oz, devin nunes and dr. nicole saphier. follow me own twitter on lou dobbs. we thank you for being with us through this hour. i'm lou dobbs. and good night from sussex. elizabeth: okay. this is liz liz mccdonald with "the evening edit." let's listen to the vice president address the task force for the coronavirus. >> we anticipate in the local new york area the local health care provider will make a decision whether you're transferred to the javits center. in all case look to guidance from local governors how best to receive the care that every american, every american is entitled to have.

beyond that let me say we have been working through fema's acquisition process not only to deploy but to gather up personal protective equipment. in a few moments you will hear from admiral john polcyk on the extraordinary progress we made on the strategic stockpile but identifying on the commercial marketplace around america and around the world literally millions of n95 masks, surgical gowns, gloves, protective equipment and at this point we distributed some 7600 ventilators and you will hear today specifically about the state has have received those ventilators. we're just, this team is truly acted in an inspiring way and literally is working with dozens and dozens of people at the fema stabilization task force to make sure that we are leaving no stone unturned to find the

supplies we need. today let me also say you will hear from jared kushner, senior advisor to the president of the united states but someone the white house coronavirus task force directed to work with fema on supply chain issues and in recent weeks he has been leading a working group in conjunction with fema that literally identified millions of medical supplies around the nation and around the world and we're grateful for his efforts and his leadership. finally you will hear from peter navarro who will explain the action the president took today using the defense production act. but as you hear details today about medical supplies that have been distributed, those that have been purchased, those that we're making available, ventilators distributed to hospitals, those that are available, let me remind every american every patient, doctor,

nurse, every have protective gear you want your family to have putting in practice the president's 30 days to slow the spread. we want you to take to heart the president coronavirus guidelines for america. first to protect the health of your family, protect the health much your community. so many people are asymptomatic, people literally don't know have the coronavirus but the ability to infect others. we want you to put guidelines in practice, social distancing, using a drive-through at restaurant, washing your hand on a regular basis but as we focus today on supplies make no mistake about it, every american can make sure that our health care workers and more importantly americans that are struggling with coronavirus have the equipment the equipment to support their treatment by

putting these principles into practice because fewer americans that contract the coronavirus, the fewer americans will have to enter our health care system and that will continue to preserve the capacity in our health care economy. so we thank the millions of americans who have responded in the first two days of 30 days to slow the spread and i'm just absolutely confident that in the days ahead every american is going to do their part, for your health, your family's health, the health of your community and to insure the strength and vitality of the greatest health care system in the world. with that let me introduce, jared kushner to speak about the work that he has been doing, working with fema on insuring a strong supply chain to meet this moment. jared? >> thank you, mr. vice presidentability thank

you for your leadership on the task force. when the vice president asked me to help on the task force with different tasks i asked the president what he expected from the tack force around i how i could best serve him and the task force. what the president asked all the recommendations that we make based on data. he wanted us to make sure we were rigorous studying data, collecting data. a lot of things in this country were happening very quickly. we wanted to make sure we were updating our models and make sure we were making informed decisions and informed recommendations to him based on the data we were able to collect and put together. the president wanted to make sure we had the best people doing the best jobs and making sure we had the right people focused on all the things that needed to happen to make sure we can deliver in these unusual times for the american people. the president also instructed me to make sure that i break down every barrier needed to make sure that the teams can succeed. this is an effort where the government is doing things that the government doesn't normally do. we're stretching, we're acting very quickly and the president

wants to make sure the white house is fully behind the different people running the different lines of effort to make sure that we get everything done in a speed that the president demand. the president also wanted us to make sure we wanted to think outside of the box. make sure we're finding all the best thinkers in the country, make sure we're getting best ideas and we're doing everything possible to make sure we keep americans safe and make sure we bring a quick end to this in the best way possible and balance all the different aspects that need to be thought of while we do this. this truly is a historic challenge. we have not even something like this in a very, very long time. i am very confident that by bringing innovative solutions to these hard problems we will make progress. today we are briefing the president earlier. he asked me to come out talk a little bit what we're doing on the supply chain task force which admiral polcyk is leading what he has been very impressed by, resourceful to find product all over the world, all over the

