that need it. stuart: love it. you're a decent guy, guy fieri, my daughter angela is a major fan. tough get that in. guy fieri, everybody, he is a good man. my time is up, let me hand it over to, neil, it's yours. neil: news story there you will become a big tipper. that is -- stuart: knew you would say that. neil: good going young man. good going young man. stuart varney on all of that. we'll pick up the baton. we're looking at same selloff stuart had and is. we're looking weak economic numbers which was pretty much the case even before the virus data hit us all. we're getting revised figures on death tolls across the globe, united states and new york metropolitan area. governor cuomo will be updating everybody in about 15 minutes. ahead of that, let's go to connell mcshane where things stand right now.

hey, connell. cohn cohn we're -- connell: we're getting hit grim milestones with the covid-19 it would appear. total number of cases will top 200,000 by end of the day. the in new york city the death toll has topped 1000. 43,000 plus infections, death toll at 1096. now one of the issues here locally has been how to keep the first-responders safe. if you look at the nypd, the new york city police department, 15% of the workforce has called out sick. you know that adds up to about 5000 workers. so a little bit more than that. over 1000 uniformed police officers in new york have tested covid-19 positive. and some others told us they have had trouble actually getting the test or, you know, waiting a number of days to get the results back. they have to sit out on the job

while they wait out the results in some cases. similar situation at the fire department. similar situation at ems. all of that is going on. while help is coming in on the medical side, we talked all week long about the huge hospital ship, usns comfort which arrived in new york harbor the other day. today it begins taking patients on board. people not being treated for covid-19 will be treated on the that ship where hospitals themselves have been under stress from the coronavirus patients, makeshift hospitals in central park. we talked about all about the adjustments being made throughout the week. the other thing is the economic adjustments, so many in this area around the country have had to make. one of the things we noticed here in new york, obviously a lot of people losing their jobs. filing for unemployment has proved to be a challenge. in fact there have been numerous reports of the state's labor department website coming up with error messages and the like. the governor was asked about it in his briefing yesterday. he knows about it.

he knows people are furious. he has hundreds of people working to get it fixed but that's a problem. the initial jobless claims come out tomorrow morning. we're moments away from governor cuomo's daily briefing. we'll get new numbers, new updates as hard hit new york gets set for the worst of the worst the expected surge that has been talked about from the health experts over the next couple weeks. neil? neil: connell mcshane, thank you very much, my friend. we heard earlier today xerox already said you know in this environment the whole hp thing is off. it was a hostile bid. so xerox says it is out of there. the t-mobile-sprint merger is official and a done deal as of today. mike seifert is the coo and president and incoming ceo. he is on the phone. congratulations to you. i guess you got this done. it is encouraging development that some deals can get done.

this was a long one coming here. now what happens? >> it was a long time in coming. we stay focused on this for two years for a simple reason, the prize is worth it. we see potential to unlock massive scale, $43 billion in synergies, to use that scale to fund the construction of the world's best 5g network. that is our plan all along. nothing about that plan has changed and today we launch it into reality. neil: you're doing a lot to help customers. connection tivity is big problem for people in their homes. you've been leading the charge with other ceos in your arena to make sure that is not disrupted. can you update us where this stand? >> of course. we've been picturing this day for so long. we sure never pictured it would come at a time like this with

unprecedented circumstances. 75% of our stores in the combined company are closed. 25% of the stores are open. customers need us this is essential service. people are realizing right now what we do is more important than ever. so we're there for them. but it is tough having 75% closed down. we're taking every customer who had data bucket to unlimited data caps. giving every customer extra 20 gigs of hot spot service to use the smartphone to connect to the laptop in case you need it. we're working with individual customers if they have payment troubles, working that out. and we launched the lowest priced offers in our history. something we said we would do. we always said this would be about low prices and more competition but we cut the lowest prices in our history in half and launched 15 and 25-dollar offers with talk, text, mainstream amount of data. we're doing what we can but you know, neil, it is a tough time. i'm really proud how the team is

performing, keeping this network operating for customers. neil: well i know the president was pleased with what you were doing. i think you were in on the phone call with other paying flims in your arena. john malone of liberty. brian roberts of comcast, verizon, it was commending all of your efforts in the middle of all of this. a lot of people are running into sort of data ceilings i guess. you talked about giving people extradite at that usage, what have you but a lot of people more than exceeding that. what are you doing for those folks? >> thank you. yes, i did speak with the president yesterday and he was acknowledging that the u.s. industry fared so much better than some of the telecommunications industries around the world. so we're pleased across the board this industry is operating the way it is. you know, we've taken all of our customers at t-mobile to unlimited for the duration of this crisis. a lot of them had data buckets before but we removed all those

caps so everyone effectively has an unlimited plan for the short term. secondly, i said we given everybody extra buckets of data. you can use the smartphone to connect the laptop as well. we're doing what we can to make sure we keep the network operating. by the way, across the country, we're operating right now with no material increase in network congestion even though people are using it more than ever before. so we're very proud of that. neil: how is that possible? i was reading about that. with so many people in a typical home crowded together, they're all on devices, they're all on wi-fi, using whatever they can to get online, how is that possible that you're keeping this kind of level? >> well, a couple of things. one is for us the traffic is more spread out over both space and time. so typically a mobile customer moves about. they're more local. they're not as concentrated into the urban areas right now. they're more spread out in their home. the busy hour isn't as acute.

it is more spread out throughout the day. so the traffic is up but congestion isn't really up in any material way. and people are taking advantage of wi-fi in their homes as well. but what we're going to build with this company, neil, is a level of network capacity that no company has ever been able to deliver. that is what the new t-mobile is about. 14 times actually, more capacity than stand alone t-mobile. just think about that. that is the promise of what this merger we completed today is going to bring. neil: you know, mike, you're the expert here, but as you know i read a prompter so i qualify as one. i was wondering if something is going to change after blesseddedly hopefully soon this whole virus thing goes away or gets under control. i think it changes the way americans work at home, do things at home increasingly, our behavior what we want datawise and hop online i think it is

game-changer. i think it has fundamentally shifted our society or am i getting too grandiose? >> i couldn't agree more. we're going to be back to normal soon. the question is what is that normal look like? will not certainly be the last normal. we'll get back to work, that will feel normal, but two things. one, people realize what we offer is essential in their lives, more essential than they ever stopped to think about before. that is great for our business. we're proud of what we serve up to the public and the public knows how important it is in their life. i think that is something that will be helpful for us over time. secondly, you know, we don't know what kind of economic circumstances will result from all of this. it might be tougher. it might be more people on tighter budgets and economic circumstances and our company will be standing there prepared to serve them. this industry always made people choose between value and quality. do you want the best deal or the

best network? the new t-mobile for the first time offer you both. if there is flight to value in this category, if people have tighter budgets i think we're here very well-positioned to serve the public in a high quality way. neil: hope springs eternal. mike, again, cone gratlations, open for business as a combined entity effective today. mike sievert, t-mobile big cheese. a lot going on the economic news front as mike was pointing out a lot of conditions are not favorable. some of the data we're getting, pre the onslaught of the coronavirus, that things were already in the process of stumbling a little bit. that is one of the reasons why we're down so much. the dow jones industrials down 774 points. a lot of that was surprisingly weak report we had on service sector jobs. adp puts them out. there was a drop of 27,000 but the real concern now going forward is that's going to pale in comparison to numbers that

will include the full effect much the virus. i believe this survey ended around the middle of march. so with all of that, and the impact of those numbers deirdre bolton with the very latest. hey, deirdre. >> hey, neil, you're quite right. those adp numbers are not reflective of the entire picture even for the month of march as you quite rightly stated, starting at the midpoint. adp, moody's they put that together basically saying in as much, we also got the ism manufacturing report. that came in as a 11-year low. so some economic data points exactly as you said, neil, are just showing some of these underpinnings that may not have been as strong as possible coming into this very upsetting and disturbing time for citizens and then also for businesses. take a look where we stand right now in the markets. i mean we are safely away from those bear market lows, the ones we hit on march 23rd this is

not the best start to the second quarter of course. we've seen the s&p 500 now, down two out of the past three days. so if you're looking at some groups weighing the most heavily on the markets, i will go through them, real estate, utilities, energy, financial stocks. i'm looking at a few movers on the s&p 500. carnival, delta, again, this entire hospitality and travel sector, if you want to put all of those industries in one bucket, really being hurt. no surprise there. president trump of course making that very somber statement saying that we have a very, very tough two weeks ahead. and in investors minds, that means, okay, it will take a lot more time before people are willing to travels especially for recreation again. if you look at the dow, some of the stocks that are weighing most heavily on that, on that average, rather, you have boeing, american express, unitedhealth, apple. jpmorgan and goldman sachs are taking turns, if you like, neil, basically adding up to half of the losses that we are seeing on

