public health service. we remind every governor and every laboratory, every hospital in the country, it is imperative that you continue to report daily to the cdc the results of those tests to give us ability on data best informed resource decisions. also we, we reiterated today to governors in person and also through correspondence to every governor the importance of using their national guard if need be to move medical supplies. fema is very busy as you will hear in a moment delivering literally millions of supplies to states around the country but we're urging every governor to make sure they work with the state and emergency management team and maybe use the national guard to move those supplies from warehouses to hospitals. at the present moment as the president said we've distributed more than 11.6 million n95 masks. more than 8100 ventilators around the nation. millions of face shields, surgical masks and gloves.

we initiate ad air bridge that the president announced yesterday. flights arrived in new york. one arrived in illinois yesterday and a flight will arrive in ohio in the next 24 hours. fema is literally working and contracting around the world with now more than 51 flights that we'll be bringing vital medical supplies. on the subject of ventilators, fema is currently delivering 400 ventilators to michigan, 300 to new jersey, 150 to louisiana, 50 ventilators to connecticut and in the last week and in the week ahead more than 450 ventilators to illinois. this is in addition to more than 4400 ventilators that the president and fema directed to the state of new york. we just want people that are working on the front lines that the president just spoke about, dr. birx and dr. fauci spoke about, we want you to know help is on the way and at the

president's direction we'll leave no stone unturned anywhere in america or anywhere in the world to make sure that you have the resources and the equipment to do your job. so again, i want to say thank you, america, thank you for stepping up, thank you for putting into practice the 15 days to slow the spread and thank you, for the response of tens of millions have already had for the 30 days to slow the spread. we encourage each one of you as we have governors around the country to spread the word about the guidelines. listen to your state and local authorities in areas that are more greatly impacted. we continue to urge people in the areas of new york, new jersey and connecticut to refrain from travel around the country and people who traveled from that area check your temperature and self-quarantine for 14 days. you can see from that chart the unique challenges people in the greater new york city area are facing, with the coronavirus and we want to do all we can to

protect your health, focus resources and the community and prevent unnecessary spread. lastly as the president highlighted yesterday, businesses around america are stepping up as never before. tomorrow i'll travel with secretary sonny perdue to goard sonsville, virginia, to the walmart distribution center so the american people can see first-hand how the food supply continuing to roll on 18 wheels and airfreight all over america. we thank you again to grocery store operators in america, every one working on the highways and byways keeping food supply rolling and rolling strong. to the american people we want to assure you we'll continue to work our hearts out, work our hearts out that to make sure health care providers have everything they need and anyone struggling with the coronavirus have the support and health care they need and i'm absolutely confident to see way the governors are responding and see the team the president has assembled and coronavirus task

force, confident of the prayers of the american people that we'll get through this but it will take all of us doing our part and we'll get through it together. reporter: just to be clear what is the projected death toll if people are reasonably good following the mitigation measures? >> if they're reasonably good i guess i could say, i would like dr. fauci and deb come up and say. i would have numbers. i would rather have them say the numbers, if you don't mind. big question. >> so of course this is a projection, and it is a projection based on using very much what's happened in italy and then looking at all the models and so as you saw in that slide, that was our real number, about 100,000 to 200,000. and we think that is the range. we, we really believe and hope every day we can do a lot better than that, because that's not

assuming 100% of every american does everything that they're supposed to be doing but i think that's possible. reporter: over the next two weeks you said, next two weeks will be very painful. is the bulk will happen over next two weeks? >> you an upslope as mortality, fatalities to this disease will increase and then it will come back down and it will come back down slower than the rate which i went up. so that's, that is, really the issue, how, how much we can push the mortality down. >> so our hope is to get that down as as far as we possibly can. the modeling that dr. birx showed predicts that number that you saw. we don't accept that number, that that is what it is going to be. we're going to be doing everything we can to get it even significantly below that. so you know, i don't want it to be a mixed message.

this is the thing we need to anticipate but that doesn't mean that that is what we're going to accept. we want to do much, much better than that. reporter: doctor, when you look at the curve it goes much further in time. so we would have deaths and cases for much longer, i mean we do -- >> look at slide number two. so that is a generic -- go back to the slides and put up slide two. okay. so what i should you was a generic picture of what happens in an epidemic. when you mitigate. so no mitigation, mitigate. this is based on the experience around the globe with this particular virus. and so, it does have a tail. but the peak, you can see by this projection, and this is the ihme data, the peak is over the next two weeks and that is, this is tracking mortality. so the number of fatalities from

this virus. so that's the part that we think we can still blunt through the superb medical care that every client is receiving but also, even more stringent, people following the guidelines. reporter: i can't see the small -- are we seeing this until june? i can't really -- >> this is june. >> this is june. reporter: would still see problems and that's in june? >> it is a projection. reporter: it a projection of course. >> getting back to what i said about the step wise things, deaths always lag. so you will be seeing deaths at a time when as an epidemic we're doing really, really well because the deaths will lag. reporter: dr. fauci, should americans be prepared for the likelihood there will be 100,000 americans who die from this virus? >> the answer is yes, as sobering a number as that is, we should be prepared for it. is it going to be that much?

