fort detrick's maryland where the military premier research institute. as part of our inneragency team to work on vaccines and therapeutics. they are making great progress there we also announced we certified the 16th lab, or will certain certify the 16th lab to help process tests across the country. additionally i have directed as the president mentioned that the hospital ships mercy and comfort be prepared to deploy to increase the nation's medical capacity. we have also alerted a variety of field and expeditionary hospitals to be prepared to deploy as well based on as needed based on direction from the commander-in-chief. leadership from the corporation of engineers is in new york meeting with governor cuomo and his team. i spoke with governor cuomo yesterday and other governors. i will he speak with other governors in coming days to make sure what dod can provide to

assist in their needs. in my coverses with governors and members of congress about dod's resources i made it clear we will continue to support the administration's comprehensive effort and the country every step of the way while insuring our nation's security remains the top priority. i want to conclude by again thanking all our servicemembers and families who have been affected by this outbreak. they are all great heroes. we continue to support them throughout this. we're all in this together. thank you very much. >> thank you very much, mark. >> yesterday the president made a very important announcement about telehealth. this is allowing our 62 million seniors to be able to get some medical services from the safety of their home, reducing their risk and without any copays but we're also making sure that the health care system is prepared and those on the front lines have the support they need. the reality is the stakes are high, we need to provide personal protective equipment for those on the frond lines of

this fight. to that end we put out guidelines over the last two weeks to expand the types of masks that can be used in routine care and saving the n95s for the most risky situations. conservativing personal protective equipment is also essential to combat the virus. so today, cms will announce detailed recommendations to further promote this needed conservation. specifically, by limiting non-essential elective medical and surgical procedures, including dental procedures. we believe that these recommendations will help surgeons, patients and hospitals prioritize what is essential while leaving the ultimate decision in the hands of state and local health officials and those clinicians who have direct responsibility to their patients. we urge providers and clinicians and patients to seriously consider these recommendations. they will not only preserve equipment but also allows doctors and nurses to help those that are on the front lines. it will protect patients from

unnecessary exposure to the virus. we fully appreciate this is going to have a major impact on the health care system but the shared sacrifice is essential to help those that are on the front lines and i want to thank the medical societies such as the american college of surgeons and the american dental association that took a proactive approach and already posted these recommendations. we also talked to the american medical association and they have fully indicated their support for this recommendation. we now invite the entire health care commune to join us in this effort. thank you. >> thank you very much. robert, please. >> thank you, mr. president. my instructions from the president were very clear. i was to do everything imaginable as aggressively as possible to protect the nine 1/2 million veterans part of the department of veterans affairs. last month we established 19 emergency operations centers across the country.

we began to limit the number of visitors who entered our facilities. we began i think the first, we were the first system to begin triaging across the country in our 170 hospitals, entrance of anyone into our facility without being questioned or tested. we expanded those restrictions to those in 135 community living centers which have about 7800 veterans who are in acute, acute conditions, to make sure they were protected. we also took the next step and made sure that we limited the dental surgeries that we provided. we cut back by 1/3 the number of routine appointments we have had, we have canceled elective surgeries. these were all part of the president's directive, to be aggressive in a public health sense as we could be. i think we set the pace for the

entire country. i will say we've often said that we work the most noble mission in the federal government. our veterans have been in the toughest spots in the world. they have been put in conditions unimaginable to most americans and they have responded, they have responded clearly, they have responded with passion, and also the 400,000 members of our department who are out there on the front lines. the last thing i will say is that you have heard a lot about the fourth mission that va has. our first three missions are health care, benefits and memorial affairs. our fourth mission is to support the federal government in time of national disasters and pandemics. we are the buttress force in case fema or hhs calls us to deploy medical professionals across the country to meet crease sees. we plan for that every day. we're gaming out emergency

preparedness scenarios and we stand ready when the president needs us to expand our mission. thank you. >> thank you very much, robert, thank you. that's very nice. any questions, please? reporter: two questions if i may. your treasury secretary was on capitol hill talking about the potential for what could come and he said unemployment could skyrocket to 20%. that could rival the great depression. are we looking potentially -- >> i don't agree with that, i don't agree. that is absolute total worst-case scenario. but no, we don't look at that at all or nowhere near it. reporter: why do you keep calling this the chinese virus. there are reports of dozens of incidents of buys against chinese americans in this country. your own aid, secretary azar says he does not use the term. he says ethnicity does not cause the virus. why do you keep using this. >> it comes from china. it is not racist at all, now, not at all.

it comes from china. that is why. it comes from china. i want to be accurate. reporter: are you concerned about -- >> i have great love all of the people from our country but as you know, china tried to say at one point, maybe they have stopped now it was caused by american soldiers. that can't happen. it is not going to happen. not as long as i'm president. it comes from china. john, please. reporter: two questions if i could, mr. president. defense procurement act, you're invoking it today. senator schumer said on the floor a short time ago it urgently needs to be put in action to produce medical supplies, particularly ventilators. do you have targets -- >> we have tremendous numbers of ventilators, there has never been an instance no matter what you have it is not enough. that would be the case. we will be, it is being signed. it is essentially, drawn and signed in a little while.

if we need to use it, we'll use it full speed ahead. reporter: urgently needed to be used. do you have some targets? >> we don't know -- we have targets, we have targets for certain pieces of equipment. targets for masks. number of masks are incredible. we ordered millions of them. we need millions more. a thing like this has never been requested. we never had to even think in terms of these numbers but we need millions of masks. all that will be on order. we need respirators. we need haven't regulators a big thing. it is a complex piece of equipment. we have a lot of ventilators but we'll be ordering more. reporter: second question, what size will the checks be that will be sent out to americans? >> to be determined. we're working with the senate right now. we're working with everybody on capitol hill. there has been tremendous, there really has been, with some exceptions obviously because it is always the way it is there has been, they have been getting along very well republicans and democrats. it is a nice thing, very

bipartisan. reporter: like to see them more than $1000? >> we'll see. i don't want to get into that right now, john. we're looking at different numbers. we're looking at timing that would be different, splitting time, splitting payments. looking at a lot of different things. people want to go big, everybody wants seems to want to go bigs and want to get to recovery. big thing we can do is get rid of this horrible, i call it the unseen, unseen enemy. you call it, there are one thousand different terms for it. it snuck up on us and it did 128 countries i think. something like that, very close to that think of that, it spreads violently. it is very contagious, very, very contagious virus. reporter: do you consider america on wartime footing in terms of fighting virus? >> i do. i actually do. i'm looking that way. if it got out of control, big

thing we did early stoppage of people coming in could be heavily infected that was a very good move. it was very early, very, very early. when most people, including a lot of professionals they didn't want us to do it. that really saved a lot of lives and, yeah, i look at it, i view it, a war-time precedent. that is what we're fighting. it is a very tough situation. you have to do things, you have to close parts of an economy that six weeks ago were the best they have ever been. we had the best economy we ever had and then one day you have to close it down in order to defeat this enemy. and but we're doing it. we're doing it well. i tell you the american people have been incredible. for the most part they have been really incredible. please, kaitlin. reporter: i will start with you. there are tremendous number of ventilators we have. for weeks hospitals have been warning about a critical shortage they say we are not prepared for. why did it take so long to

invoke the defense production act. >> hospitals are supposed to have ventilators too. when we have thousands of ventilators, sounds like a lot, but this is very unforeseen thing. nobody thought of these numbers. nobody ever saw numbers like this, with regard to testing. normally we wouldn't be doing testing. they decided to do it. very hard to ramp up. we're getting highly sophisticated tests it is going very well. nobody heard of kind of testing that we've been talking about. reporter: knew for weeks we needed ventilators. why did it take so long. >> will it depends, worst case, best case not at all. we'll see where it goes. but we are ordering thousands and thousands of ventilators. they're complex. these are complex machines. but we're ordering them. does anybody have a, mike, maybe you do, how many do we have? reporter: [inaudible]. >> do you know the number no. >> we have a specific number of ventilators in the stockpile. it is in excess of 10,000 and

you just heard the announcement from the department of defense. they will be adding several more thousand to that. but president, even this morning, and yesterday afternoon, speaking with the largest companies in supply chain in this country, we're hearing a tremendous spirit among industry leaders who are ready to step in and add to that volume. stockpiles don't count all of the ventilators that exist today in the marketplace and in health care facilities around the country but the president's given us a directive to make sure our stockpile, just as importantly, working with industry leader, that we're securing the increase in ventilators, the increase in masks, gloves, eye protective care, garments, all necessary to lean forward and we're confident we will be able to accomplish that with the incredible cooperation with the supply chain in america today.