that average. continuing to follow the statistics, you were speaking with connell mcshane earlier about some of them. we're around 190,000 cases in the u.s. we know that dr. fauci has said, okay, there are glimmers of hope of these self-isolation, social distancing and quarantine, but again the overall tone, a lot more somber, especially coming from president trump. i mentionwant to mention we've seen a silver lining, we have to do it, more than 7,000 cases who have actually recuperated from this virus. that is backing up this idea of the glimmers of hope. long story short, this is a tough start to the second quarter, basically as we finished yesterday, the first quarter, we were talking about this, the worst one since 2008. neil back to you. neil: you're right, you're right. thank you very much. deirdre bolton on all of that. a lot of seminal figures will be

reached later tonight. putting them in perspective. in new york state they could pass the 2000 death level. they could also have 100,000 case level breach. worldwide we could be looking over at a million cases by sometime late tonight. 200,000 cases likely being surpassed in the u.s. of a. you had those sobering comments we got out of president trump and the health care task force yesterday, even with all of the efforts we're taking to sort of make sure we're closeted in our homes, we're not venturing out too much, the death rate could still climb anywhere from 120 to 240,000, but it beats what would be the alternative if we weren't doing any of this, maybe two million deaths. so much to ponder. markets ponder that, and just sell. after this. ♪. so what are you working on?

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♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ ♪. neil: all right. we are getting some news right now out of italy that depending on your point of view as bad and good. bad, in that the number of deaths there did jump another 727 to 13,135 but, but, that rate of increase has been slowing. and that is seen as and encouraging development to the arc to hit one of the worst-hit countries on the planet. the read from dr. jen caldwell, family physician and university professor. doctor, good to see you. we leap on any good news we can get. not saying that is good news, the fact the death rate for italy, the epicenter for a lot of the worst cases we've seen worldwide is slowing.

what do you make of that? >> well, i mean that is good news, right? it is certainly not ideally what we want. we don't want any deaths, we don't want any deaths anywhere. that is what we're hoping, to get a slowing of death rates and cases. we're trying to flatten this curve. of course that is in italy. going back to home, last night we were given some staggering numbers. one thing seems to be very clear by dr. fauci and dr. birx our mitigation efforts here are helping here. our hope, we have the same, we experience the same things. we want fewer deaths, fewer cases. neil: so, doctor, when they talk about the mitigation and efforts we're taking are working, but still acknowledge you could have up to 120,000 to 240,000 deaths, were you surprised by that number? does that make sense to you? >> it is a tough pill to swallow, a tough pill to swallow

not only for me but for all of this. this is so staggering even with our best efforts we could look at death rates that high. it is scary, it is frighten, it is sad and overwhelming in a way, but this is where we need to focus. seems leak our colleagues dr. birx and dr. fauci were clear in saying we can make a difference. there are things we can do to try to disprove that modeling, right? we know our social distancing. we keep talking about it but if there is anytime to do it, continue doing it is now. the washing of the hands, hand sanitizer, social distancing, not touching our face, all the stuff, neil, you and i, so much talked about, if anything this should be motivation to continue that even more so we get those numbers hopefully down lower than they're projected. any death is too many, we have to keep that in mind. we all feel that way. neil: doctor, you're talking about distancing, and there was a dust-up, maybe started startea

mit, numbers, professor i think, a statistician who said, maybe, maybe, as governor cuomo conducts his news conference right now, maybe we should be a little further than just six feet apart. his statistician said up to 27 feet. dr. fauci had a chance to address that. here is what he said last night. >> what it was, was looking at the distance that droplets by speaking, by coughing, by sneezing. so if you go way back and go achoo like that, up might get 27 feet. if you see somebody do that, get out of the way. i'm sorry, i was disturbed by that report because that is misleading. means all of the sudden the six foot thing doesn't work. that is a very, very, robust, vigorous achoo sneeze, that is what that is and that is not what we're talking about. neil: what do you think of that,

doctor, don't get too alarmed. we're not saying spread out 27 feet? >> sure, sure. first of all i was watching the press conference live when it happened. he was, dr. fauci was very pointed as we can see. he feels very strongly clearly about the 27 feet inference. he makes a good point. i read the article, that i read the study. that is forceful sneeze, that is not what people do all the time every time. i think the researcher makes some good points, in the article the researcher was saying we need to look how respiratory illnesses are transmitted to one another. we need to make sure, consider reevaluating whether six feet is appropriate. i'm not saying as a physician it is not. this is the point of the researcher. she was also, the researcher was suggesting making sure health care providers equipment is adequate. as a physician i take no issue with those things as a concept. what i take issue the headline sometimes ensues, oh, my gosh, it is 27 feet right now which is

a bit of a misleading headline. i take issue with. we need to stick with six feet, which is our recommendation. do we need to look at all the things the researcher brought up? of course. that is what we do in our general plans, moving forward with the virus, trying to figure out and mitigate. neil: always appreciate your clarity, doctor, thank you very much. you do a great service for a lot of folks. we'll watch it very, very carefully. i just mentioned governor andrew cuomo. he is conducting a press conference updating on the latest new york state, new york city statistics. they are hitting rather ominous levels. left's dip into this. >> time, if you go on a ventilator, roughly only 20% chance that you will come off of the ventilator. the longer you're on the ventilator, the lower chance you come off. we're still looking for a curve. we're still looking to see where we hit the plateau. total number of new

hospitalized, again you see the number goes up and down but the overall trajectory of the number is up. change in icu admissions, bounce here, bounce there, but the overall number is still up. change in intubations, same thing. the line is basically a line that is going up. change in number of discharged, line is going up. why? more people going in. more people treated. more people coming out. everyone asks the same questions and they're all good questions, when is this going to be over? what happens? how does it end? and people want answers. i understand people want answers. i want answers. but the, but the answer is nobody knows for sure. anyone who coast on cable tv or network tv and says this is what is going to happen, that's not,

it's not true. nobody knows what's going to happen. i understand the need for closure, the need for control. we're at a place we have never been before. we're out of control. i need to know, i need to know. nobody can tell you. what you do know are facts and you know, facts are funny things. what you're now getting are subjective facts, people who are optimists want to interpret it one way, people who are pessimists want to interpret it the other way. people who bring their own subjective agenda tend to interpret the numbers a different way. for me facts are facts and the facts that we offer the people of this state and the people of this country, they're not

pessimistic facts or optimistic facts. they're not interpreted facts. they are just the best information we have as of this time. and i think that -- neil: all right. you're listening to new york governor andrew cuomo. he is spelling out of the latest numbers which have picked up steam, that is the number of cases, number of deaths. sometime tonight, likely new york state coronavirus cases will eclipse the 100,000 mark, and distinctly possible, deaths will close in on 2,000 mark. it is just math as he is pointing out. a lot of governors, mayors, officials, up to the president of the united states are being tested in ways we have probably not seen since the great depression, world war ii. so many tragedies test their mettle, average americans mettle. doris kearns goodwin presidential historian.

she joins us. doris good win, good to see you. >> thank you, neil, good to be with you. neil: doris, we talk about leadership at a time like this, and i think what is common here, maybe weapon saw a hint of it, a bit of an bankrupt change from where he was abrupt change from the beginning, president trump selling out this is bad, next couple, two, three weeks, could be very, very bad. a lot of people are jarred by that. i welcome that in a way, prepare us for the worst, let's hope for the best but what do you think of the approach or -- i wouldn't call it a pivot but that it changed a little bit, his tone changed, everything changed? >> i have couldn't agree with you more. i mean i think the real challenge for a leader is how to walk that fine line between providing the brutal facts of what is happening and providing reassurance for the future. in fdr's inaugural only a

optimist would deny the realities of this moment. then he was able to say, only thing to fear is fear itself because he was going to exercise leadership. we were going to have action. we would get through this. similarly in the early days of world war ii, he talked about the losses at pearl harbor, about losing battle after battle in the pacific, reminding us like george washington at valley forge, all seemed lost yet the country came through. that is the real key for a leader. they need to walk the balance between both, being deadly honest, straightforward, brutal facts, yet still providing hope and reassurance, if the country comes together we have been through tough times before and we can do it again. neil: you mentioned fdr, you profile him in your book as well, dealing with everything that hit him all at once, say nothing of the depression, also a world war, but he also was able to use the bully pulpit to force changes out of business to help in that regard. they weren't going to say no to

that but obviously he marshalled the best of business to make tanks and bullets, guns, all of that. this president has done essentially the same thing to verbally pressure them, in the case of gm, make more ventilators, a host of other actions we see going on. that it is a call of war. what do you make much that? >> it is interesting, in world war ii there were actually two different periods between 1940 when hitler conquered all of western europe, leaving england standing alone. we were still not pat war. there would be 18 more months. fdr began using bully pulpit, to provide incentive, persuasion for companies to move from cars to tanks, to planes. they got some distance but not far enough. so in the spring of 1941 he issued unlimited national emergency, equivalent to the national production act compelling them to put business orders behind military orders.