country and we are finding ways to solve different problems. the president is very hands on in this. he instructed us to leave no stone unturned. just this very early this morning i got a call from the president. he was telling me was hearing from friends in new york, that the new york public hospital system was running low on critical supply. he instructed me this morning. i called dr. katz who runs the system, asked him which supply was the most supply he was nervous about, he told me n95 masks. i asked him what sis daily burn was. called up admiral and made sure we hatted inventory, went to the president today and president called mayor de blasio to fin form him we will send a month of supply to the new york public hospital system make sure workers on front line rest assured they have the n95 masks they need to get you there next month. we'll do similar things with all the public hospitals in the hot spot zones and making sure we're constantly in communications

with the local communities. one thing i will say just based on data, we've been getting a lot of data from different governors an from different mayors and different cities. one thing we've seen fema do very well over the last week or so we're getting real time data from a lot of cities. people who have requests for different products and supply, a lot are doing it based on projections which are not realistic projections. the projections change every day as we see cases, see the i am packs of stop the spread effort that the task force recommended and president has been pushing forward. so i do think we'll see that, hopefully will be impact of that. the task force is working very hard through the fema group with admiral polcyk make schur we're getting supplies to people before they run out and make sure we're doing it the proper way. i would like to introduce admiral polcyk. coming to this, still us, vice director of logistics. i called a senator, why don't you put a great military person

in charge of the supply chain and product act, i said president already did. he joined the task force 13 days ago over at fema. he built a team really at direction ever the vice president that includes people from people marks omb, the fda, hhs, the white house, from everywhere else. what they have done over the last 13 days has been really extraordinary. we've done things that the government has never done before quicker than they ever done it before. what we're seeing now we found a lot of supplies in the country. we're distributing them where we anticipate there will be needs and make sure we are hitting places where there are needs. i can tell you the people in the task force, they're working day and night. you have a lot of people in the government. we recognize the challenge america faces right now. we know what a lot of people on front lines are facing. the fear they want to have the supplies they need and our goal is to work as hard as we can to make sure we don't let them down. i want to thank everybody. i want to introduced admiral

polcyk who is doing amazing job. >> thank you, mr. kushner, mr. vice president. today i'm going to cover a couple items, couple, five things. first thing i will talk about is resources pushed out from the federal government. then i'm going to talk about this air bridge which you may have heard about. i will talk about data. as you said we're, mr. kushner, absolutely right. we're trying to be data driven. i will talk a little bit about how we're trying to expand the industrial base here to meet this challenge. so the first thing i want to talk about is surgical masks. so we've all quickly stated numbers here. so these, i'm about to go through several different slides to give you just scale and magnitude of federal resources that have been applied at the problem.

so, 27.1 million surgical masks pushed out to state governments. for n95 masks. 19.5 million n95 masks. so if i was, if i was in a local hospital that was running short i would, i would look upward because the federal government has pushed out resources. so for protective gloves, 22.4 million, 22.4 million pairs of protective gloves. for face shields, 5.2 million face shields. for ventilators, we have pushed to the states, more than 7600 ventilators. i think as i was coming over here that number changed slightly. i think it is now 7640. given to these states, to

predominantly these states. so we wanted you to have some numbers. now as we've indicated, we have ventilators in the national stockpile. we pushed ventilators out. we're holding ventilators to put to the point of need but we're also buying ventilators. asking the industrial base who produces approximately, prior to covid, approximately 30,000 ventilators a year. we are going over the next several months, by the end of june, work to acquire 100,000. and so one of the, one of the tools that we're going to anticipate needing, we already executed is all of those vendors that we're buying them from will need potentially will need help in their supply chains with their suppliers. we might rate orders, we might