reporter: how many haven't r ventilators do you have? >> we'll give you, that but we're ordering a lot more. go ahead in the back. one second. one second. kaitlin. we'll do it in a second. reporter: two questions, mr. president. thank you. first of all on the canadian border what was the tipping point. friday we talked about it. monday you said -- >> i said not yet. i spoke with prime minister trudeau. very good relationship obviously between us and our two countries. and no tipping point. it you just that we want to isolate from the standpoint we don't want people coming into contact. that is the way we'll win this war. that is so important. and we both thought it was time. not affecting trade. it is northern essential crossing. non-essential crossings. won't affect trade. we thought it would be good for both countries. reporter: second question, mr. president. how can -- how can you be sure

trade, everything being shipped from -- >> they're doing it in a very careful manner. you can only be, be vigilant, very professional and but we're not, we're not pertaining to trade between the two countries. yeah, please. >> hearing that the trillion dollar economic stimulus package could look something like 50 billion for the airlines, $150 billion loan guaranties for critical sectors of the economy, 250-dollar payment on april 6th directly to individuals, another 250 billion-dollar payment on may 1ths again directly to individuals, as well as $300 billion for small business loan guaranties. is that in the general sense what could happen? >> it could be. we're also playing with a lot of numbers, a lot of very big numbers and a lot of very small name members, frankly. we to help everybody. it was nobody's fault. this happened, some people could say it was somebody's fault actually but, it was nobody's fault and certainly none of

these companies that all of sudden had no passengers on planes and no passengers on cruise ships and all of the things that have happened but i will say that, they can't be blamed for this. we want to keep those companies vibrant because there will be a comeback, very, very quickly. as soon as this is solved. it will be solved. we will win. there will be a comeback and it will take place very quickly. reporter: $250 billion. give or take 330 million americans or so. if you do the math on that that is $750 person, family of four, $3,000 on average rough math s that where this is headed? >> i don't want to say that, that is, every number that you mentioned, yes we talked about those numbers. we're also moving the numbers in both directions. we'll let you know. it is moving along fast. again there is a great bipartisan effort going on i haven't seen before to this

extent. reporter: [inaudible]. beginning of this, the fda approved that test. >> no, they're looking at it. it is down the line and they're looking at it very seriously and i think it would be a great thing, the others to use a nice word, it is very an coin haven't. it is very turf. reporter: you tweeted this morning about your approval rating amongst republicans. you said you give yourself a 10 in terms of handling this crisis. how do you reassure americans at home who don't trust you to handle a crisis of this magnitude? >> i think we're doing a really good job. we started off with a termination of the border, people coming in from china where this all started. that meant i took it very seriously. when i use the word calm, calm doesn't mean i'm not taking it seriously, calm, we should being extremely calm but yeah, 95% within the republican party and over 50% and i also have, we have very great approval numbers. people like the job that we're

doing. when you compare this to epidemics, use a different term you can within this country, look what happened over the years, this is being handled very professionally. we have the greatest professionals in the world. we're doing a good job. nobody has ever been swamped like this, nothing has been so contagious, the level of contagion has been incredible. nobody seen anything quite like this. peter, go ahead. reporter: tests for a second. if federal officials shipped millions of tests as you and your coal leagues said, why has the federal government said only 59,000 tests been processed to this point? we heard from the atlanta public health director saying they have fewer than 50 test kits for more than 900,000 citizens. >> i will let mike -- >> that is a very critical question and thank you for asking it. so the test kits that we put out last week through the approval,

rapid movement of that meeting, that president trump called, less than two weeks ago, that resolved bringing our private sector to the table because the tests in the platform that was out there could only run between 4 and 12 tests per platform per day. we now moved into platforms that can run basically tens of thousands of tests per day. so the reason i'm grateful for your question because it allows me to point out that of course then there was backlog. there were individuals who had been tested who hadn't had their specimen run because of the slow through-put. it is now in a high-speed platform. so we will see the number of people diagnosed dramatically increase over the next four to five days. i know some of you will use that to raise an alarm that we are worse than italy because of our slope of our curve. to every american out there, it

will be five to six days worth of tests being run in 24 to 48 hours. so our curves will not be stable until sometime next week. the reason i talked about thermofisher because their platform is in 2000 laboratories. they're the ones putting out a million tests this week will solve the issue that atlanta and others brought up. i wanted to be clear, we prioritized areas, we do county by county analyses. based on those analyses on what counties had more than 50 cases, we prioritized the test kits we put out, the 400,000. and that is why we're seeing a 7% plus positivity rate. we'll be able to expand that platform and reprioritize based on the accessibility of the other kits. reporter: how can i follow up. how are non-symptomatic pre

professional athletes are getting tests while others waiting in line can't get them. are well-connected getting to front of line. >> you have to ask them. reporter: should that happen. >> no. i notice some people have been tested fairly quickly. look, we inherited a very -- reporter: encourage them to defer to others? >> excuse me. we inherited a very obsolete system this was a system out of date, obsolete or, it was a system that was never meant to take care of , the kind of quantity, number of people we've been talking about, millions and millions of people f you go back in years past like, even recently, with the flu, nobody had tests before. they didn't test the entire nation to see whether or not they had flu. they got the flu. they got better. hopefully they got better that was it. now all of sudden they do the very complex testing. what we've done, we've broken it down, we broken up the system. it was on soap heat and/or, or

just was a system not meant to handle the kind of volume you're talking about. we rebuilt into the system a system into the future will be a very good system if you want to go this route. but this was never done before and i imagine it will be done in the future but we built it into a very good system, using great companies, great private companies. i have to say roche has been doing a very good job. they're doing a lot of work a very good job but this was an obsolete system this was not a system meant to do anything like this or even near this. jack? reporter: mr. president, couple things, major trade coalition is calling on you to suspend tariffs with other countries as part of the response to the coronavirus. >> who heads that group? those countries do. go check. reporter: america free trade. >> free trade. china is paying billions and billions of dollars in tariffs. there is no reason for them to do that. they haven't spoken me to do

that. we're getting billions of dollars in tariffs from china. i have can't imagine americans asking for that. could be china will ask for suspension. we'll see what happens. china is having a very rough time, having the worst year in 76 years i understand it. having a very tough time. on top of this happened with the virus. we're taking in billions of dollars a year in tariffs. this was caused by something totally unrelated to tariffs. reporter: asylum-seekers, people who cross the southern border illegally, are you planning to invoke 42 usc 265 which would allow you to prohibit entry of certain people? >> the answer is yes? reporter: when will that happen? >> very soon. probably today. reporter: on the borders are there plans to fully shut the mexican border? what do you define essential travel between the u.s. canadian border. >> essential is medical,