i hope not and i think the more we push on the mitigation, the less likelihood it would be that number but as being realistic, we need to prepare orselves that is a possibility that is a possibility. reporter: very short period of time of time to happen. >> right. reporter: can the country handle that within short period of time of, couple months, 50,000 a month? >> 2 will be difficult. no one is denying the fact we're going through a very, very difficult time right now. we're seeing what is happening in new york. that is really, really tough and if you extrapolate that to the nation, that will be really tough but that's what it is, jim. we'll have to be prepared for that. >> i think because the model, that model that was from ihme, that's based and heavily ladened by the data that come in from new york, new jersey and connecticut. you know that can skew to a higher peak and more significant

mortality. if all of the other states are able, and all the other metro areas are able to hold that case number down, then it is a very different picture but you have to predict on the data you have, which is heavily skewed to new york and new jersey. reporter: one other thing -- >> getting back to that, that is a important slide that dr. birx showed. the cluster of other cities that are not new york and not new jersey. if we can suppress that from any kind of a spike, the numbers could be significantly lower than what we're talking about. reporter: some cities are not following these guidelines? >> that is the reason, my plea at the end of my remarks, jim, that now is the time to put your foot on the accelerator because that is the only thing that will stop those peaks. >> some of the cities are doing very well, we should say very well at this early stage but the number, doctor said, 100,000, number between 100,000 and

200,000, maybe even slightly more but we would hope that we could keep that. >> can we have the next slide, the slide after that. go one more slide. perfect, yeah. reporter: would you tell cities that aren't doing what, you know, new york, new jersey, washington, you know the cities that have been taking charge in all of this, would you urge some cities haven't been doing this, mr. president, to get with the program? >> i would, but you see new york, i believe dealing with new york. new york is having a much harder time than other of the cities, certain cities are doing actually, we look down here, incredible job. they were early. they were very, very firm and they have done an incredible job. this is new jersey, new york. this is -- >> remember, california, washington state were down here. they had some of the earliest cases. reporter: we're seeing places in florida not doing what new york and new jersey had been doing with what washington state has been doing.

>> doing very well in comparison yes, john? reporter: mr. president a question to you and dr. fauci as well. we, you told us yesterday that your, the u.s. accomplishing 100,000 tests per day but we're still hearing difficult stories from the front lines of first-responders that you praise so appropriately a little while ago, they can't test all of the people that they need to test. do you have any kind of projection as to when everyone who needs a test will be able to receive one? >> i can only say we're doing more than anybody in the world by far. we are testing, highly accurate tests. these are tests that work. as you know many tests are being sent to countries and they're broken. reporter: note enough -- >> every day we get, and the word is exponential, we're getting more and more and more, now we have the new test that you saw yesterday. that is going to be rolled out i think tomorrow or the next day. and that is going to take only a few minutes, literally a few minutes to see the result and it

is a highly accurate result. i mean tests were given out not by us, by other countries where there was 50/50 chance it was wrong. what kind of a test was that? these are highly accurate tests but the new tests coming out are very quick and they were just developed. abbott labs did the one yesterday. so we're doing more than anybody in the world by far and they're very accurate tests and we're getting a lot of information from those tests. >> the tests the president unveiled yesterday, the abbott laboratories test which is a 15 minute test, our team is working very closely with admiral gerard and fema to make sure those are distributed around the country. earlier this week abbott laboratories will be producing 50,000 tests a day and distributing those around america. there is already the machines in some 18,000 different locations around the country, and they

have told us they have several thousand on the shelf now and what we're doing is trying to identify the areas where we may yet have pockets, or, as dr. birx often says we want to do what is called surveillance testing to identify where there may be coronavirus cases where there has been very little incident. but if i can just amplify one other point, that is, when you look at this chart, go back 15 days and reality is, that, this is me speaking as a layperson, but as i have listened to our experts, new york, greater new york city area have unique challenges. it is a city we really believe may have had exposure to the coronavirus much earlier on than we could have known and had its own challenges. in new york, connecticut, new jersey, are leaning into this effort but, when we look at this chart for all the other states, including washington

state and california, it really does give evidence that at least, it begins to give evidence that the 15 days to slow the spread is working and that in fact the american people are putting these things into practice in states across the country, including in new york and new jersey, even though they have faced a greater magnitude of cases for certain circumstances that are related to international travel and those communities. but -- reporter: national shelter in place -- >> i think, american people, what i'm suggesting to you, jim, the american people can look at numbers in other 48 states and they can see in the last 15 days, the president's coronavirus guidelines were working and that is precisely why president trump is asking every american to continue to put these guidelines into practice for 30 more days. >> follow up on testing? reporter: if i corks so right now we're at about 4,000 deaths here in the united states. you're suggesting a spike of

more than 90,000 deaths over the next few weeks. do you have a demographic break down of areas most at risk and where most of those deaths would occur? >> well right now, and i think if you asked chris murray, he would say, he is using the information coming out of new york and new jersey and applying that to potentially other states having the same outcome. i just want to say, again, this yellow line, the yellow line, this is all corrected for 100,000 residents. so this is normalized so we can compare apples to apples. this is still washington state. this yellow. so they have been able to, for a long time of measuring cases not have a spike. so it's possible and we're watching very closely to make sure it doesn't have a spike. but that's what the people in washington state are doing. this is what every community --