then of course once pearl harbor came, the business community responded magnificently. it is so important to remember, think of what they were able to do. there was a plane coming every four minutes. a tank coming every seven minutes. a liberty ship every single day. it was so amazing that our weapons were able to be used not only by us but to be lent to our allies in all the far corners of the world. so once that business government partnership and the american people's partnership with it, workers were paid good wages. they worked three shift as day. women came into the factories. they even provided day care for the women to have for their children. then to have hot meals to take home so they wouldn't have to cook or shop. productivity still remains so astonishing. people cannot believe the figures. it was great. shows what fdr believed, when citizens are aroused, leaders of business and leaders of unions get together there, is nothing america cannot do. neil: what do you make of the

fact, by and large, there are tiffs between democrats and republicans, president and nancy pelosi, they have by and large put that aside to work on bigger issues? talk today, doris, another stimulus relief measure, whatever you want to call it, on infrastructure, two trillion dollars, a lot of the name-calling, not saying it has ceased but at least it has gone down. what do you make of that? >> i think it is a great thing. we've been waiting, waiting for a moment. sadly took a crisis like this to do this, when the extreme bitter partisanship would somehow begin to soften and that big bill that was passed, that stimulus bill by the huge numbers shows that the two parties got together. yes, there is still petty resentsments on both sides. yes an election that still will be going on. right now we have to hope that congress is exercising leadership, the governors are exercising leadership, the federal government, the state

governments and that we've just got to hope if we pull together we can get ahead of this crisis. it has happened before in history. there is something about a crisis that mobilizes the spirit, as it should. this is a war-like crisis without even a question. neil: you know we know the economic impact, we're already seeing it. the federal reserve, i'm sure you're aware, doris, it could see up to 47, 50 million americans losing jobs, gdp plummeting to the lowest levels since the great depression. yet, i'm thinking of, you know, fdr, you know, when he was elected in 1932, things were not demonstrably really approved for the economy in 1936 but the trend was his friend and i'm wondering without playing politics, i try to avoid that here on this show, is, are the american people of a mind that we know this is bad, mr. president, we know this is really, really bad and we know there is no coming out of this quickly, are they of the

mind-set that as long as it looks we're going in the right direction, they will be patient, or, or, will this sort of tax their wits? >> well, it is extraordinary when you think about the morale of the american people through the depression. in those early days we were hitting rock bottom. people couldn't get money out of their banks which had collapsed. soup kitchens didn't have enough to feed people. hungry people were roaming the streets. once some action began, once the government began putting some people to government jobs, once unemployment insurance came, once they began to see we're moving slowly in a better direction, it is amazing there weren't riots, things that could have imagined that could have happened. country moved forward slowly. it is impossible for people two months ago to imagine we would be in the situation now. now if we are here, we begin to make some progress, if the economy begins to pick up, some people begin to go back to work, they're mobilizing these companies to supply what we needed for our first line

responders, we begin to see action again, people's perspective has been turned totally on its head, i don't think we've seen this kind of disruption in our daily lives since world war ii. the important thing to remember, is that the people living through world war ii. they did not know how the story would end. we know now that it ended in an allied victory over hitler and fashionism but they had -- fascism but they had to live with somebody fighting overseas, incredibly unprepared country, we were only 18th in military power, when hitler conquered europe, 17th, when holland sure rin deader, yet we became the most productive nation on the face of the earth. this we've done before, we're asked to separate ourselves, shelter at home, social distance, where in world war ii we were asked to come together with scrap drives, working in factories, doing everything we could. resilience we showed then, i got

to believe we're showing now. i look out my window no boston, there is nobody on the streets. it is amazing what we have already done to help the cause. most importantly, what our medical community and our first-responders are doing, putting their lives on the line for the american people. so it is up to us to do everything we can to meet that challenge, to produce what they need and do what we need to do keep ourselves and people around us to be safe and happy. maybe not happy but healthy. knowing there will still be a future. you have to believe in the vision this will not continue this way forever. we have to have a vision what it is like when we're back to work, we're seeing friends again, et cetera, et cetera. that is what keeps you going. neil: i'm startled to hear we were behind holland as a superpower. that is a fox alert i just got from you. let me finally get your take on the mood. i use market source as a proxy on fear. i always tell people, investors

are people. if they're driven by fear and greed. right now they're fearful because they don't see an endgame. not that we should be catering to them but are they reflective of us. >> well i think you know, most people only way to get through these days, which seem like years each day, know somehow there will be an end game. there is such scientific technology here. there will be a vaccine. there will be some ways to ameliorate problems of people who individual. hospitals will get through these peaks. you have to believe that. and that means that hope has to somehow be balanced by fear. anxieties are great. no question this is the biggest disruption, majorities of us have ever seen in our lifetime. only those who lived through world war ii, the depression, they're even older than me right now, haven't seen it. it takes a body of time to adjust to that shock. then you have to look forward.

and dream about spring turning to summer and summer turning to fall. eventually there will be a vaccine. i mean there has to be. the world is depend end on each other right now panned countries can help one another, countries can help one another. somehow, i say that is why history provides us hope. they have thought in the original day of the civil war they thought it would be over in 90 days. they didn't prepare themselves and they finally had for a long slog of a war. similar world war ii. no one could guess when we entered it would take four long years and some hundreds of thousands of people dying, extermination camps for jewish people in europe. we lived through a truly terrible time. we came out of it. that is what you think about. people saved money. they were able to buy homes t was a great economic period once the war was over, because good wages were given to the workers. because countries, companies had

become so productive they can transfer from war production to producing domestic things people weren't able to buy before. war bonds were there, saving money. there was lesson on that. the most important you have to have a vision of the future. eastern in the worst days of the depression, fdr would talk about, i see an america where everyone is being woulding again. i see an america where our economy is strong. we have to see a america where everyone is safe and healthy again. we have to go back to what become as normal life again. neil: we always come back to your point. i'm not smart enough when we come back out of this. we always do. we always do. >> that is why history provides perspective and solace. i'm so glad to be able to talk as an historian now because sometimes we think nobody has ever been through this before. if we know our parents, our grandparents, our great grandparents lived through really tough times, they managed

to give us what we have today, our responsibility to keep that faith in ourselves going, so we can provide that for people coming after us. we will, we will. we are a people that have great strengths. yea. we have to. neil: you prove it with fdr and lbj and obviously teddy roosevelt. you go back at a time, to say nothing of abraham lincoln where against the wall, against serious, serious crises, how we overcame a great deal. doris kearns goodwin. i don't know if people buy on the market just that, but hope just the same. very good seeing. >>. >> thank you for having me. neil: doris kearns goodwin. the corner of wall and broad right now, that idea not knowing we'll come out of this. everyone is convinces of that, we hope for that, right now there is no clear window or clear arc we like to say when it comes to the direction of this

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♪. neil: all right, the selloff accelerated a little bit at the corner of wall and broad. the dow down 905 points after enduring what was the worst first quarter we have ever seen for stocks ever. a lot of issues taking it on the chin. financial issues and like, banks leery to buy back stock, a lot of them won't, or told they can't or browbeaten make sure they do not do that, weighing on financials. i should posit though, interest rates are coming down here. we had a 10-year note dipping for a while around .6%. we also have gold doing very well. gold up another eight or nine bucks today. keep in mind, north of $1600, wasn't that long ago it was around 1100, $1250.