help them get ahead of others and in that endeavor. mr. navarro will talk a little bit more about that later. let me talk about the air bridge so, normally it takes approximately 37 days to get from overseas, the product, load it, get it to the united states and distribute it. that is about 37 days. so to prime the pump so to speak we have lined on an airbridge to get product here faster, working with our major suppliers, as they, as they work to fill orders to get more to health care workers now. we are working to align transportation to product. now one of the things we're also doing is the team working for me

is scouring the globe and finding pockets of personal protective equipment that might not otherwise be in the u.s. hospital supply chain. that is also going on these flights. six completed. and a number scheduled. 28 flights scheduled here in the near future. we're working towards some days we'll have one flight. some days there might be two flights, multiple flights over the next coming days. these 28 are as far as i can see out a couple weeks. then again matching product, two flights, to create volume in the supply chain here faster than the 37 days. i'm just going to leave that up as i talk about a few other items. so let's talk about new york city and the public health hospitals. i believe they're called new york city health and

hospitals. president directed, as i speak, there are pallets being formed, truck being loaded. i gave a, an address in new york city here an hour or two ago and one of our distributors is making that happen and that delivery will happen tomorrow. on the data front this is almost unprecedented. this is a commercial supply chain with six to seven major distributors of health equipment. we brought them all in. and we said we, we need to make informed decisions and we are going to help make informed allocation decisions. so within a matter of days, feeding from their business systems, their enterprise

resource like systems, i brought on board a tool, a supply chain tower that the dod was using to manage the supply chain for a very complex weapons system. their data goes into a data link. we have a tool to be able to use their data and see it. i have can tell what products is coming in, what their orders are, what they're filling, what they're not filling and see the volume in the supply chain. understand what they're doing down to the county level. we're working to get it down to potentially the hospital level. so this 200 some odd n95 respirators, we took a look in there, in the supply chain. we have the volume too to go do that. i called the distributor and they're making that happen. we anticipate as the hot spots around the country, we

anticipate these vendors at our direction helping them allocate product to the right place at the right time. so if he talk finally about expanding the industrial base, so the vice president was at walmart the other day who told him i want to get in this game, how do i do that? so i got the call. we provided them specifications and walmart is going to use their suppliers to cut fabric, make gowns, sew product. but that is not always the case. we have lots of folks that want to help. i believe you will see in the coming days the use of the defense production act in creative ways to help people that are not doing this today to do it. we have essentially leads, the number yesterday was 210. i believe it probably grew that we are working with, to find out

how each one of those might need help to get in the game, that's not in the game to increase the through-put through the health care market. the president gave me one task, get more to our health care workers now. and i took that to heart because i have, not that i don't need that from the president, that direction, to move out, but i have family in new york. my sister is a nurse practitioner in a westchester hospital. and my niece is a nurse on a long island hospital. and i have other health care professionals in the family. so i have skin in this game. the president asked me to get more to the health care workers, i will get more to health care workers. like to hand it over to mr. navarro. reporter: [inaudible] >> the 200 is going out as we speak. >> be very specific.

>> it will be delivered tomorrow. reporter: ask a question, if i want to be clear, if i can what jared announced, what the admiral just unpacked pallets are being loaded right now to send 200,000 n95 masks to new york city, to the public health hospitals. >> to the public health warehouse in new york city. >> all the health care workers, help is on the way. reporter: on the data you have available to you, where is the logjam? where has it been, how have you identified that? we have millions more ppes going out the deer. as well know the front line are not getting any? >> i answer you this way. we put up a lot of numbers. i said if you're in a hospital, you're not seeing ppi, i would look up to the state level first. reporter: they can't get medical equipment they need. reporter: the reason for that, according to governors and also,

by the fact we haven't seen any numbers up there about what is going to the private sector, can you tell us what percentage of the supplies on these large cargo planes are going to private companies versus fema, versus the state, 50%? >> so fema -- so, this product that we're move something primarily commercial product that would enter the commercial system and be distributed through financial business transactions between hospitals and these distributors. reporter: just to clarify, that explains why states say they're bidding like they're on ebay, because the supplies are going to the private sector, then they have to go there to get -- >> that is normally how things work, right? i'm not here to disrupt a supply chain. say look, these six