so washington state early, about two weeks before new york or new jersey. california a week before new york or new jersey. really talked to their communities and decided to mitigate before they started seeing this number of cases and now we know that makes a big difference. early, as dr. fauci said, if you wait until you see it, it is too late. reporter: you have a demographic breakdown, dr. birx, where these deaths may occur? >> there is a demographic breakdown that we've discussed before related to mortality and it is as we're seeing in new york exactly what we saw in italy. very low mortality not to say, that young people under 30 or young people under 40 are not getting ill, they are, but most of them are recovering. so profile looks identical to italy with increasing mortality with age and preexisting medical

conditions. and so that is holding in the same way. but what we're hoping is, that through the work of communities and again it comes down to communities. this is not, this is communities deciding that this is important to them, to not have the experience of new york and new jersey. and i think, you know, we are worried about groups all around the globe. i don't know if you heard the report this morning, there are 8,000 ventilators in the uk. if you translate that to the united states, that would be like the united states having less than 40,000 ventilators. we have five times that amount. so i mean these are the things that everybody is having to face and i think the united states is in an excellent position from our medical care position but we don't want to have to test that system. we want this to be a much smaller epidemic with much smaller mortality. reporter: follow on the testing

question real quick before we move on? so the testing numbers, i understand a million tests done. a big increase but we were told there would be 27 million tests available by the end of the month. so, can you outline where in the supply chain, where in the logistics chain are those other 26, where are the other 26 million tests right now? >> i think this is, just for purposes of clarifications, there is a difference between sending a test that can be administered to a test being done and, because a month ago, or more, the president brought together the top commercial labs in america and said we need you to partner with us to create a brand new system that would rapidly process tests. we're now at 1.1 million tests and we believe it is a fair assessment we're testing 100,000 americans a day. that will continue to grow. it will continue to accelerate

but i think the misunderstanding early on was, there were many tests being distributed, many test kits being sent but under the old system, as the president's described it, antiquated system, those were being processed in state labs or at cdc or in private labs on a very slow, methodical, system that could only produce maybe 30 to 50 test as day. but this new partnership that we have with commercial laboratories allows the progress we're making but the breakthrough with abbott laboratories now moves to point of care, which means you're going to have devices and tests that people will literally be able to take at their doctors office at a hospital, at a clinic at a nursing home and have the results in 15 minutes. reporter: the 26 million tests we were talking about, were those tests under the old, antiquated system? >> yes. reporter: and now, are we still using those, those 27 million

tests or have we completely moved on -- >> the answer is yes, to the new system. >> even today, which is, i have to say, coming out of rab -- laboratories, developed tests, worked on vaccines and gone on to fight epidemics it is disappointing to me we have 500,000 capacity of abbott tests not being utilized. they're out, they're in the states, they're not being run and not utilized. now we have to figure out how we create a awareness. sometimes you put early platform out, the first plat orme out high speed was roche, you put that out, people get dependent on that, don't see there is availability of tests, right now half a million tests sitting capacity, not being utilized. we're trying to figure out how do we inform states about where these all are? how do we work through every laboratory association so

they're aware? how do we raise awareness so people know there is point of care, there is thermofisher, there is abbott testing and there is roche, and if you add those together that is millions of test as week. reporter: not being reported. >> they're not being reported. >> or not even being used. that is what is really, what we're working on? reporter: [inaudible] >> because when people get used to have a single platform they keep sending it back to that lab, away to get on a roche machine, rather being moved to the other lab that may have abbott capacity. they're all on in different laboratories. reporter: how do you -- >> admiral girard is spying figuring it out to create some kind of visual, every governor and health official can see every capacity in their countries, i mean their states, county by county, so they know where the tests are. so we pushed a lot of tests out but they're not all being utilized. >> it is up to the people if

they don't send them back. they use them, don't send them back. doctor, go ahead. >> i mean dr. birx explained it very well. john, i want to get back to your question. it is a logical question, you look at the number you want to no what the do moving graph if you will be -- do movinggraphy, this number we anticipate but don't have to accept it as inevitable. that is getting back to what i'm saying, we can influence it to varying degrees, if we influence it to the maximum, that we don't have to accept that. that is something we anticipate, i, not i, all of us want to do much better than that. reporter: on that, what do models say on the low end if you have full mitigation? >> it says, between 100. >> that was full mutt mitigation. >> 100 to 200,000, which anything, that is a lot of people. a lot of people. you didn't ask the other people, what would have happened because

this is the question i've been asking dr. fauci and dr. birx for a long time and they have been working on this for a long sometime, the question is, what would have happened if we did nothing? because there was a group that said let's just ride it out, ride it out. what with have happened? that number comes in at 1.5 to 1.6 million people, up to 2.2 and even beyond. so that is 2.2 million people would have died if we did nothing. we just carried on our life. now you done this that would have been possible because you would have had people dueing all offer the place. this would not have been a normal louvre. how many people have on a soon anybody die? you would have seen people dying on airplanes. you would have seen people dying in hotel lobbies. you would have seen death all over. from a practical standpoint, that couldn't have been carried out too far. but if you, if you did nothing, on the higher side, the number would be 2.2 or maybe even more and on the lower side,