last eight or nine sessions gold has continued to advance. one of the background noise items, but gold related etfs, they're doing okay throughout all of this, maybe a safe haven for a lot of people, or looking forward to the idea we'll see a lot more spending going on. that generally seen as a boon to commodities, that sort of thing. we have three stimulus packages already out there. there is talk after fourth one that could be bigger than even the last one. hillary vaughn has been following that on capitol hill. hey, hillary. reporter: neil, congress is already thinking about what they want in the phase four package, the next one to come down the pike. one thing they're looking at, adjusting the tax code. kind of a fast way to put more money in people's paychex. speaker pelosi saying on conference call this could be a way to get money to flow to people a lot more quickly. >> again we want to put money in the pockets of people in their community so they're spending it, there is a revenue stream, a

tax base coming to the state or the city, that all of these places -- reporter: pelosi is also asking house ways and means committee chairman richard neil to brainstorm ideas of a phase four. he told reporters this over the weekend, what could be in it quote, if i'm hunching another stimulus check. my preference expand the child, earned income tax credit panned infrastructure program. i think that is what we need to get the country back moving. not just the earned income tax credit or the child tax credit being expanded that could help taxpayers, have a little bit less of a tax burden but also they're looking at rolling, retroactively rolling back salt tax deductions, something limited for high earners in states like california and new york state, that have been hit very hard by the coronavirus outbreak. pelosi says she would be willing to fold that into a phase four. we're also getting new insight from the president himself about

what next steps he wants congress to make. he tweeted this, just a few moments agos saying congress must pass the old, very strongly prove vern deductibility by business on restaurants and entertainment this will bring restaurants and everything related back and stronger than ever. move quickly. they will all be saved. president wants that to be a part of the phase four but speaker pelosi did indicate that the timeline for fades four is a little bit longer than some people would like, neil, saying that there is not going to be a phase four deal until after easter. neil? neil: all right. hillary vaughn, thank you very much. so delayed but not denied, something we're watching here. that is another issue for the markets just digesting, more stimulus, more relief, whatever you want to call it. the president of course is open to more infrastructure type of efforts. nancy pelosi not totally opposed to that but they could find common ground on a multitrillion dollar package there.

now to step back from all of this and realize those fighting and trying to deal with this virus, enter dan hayes. he started something, it has been out there a while, operation barbecue relief. the whole idea of this is to provide relief food to those who need it, not only first-responders, health care workers, homeless and those in the restaurant industry who need work. he has had great success with this. they're up to feeding within thousand barbecue meals every day. he joins us right now, stan hayes. very good to have you. >> thank you for having me on. neil: you know, you have served this country honorably in the army, former green beret. because you're on remote i can ask tough questions. if you were here with me i wouldn't but let me ask you about what you're doing. a lot of people look at this and say, well, you know, it is zero-sum game. who will finance this.

but you found plenty of people willing to help you out, right? >> we're getting there but, yeah, i mean, to take a restaurant that is closed and to be able to bring that back and have them bring in employees and then turn around and they're ramping up to 2500 meals a day to go out into the community, to those people in need. neil: you know i go back, you started this to help victims of, i think it was the job lynn, missouri tornadoes. >> yep. neil: you built on it from there. tragedy strikes, you're there. how do you get going, how do you focus on areas you want to help? >> you know, we look for the need. where is the greatest need? and you know after a disaster there is a lot of people that are reeling. sometimes the community comes together and is able to take care of that need. but many times we have to come in, because the community is not

ready for that. they're not ready to be able to prop up the churches, the civic groups, people that will really come together to heal that community and that's when we come in. neil: do you look at this, dan, as something you don't want to be doing this forever but you're service in what you're doing, it is like a gift from heaven for a lot of these people who sorely need it, want it, are happy you're there to provide it but this could go on a long time. are you prepared for that? >> you know, i would say that the way things are going right now, yeah, we're planning on it going on for a while. we have a certain limit that we'll go to until we have to stop if the funding isn't coming in, the donations, you know the foundations and the corporations that support us. if that money doesn't continue to come in, at some point in time we do have to stop. we're running a business too.

neil: all right. thank you very much, stan. and your service to this country. continue to do that in spades. stan hayes, these stories are increasingly common. you hear about them, it is a reminder about the goodness within us and even people that make great sacrifices to prove that. all right, meanwhile corner of wall and broad, we have a sell-off going on. the dow down close to 1000 points right now. i don't know exactly what precipitated that latest wave of selling. i do know new york governor andrew cuomo is addressing what seems unusual escalation of cases in new york. there are other factors at play obviously. connell mcshane to break it all down. connell, what are you hearing? >> monitoring that news conference, neil, the last 15, 20 minutes, it is ongoing in albany with the governor who says there are more than 30,000 cases of coronavirus in new york

state, the death toll above 1900. the governor started talking about the various models out there, he said states brought in mckenzie, the consulting company, to put models of models together for him, how many hospital beds needed or ventilators and the like. the numbers depend, on social distancing. you could need 25,000 ventilator if social distancing is put in place in aggressive way up to 35,000 or 70,000 ventilators a number that probably wouldn't be able to be met if we don't implement social distancing the way we like. the he is closing new york city playgrounds and didn't happen owned de blasio. people can go for a walk around the park, get outside by your park and stay six feet from another person but what he found, people are getting too close on the playgrounds. that is the way, you know, that the coronavirus has been, has been spreading.

and neil, the last thing he used, the other model he used, i don't know if you looked at this, the one from the university of washington, it is funded by the gates foundation, that one says in new york state, similar to what dr. fauci was talking about last night in new york state there could be total of 16,000 deaths. that is with social distancing and other mitigation efforts in place. i was looking at the curve on that particular model and it goes up really fast, neil. we're under 2,000 now. if you follow that model in the next two weeks or thereabouts, the death toll in new york hits 10,000. that is how quickly it happens, that is how quickly the peak is reached and then levels off through the summer. that 16,000 number obviously just a projection. the hope it will be much lower than that, hit by august. it levels ought over the summer and next two weeks are expected to be brutal in new york. that is what the governor who appears now talking about. his brother, cnn anchor chris cuomo is positive for

covid-19. that is what we're talk about today. that is pretty rough numbers but what we expected but still tough to hear. neil: it is still tough to hear. thank you very, very much, connell mcshane on all of that. let's get the latest, there is some people that benefit from a situation like this. some businesses are not deteriorating. grocery stores, for example, in high demand, jobs in grocery stores very much in high demand. we have grady trimble to get latest in chicago. how they're even getting to try to entice people to work. grady? reporter: it is interesting, neil, because it is hard to find companies hiring right now but grocery stores across the country can't fill positions fast enough because of the surge in demand. so many people are staying at home. as a result, so many people are grocery shopping right now. whole foods alone is hiring around 5000 people. kroger around 20,000. the largest grocery store chain in the country, walmart, is hiring delivery and grocery

employees, 150,000 of them. and we've seen a shift in the way people shop because of this pandemic. one, stores are allowing fewer people in. so stores are not as crowded as they normally are. they have put up sneeze guards to protect clerks at most grocery stores in the country. we talked to a gentleman, phil lampert, who goes by the title supermarket guru, that is a thing and he says we're seeing surge in demand for groceries but he exactly doesn't expect that to continue. listen. >> every supermarket in the country is selling probably more than they have for thanksgiving or super bowl or any other holiday time. that is the good news. the bad news is, people are stocking up. people are still going out there and buying as much toilet paper as they can. what we'll see in another three or four weeks, people not having to go to the store because they have already stocked up. so businesswise, we're going to

see a slump in those stores. reporter: he also says you can expect people in the future, once everything gets back to normal to get used to waiting for deliveries. before they we expected them almost immediately, now because so many people are ordering online, you know, people are waiting a little longer that might continue. he says waiting is a little bit more realistic. since we're at whole foods, i want to touch on something we talked about yesterday, the sickout. the employees calling out sick, complaining that the company isn't doing enough to protect them. certainly these workers are on the front lines. whole foods followed up with us yesterday, they said it was a small but vocal group that were calling for the sickout. they said some of those employ piece didn't even work for whole foods and they said it had no impact on their regular operations. neil? neil: thank you, my friend, very much. grady trimble. we talk about a lot of companies, grocery stores, notwithstanding cutting back on

personnel to the tune of millions of course. big ones you heard about macy's and the gap, and all of this, but another interesting phenomenon we're looking at companies curtailing 401(k) contributions and just limiting it or postponing it. amtrak, la-z-boy, mattress firm, big travel firm, marriott, macy's, all looking at delaying or cutting entirely their matching funds they make for workers in their retirement plans. that is another side of this, that gets very little attention but it is part of the financial fabric that we're following closely. stay with us. do it. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ from anyone else. so why accept it from your allergy pills? flonase relieves your worst symptoms