military working together. industry working together. it is not affecting trade. leisurely let's go to restaurant and have dinner, a lot of people do, come both ways. they go in both directions. we have ended on a temporary basis. please, go ahead. not close. no we're not going to close it but we are invoking a certain provision that will allows us great lettude what we do. -- latitude. go ahead. reporter: clarify something. because just a week ago you all were standing here telling us that unless you had sustained contact with somebody who was symptomatic for covid-19 you didn't really need to worry. the president, vice president, shook hands with somebody that a had this, took photograph for somebody who had this, you didn't really need to worry. yet several days later we're in a situation where people are told don't leave your houses. there are curfews you can't walk

alone at night during a certain time. can you walk us through seems like very dramatic disconnect what we're hearing before and what we're hearing now? >> two things. we look at data all the time. you're looking at the china and south korea data. and when you look at china and south korea data and you look what china panned south korea did, you can see their curves are not only blunted outside of wuhan, so the chinese areas outside of wuhan blunted curve and south korea blunted curve. if you look at their curve today, they're already on the far end of their epidemic curve. of course none of those countries are fully back to work. so that is what we worry about too. secondly there was a series of scientific articles published, i know you have seen them too about surface contamination. i think none of us really understood the level of surface piece. so we're still working out, how much is it by human-to-human transmission and how much is it by surface? this is why those fundamental

guidelines were put out, says, don't expose yourself to surfaces outside of the home. basically what the guidelines are, don't expose yourself to excess number of persons who could be asymptomatic and infected and person-to-person contact. don't expose yourself to surfaces could have had the virus, on hard surface, we had cardboard issue about shipping. not car board or hard transmission. these are issues we haven't had to deal with before with the level of respiratory infects. that is why we have this concern, and that is why the president put out the guidelines so to cover both of those pieces. that is all new science, all new models. many of you have the imperial study available and looked at lt the impact of those. and this is first comprehensive

approach to an epidemic. >> go ahead. reporter: "wall street journal" reporting that the administration is looking into executive order expand investigational drugs, but fda scientists are warning could put patients at risk. >> i haven't seen the article. we're making a lot of progress therapeutically i will say that but i have not seen that article. go ahead. reporter: mr. president, we shut down non-essential travel to canada. are you considering shutting down all travel to blunt the spread of the virus? we heard from industries like the airlines who are seeking relief. what other industries or what, how exactly is your administration going to determine which industries -- >> certain industries, airlines would be number one, if you look what is going on. they go from the best year they ever had to go to no passengers

because of what we had to do in order to win this war. it is a war. so you know, basically, you know, what many of the industries are. we want to make sure they all stay together so that after the war is won we can immediately go right back up to where we were, even beyond. i think we'll go beyond where we were. a lot of people are saying that. we're poised to do that we have to win the war first. go ahead. reporter: followed up on that, treasury proposed $150 billion today for those industries but their proposal doesn't detail which industries would get the money and how much. so aside from the airlines which you just mentioned, what about the cruise industry, the hotels, how much of that money do you see? >> we're talking about all of it. haven't detailed it yet. detailed it to senators and house. coming up with numbers. haven't got enthere yet. cruise industry, hotels, airlines are all prime

candidates. reporter: border sir -- >> which border? reporter: northern border. you say temporary, you said in the tweet, does that mean 30 days? >> i would say 30 days. hopefully at the end of 30 days we'll be in great shape. jeff. reporter: i was struck by what dr. birx said millenials and others not taking serious warnings as seriously as you like. some of those people seem to be your supporters and conservatives who may be quoting some of what you said at beginning of this comparing it to the flu. what is your message to them to really follow what you have been saying so far? are you concerned they're still listening maybe to some of your earlier comments rather than your more recent once? >> i think my earlier comments to be calm. i do want people to be calm because we'll win this, we'll win it, just a question of time, i wanted to go quickly, so based on the fact i want it to go quickly i hope they listen to what we've been saying over the last period of time. we don't want them gathering.

i see they do gather, on beaches, including restaurants, young people. they don't realize they're feeling invincible. i don't know if you felt invincible when you were very young but they were feeling totally invincible, are feeling that way but don't realize they could be carrying lots of bad things home to mother grandmother, grandmother and even to share parents. i do believe they are getting through. reporter: [inaudible] >> what? reporter: a lot of them watching. a. young people -- >> i just said it. heed the advice. i just said that. thank you. thank you. reporter: mr. president -- how long do you -- >> you next, okay? say it? reporter: mr. president, talking about china, you've been very clear who you think is to blame or where the origins to blame for the virus is. >> not think. i don't think. i know where it came from. i don't know if you would say china is to blame.

certainly we didn't get an early run on it t would have been helpful if we knew about it earlier. but it comes from china and it is not question about that nobody is questioning that. reporter: senator cotton is saying they should be punished in so many words for inflicting this on the american people. do you feel that way about it? >> i have a lot of respect for tom cotton and, i know exactly what he has been saying and there are those people that say that so we'll see what happens. thank you. go ahead. please. been waiting a long time. you had your hand up so nicely a long time. it is your time. reporter: thank you, sir. we've seen the chinese government kick out reporters from "the wall street journal," "new york times," "the washington post." what is your message to the chinese when it comes to transparency? will you still have reporters asking you questions here at the white house? >> not happy to see it. you know, i have my own disputes with all three of those media

groups. i think you know that very well. but i don't like seeing that at all. i'm not happy about that at all. yes, please? reporter: didn't correct the language. do you agree with it. do you believe china is inflicting inflicting this upon our country. >> no, i don't believe they're inflicting. they could have given us a lot of earlier notice. absolutely. reporter: mr. president, your credibility ratings are very low. recent npr poll -- >> mo are you asking that question? because i see they're high. 95% of the republican party. we have just had a poll that was done by very reputable group where i'm beating "sleepy" joe biden by a lot in florida, in the state of florida. and in other states. you know, don't really know who you're talking about. jennifer, go ahead. reporter: two questions, if you're willing, sir. update on your conversation with the airline executives. >> yeah. reporter: did you explain to them what is coming.

what was their reaction? >> they explained to me where they're coming from, full planes, packed the best year they have ever had by far to boom, one day, empty because of what we have to do to get rid of to win this war. or we would have a level of death like people haven't seen before. so they have been fantastic. they went from being extremely happy to being people that are running companies that are going to need some help. and we will help them. reporter: on sta loans, would you be willing to give an update on how that is going, we've seen some reports that they been having difficulty getting -- >> there is a lot of influx to those loans as you can imagine, a lot of people are looking at it and we will increase funding and they're very well prepared to do what they have to do in the sta is doing a fantastic job. she is doing a really good job, the minister. reporter: a couple questions

for docto doctor. neil: the s&p 500 has fallen north 7% and curves have kicked in for the fourth time. less than two weeks, trading cannot continue for another 15 minutes. back to the president and his coronavirus team. >> he opened with that, is more than the single drug, there's other drugs that individuals are looking at, just to go back to what we talked about many times. there is things that look really good in culture against the virus that may look good and small animals and don't have an impact in humans. so those are the pieces that were looking at very carefully, of course antidotal reports and were trying to figure out how many antidotal reports equal real scientific breakthrough. reporter: are you confident of the seasonality of coronavirus?