1.6 million people. reporter: understood. 100,000 is the number with full mitigation, how do you push, how do you push it forward? >> we've been at this a long time. you go first. >> so, john, it is an obvious, very good question. if this is full mitigation, and it is 100,000, why am i standing here saying i want to make it better, because that is what the model tells you it is going to do. what we do is that every time we get more data you feed it back in and relook at the model. is the model really telling you what is actually going on? and again i know my modeling colleagues are not going to be happy with me, but models are as good assumptions you put into them. and as we get more data, then you put it in and that might change. so even though it says according to the model which is a good model, that we're dealing with this is full mitigation, as we get more data, as the weeks go by, that could be modified.

reporter: why is the model now, the top line on the low ball estimate, why is that not topped out 240,000, not 200,000? is that a change? states are not doing enough? >> you know, it just has to do with, if you had more new yorks and new jersey, you know. chicago, detroit, l.a., dallas, houston. you know all of our major cities, modeled like new york, that's what gets us into trouble but i am reassured by looking at the seattle line, by looking at the l.a. line, by looking at what california has been able to do, that is not something that, i don't believe that is going to happen. that is the outside case of having 10, 15, metros like new york and the new jersey metro area. reporter: new york had community

spread pretty early undetected. don't many much those other states, if not more of them with less information are they likely to see the same spike? >> well, california and washington state reacted very early to this. yes, washington state had some of the earliest infections. they have kept it low and steady and for now a month has been tracking it with a small increase in the number of cases but not this log rythmic form of the virus. that is the piece we're trying to prevent, in new orleans and detroit and in boston right now and in trying to make sure that each of those cities work more like california than the new york metro area. reporter: mr. president, i just wanted to get your thoughts on face masks. we asked you about this yesterday, you signaled you were thinking about it. >> just to end the last topic, i

think i can say this because i spoke to dr. birx before and to dr. fauci, for whatever reason new york got off to a very late start and, you see what happens when you get off to a late start. new jersey got off, i think both governors are doing an excellent job but they got off to a very late start. when you look at washington state, if you remember, that all started in a very confined nursing home and you had 20 some odd people i believe dying in one home. that doesn't mean it escaped that home. and so, they have a very different statistic than other states. but, i mean i remembered very vividly the nursing home in washington state where, you had many people dying every day, people were dying, in the one exact location. so they were able to keep that relatively speaking, into that location.

reporter: were you surprised when you saw these projections? the numbers are sobering? >> the numbers are sobering, when you see 100,000 people, that is a minimum number. what we're looking at, as many people as we're talking about, whatever we can do under that number, substantially under that number we've done that through really great mitigation. we've done that through a lot of really dedicated american people that, you know, 100,000 is, is according to modeling a very low number. in fact when i first saw the number, i asked this a while ago, they said it is unlikely you will be able to attain that. i think we're doing better. i think we have to see, but i think we're doing better than that as john said, that would be a lot of lives taking place over a relatively short period of time. think of what would have happened if we didn't do anything? i had many friends, business people, people with actually great common sense, they said, why don't we ride it out. a lot of people said it, thought

about it, don't do anything, ride it out and think of it as the flu but it is not the flu. it's vicious. when you send a friend to the hospital and you call up the to find out how is he doing, it happened to me where, goes to the hospital. he says good-bye, sort of a tough guy. a little older, a little heavier, than he would like to be frankly, and you call up the next day, how is he doing, he is in a coma? this is not the flu. so we would have seen things had we done nothing, but a long while a lot of people were asking that question, right? i was asking it also. i mean a lot of people were saying let's ride it out. this is not to be ridden out, you would be looking at potentially 2.2 million people or more. 2.2 million people in a relatively short period of time. if you remember they were looking at that concept, as a concept i guess, it is a

concept, if you don't mind death, a lot of death, but they were looking at that in the uk, remember? they were very much looking at it. and all of sudden they went hard the other way because they started seeing things that weren't good so they were, you know, put themselves in a little bit of a problem. now boris tested positive and i hear he is, i hope he is going to be fine but in the uk they were looking at that, and they have a name for it but we won't even call, won't even go by the name but it would have been, it would have been very catastrophic i think if that would have happened but that was something everybody was talking about, steve, like, just don't do anything. don't do anything. forget about everything. just ride it out. they used the expression, ride it out. we would have had at a minimum 1.5, 1.6 but perhaps would have had more than 2.2 million people dying in a very short period of time. that would have been a number

the likes which we've never seen. so now when we look at our package that we just approved for two trillion dollars all of sudden it seems very reasonable, right? when you're talking about two million lives, all of sudden it seems very reasonable. i must say, a lot of people that have been seeing the more advanced numbers because these are much more advanced numbers now, than when you first started you didn't know, this was a difficult kind of a virus, nobody knew that much about it, even the experts you don't really know where it is going, they see what is going on in italy and what is going on in spain and you see france is having a very hard time, and other countries are having a very, very hard time, once they see what is going on they start making projections. i hope they will be very high projections but based on everything else that would be the number. let's see if we can do much better than. i hop with can. reporter: mr. president -- . reporter: what is the are dawgs