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neil: well, the president had warned of a very very difficult couple of weeks and that is proving to be the case.

the sobering reality of levels of cases and deaths in this country in big states like new york, big cities like new york city, reality sets in even more than economic news that at best is [ inaudible ] today. whatever the case, we are flirting with the lower levels of the day. this is the first trading day of the new quarter and it's off to a rough start. lauren simonetti. lauren: yeah. you know, it really is. not the way you want to start the new month and new quarter at session lows right now. as the president said, as governor cuomo reiterated, it's going to be a painful two weeks. just how painful? we got a read of private sector job losses, i should say for last month, down 27,000. that does not even scratch the surface here, because it only covers half the month before lockdowns affected three out of four americans. stay tuned for tomorrow, when we get those weekly unemployment

claims. we saw a number north of three million last time we reported this number. expect the same, if not worse, when we get the data for tomorrow. this is going to get ugly as we have been warned before it gets better. we are also seeing the price of oil come down near $20 a barrel. some are saying it could go into the single digits. that's putting stress on the dow stocks, chevron, exxon, but a lot of other energy companies and drillers as well. this is a sector that's gotten hard-hit all year. then you have the retailers, furloughing so many if not all their employees. macy's is one of them. now they are out of the s&p 500. got kicked out. their market cap is not big enough. also want to tell you about home depot. they are, for their front line workers, offering bonuses but also cutting down on store hours so everything is safer for their employees and customers. finally, let's end on good news. walmart is up about 1% today and are hiring at a rate of about

5,000 workers per day. neil: incredible. now they are going to start taking workers' temperatures, right, if you want a face mask, they will give you one. great reporting. thank you very, very much. charlie gasparino with us now. charlie, you could see these numbers as well as i. i'm wondering how wall street is digesting either what the president said last night, maybe some of the economic data, announcements from companies today. how is it sorting out? charlie: well, the wall street major traders, i speak to a few of them at least, they were preparing for this. what i have been hearing for the past two weeks, even as we have been having 1,000 point up days is that there's more downside risk on the way, that the volatility index known as the vix is still very high, meaning you can have another major leg down.

this is despite as you know, massive monetary and fiscal stimulus, but usually these things don't end with just the stimulus package. after the stimulus package, it needs to be digested. reality hits with unemployment numbers and all the other numbers that are going to come in soon. that will put downward pressure on the market. the big investors, you know, these guys are nimble. they are smart enough to hold some cash. they know there's buying opportunities out there. we should point out that private equity has seen some tremendous buying opportunities out there. companies are coming to them that were worth x, now it's x in half. that's pretty big, big declines in valuations of companies that private equity are looking at and that's an indication that we are in a very deep recession right now. but again, wall street traders, the big ones, steve cohen came out with a letter the other day to his staff, they are worried about more downside risk on this

and because they do have cash, they are going to swoop in and buy it at those low prices but they don't know where the low prices are going. the other interesting thing on wall street is just, you know, the position of power of two men right now. people think president trump is the most powerful man maybe in the financial world or maybe it's dr. fauci who will give us the insight into where the pandemic is going, but you know, if you look at it, there are two men out there with the keys to gazillions of dollars in stimulus for businesses, steve mnuchin, the treasury secretary, and jerome powell. unprecedent amount of power. i was talking to a friend of ours and this network, long-time hedge fund executive, who brought up that fact and kind of, you know, i'm used to fed chairmen being powerful but when he sort of unveiled it and said just how much power these guys

have going forward, it really is unprecedented. they will be running the nation's economy, maybe the world economy going forward, given how much stimulus they are pumping into the markets. the other thing, though, is just be, you know, if you are an investor, be very careful about these markets right now. you know, if you talk to sophisticated investors like i do, they are worried about another downside, another fall to the downside. again, i said this on february 28th. have a cash position. that was maybe the best financial advice i have ever given anybody. back to you. neil: you talk about bear markets, as short-lived as this one was. remember it was a turn-around, they are punctuated by sucker rallies and you have fake highs that are reached and you only go lower after that. not all the time but enough times to give us pause. well said, charlie. thank you very much. be safe.

charlie gasparino on that. let's take a peek at new jersey governor phil murphy addressing the media right now. new jersey is second only to new york with the sheer number of cases that are accelerating and in the aggregate. he's outlining as well that he's pushing back the state tax filing deadline to match what will be the case with the federal tax deadline, july 15th. if he has anything new to say, he is really enforcing getting everybody off the roads as early as 8:00 p.m. continuing to 5:00 a.m. and to make sure people get the idea they are blocking off all highway entrances with partitions, dividers, you name it, huge cement blocks to make sure you don't even get tempted to go out on the road. next to impossible to avoid these shelter at home orders from the governor of new jersey. 26 governors have a variation of

that in place. let's go to blake burman right now. he has the latest on what the president could be cooking up maybe with nancy pelosi's help and that would be another stimulus measure that would maybe address infrastructure? what's the latest? reporter: well, here's what i will tell you, talking with a couple senior administration officials earlier this morning. while the president did send out that tweet earlier this week about a phase four potential infrastructure package, $2 trillion that he would like to see it, nancy pelosi is talking about this as well, senior administration officials are saying they're not focusing on phase four right now, or potential phase four. they are focusing on phase three, this $2.2 trillion package, the cares act that's already in place afrnmend implementing that. they are worrying about the now thing now and they will take up the next things next. keep in mind as well, neil, that while there is a republican in the white house who is at least endorsed this potential

infrastructure phase four package, republicans here in washington are pumping the brakes on this idea of more stimulus, more relief money coming down the line. for example, here was senator john kennedy earlier this morning about one of his many concerns. listen. >> you were throwing the frisbee in the quad in econ101, deficits matter. so i think we need to slow down here and be mindful of what we're doing. reporter: now, as it does relate the a possible phase four, i'm told there are staff level discussions surrounding this, though it is very preliminary at this point. just sort of kicking around the idea of what a phase four buildout could look like going forward. one senior administration official put it to me this way, if democrats go down the line of wanting to raise or repeal the salt cap or deal with pension bailouts, the administration at that point would come back and say well, let's talk about deregulation, let's talk about

tax cuts as well. you know this could be a give and a get if it ends up getting down that line, especially if you are talking about another $2 trillion worth. we should also note that the president has tweeted just within the last 10, 15 minutes here about a possible reorganizing of taxes as it relates to businesses, saying that businesses should be able to deduct their meals and entertainment. this hasn't been allowed for more than two decades or so but it just goes to show you the idea or at least the concept of all of these ideas being thrown out for a possible phase four, but what i'm told today is right now, it's just straight ahead looking at phase three and how to implement that massive $2.2 trillion package. neil? neil: they go back, i can remember an old boss said you spent how much at mcdonald's last night? that's going to be a game changer. that's going to be a big game

changer. that could make a huge difference there. reporter: it would have to be a lot of home delivery at this point. neil: i think it would be. believe me, i could make it worth their while. blake, thank you very, very much. we are following this. we are also following the two neighboring governors, cuomo in new york and murphy in new jersey, which tells you they are both trying to crack down on people gathering outside. the new york governor of course shutting down parks to emphasize the point. the new jersey governor trying the make sure people are not on the road at 8:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m. the next day by barricading off exits on all major highways, the new jersey turnpike, garden state parkway, 287, some of the more popular travel venues in the state, making it virtually impossible for you to get on the road when you want to get on the road if you are not a vital employee. it's how they discern that and enforce that in new york's case,

the governor is saying he will recruit the police to crack down on people who don't do what he says and are not mindful of their responsibility to shelter in place. let's get the read on all this from connell mcshane, we have scott martin. let me ask a little bit about how does this affect even your business? you have a good ear to average folks, small, medium sized businesses, those who are directly impacted by some of the orders these governors are giving. tell me how that's going. >> well, of course we are all impacted. i am a services business and my clients, big corporations, are hoping or canceling all events that involve gathering or engaging customers. everyone, i think this virus just medically doesn't discriminate, is doing the same with business owners and trying to catch up with all the things