>> all we can do is look at the past to inform the future. we know what stars look like, we also know and i want to put this outcome i know you can get online, look at the curve in china and look at the curve and south korea, the curves were accomplished and still the winter season. so we are trying to understand what those relationships are, we are very interested in the curves in italy because of the different approach and were following every single countries a curve. all we can do is look at prior coronavirus and prior respiratory infection rna virus, since these are rna viruses, when you look at fluent the northern hemisphere, when you look at pair influenza and some of the other col and if you loot sars that's the way the peak normally occurs from november to april. we all started later and so

you're asking me too predict based on a later start and that's what were trying to really look at china and south korea to really inform them. reporter: a question for secretary if you don't mind. how many veterans of those need to be tested and have been tested? >> those that have needed to be tested we believe we have got most of them. right now we have 44 veterans who tested positive, sadly one has passed in portland. we are working with state labs and private companies to make sure that testing is available. because the president had us out aggressively early, we have been and a better place than most healthcare systems in the country. i cannot predict this and as doctor said the next surge will be if it will be but one of the things that we do have ea is that we prepare for national

emergency via the national disaster or epidemics, we started preparing for this and we started stockpiling equipment. our equipment is stable and i think that's in large part because of the instructions the president gave me. reporter: you know how many have been tested out of the number -- >> we tested several hundred. we tested several hundred, yes. i don't know exactly. i know that 44 veterans have the virus, most of those are quarantines at home. reporter: thank you, mr. president, a question for brix quickly. i am trained to understand -- is about the mortality rate, yesterday we underline the fact that we reached 100 deaths, and this morning were at 110 within 12 hours weekly by 10%, is this something we have to expect from now on a 10% increase every 12

hours? >> very early on in each one of these cases, if you look at all the countries to date, the mortality is higher at the beginning because you are diagnosing the sickest. the ones who came in quite ill. i just want to remind the american public that still the majority, the risk for serious illness and the majority of americans are low. but, that does not mean that you cannot transmit it to one of the higher risk groups. that's why were asking for all americans to take responsibility. you are seen mortality or death today from infections that occur 2 - three weeks ago in general. the other thing that you are seeing is the dramatic and very difficult impact of this virus in nursing homes. that is why very early on the president and vice president had us come out in cms but the very strict rules in place and everybody thought we were being too strict in keeping loved ones

away from their family and nursing homes. if we will solve this with a lower death rate, we have to protect the elderly because of their% is much higher in mortality than any other age group. reporter: they are reporting that the federal government has a plan that shows the coronavirus outbreak might last as much as 18 months, are you seeing those numbers? >> no we are not. reporter: the second question, at least one white house official who used the term, as acceptable, are you worried that having it be described in talked about as a chinese virus. >> i wonder who said that, do you know who said that? really i'm not sure the person's name. >> say the term again really a person at the white house. my question is do you think that is wrong kong flew, do you think

the term chinese virus post asian americans at risk? >> not all, i think they probably would agree with that 100%, comes from china. reporter: switching gears to a larger question, we seen that before the pandemic there were a lot of americans there were already alienated in the death of despair increasing and now with individuals as rural parts of the country are self isolating, what is your message to the individuals and what you hope individuals and communities in churches -- >> my messages to all-americans but those who are going through a lot, we love them, we are with them and we will not let them down. thank you all very much. neil: you been hearing the president of the united states and taken a little bit of heat especially new indications that

have been expressed by u.s. public officials that this could drag on to 18 months. the president is not indicating that he agree with that one way or the other. this is just guesstimates, run as low as 45 days for the governor of new york andrew cuomo said it is best intelligence he is getting yesterday. things lightly on depending the day. were getting indication that the menstruation is ready to fight this with all the financial power it will have at its disposal including a plan to spend upwards of half a trillion dollars on checks that will go out at a minimum 100 million americans. for $2000. the issue being they want to get that into the hands very quickly so they will have at least some financial security as this goes on. the headphones manager in charlie gasparino, in the middle of all of this, we saw a circuit breaker kick in.

the s&p 500 at a halt for 15 minutes break this is the fourth time we have seen them implemented in less than two weeks. what do you think of all that? >> there are multiple panic trades going on right now, the panic trade that giving everybody $2000, what is that really mean for the real economy if small businesses are shut down and people cannot spend the money at the small businesses and foreign lockdown. there is a panic trade going on and i'm getting this from sophisticated hedge fund managers that the democrats can sweep in november, obviously were a long way off but this is an exponential threat meaning the virus panic and containing it and clearly the white house unsteady response is an exponential threat to the trump presidency and not only does he not get reelected but the democrats can pick up and all

they need is three senate seats and there's three hedge fund guys tell me, maine, iowa and arizona. so it's a sweep of the democrats and you have a 35% corporate tax rate instituted. those are the two fear trades going on that the white house is not enough to contain this that giving people money never really works, this is a much more systemic problem, it's not a banking system problem it's a problem that small businesses are facing liquidity crisis and they need a bridge loan and that's not being addressed and clearly there is underline fear about the democrats and what that means for the market, is altogether and it's a panic and the only way the panic will stop and i'm speaking with a lot of people, maybe john can chime in, when we get an infection rates,

when that happens, then you can see people getting back into the market because they know worst-case scenarios. neil: i have heard that as well, the markets wer with very few exceptions turned out not so much promise with economic stimulus to address the progress but lack thereof on the growth of the virus. i am wondering if that will decide the course of these markets. , not so much the money we are throwing at this but more to the point whether were getting a handle on this. >> i think unfortunately, the money, the stimulus, all the intervention is making the market worse. this is historically, the point of having a market is to reflect reality, all the stimulus including the trading halts which government help institute after the 87 crash, it distorts the price, reduces liquidity and

ultimately prolongs a crisis and you will see it not only with the thousand dollar check that you alluded to but had no effect when obama tried a couple of years ago but all those companies who will line up for their piece of the action, is start to the airlines and then it will be cruise ships, what business and individual has not been affected by this crisis, this intervention is exactly what is slamming the panic. neil: hang in there, i want to bring hillary long into this. we have the latest circuit breaker that has been put into effect, the fourth time in a couple of weeks. what is interesting about this, the fact that it came to spite maybe because this plan fiscal stimulus that they're working on including half a trillion dollars in checks to americans. hillary vaughn at capitol hill. reporter: we actually obtained the entire treasury document that details the numbers that are being discussed right now, these are not the final numbers

and what the president is calling a big and bold stimulus package for businesses and taxpayers. right now on the table from the treasury, $50 billion for the airline industry including passenger and air cargo air carriers, $150 billion set aside for aspects of the economy sectors that may be feeling the tightening and the economic distress from the coronavirus, the president had hinted those towards it. cruise lines in hotels and the economic impact statement directly to taxpayers paid to the irs, two rounds of $250 billion, one starting apri, the payments would be fixed and tiered on income levels and also family size, that follows our reporting on the proposal that holly discussed that steven mnuchin yesterday, his plan would offer family assistance that would increase based on size and need starting with $1400 for a family of three and

topping in $2200 for a family of five. a source familiar with the conversation between holly management tells us that he told him the plan makes sense and someone in the white house likes it and someone today talked about these given gently to taxpayers. >> to be determined, we are working with the senate right now and working with everybody on capitol hill, there has been tremendous -- with some exceptions because that's always the way it is and they have been getting along very well, republicans and democrats, review the president's plan to offer $50 billion to airlines may be getting brushed back from democrats in the senate who are not willing to write $1 billion check to the businesses. >> many airlines are so feared to cash as they spend billions on stock buybacks. money that they had to send out when they should've been saving it for a rainy day. for their workers and customers.