if -- >> you no, you can use a scarf. a scarf, everybody, a lot of people have scarves and you can use a scarf. a scarf would be very good. my feeling if people want to do it, certainly no harm to it. i would say doubt but use a scarf if you want, rather than going out and getting a mask or whatever. we're making millions and millions of masks. but we want them to go to the hospitals. one of the things that dr. fauci told me today, we don't want them competing, we don't want everybody competing with the hospitals where you really need them. so you can use scarves. you can use something else over your face. doesn't have to be a mask. but it is not a bad idea, at least for a period of time. eventually you will not want to do that. you will not have to do that. this is going to be gone, gone, hopefully gone for a long time. reporter: mr. president, the mitigation steps that are on your 30-day plan is that enough

or is more needed? >> we hope it's enough, we hope it's enough. we hope we're at a level where we can say let's go because our country wants to get back to work. we really want to get being, everybody wants to get back to work. now i could ask the doctors to answer that question but we discussed that all the type, what do you think? reporter: have they been recommending harsher mitigation? >> i think we've been very harsh. you look at the streets. i looked at fifth avenue today on camera, i didn't see anybody walking on the street and i'm used to watching that street, you can't even see, you can't see the asphalt, you can't see the concrete and you look, there is nobody. there was one car, looked like it might have been a taxicab and it was in a time of the morning that normally there would be a lot of people. you know i think the mitigation has been very strong. pleats. reporter: mr. president, will you confirm your plans to defer tariff payments for 90 days? >> i didn't do anything about tear rough payments. i don't know who is talking

about tariff payments. they keep talking about tariff payments and we haven't done that china is paying us, we made a deal with china. under the deal they're paying us 25% on $250 billion, and they pay it. i spoke with president xi the other day. he didn't mention that. we didn't mention that. we had a great conversation by the way, a very productive conversation, on many things, most of it was on the virus but you know, we're not talking who are you with? who are you with? who are you with? reporter: "wall street journal." report by "wall street journal" and bloomberg -- >> that is incorrect reporting. they might be but i will have to approve the plan. one thing i will tell you, i, approve everything. they have not presented it to me. therefore it is false reporting. therefore don't dot be -- do the story. if we're going to do something i would be glad to let you know. there is nothing wrong with

doing it. we'll get back to you. reporter: thank you, sir. [inaudible]. i wanted to ask you about individual states, issuing stay at home orders. what do you think for instance, in florida, ron desantis has resisted urges to issue one of those but he said moments ago that if you and the rest of the task force recommended one, that would weigh on him heavily. what sort of circumstances need to be in place for to you make that call and say, this is something you -- >> different kind of a state. also great governor, knows exactly what he is doing. has a very strong view on it and we have spoken to ron. mike, do you want to tell him a little bit about that? >> well, let me echo our appreciation for governor desainted 'leadership in florida, he taking decisive steps working with our testimony team at the federal level. let me be clear on this, the

recommendation from the health expert was take 15 days to slow the spread and have the president extend that to hurt days forever american. now that being saud -- said, we recognize when you'ring with a health crews sus in the country it is locally executed by health care workers but it is state-managed. so we continue to flow information to state governors, we continue to heart -- to hear about the data they're analyzing and consult with them. at the president's direction the coronavirus task force will continue to take the posture we will defer to state and local health authorities on any measures that they deem appropriate. but for the next 30 dawes this is what we believe every american, every american in every state should be doing at a minimum to slow the spread. >> unless we see something obviously wrong, we're going to let the governors do it. now if it is obviously wrong,

people can make, they can make a decision we think is so far out that it's wrong, we will stop that but in the case of governor desantis, you know there is two thoughts to it and two very good thoughts to it and he has been doing a great job in every respect. we'll see what happens. but we would only exercise if we thought somebody was very obviously -- go ahead, your turn. reporter: thanks. i had a question for the vice president about the national strategic stockpile but while you're at the podium i want to ask but the call with president putin a couple days ago. economics turn for a lot of people with the state of oil prices right now. >> yeah. reporter: if you agree with president putin -- >> the call was probably about that, the oil prices because as you know, russia and saudi arabia are going at it and they're really going at it and by going at it to the extent that they are, the oil has dropped to a point where, look, it's the greatest tax cut we

have ever given if you look at it that way because people will be paying 99 cents for a gallon of gasoline. it's, incredible in a lot of ways, will help the airlines but at the same time it is hurtful to one of our biggest up industries, that is the oil industry. it is not even feasible what is going on. so i spoke to president putin about that. i also spoke to the crown prince about that, saudi arabia. reporter: they agree to doing anything? >> yeah. they will got together. we're all going to get together, we'll see what you can do. you don't want to lose an industry. you will lose an industry over it, thousands and thousands of jobs. we have, i don't know if you know there is oil all over the oceans right now. the boats are filled. they're renting his, ships that weren't dying, weren't doing well, now like, that is where they're storing oil. they're sent out to sea, they sit there for long periods of time. there is so much oil, in some cases it is problemly less

valuable than water in some parts of the world. some parts of the world water is more valuable and we've never seen anything luke it -- like it. and the two current throughs are discussing it. i am joining at the appropriate time if need be, we had a great talk with president putin. we had a great talk with the crown prince. we also discussed more so with president putin in this case the rye just, because the russia is being hit pretty hard. we discussed trade and in the case of both we very much discussed the oil and oil prices. you look it is $22 but it is really much cheaper than that if you want to negotiate. nobody's seen that. that is like from the 1950s, it really is. to think it was 50, 60, 70, 80, and now it is 22 but you know, if you put a good bid at nine i think you could probably get what you wanted, right? john, please.