that are being passed that benefit, it's going to take time to sort through it, submit the application and get the benefit. meantime, we are caught making very hard decisions that unfortunately impact our people. neil: you know, what they have to do a lot of time, scott, businesses encouraged as they are that loans and grants are potentially coming from uncle sam, that doesn't mean they don't lay off now. scores of companies are doing that and many of them are not getting this aid at all. i'm wondering if we will see more of that. we raised earlier this possibility that the latest claims numbers could rival what we got last week and that that's just going to accelerate. what do you think? >> yeah, i think it will. i think connell is spot-on as usual. you're right, whether it's dollars or cents, when you are a business owner like i am, too, we are in the money management investment business, it becomes a confidence issue. you can get all the dollars in the world thrown at you from the

government, i frankly like what blake was talking about earlier about some forgiveness or say some relieving of the tax burden on what corporations can spend money on, i too spend money at mcdonald's so i'm up for that, but maybe something with the income tax, too. maybe income tax forgiveness for a few months. the reality is all that stuff is great but always comes back to confidence. it's the same with the s&p 500 stock prices. if there's confidence in the future, confidence in growth, that's when you start seeing higher prices. we are just not there yet. neil: connell, you and i have gotten into this as well, what's going to move the markets i thi think, as if they're the epicenter of the world, they're not, but they are driven by the same thing average folks are. that is some window or light at the end of the tunnel on this virus. we are not getting that. i'm wondering when we hear governor cuomo talk about having the new york city police get more aggressive when it comes to enforcing social distancing, the

new jersey governor is saying the same thing, they are clearly upping the ante here. i'm wondering how that plays out. >> i think they are clearly trying to control what they can control, because they are all looking at the same models that everybody is looking at now, and i go back to that university of washington model that i mentioned earlier in the show that governor cuomo had cited. the next month -- this month, april, today is april 1st, by the end of april, there's going to be according to this model at least a huge surge in deaths in new york city, a huge surge in resources needed in new york state. so if you have just under 2,000 people dead now and you are looking at a model that shows by the end of the month, i have it on the computer right here to the side, by april 30th, this particular model shows the total deaths in new york at 15,987. that's what the governor is looking at. he just said so. he said he's looking at that. he said this can be controlled a

little bit to the extent if we can do anything, anything at all to make that number lower, we are going to do it. so closing down the playgrounds and going to try to get through this month, to go back to your first point about the markets, we know april's a disaster economically. scott was just talking about some of these figures we will see. what we don't know is what does may, june and july look like. the hardest hit area, we will get hit the hardest now. one thing i will add, the governor said this, this was interesting in his news conference, he may have said it a few times in the last few days, he said what we are looking at here today is what you might be looking at in another part of the country tomorrow, warning other parts of the country that they may have tough times ahead of them. >> yeah. and neil, if i may, in new york, i'm here in new york, i'm in my apartment with my family, and what is compounding the fact, we are not only the epicenter of this horrible disease, but this is the mecca for the advertising and marketing industry which is

getting hit hard because brands are going dark. this is the mecca of entertainment in many ways. broadway is 150 million, upwards of that every single month that has stopped. so it is a compounding effect of what it means to a city like new york that is so admired by the outside world as where pop culture and fashion and sensibilities comes from which is being shut down. we have to reconfigure what that means for the world and this is so much bigger than the human lives lost but housed in the very city that is the epicenter of this epidemic. neil: guys, i want to thank you all very, very much. we are monitoring in the meantime two cruise ships heading the florida right now. many in florida are not happy to see those ships. this coming at a time when a number of the cruise lines themselves have indicated we put off cruises indefinitely. stay with us.

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neil: all right. florida governor ron desantis just issued a stay-at-home order for all of florida. this had been sort of left in local officials' hands to do what they thought necessary but he becomes i believe now the 27th governor to put a shelter in place variation, you know, in force. we don't know when this takes effect. it looks like tonight, guys? anyway, the stay-at-home order is for the entire state. he's going to be detailing this in a presser very very shortly. meantime, we've got phil keating right now in port everglades, florida, on those two ships

coming in. they've got a lot of sick patients on them. one has at least four dead. in florida, i guess the issue is who will take them, if anyone? reporter: that is correct, neil. by the way, the governor is talking live right now and that stay-at-home order for the entire state goes into effect tomorrow night, 11:59 p.m. as for the two ships, holland america's zaandam and rotterdam, they are sailing in tandem between cuba and miami right now, all on their hopeful journey to here, port everglades and fort lauderdale where the cruise line is banking that a decision eventually gets made that will allow these ships to come to shore sometime tomorrow. at this point, that is uncertain and not resolved. they don't know exactly how to handle these ships and the 2500 men and women on board the ships, with the passengers all in self-isolation in their cabin. nearly 200 people on board have had at some point flu-like

symptoms on the ship. some have tested positive for covid-19. many have improved over the past week or two. there are doctors on these ships but four, as we mentioned, have died. 11 countries in south and central america plus florida have or are refusing to let these ships come to their shores. last night, president trump indicated he may intervene for the sake of humanity and that he was going to speak with florida's governor which happened this morning from tallahassee to white house via the phone line. on tuesday, broward county commissioners met to figure out how to deal with these issues but failed to come to a decision. they are still working on those discussions right now. to allow the ships back into port, it's going to take a unanimous decision by the unified command and that includes the coast guard, customs and border protection, state health department and the port. florida's governor ron desantis is speaking with the president, he said or he was speaking live right now from tallahassee.

he did indicate that the 50 or so floridians who are on these two cruise ships will somehow be allowed to come home and come to shore. there are broward county residents which is where we are on board these ships as well. he wants, the governor is still hoping to possibly have tenders or boats with medical equipment as well as medical experts go out to the ships and treat any of these remaining sick people out there. then the question is what to do with all of these foreign nationals, how to get them to an airport so they can finally return home. this was originally a two-week cruise that started on the zaandam in argentina, was supposed to circle around the horn of south america and end up in chile where everybody was going to disembark. that disembarkment day happened ten days ago so these passengers have really just been in limbo not knowing where they are going

to end up and probably feeling very desperate at this point. the mayor told me those discussions are still going. there are about a total of 300 americans on these two ships. neil? neil: phil keating, thank you very much for those updates. great job. meantime, speaking of ships, the navy is scrambling to aid that aircraft carrier where there were 100 sailors sick and testing positive for the coronavirus. amber smith is with us now, former deputy assistant to defense secretary james mattis. always good to have you. how much can we do for these sailors? that's a large number who would obviously have to be quarantined. what do we do? >> well, we need to listen to the commander of the ship who has said they are in a completely dire situation and he wants to remove 4,000 sailors from the ship for their health and wellbeing, so it is going to be a logistical issue.

they have already started to have some of the sailors that are based in guam at the u.s. naval base there set up in a gymnasium, some beds, but the problem is these sailors have to be quarantined because they don't have enough tests to test everyone so they can even find out who the asymptomatic people who who are still able to spread the virus. what they have to do is they have to act quickly. we heard what the secretary of defense esper said last night when he doesn't think the time is right right now in terms of removing those soldiers, but when is a good time? we have seen with this virus that waiting doesn't solve any problem. only more and more sailors are going to get sick. right now it's still a what-if scenario but we have seen what's happening in new york, around other places in the country and around the world. they have to get those sailors off the ship in order to save some of their lives. neil: beyond just the ship and those sailors, i understand, you might be more up on this than i

am, the number of covid-19 cases in the u.s. military have tripled in just the last week. what's going on? >> so the military culture has to basically change that readiness mindset. readiness can't come at the expense of preserving the force. when you lose your force, you are not going to be able to fight whatever future battles come in the first place. so look, i used to work at the office of the secretary of defen defense. the d.o.d. is a massive bureaucracy. lot of times when leaders up at the top are making those decisions, the trickle-down effect making it down to the leaders that are having to enact those policies, sometimes it takes a whole lot longer than you would think, especially with something like a virus like this. but what we have to do is we have to get those leaders that are out working here in america, you know, the different bases that we see cross the country, they have got to be taking this

seriously. the military mindset is we will ride it out, get it done no matter what, we will push through, it doesn't matter if we're sick. that mindset doesn't work anymore with this virus. nobody is exempt from it. so when they want to have that tough guy ego attitude that we can push through this, no, you need to be listening to the experts, listening to your boss, listening to potus who said follow the cdc guidelines, or we don't need mass formations anymore, we don't need group pt, we don't need you to funnel in hundreds of people into a massive auditorium to give a briefing on social distancing. we need to use some common sense here and even relaxing some standards that we're used to even with haircuts. right now, services are still requiring people to have those strict haircut guidelines. what happens, you are breaking that six-foot distance rule. so people have to understand that there is going to be some changes. it's okay. we will get through this as long

as you are doing what you need to do. let your people work from home. it can be done. neil: all right. amber, thank you very much for that update and where we stand on all this. it's confusing for a lot of folks. i should add as amber was speaking, we are getting word as well that the u.s. army is calling up members of the individual ready reserve to combat the spread of the coronavirus. it's a voluntary request. ner in other words, they are not demanding or calling in the guard, but they are asking members of the individual ready reserve to come in and help volunteer to help stop the spread of the coronavirus. no numbers have been mentioned, no goals have been mentioned. just that they need help and need it now. all right. meantime, nevada has joined i believe now the 28th state with a measure in place, a stay-at-home order. it's a little different than some of the other states. the governor has been criticized

for really pushing voluntary efforts but now this is beyond voluntary with the collective view we think this is a very good idea. after this.