reporter: we are expecting the senate to pass the house bill shortly this afternoon. neil: thank you very much, great reporting as always. back to jonathan koenig and charlie gasparino. trading will resume shortly but i'm just wondering what you make of how the market, just the market are digesting all of this because two words, not well. >> indigestion. i think the market sees through the majors and they know they generally do not work when you need them to work. the problem is, how do we get people to go to restaurants, how do we get people out of their house, how do we get people to live their lives the way they did in the past, the only way that you get to that is to have some handle on the size and scope of the virus spread and that is not what these measures are doing, and they see through,

i want to make one point, i am not saying safety net majors for poor people and people that need food and everything, that's clearly necessary so people do not die and so people can survive and how their health and go to the doctor. i get all of that. it's the stimulus stuff that just misses the mark. i am just a simple reporter here but i cover this enough to know if you think about it, what are the industries that need a bridge loan the most, it may not be the airlines right now. i don't know, maybe it is but we need people to get through the next three months and bailey and throwing money out does not help in what they essentially do is phase a liquidity crisis to get to the next three months so they can pay the bills right now and then reopen when this happens. i don't know if these measures are going in that direction. neil: jonathan i want to go to

christina on the floor of the new york stock exchange. i think trading has resume in the s&p. what are people telling you there. reporter: there's a lot of commentary about what these triggers are, if you can see above my head, there are not all the stocks reopen, despite the fact that yes trading has resume, you can see they are starting to change color as they come online. it is still those turning online, they have trading in the red, what traders are doing right now behind me are rushing through with their handhelds trying to get the orders and that markets are reopen. the issue today, were seen stocks, bonds and commodities selling off simultaneously which could show investors and companies are looking to raise cash and i could be exemplified by the fact that the yield to the ten year has gone up which means people are moving away from treasuries as well as gold and the price of crude that we

should you on the screen, crude hitting a level we have not seen since 2002, there's been a lot of commentary from oil experts and analyst. one said if it goes forward that 20-dollar level, you will see the possibility of u.s. domestic producers completely wiped out. that is a concern domestically here in the united states. the dow is down 18% but trading has resumed at the new york stock exchange. the dow is down 8% and the s&p down 7%. i'll have to point out, one in every three or four traders has decided to stay home because they can trade from home. neil: very good, i appreciate that. jonathan, oil is now close to a 20 year low. and that means cheaper gas prices and all the rest. you have to take advantage by going outside. by filling up your tank and driving around. very few people are. >> this is a tremendous demand, destruction, it is part of the

success of the american oil companies that they're so good at producing so much oil in the fact of the matter is, tremendous oil, you look at the oil resources out there, not a lot of demand and if you want to talk about companies that will look for a bailout, my estimation is that will especially energy given the number of people that employ the next sector will be online as well and i'll point out briefly, the bailouts and stimulus has not helped any of the stocks in any industry, boeing is down, airlines are down, hotels are down because what private investor wants to put their own money and when they know government will be t one calling the shots. >> we have a falling knife. listen this is a panic, when there are panics is irrational. i can tell you there are people dipping back in and half of my sources say now is the time to get it in the other half say it's going down another 20%. usually it overshoot on the

downside. and listen, there's a couple of things working in this economy. the trump trade war was definitely slowing down things practically manufacturing. that was going to hit gdp. we do not have 5% gdp or the greatest economy of all time, i heard the president make that, before, that is not true, we had low on appointment, we had okay wage growth, we had to present growth and probably slowing and in the face of that we now had a massive shock to the system. people say it'll be a good recovery but i hope it is but i'm not an economic expert but usually getting stuff revved up again immediately takes a while and again, so much confusion and panic, we need numbers on infection rates, that is the best thing we can supply markets and investors to get a bottom on this thing right now. that is one piece of information no one knows.

i tell you wall street, goldman sachs said 50% of the people could be affected. ubs another saying it will be a lot less. that is what is going on, people are turning to figure this out in the more that we can get numbers -- >> with the administration with all respect, they think they can paper this over, reality exists, this is a serious as a president alluded to a warlike effect. you cannot paper this over, there will be companies that go over, but that is the beauty of our system, it can withstand that. we have to remind our viewers, they have been bankrupt before, delta comedy american, united have extremes be grouped in the last ten years. the economy can get on his people government has to get out of the way. neil: let me ask you this, look at the dow 19413, as for break 12 looking at a record we were 29551. my rough math and charlie is a

lot better, that is a drop of more than 35% from the high. i'm just wondering whether that is too much, and a little excessive or below the levels we were at when donald trump came into office. >> were approaching levels when he got elected. again it overshoot on the downside often. neil: do you think this -- i heard one analyst talk about it is still a rich market what do you think of that? >> here's what i say it's an impossible question to answer because we don't know the infection rates. if doctor counties best case scenario which is 45 days we will have our hands around this thing, then the markets probably did overshoot at dow 18000 on the downside, that does not mean

it's going to go to 30. it should not of been a 30 to begin with. but based on corporate earnings, this is a better market than it is now and if we can get our heads around it when in a month. you just don't know how we will get our hands around it, you don't know if we can get our hands around it without totally corn to the whole country. i think that there are so many unknowns, i cover 9/11, it was an incredibly tragic situation, people died in the building i knew them, i worked across the street from the building and i miss being in the line of fire by three minutes and i was only blocks away. i remember that it was horrible. but there was a known, we knew the new york stock exchange in the technology was disrupted, we can fix that for the economy. we knew we could rebuild lower manhattan, it was tough and horrible and we knew we had to get out of that and get out of

the financial crisis a lot better because there was clearly a liquidity issue involving banks and we knew how to deal with that. this is still unknown and that's what scaring the market and on top of that, there's a political dimension were in a political year and literally democrats who want to raise a lot of taxes and do a lot of antigrowth stuff, if you listen to joe biden the moderate in the race, there is an undercurrent of fear in the market among investors. i want to make this point, i'm getting the fear, not from republican guys, i'm getting a lot of democratic traders, democrats or supporters biden and they say that is definitely a fear in the market. neil: hang in there, i want to go to blake burman, on the virus situation, and charlie and jonathan raise this, we will get a lot more cases in the u.s. only because were able to aspartame who had a much more quickly and exponentially a lot

wider population. the flipside of that that increases the dominator in the death rate goes down as well. maybe dramatically so. i am wondering if that is something that will actually make people feel a little bit better. more are getting this but those dying from this is actually smaller in percentage terms. >> potentially and that's part of the psyche, also psyche involved but we also heard from dr. brix and over the next handful of days, the number of cases is going to be raising significantly, she tried to explain by saying in part they will put a lot of the results together and that's where the curve will be steep like it is. as any event they have been bracing and staying for a while, the number of cases is going to rise in the worst potentially

still could be ahead of us as it relates to the coronavirus. you even heard from the president saying it's his belief that this could potentially lost all the way until july and august and we heard from dr. brix that there's a alarming stats from europe that is millennial's were getting this at a higher rate than they should be and is part of the message to those here back stateside, you need to stay indoors, you need to take care of yourself, you need to look out because we've seen some of those plate across the country for example, the beaches and florida and the president said in the briefing a while ago, the advice to all is to heed the advice, get yourself separated, social distancing, something we've heard the president embrace significantly over the last week or so, i want to get to another point that myself and hillary have been tracking down over the last ample of hours or

so, that is something you been talking about, what is the size of the stimulus package, hillary talked about the numbers and i asked the president about it a little while ago because the put a couple of points on it, it is big when you talk about a trillion dollars but it's fairly round when you talk about $500 billion potentially in direct payments coming to individuals, half in april, half in may and another $300 billion in guarantee small business loans. when we had the president and the briefing room a while ago, but the numbers before him along with the $50 billion to the airlines and $150 billion to the critical sectors in the president acknowledged what i've heard as well as that they are massaging this and working through this and working through the numbers. here was the president when i asked him if those could be the numbers. >> those could be anywhere, were playing with a lot of big

numbers and a lot of small numbers prickly. we have to help everybody, it was nobody's fault that this happen, we want to keep those companies vibrant because there will be a come back very, very quickly as soon as this is solved and it will be solved. we will win. >> if you do the math, i put these numbers before the president $250 billion direct payments, when you're talking about give or take 330 million americans, that comes down to on average $750 a person, an average family of four if you added up would be $3000 or so. the president was not willing to say at this point what the individual checks might be and if they would go that high. again to say they are working to this all but i've also been told that this concept that was prevalent yesterday of $1000 checks potentially expected checks to be much higher than that or higher than that in the numbers that were put forth today tend to point in that direction as well.