reporter: mr. president, you tweeted earlier today now would be a good time to start looking toward if there is a light at the end of the tunnel and work on a infrastructure bill. >> yeah. reporter: you suggested it should be two trillion dollars, which is twice what the last one was or proposal at least. are you anticipating that like after the economic crisis of 2008-2009 america will need to have so called shovel-ready jobs in order to get people back to work? >> the problem with that one maybe shovel-ready jobs or maybe not but they never used it for the purpose of infrastructure. so far nobody was able to find money that was spent on infrastructure. i want to use it on infrastructure. one of the reasons i'm suggesting, john, we're paying zero interest. the united states is paying almost zero interest rate. the federal reserve lowered the rate, fed rate, that and a combination of the fact that everybody wants to be in the united states. you know we have the dollar that is very strong. i know that sound good but it does make it hard to manufacture and sell outside because other

currencies are falling and our currency is very strong, it's very, very strong. proportionately it is through the roof. so we have a strong dollar. people want to invest in the united states, especially nowadays where they're looking at safety. they have all the problems, plus the virus in 151 countries they all want to come into the united states. so we have a zero interest rought essentially and i said, wouldn't this be a great time to borrow money at zero interest rate and really build our infrastructure like we can do it? so the plan was, the republicans had a plan of about 750, i would say, they were where, seven, five, democrats were a little also than a trillion dollars. the republicans were a lull bit less than that and i'm suggesting two trillion dollars we redo the roads, highways, bridges. we fix up the tunnels, many of them in bad shape like coming into new york as you know, really bad shawn. and with really do a job on the

infrastructure. and that doesn't mean we're going to do the green new deal. you wont do it. we're not doing the green new deal and spend 40% of the money on things that, the people just have fun with. reporter: how would you pay for it, sir? >> we'll borrow the money at 0% interest. so our interest payments would be almost zero and we can borrow long term. people want to be in the united states they want to be invested in the united states. go ahead, jim. reporter: i want to get back to the virus. you were saying at the beginning of the press conference you're looking holding back 10,000 ventilators. is that because you need to pick and choose where the ventilators are going to have to go because of nature of pandemic and spreading it? other question. reporter: want to ask dr. fauci, doctor birx is it possible atcha finish, is that part of the reason why you're projecting 100,000 to 200,000 deaths? there are going to be some people who aren't going to be able to get ventilators? >> actually us why the opposite. we're holding back we have

almost 10,000. we're holding because we'll need them over the next couple of weeks as the surge -- we haven't hit the top yet. we have to move them immediately and we can't take them because it will be very hard to do that, we can't take them to places that aren't needing them. plus we have requests for ventilators in hospitals and in states and cities that don't need them in our opinion, they don't need them. they won't need them at the top. so we're holding it back for incomessability. with actual just took 600, we sent them to different lo cautions today. but we have close to 10,000 and we'll be automobile to get them, we're all set to march, we have national guards and we have fema, we're all set to move them to the applauses. as for your second request what we'll do is salve lives because of it. otherwise we would not get -- we don't know what the hottest spot. reporter: ventilator shortage now? >> in some areas we might but we've done a great job with ventilators and we're having them made, unbelievable, 11

companies are making ventilators. now they will be starting to arrive in the next week but we've also grabbed a lot of them. some hospitals had more than they were saying or at least more than we knew about which is a good thing, not a bad thing but we want to be able to have i guess the word would be flexibility so that if the surge turns out to be much stronger in louisiana which it could, that we can immediately bring 1000 or 2000 to louisiana. otherwise we wouldn't be able to get them, we wouldn't be able to say listen, governor cuomo in new york, we want to take ventilators away from new york, they will say, well, we can't do that, it would be a disaster. so we have great flexibility. now when the surge occurs, if it occurs fairly evenly, we'll be able to distribute them very quickly before they need them but we want to have, we have a reserve right now. it is like having oil reserves, except more valuable frankly but we have a reserve right now. and we'll be able, we also have a great team of people ready to

deliver, they can move them fast. so when we see it going up in a certain state and louisiana could be one and michigan could be another with detroit because detroit is having a lot of, a lot of hard time right now. detroit came out of nowhere and that is what happens with this it comes out of nowhere. we are dead did i jim, depending what happens, and we have a stockpile. that is why it is called a stockpile. now a lot of ventilators and a lot of other equipment rather than sending it to the stockpile we had it sent directly to a hospital, to a location, to a place so we didn't have the cumbersome nature having it come in, unboxed, put in and then delivered. we have it brought, which they have never done before. they don't do that, generally speaking they don't do that, we have had, mike i think we had tremendous success doing that. that is for other items including ventilators where it is brought to the site that needs it but we have a good supply of haven't --

ventilators, we are ready do go and trucks ready as we're saying john, this could be a hell of a bat two weeks or maybe bad or two or three weeks. this will be like three weeks we haven't seen before. reporter: should hospitals be prepared for that? >> i think hospitals -- reporter: looking like a medical war zone in some laces. >> a war zone, that is what it is. i heard some paramedics did, doctors been in war zones, they have never seen anything like this. look at elmhurst hospital in queens, that is hospital near where i grew up. it is a war zone in a true sense. yes, please? reporter: on ventilators we've been hearing from governors fighting amongst themselves, bidding amongst themselves -- >> they shouldn't be doing that. if that happens, they should be calling us. we have ventilators but we have distributed thousands of ventilators but they shouldn't be doing that.