their medicare options...ere people go to learn about before they're on medicare. neil: i wanted to go to florida governor ron desantis, who is speaking to the press. he has a shelter in place program for his state right now. he had been resisting this. he's also commenting on what necessitated it. he doesn't see any immediate resolution to this, thoers cruise ships that are making their way to florida. let's listen in. [ inaudible question ]

>> yeah, yeah. i think the good thing about the construction stuff, they are going to be outside, you know, it's been really hot and humid. i think it's going to cool off a little bit. as long as they're not on top of each other, i think they'll be good. d.o.t. is very mindful of that. i think that it will work well. reporter: you mentioned the [ inaudible ] hospitals throughout florida, specifically south florida. do you have any projections on when that capacity will be reached and will field hospitals be set up for that event? >> well, there have been some projections saying they would be busted by now. we look at the numbers coming in, obviously you see the infection numbers are important, but if you look at the infection numbers but look at the hospitalization rate from those, so for example, in miami-dade county, by far, the most infections of anybody, any county in florida, their hospitalization rate is 6%.

so that's a lot less than i think what people typically would assume to be with something like that. i think part of the infection population is skewing a little younger, not requiring hospitalization. so all these things are monitored. we have the bed counts of how many beds are available in dade right now, total available beds is 41% of their beds, 43.4% in broward. these are things you're watching. then you will start to see at some point indications of some type of a surge or when do you that, then you know what you need to do but there's already the field hospitals set up in both miami and fort lauderdale. we have the army corps working with us to be able to do more, if needed. then we also have some other facilities we can use. hotels have offered. we tried to figure out what makes sense. one of the things that may make sense is put up, especially if it's a nice hotel, put up some

health care workers there because the fear is you are a nurse, you go home, you are most likely to get infected in close contact and in closed environments so if you get infected by someone in your household, then go to work and then potentially expose others, that creates a lot of problems. so one thing we talked about, maybe give them a safe place to stay during the real stress period. so we are looking at all that. yeah, this is something that's looked at every single day and remember, the whole flatten the curve was the hospital systems got to be able to cope with it. we have done some things like stop the elective surgeries that's helped free up bed. then i think some of the behavior changes have helped free up bed because i think people started taking the hygiene and social distancing a few weeks ago seriously. i think you probably are going to see, you know, when the march numbers are done, a big drop in flu hospitalizations vis a vis last year's march time and

that's obviously a good thing as well. reporter: -- about these problems with the unemployment compensation system that has turned so many people away from being able to use it, are they in danger of not being able to get the sdi$600 a week federal stimulus, if they don't -- >> well, so yes, it's obviously a priority. i know they are working very hard on it and you are talking about a capacity for that agency that is so far beyond what they have been able to do. i'm going to get a report on that sometime today but basically, my direction has been don't spare any expense, hire who we need to hire in order to be able to get this done because it's important for folks. this is not -- these are not people that are losing their jobs because of anything they did. this is something that there was

a shock to the system and the numbers, i mean, you look at the numbers in the restaurant industry. obviously in florida, the tourism is totally shot right now so you will see fallout there. i know disney is paying their cast members i think at least until the middle of april. i know a number of businesses are trying to do that as well. but the reality, the financial reality is even businesses that want to do that, you can only do that for so long if you are not operating. so we think we will continue to see an increase in people that are seeking unemployment compensation and particularly given the shock that this is, particularly given the fact that sometimes you lose a job, maybe a business goes through a hard time, you can just find another one. we well, it's not that easy right now and it's through no fault of their own. [ inaudible question ] reporter: why didn't you fix the website in advance of this?

>> talk to the department of economic opportunity. i'm not exactly sure what they did or not do. but when i dealt with it in terms of the personnel, we actually kept more personnel on than was needed at the time and -- but that was in a situation where we had 3% unemployment rate. it was just a much different system. yeah, i'm going to get a brief on that today and hopefully we can push that in the right direction. i appreciate you. reporter: is there going to be unifo uniforms for local government to be able to enforce -- >> yes, you will see the order. what it is, the department of homeland security published i think two days ago their thing for essential services, essential businesses, so we will identify that and anything there is considered, then we are also going to adopt what mayor jimenez did in miami-dade

because there are some other things you don't think about that really pose no danger in terms of the virus but that really do make sense. one of the things that we are very very clear on in the executive order is pets and taking care of your pets is an essential activity. anybody who is selling pet food, that's an essential service. people have been concerned about are they not going to be able to do it. no, you will be able to. we understand how important that is for folks. we understand we need to be looking after our pets. that will be all in there. as i mentioned, if there is a different essential service that we did not include in there, someone can ask and then we can add it or not add it as we see fit. thank you. neil: all right. you have been listening to florida governor ron desantis who was facing a lot of pressure to institute a stay-at-home order. he had been slow to do this he

said because he did not think it was necessary and would be causing more harm than good. but now with 7,000 plus coronavirus cases in his state, he has decided to implement it. how far and sweeping it is is anyone's guess but it does take effect tomorrow night. let's get the read on all this from mike chitwick, a florida sheriff. i would be remiss if i didn't offer you a chance to respond to this stay-at-home order on the part of the governor for florida. good idea, in your eyes? >> yeah, thanks, neil. it's a pleasure to be here. i just heard it as i was waiting to talk to you. we are going to digest it. i don't think, it doesn't hurt to stress over and over and over again that you should be moving for essential needs only. we had a block party here on saturday night and friday night that attracted over 1500 people that just popped up. that's kind of being a

knucklehead and you are defeating the purpose what we are trying to do. neil: how do you police something like that, though? i mean, new york governor cuomo has just sort of kind of reminded the police you've got to crack down on this in new york city, where people will congregate as they did yesterday when the ship came into town with relief and supplies for new yorkers. but how do you do that? how do you enforce that? >> well, you want to number one, you don't want to create a riot. you try to go in there, you educate and for us, since it was a popup block party, we were able to get a couple tow trucks. once we start towing cars, people really understood okay, they are serious here. but you know, like i said, people just don't think. common sense really isn't that common. we crack down on spring break, we crack down on a bunch of other large-scale events and you think that hey, it's good to party. you don't want to arrest anybody because i can't put them in jail. by the same token, how do i get

to that point where there's compliance. neil: now to the reason we really have you here today. i'm glad you responded to these latest news developments. i had no doubt you would. but you are doing something really nice in your area where you are delivering pizzas to folks. you are obviously trying to get a message out about social distancing, but i don't know how i would feel knowing you are a pretty recognizable fellow in the town and i see the sheriff coming to my house, i'm panicking. how do you calm them down, no, no, it's just a pizza? >> well, what we are trying to do is public safety and the economy are linked together. you want to have a good economy, you want to have good restaurants, businesses, people building homes, you have to have a safe community. what i wanted to do was focus on what we call takeout pollution and i picked three restaurants that were the first three to volunteer where i helped either do curbside delivery or delivered a pizza to your house.

the folks that got the deliveries, they actually requested that the sheriff come to their house and obviously using social media, we are trying to get county residents to know hey, it's a good idea to stay at home and this what is can happen. you will get a good meal delivered to your house and if you request and the sheriff's around, he might even deliver it. neil: do they try to tip you? >> dhoe. all the tips that i receive go right back into that restaurant. friday night i think i got $200 worth of tips that went right to the delivery drivers and wait staff there. it was really beneficial. i didn't do too well on sunday, had a lot of deliveries but may have picked up about $24 in tips. some people can be cheap, neil. neil: that's awesome. i think you have another food order right there. you better fulfill that. sheriff, thank you. doing a lot of good work there.