neil: you might've touched doing the math backwards, always dangerous to my case. that would mean one out of three americans would get such checks. reporter: i guess there is a lot of different ways that you could do the math but it water potentially to thousands of dollars. i know up on the hill they are talking about 1000 - 200 2000 depending on how you split it. it's a huge amount of money. maybe it will not be 500 billion, maybe it will be more, maybe it will be less. it's something want to work there with congress, the point being they are talking about a big number when it comes to direct payment and also distrust a number they are working through as you can hear from the president and their answers and these are big round numbers at this point. neil: there also looking to rush it out. but then the question becomes if you're 100 down in your home and afraid to go out because of the virus, it's obviously nice to

have a little cash in your hands but if you're afraid to go out you not going to spend it. reporter: or how do you spend it, go to the take-out restaurant, do you spend it by online shopping, do you spend on the grocery store or do to spend it in a way trying to help the bank account because what you're spending you are not taking in as much at this point. you know the economics better than me, it's a big question and it's something they're trained to work there. as you have been talking about is it enough? neil: one other quick question, where did the upwards of a year end a half on this come from, the president didn't seem that this k-1 for year or year end half. where did that come from. reporter: there's all sorts of studies projecting this model, that model, to be totally honest

i'm not exactly sure where that came from. kellyanne conway and she was speaking with reporters on the north lawn was asked about whether or not this could go 18 months as well and she said it depends on the model, i do not want to get ahead of the specific model. the president believes this could last for several months elise until july and august. it's one of those things models and how do you brace this out. speaking of models, i reported last night that the treasury secretary throughout one model that the unappointed rate could hit 20% of no action taken, the president today shot that down as a worst-case scenario. i had another question to the president, what i was going to ask him, right now three and half percent. worst case scenario, your administration is between 28%, five and a half - 6x the amount. if you get summer most of what you want, what do you think the unemployment rate will be at the end of the year. i do not know if they have that

number but you are talking to your friends and family, a lot of folks are worried about the unappointed situation and clearly there is a worst-case scenario that is quite staggering though they push back on the idea it could reach just that. neil: thank you very, very much. the administration putting together something that will amount to trillions of dollars in checks to americans and spend as they wish and those in hard times are those that want to have extra where to spend on separate it would be good news for them but the question is is whether it translates to good news to the economy. in this environment may be that a secondary to folks getting money to help them out. we shall see. nothing is really changed at the major centers across the country including the country's busiest city new york, times square which is a ghost town right now. reporter: on a usual day you

would see a bustling times square, i will be walking around so many people, no elbowroom, you can see it's a very different time. this is what we see throughout the morning, more people now than we did earlier but overall new york city is very quiet, around the country more and more places are going quite an effort to self isolate. most schools in the northeast have since closed, maryland governor pushing the state primary from april 28 to june 2. rhode island is calling for the same move, lawmakers in maine and new hampshire expending unappointed benefits in massachusetts and drive through testing center is open. they are starting the first of voluntary isolation for the near governor said the shutdown will not take place in andrew cuomo said signing an executive order that will keep 50% of their workers at home. >> it does not slow the spread then we will reduce the number

of workers even further. at 50% can be calibrated. reporter: the mandate excludes jobs that help the city run in the nta says transportation will continue to get those people where they need to be but they've seen ridership take a hit with 60% down and subway rides and 49% down and bus rights, pennsylvania also seen an uptick in covid-19 starting tomorrow they will cancel amtrak in the state. the governor says they will be getting the federal assistance when it comes to hospital beds, there will be a ship that will dock at the new york harbor that will have up to 1000 rooms for the be hospital beds that are to short to accommodate all the patients that we were continuing to see. neil: thank you very much, take a look at the wall, they're down is at such a low, at 2000-point decline, s&p 500 just came out

live trading halt, circuit breaks have kicked in for 50 minutes because we drop more than 7% and were dropping more than that. another one-way kick in if we were to jump 13. i should point out, with the drops right now, they're down is below where it was when the president took office. the market has also third of its value to the coronavirus, and where we were as recently of the breach wealth when the dow hit heise on february 19th when we had the s&p and nasdaq hitting their highs. let's go to the iowa department of agriculture secretary. good to have you. when you think about it, we have to eat. so for farmers, this is a reminder of how vital they are. >> it really is, we see a tremendous demand for food in

the country and we know that food does not magically appear on the grocery shelf. it comes from a farm somewhere and moves through supply chain that involves workers and processing facilities and manufacturing facilities all the way to the grocery stores. it is absolutely critical infrastructure right now in this country. neil: with the trade deals in place not only with china but canada and mexico, does that help farmers in dealing with all of this and helping on this front? >> we talked a lot about uncertainty that came when negotiating trade deals and we got certainty with the passage of usmca of phase i china agreement in a deal with japan, it's a must like we traded the uncertainty for global economic uncertainty. it is true the demand domestically will help but you know u.s. agriculture is so dependent on exports and so things that disrupt the supply chains and our expert market can

have a negative impact on prices that farmers receive. it's a little bit of a mixed bag. neil: what is your sense of the impact that all of this will have on farmers or the agriculture community. if you think about it, those trade deals are supposed to be helpful, the president provided tariffs to help them out and to keep them whole or at least close to whole and then something like this hits were they might actually be a beneficiary. what are your thoughts? >> were looking at this a couple of different ways, the demand-side and certainly were seeing a shift in demand from restaurants and food service and schools to grocery stores and folks are looking for the staples, meat, bread and milk and eggs and comfort food like ice cream, those are things that help build the domestic market, were still relying on exports, we are looking at spring, coming up on spring and i were across

the midwest, will try to get a crop in the ground and we also need to make sure that we have all the inputs that arrive at the farm so farmers can do what they do best, put seed in the ground, fertilizer all those things. were also watching the supply chain issue on the input side as well as output. neil: thank you very much, i know you're busy but i appreciate it. in the meantime i want to bring your attention to the dow jones industrial, now down 2174 points, a record in recent times in the 1970 air when it crashed roughly 3000 points we lost just a few days ago. right now we have the dow down 27 of the 30 components down, 2150-point that represents better than 10% decline, you might notice the green include walgreens, walmart which is benefiting right now from analyst saying his business is going to be volatile in this

environment seen affordable retail and portable prices could benefit handsomely on this environment then there cisco, the other day on cisco they were ramping up their production, they are the piping if you will for people who do the virtual meetings and the like and recently they reported five and half-billion minutes this month and virtual meetings and cisco provides the piping in groundwork for all of that in the tubing and the wiring for that, and being a little bit simplistic but there an instant beneficiary of the conditions of these times. meanwhile the commodity is selling customers to watch out for coronavirus fraud, it is getting to be rampant the chairman and chief executive joins us right now, it is good to have you. what kind of fraud are we looking at? >> i do not believe the fraud is rampant at this point but there