if they need them that badly, we know, we have pretty good ideas where they're going to need them. some people frankly think they need them that they don't need them. i don't want to mention names, some people that want them and it is really not the right thing. then you have some people that, i guess, automatically hoard a little bit. they want to have more than they think they need but, you know, a ventilator is a very precious piece of equipment right now. it is hard to make. it takes a long time to make it. it is complex. some of them are like the dashboard of an airplane, they're very complicated, very expensive machines and some are much simpler but we're ready to go depending on what happens. but we have some hospitals and in some states that think they need ventilators and we don't think they do. if they do need them, we will have them there before they need them. we'll be able to move very quickly. reporter: hydroxychlorquine any new data on these trials? >> nothing i heard. that is the first question i

make every morning. i call up, we have 1100, 1100 in new york right now, and we have other locations where patients people are taking them. now, the good news is, it is only three days and you know it is like a seven or eight-day treatment. the good news we haven't heard anything bad. in other words, there has been no catastrophic events but it is a little bit too soon to talk about it. it would be a total game-changer john, if that happened t would be a game-changer. in all cases, the zpack, you know what the zpack is, we'll see what happens with the hydroxychloroquine. yeah, just one second, steve? reporter: anti-viral drugs that have some promise, working soon? >> looking at a lot of them. we're looking at a lot of them. some show promise. i think maybe the doctor might want to speak about the vaccines

because a lot of, johnson & johnson is advanced, very advanced. we'll see what happens. the one thing with a vaccine, it doesn't help this group because this group, you know, you need to test the vaccine. the one thing with the drug you just mentioned, right, is that has been out. it is a malaria drug and arthritis drug, it has been out there for a long time. very powerful drug but it has been out there a long time, so it is tested in the sense you know it doesn't kill you but you may want to discuss vaccines for a second, dr. fauci. >> thank you, mr. president, but just for a second before the vaccine in answer to your question, steve, there are a number of candidates, the drugs now looked at in various ways, either compassionate use, clinical trials, are generally drugs that already exist for other things. there is a whole menu of drugs and interventions now going into clinical trials that are not approved for anything yet. i mean, for example, things like

immune serum, convalescent plasma or hyper immune globulin or monoclonal antibodies other things, there is a lot of things going on behind the scenes and designs of clinical trials that will give us an ends. you need an answer, because if it doesn't work you want to get it off the table to go to the next one so there are a lot of things. reporter: how long does that normally take? weeks, months? >> it takes at least months, at least months, at least. so i mean that is the reason why you're seeing a lot of activity with drugs that already exist for other purposes because they're already there, but the drugs you want to show in a good randomized clinical trial at very best they will take months. just one word on the vaccine, exactly like we said, we hope that as we get into the summer, if in fact there are cases out there when you're in a phase two or phase three trial or two h about as -- two-b, might might

get early efficacy signal. that means even though you definitely haven't proven a vaccine works, you get enough information that you might be able to have an emergency authorization for it. reporter: that sounds -- >> i have to say this, hydroxychlorquine and azithromycin, you take it with it maybe if you want for the infection, i think some medical workers are doing that, using it maybe or getting it prescribed perhaps as, for another use but, the word is that some are, and some aren't. i think it is not a bad idea to do it but that is up to the doctors but there is a theory going around in our country and in some other countries people are taking that work in the hospitals, work with the patients and there is some evidence, it will have to be proven. it is very early. we're rushing this stuff

through. it was supposed to take a long time to be approved and i prevailed upon the fda to get it approved immediately, because it was already on the market for many years for another use, malaria, and arthritis, but mostly malaria. we'll see what happens, but there is a theory out there for the medical worker, doctor, it may work, it may work and if you take it, you know it has been out there a long time. please, go ahead. reporter: i want to go back to jim's question about the national stockpile. >> about which? reporter: national stockpile. the governor of connecticut today said he was disturbed to learn the stockpile is now empty, his words and he said -- >> it is not empty. let me explain something, what we do, i thought i said it accurately, i certainly meant to, rather than having it brought into the stockpile where appropriate other than certain things like we have quite a few of ventilators which is not a lot when you look at the whole country, actually, it sounds