it would scare the heck out of me if you popped up to my house but if you had the pizza, that would be okay. sheriff, thank you for all you're doing. >> thank you, neil. stay safe. neil: you, too, my friend. isn't that nice? i love to hear these kind of stories. i love to hear what's going on with some grocers who are looking after their own people, especially older people. a lot of people are looking at what stu is doing to help people through a crisis. it's more than just food. we will tell you that. he's next.

neil: you know, groceries are a booming business right now in the middle of all of this. but the trouble is just finding people to work there, especially when you are also separately

dealing with a number of items that are running out very very quickly. stu leonard back with us, ceo of stu leonard's grocery stores. he's dealing with all that, making sure workers are happy and safe. good to see you. >> how are you? neil: fine, my friend. how are you handling the volume of folks who flood your stores? >> first of all, what we are seeing is sales have doubled but the number of customers is the same as last year. people are coming in and buying more product right now to their houses and one of the things we've done, i heard you talking about earlier, we have limited in one of our stores here, one customer per family. the people are very receptive to that customers are coming in. it helps, as you can see in the store right now, you have plenty of space. we have wide aisles anyway. one thing we noticed with our customers, they want that social spacing today. they know about the hands, they know about touching their face,

but they want to make sure they are at least six feet away from the next kuft more. . neil: so it's one customer per family. what if a mom or dad is coming in with a child, what do you do? >> look, you always make exceptions. we are also opening an hour earlier in the morning for elder and some people need assistance. in these times of crisis, you just have to just use your judgment. one of the things that i want to just say to our people at stu's, we have 3,000 people here, i'm on the floor and i want to show that i'm here working myself. a lot of people can work from home. we are an essential business right now. we have to provide. we have to roast coffee, bake bread, cut meat. we have to do all those things every day. what we are trying to do now is not only keep it so our customers are safe by cleaning every day, et cetera, et cetera,

but also our team members at the store, we want them to feel safe because they are very panicked and it's very hard to get people to come in to work every day. neil: how do you maintain just their morale? it's proven to be a real problem with whole foods and amazon on this issue. walmart's doing its best to make sure its workers are protected, even offering them face masks and the like if they want, a check of their temperatures as they come in. how do you police all that? >> you know, that's a great point. i talked to a lot of great retailers around the country. one of the things you have to motivate your people. i think one of them is i think the leaders have to be there. they can't be hiding in offices or something. you got to be on the store floor just like everybody else. i don't touch anybody, i don't hug anybody, and i keep my distance from everybody. you know what else i find, cell phones are handed around a

little bit. you got to watch your cell phone. it's something that i'm wiping down quite a bit all day. you know what we are doing? we are allowing our team members to wear masks. i guess you can see a few of them around here now. a lot of customers are wearing masks. we are also letting our team members design their work environment so rather than us just tell them this is the way it's going to be, we have a lot of production going on. we are letting them get together and design their own work areas like we put plexiglass up in front of the cash registers now for the cashiers. they really are asking for this and we want people to come into work every day and feel safe. one thing we just did, we did a little survey among people and less than 30% of the people, they didn't know what was going on at all so we had dr. newburn

out, he's with the town of hempstead, in the trauma department, working at a hospital, we had him answer our team members' top 16 questions, how do i get it, how is it contagious, what symptoms do i have, and we have started giving this out to our people. we are educating our team. we are up to about 40% pass rate right now on the quiz. we want to get it up into the 90s because people are nervous. they think it will jump off your clothes on to somebody else. it can't but our people may think that when they're working in the store. we are trying to educate our people, trying to take care of them. we are paying them an extra $2 an hour for appreciation pay. we are just working now at adjusting schedules. that's one of the things or people asked for. all the bakers are scheduled in

the morning. they are saying can you spread our schedule out a little bit so we have more social spacing in the work areas. we are working on doing that right now. we are educating them. i love walmart's idea, taking the temperature. if anybody listening knows where i can buy those thermometers, i will get a couple dozen of them right away for each one of our stores, they can put -- test people when they come in. that will make our team members feel better, too. neil: absolutely. you are doing a lot of good things, stew. i'm sure your customers appreciate it. you've got a fine reputation because of that kind of stuff. be healthy, be well, be safe. >> and you know what, neil, i think we tell our people to focus on the big picture. we are doing an essential service here. i applaud our team of people at the store. they are out on the front lines working to get your listeners right there great fresh food.

by the way, i talked to all our farmers and the meat, eggs, beef. we have plenty of food in the pipeline. people don't have to panic about whether they get food. toilet paper might be a different story. neil: can't make any promises there. all right. >> we bought hand sanitizer from a distillery. people are gobbling it up. i just applaud our people. neil: got it. >> thanks for having me on today. neil: no, no, stew. that didn't look like hand sanitizer to me but whatever you say it is, i believe it is. stew leonard, thank you very much. continued success. all right. all right. i buy it. sure. i got it. stew leonard, ceo of stew leonard's. looking after the people that come into the store and obviously, his own people. hands-on guy. hands-on guy here is charles payne as well. very actively involved in every aspect of the show.

he gets to talk to the vice president of the united states a little while ago. sir. charles: neil, it was a wonderful conversation, obviously we talked about those shocking numbers from last night, potential covid-19 deaths in this country over the next several weeks, but also on a parallel track, this economy and you know, people who work at stew leonard's, lot of folks are looking at our nation differently. i wanted to put it to vice president pence about american capitalism and will it be able to withstand a lot of people questioning if it's the right system. take a listen to one of the things he had to say. >> and i couldn't be more proud of the way american businesses have stepped forward. i mean, literally every business we have reached out to and asked us to increase medical supplies or help us construct more of the n95 masks for health care

workers or build ventilators, every business has said we will drop anything, we will go to work, we will make it happen. charles: so you know, capitalism is being tested right now. americans are being tested right now. and we're going to see what happens over the next few weeks. neil: yeah. you're right. good for you. you got the vice president of the united states. i just had a sheriff on a little while ago delivering pizzas. i think i should stop showing you. thank you, my friend. look forward to that interview. charles payne. he's the best. all right. we have a lot more after this. we are still in and out of a bad day of trading. the dow down about 785 points. stay with us. having a little trouble, you're concerned that it's going to cost you money. (ben) to this day, i only paid what i had to pay for the device. when i go back, everything is covered. there's so much you're missing by not having hearing aids.

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♪. neil: all right. that next videoconference call or chat with your family, you might want to be careful. kurt knutsson "the cyber guy,"

on hacking going on. what is going on here? >> neil, back out here in california, san jose based zoom, the company everybody jumped on brought about by the coronavirus the videoconferencing is apparently now being warned by the fbi that there is not so private. people are hijacking many of the calls, be it a classroom or be it corporate meeting, any gatherings but however there are things you can do to lock it back up. one, is to use one-time unique i.d. when you set up a zoom call. that is who in charge of that. you could require a meeting password which makes a lot of sense as people are. svp, you then give them the password. you could also have a waiting room, neil, say you're hosting it. you would be able to say i recognize that person, that person. then you bring them into the meeting. the other thing only hosts can share the screen. enable, so other people cannot

display lewd stuff they have been putting on there. as a host, not many people know this, because zoom is so new to so many people, you can whoever over somebody's name who is acting out and kick out the unruly people at the click of a mouse. neil: how will companies like zoom be able to police this? because i always think that, you know, a smarter, rat comes along for every you know, more creative mousetrap? >> what zoom, so widely accepted right now it works on every single platform t was a thing that lit up the classrooms and enabled schools to be attended from home. i don't think their days of criticism for privacy are over because there is a lot of response they have in terms of how they're doing their terms of use. a lot of criticism there. what they're doing with the data and how they monitor people with the video calls themselves.

neil: all right. kurt, great job as always, "the cyber guy." that is a big issue. i've been hear more about this, thank you, kurt. my buddy charles payne with interview with vice president of the united states and so much more as the market continues to sell off. to you, charles. charles: thank you very much, neil. good afternoon to you. i'm charles payne. this is "making money." wall street is in sell off mode as the coronavirus crisis deepens with officials including president trump saying it will get worse before it gets better. >> i want every american to be prepared for the hard days that lie ahead. we're going through a very tough two weeks. charles: this as vice president pence tours a walmart distribution senter to thank essential workers there. take a a listen. >> thank you for doing a great jobfor for keeping food on the table for the ari