is a time anytime there's tremendous volatility in our market, there is a chance for opportunity for bad actors to come in and start peddling products to customers. we put that out as a way to let customers know, be on your guard and beware. the real story is that her markets are working and working very well, the resilient and is not 2008. is very important that viewers understand that. arguably, our markets are more important now than they've ever been because unlike the stock market, the bond market, our markets are where people hedge risk. neil: it is interesting because not all of these are exclusive to you but the traditional places that you find shelter are not working and that's because a lot of people just have to raise cash. so gold is an instant beneficiary and platinum, even bonds have not been a beneficiary may be with the fears of the new spending, their concerns that it will be a

problem in interest rates are backing up, what do you make of the fact that the connection in relationships between various investment strategies are not holding out, were looking at a ten year yield well over 1%, that is ridiculously low but it had been at .3%. what do you think is going on? neil: i think you're exactly right, were seeing correlations that used to be negative start to become positive. i think the precious metals in particular, what you see is a flight to the dollar to collateral that people can used to meet margin requirements. i think overall, my guess is those correlations will snap back to historical once a period of volatility even evens out. neil: when you look at what's going on in these markets, i know it's a full game to try to guess when they end. but do you think this is overdone and that this selloff that brings us back to levels before the president came into

office is just crazy? >> it is obviously an unprecedented challenge that this nation is facing pain but time will tell, i want to see the president is acting tremendously in terms of leading this country in applying a whole government approach bring one thing that we are doing that is so important that our market continues to function so if there is a recovery the markets will be allowed to do that. we have provided a lot of targeted relief to all of our market participants some who are sitting at home that normally would be out there for him at a training computer and we want to make sure those markets continue to work. neil: they appear to be but they are working. we thank you very much. i do appreciate it. we've been showing you gm stock price which is fighting away as a lot of economic sensitivity issues including ford but the latest news, they are to be temporarily suspending

production until at least march 30 and ford has been scaling back a little bit and it comes at a time when a lot of people are saying there's no one showing up in auto show rooms and as a result demand for product is not there. it is not a shock but looking at all of this, where do we go, what do you think is the backdrop? >> you reported to the 1987 stock market crash and a lot of your guest had alluded to others is one example, moves that used to take -- there also enough, i still contend that has a lot to do with the president of all the students in government bailout and we talked about healt help e airlines and hotels, you don't think general motors is hurting obviously they are and they'll be next in line if they are not in line for the government cash

that has a disruptive effect on the market and economy. neil: i tell people, how do you feel ethically, a lot of people feel awful fulfillment industries in individuals of no fault of their own which you can argue is different that we had after the financial meltdown in 2008 -- 2009 where they catalyst might've well been the big center banks and financial firms, they got a bailout, gm got a bailout but it was kind of limited, here you're talking about the airline industry, the casino industry, the hotel industry, a host of other bigger and smaller players, even american renters who need relief on paying their rent. it will extend wide and far and i imagine have a lot bigger cab than a trillion bucks. >> yeah, keep in mind, the program which was enacted in the

wake of the global financial crisis, that was $750 billion and that was highly debated and highly contested, a lot of republicans wanted to hold some of that spending our seen tremendous amount suspended in the truth about the obama recovery as we talked about for a decade it was the slowest recovery in the history of modern finance, i believe a lot of that had to do with all of the stimulus and everything from the auto bailout to cash for clunkers and all of that. it has a natural process of getting the economy back in with the more government spends and freaks of the market and hinders that restorative process. neil: what is interesting, you jog my memory on the financial rescue. remember when congress, this was in the remaining weeks of the bush administration had failed to pass the asset relief program. in the market fell close to a hundred points was is huge, so they hurried back in after

failing to pass, they did pass it hoping that would alleviate the market, we ended up falling an additional 6000 points in the weeks and months that would follow so trying to do the market -- i'm not saying that's what's going on to arrest or containment, be careful of that, you're grabbing the tale of a tiger. >> i think that's exactly right, all the efforts to keep unappointed down, keep companies from going bankrupt, they did not do anything in the global financial crisis but that added up a lot of debt, think fully republicans at the time enacted as a sequester to help bring that down. one thing you are seeing is a credit markets exploding and not in a good way, investors are hesitant to lend the federal government money knowing just how much spending is coming down the pipe. neil: well said per whether you'd agree or disagree, look at the financial rationale, it's a real money issue, this will be a lot of money and there will be

more issues to address but the question is will it work the financial rescue that we see in the past is inevitable that it will, it almost has to. the president is addressing the possibility of self swab testing for the coronavirus. >> the groups are working on determining if a self swab by an individual is as effective as the other, the other is very effective and very accurate. but we are going to see if we can do a self swab which would be a lot more popular. neil: the president i don't think you have a self swab routine. the emergencies and position in the doctors on whether the self swab approach is the right one. thank you for taking the time. can you hear me doctor?

>> take you for having the i appreciate it. neil: we have a little bit of a delay. i hear you but you cannot quite hear me. i would like to know if you can hear me, what the test involved, is apparently a lot faster and a lot easier. right? >> i apologize, we are not set up and i thought we were. were turned to get things right with a doctor, what is happening at wallin brought where we have 25 of the 30 dow components selling off right now, the irony that not all retailers are taken it on the chin, walmart is a beneficiary in right now in an environment that this business could be booming in this environment as people seek out the relative inning specs of confines of its products in walmart was in and out about high on all of this. in the notion that a number of analysts upgraded the stock on

the belief that credits recent others are saying it will actually benefit from the environment where people are speaking out relatively safe havens and those who wanted to get tape purchases. walmart is a beneficiary there, cisco plays a big role in the online meetings and teleconferences and provides the piping for all of that, cisco just as we got news in the latest month, we had about five and a half billion meeting minutes if you will, bits of information that it was a record number and cisco provides the memes to make that'll happen. the doctor is back with us, i think. not yet, all right. jonathan hoenig let me go back to you. i apologize for this. it is interesting that someone can find a way to make money, there's always those pockets in the market that benefit in a weird way, a used to be the

stocks are down and gold was up in bonds around, it's not happening today or recently. but some of these key players that can take advantage of this environment, i don't mean that in a bad way, like cisco or walgreens and the telehealth services and the rest. they can have their own perch? >> absolutely, the president and the administration credit there working with the private sector, if the private sector whether being pharmaceutical or logistics, they're the ones that are going to get reality back to normal. you mentioned walmart, all-time high for that stock, even less obvious, clorox has done quite well. campbell soup is done quite well. the market work when you let it works. that's the private sector, especially in the area of immunotherapy and biology in the pharmaceuticals also step up as well. there will be tremendous opportunities, it's just difficult to decipher when you know that government is paying a serious role.