like a lot, almost 10,000, but we're trying to have supply sent directly to the states because we save a big state, we save a big, we don't want medical supplies coming in to warehouses all over the place, we take them from there and bring them to another warehouse. so we're having, ideally from the manufacturer directly to the hospital or to the state where it is going. so we're trying to keep it that way as much as possible. now in some cases we are having -- remember this, we also took over a virtually empty, and i say that again, like we had no ammunition in the military, and we had virtually no ammunition, we had very little in medical supplies too in our stockpile. so for the most part we're trying hard to deliver it to the site where they need it. please go ahead. reporter: mr. president, here in the united states domestically we can practice social distancing but some of our sailors, specifically on the

roosevelt they're not able to. they're in confined spaces. what are your thoughts on that? should they be off loaded? are you concerned -- >> i will let the military make the decision. reporter: are you concerned about u.s. military readiness during this pandemic? what would happen if as reported china increases patrols in the south china sea what would -- >> we'll see all about that. don't worry about our military. you saw the military put up a hospital in 3 1/2 days with 2900 beds with a lot of beds, nobody has ever seen anything like it. by the way, that wasn't the only one. it wasn't just the javits center. it was at other locations. now it is louisiana and now it's new jersey and now it's other places. one thing i think that is indisputable when i watch the army corps of engineers and fema, working with them, when i watch the army corps of engineers throw up these hospitals, they're complex, they are incredible buildings,

essentially, tents, various things they did it in such a quick, short period of time and our military is ready like you haven't seen and you know who the best, the best guests on different shows we watch, we watch shows at night i think the best guests i've seen in a long time are the military people and they have never done it before. i watched general simonite who i deal with a lot, general, you have to give us two new hospitals in louisiana. yes, sir. the next morning they're building them at 6:00 in the morning and they're up in three days. i think they're the best guests you have. i'm tired of all the other guests to be fairness. jim, go ahead. reporter: may be an uncomfortable question but what would the models have looked like dr. birx and dr. fauci show if we started social distancing guidelines sooner in february or january, china, south korea were doing those -- >> i will let them answer that -- reporter: what information we're getting from them, but if we

started these practices sooner could these models be different right now? >> i will let them answer the question, remember this, i say it, everybody says it, you know who says it better than anybody? is dr. fauci. i had a decision to make. maybe it was my biggest decision. china was heavily infected and thousands and thousands of people were coming from china to the united states and against the wishes, not even wishes but they disagreed with the decision, i made a decision to stop china from coming in. took a lot of heat, even from china. they weren't exactly happy. i just made a trade deal, a big one, 250 billion-dollar trade deal, shortly thereafter saying you can't come into our country. that was a big decision. that was earlier than the date you're talking about. so that was a big decision. that was probably, and by the way not because i did it, that was probably the biggest decision we made so far. but if you look at the one graph, the problem new york has, new york started late but the

other ones didn't start so late. new york is also more complicated for obvious reasons but it got a late state but you want to answer this question? >> i don't know if you can go back to slide two, i want to explain two things i think is really important, because we had a lot of questions about mortality what it meant? you see the confidence intervals? here's the line. this is the confidence interval. this is where we have the ability to push it down. so you have a large confidence interval around the line. and so we're trying to move that gray down tighter and below the dotted line. so i think that is really important. and then if you can go to the next slide. so, we really can't answer your question until we can get anti-body testing out there because what we can't tell you

is, we can always do this, there is always samples in hospitals and other things. it is the way we really defined the hiv epidemic in the united states. we were able to go back to blood samples when we had the test to really find out where it was and what was going on. we really need to look in here, and really see, was there virus significantly circulating in early, and late february and what did it look like and where was it? and was it all in the metro areas? i think that is what dr. fauci and i are very focused on is getting serology testing out there to really figure out when it came on and really have those samples to be able to do that. reporter: do you understand the painful part of my question, please i don't mean to put you on the spot -- >> we understand we can't answer it. reporter: saying if we started this sooner we might not have 100,000 to 200,000 americans

dieing? >> that makes an assumption that it, it was a lot back here that we didn't see. until we have the anti-body tests i can't really answer that. >> just to underscore what -- liz: you're watching the earning edit and white house coronavirus task force. sobering numbers if there is no mitigation, quote, 1.5 million to 2.2 million fatalities. with mitigation they're looking at numbers of around one hundred thousand to 200,000 fatalities in the united states. president saying and task force saying the next two weeks are critical, that there must be social distancing, no discretionary travel, no social visits, no visits to nursing homes. 400 nursing homes across the country are at risk. 1.1 million tests are now underway. new orleans is a serious situation right now, talking about louisiana, also detroit, michigan, though there are glimmers of hope dr. fauci said, mitigation seems to be washington, california and parts

of new york city. he sees the curve bending. so, little bit of hope there. we'll stay on the story for you tomorrow night. join us. liz beg mcdonald, evening edit. lou dobbs is >> he leads the most famous charge in american history. >> i am standing right on the site of pickett's charge. >> it cost him hundreds of men, but it made him immortal. >> he aves his descendants with a suitcase full of heirlooms. >> you want to take a look? >> i really would. >> then a fast-talking con man comes to town... >> he dressed well, he was very glib of tongue. >> ...forcing the general's heir into battle over his strange inheritance. >> what was your reaction? >> i was pissed. it began to dawn on me that i had been really truly ripped off. [ woman vocalizing, theme music plays ] [ wind howls ] [ thunder rumbles ] [ bird caws ] [ folk music plays ]