neil: it's kind of like they are in new york where it looks like tumbleweed is blowing and usually busy but i'm wondering regardless how the market does, i believe in time they come back, i'm not worried about that or ignoring it or the severity but i'm also thinking about how this is going to likely -- the longer it drags on change her behavior and what the implications are? >> they talked about for years, we grew up with her parents and grand parents talking about the depression-era mentality, terrible economic cataclysm that took under a generation, that effective for years, even after the 1987 stock market crash, yet traders and investors that were burned by that, we don't know exactly how this will play out but however, you look at it were seen historic moves in the market and historic time in our country and i think that's where you see the market selloff as we literally have never been here before, there's no precedent to what were seen right now in wall

street. neil: i'm wondering, i looked at my office wall window and i can see buildings around me, not one of them have an individual in them. no one. i'm sure there's people out, i'm not saying it's complete the empty but mostly empty. i'm wondering if business has reassessed, we are doing okay having our people doing a lot of this from home, were kind of doing okay working in a fraction of our retail space, there has been allotted to us. i always wonder if they rethink in the future, do we need that much office space, can we get along having people work from their home, can we do a lot of things that we did not do the in the past because this work for us? >> all of that is coming into question right now, you are seeing a lot of major investment banks and analyst bringing down the forecast and gdd forecast, it has to do with money in the bank and a lot has to do with

the market trying to forecast what his life in america and the president is quite right, this will be resolved but what is life in america and by extension the economy going to look like when this crisis gets resolved, after 9/11 they said we will never build any tall buildings in new york city before, thankfully that ultimately changed, there is called buildings being built recently in new york city. life will get back to normal but in the interim you can understand why the market and my investors are so uncertain, we have never been down this path before. neil: only guys like you can afford it in new york with the penthouse. thank you very much. i told you a lot about gm shutting production to the end of this month. grady trimble joins us in chicago where a lot of them are considering kind of the same thing really actually we have confirmed from ford and general motors they will do the same thing, closing all of the north american manufacturing

facilities that includes here in the united states and in canada and mexico to show you how we got here, ford had to close this facility in chicago because of a part shortage related to the coronavirus and sta and fiat chrysler was affected by the crisis it closed at a plant in michigan because an employee tested positive for the virus there. were expecting according to a source in detroit, fca will make a similar announcement that they will be suspending operations in the north american plant as well. in terms of the impact of this, it is massive, for these companies, just a few days of closure of millions and millions of dollars in losses, we saw that with a general motors strike last year, in terms of the workers, the uaw has 150,000 workers in the united states and as far as i can tell if they are not working, they will not receive their paycheck, i don't

know that certain, i reached out to the automakers to see how things will work in terms of the workers getting paid but as far as the strike, if they were not working, they were not paid, we will have to wait and see if that is the same. just a few days of no operations for the automakers, it's a big hit for them in a big hit for the workers. neil: what do they tell the workers, how do they explain, it should be self-evident but obviously those workers are nervous what is that look like? >> it is something that the workers wanted, the uaw met with the ceos of the big three automakers last night, the uaw is pushing for complete closure for two weeks, this is not that, this is several days though so it is something that the workers wanted for their own safety, in terms of pay, that is something that they will have to work out because now they do not have to worry so much about the virus

because all the automakers will be doing deep cleanings of these facilities, what they have to worry about is how they will make ends meet during a time when they're not working if they're not receiving paychecks which again i have to figure 1b happening but were still waiting for confirmation from the automakers. neil: you talk about the environment and what the effect will be in providing financial cushion for them, if this drags on for a while, all of that is wrong then. >> yeah, in terms of the gm strike, that's the closest most recent work stop for example, that was 60 days, we are not talking 60 days but gm took a multibillion-dollar hit from that work stoppage, this is all three of the u.s. largest automakers were talking about now, not just one so there is billions and billions of dollars on the table. we are looking at something like

perhaps the airlines are facing right now, again with the virus i should say, people are not going out anyway, it's not a good time to shop for a car. there is less demand for a product that they make anyway but if they're not making the car, they cannot have them on dealership lots and they certainly will not be selling any in that case and of course they do have a backlog of inventory at all times but that runs out quickly as well. this plan makes the larger suvs, the link and navigator in the ford explorer, and the suvs, they are not making them. neil: thank you for that, they are having coronavirus kits to help spread the virus in for kids who will not get free meals at schools. let's get the reader what's happening. this is a nice thing to do, i am

just curious, what kind of reaction you're getting. >> is a two prong approach, one is for corona kits that are tote bags that have immune builders, hydration kids because hydration is hugely important during a virus and they pump up your hydration in your system why won'waymore than waterproof glo, hand sanitizer, which we have intimately lined and manufactures, just for us and be strong cash cards which is what you are speaking about which is basically our mission where we get people cash cards to give them dignity to get what they need. we have this idea started because schools were going to close them. cannot give their kids lunches. some organizations are combining lunches but this still means that underprivileged people in the time of crisis can buy with a need for their health, their kids and their families. so were getting an amazing

response, we just got our first grant from the hellman family foundation, large grants are starting to come in which will be the most expensive mission we have ever done and we donated over $25 million and money and aid around the world from puerto rico to the bahamas to australia and still building in those places. so this will be our most expensive mission, i do not think i would get into corona but this is a crisis, it's a disaster and it affects so many areas and so many people that will have nothing and that's what we specialize in and people who have lost everything. neil: it's very impressive and shows a lot about you as well. where are the virus prevention kits themselves. >> that's where we have the immune boosters, hydration kits, gloves, the masks that we have in our warehouse we are saving for healthcare workers, we have be strong cash cards, we have hand sanitizer, medical

information, cleaning supplies and a price gouging issue, as i mentioned we have a facility right now manufacturing hand sanitizer just for be strong and ford because there is obviously a shortage and people are reaching out, a company just reached out to add fresh fruit, the company reached out for brownbag lunches or water bottles. what happens through my social media, using it for good green such a difficult time it becomes a switchboard where people do want to help and need to be connected and we are hub and we have a massive warehouse and we have trucks in man and women power and we have done amazing things, we spent hundreds of planes worldwide neil: wondering, when you say help with kids, getting food, how do they deal with this? i have got to be wondering it is overwhelming for kids. >> this is the same as what i

saw in puerto rico where they had no lights, electricity. their whole entire routine has changed. there is no school. they were in vermin and water there. now it is just no structure. if your home, you don't understand, your parents are stressed out, probably on the phone frenetically talking like i am. they have no money. they have no means. they don't have jobs. their kids are getting residual anxiety, so to create a structure. i have two hours of school with my daughter every day. two hours of art time and reading, math equations. i do stretching and yoga while she reads a story. we talk about what our schedule will be. we sit down and have lunch together. sit and talk what is it going on. only bright side, the kids will wash hands in the future. my child is more interested in bathing than she ever has been. people have to think about their

holt over all -- health over all. the way they do about normal life. don't consume excessive amounts alcohol and junction food. like college students that we're eating rahman and we're all worried. try to do things we read about being healthy or garlic, we have access to them. eat fruits if we have access to them. structure is important. not being on top of your spouse literally or figuratively. cleaning out the garage, basement. wiping things down. reading do things to take up the time, to try to create solutions in your life. i'm trying to create solutions for be strong. that is my outlet.

neil: i'm impressed. i don't know what all the stuff you're doing or thinking about others, stretching or yoga thing. >> not, stretching, people want to donate, bethany, bethenny.com/strong. on there will be the application so people can apply for the bstrong cash card. i don't always ask this way. this is time we need money this is first expensive mission to get out first 20,000 kits is expensive. to help the nation with the cash cards because they're impoverished, desperate, scared, they need money. bethenny tell my producer to get out it. a lot of people want to help out. >> 100% go -- neil: i have no doubt. good luck with all you're doing. good luck with the yoga and

stretching. the corner of wall and broad, the dow down 2,000 points. 9.25 hit. s&p down a little more than 9%. 13% would kick off a level 2 circuit breaker that would last for 15 minutes as long as it is before 3:20 p.m. cheryl: i'm cheryl casone in for charles payne this. is "making money." fears of a recession, after yesterday's five plus percent gains. in a broader context, the markets erased all the gains since president trump was elected. actually when he took office. but the president is ready to take action. a little while ago at the white house he said they are looking to approve cash payments to