distributors, six to seven, they have 6 to 700 warehouses. they have trucks to go to the hospital door every day. we're bringing product in. they're filling orders for hospitals, nursing homes, like normal. i'm putting volume into that system. i would say that, we have the data now, so we put together this data element over the last, you know what, 13 days? get the people in. look at the problem. build this. i am now seeing truth about what's in the supply chain and i would say that there has been some abnormal behavior, okay? reporter: thank you, admiral. house oversight committee democrat saying fema officials told them the ventilators the government ordered won't be ready until june, which is well after the expected peak. will the defense production act

memo signed today to do anything to speed that up? >> yes it will. mr. navarro will talk about that. we're on line to receive several thousand ventilators in the month ever april. several thousand more ventilators into the month of may, ramming up to a big number. again going from a industry producing 30,000 annual, to a very big number. reporter: admiral, are you confident that the states with the greatest need are getting supply? >> yes. reporter: a lot of are saying they can't get what they need and different states have more and more pressing urgency, depending on the caseload. >> we marry up, we're marrying up where cdc, where the demand for covid is to what's in the commercial system. we're, we're providing that to the, to the commercial system around we are making allocations to those most pressing need.

13 days, we now have the data. we now can make informed decisions and so all of the, i need, i need, i need, i now know the volume that has been happening and needs to be happening. reporter: so admiral, with that, mr. president love for you to weigh in on the numbers as well, you talk about, alluded to the fact there is possibly some shady business going on, that the product is here in the united states. >> and coming here. reporter: coming here. coming from china, warehouse, being made in the nights. it is in warehouses but it is going to highest bidder. what can be done to keep those products here in the united states, not go overseas where companies are making a lot of money and -- >> i will let mr. navarro talk about that. reporter: i would love to hear, how is that being done?

doctors i -- >> great question. let me give you a bigger view of the dta and we'll directly address that. what we have essentially a nation at war. we have a wartime president standing behind me. the defense production act is one of the most powerful weapons this administration can use to fight the invisible enemy of the virus. when i spoke with you last week i explained the three points of the compass dpa can be used to hit. the first one is mobilization of the industrial base. this can involve things like repurposing from distiller like per -- per note card from liquor to. with respect to the second point of the compass, allocation of resources we have two issues there if you look at the manufacturer itself, what you want to make sure is that the

supply chain which can do seven tiers deep has enough components in the supply chain so we can make what we need, and once it's made you want to make sure it goes to the right people. then the third point of the compass which addresses what you're talking about, is basically bus them, i call it, hoarding of critical or threatened materials. let me walk through what the president did today in terms after strong action, what we've done, dpa across those three points. the first order president trump signed was vigorous, swift, was the gm order which directed gm to make ventilators in kokomo, indiana in trump time, which is to say as fast as possible. as the president mentioned he spoke to mary barra today, the ceo of gm. that is moving forward. at the same time as the ford project is moving forward in rossenville, michigan. i issued a challenge to the two

companies a la "ford v. ferrari," ford versus gm, we'll see who guests ventilators out first. the resource issues, the ventilator companies themselves expressed concern in this rush to build ventilators there would be pressure on that supply chain. so what they requested that we do and the president do is to use the dpa to give this gentleman here, one of the strongest gentlemen in the world in terms of applying things, give him the ability to prioritize that supply chain for those ventilator manufacturers and he will do things like give them what's called the do rating in the defense procurement which will allow them to get what they need. the second order which the president signed today has to do with the other part of the equation which is once they make the stuff, okay, does it go to

the right folks and this is a 3m order. to be frank, over the last several days we have had some issues making sure all the production that 3m does around the world, enough of it is coming back here to the right places. so what's going to happen with the signing of that order, in trump time we'll resolve that issue with 3m, probably by tomorrow close of business because we can't afford to lose days or hours even, minutes in this crisis. now the third part of the compass, third point there, this gets to the hoarding issue. the president stood up here with, he is the commander-in-chief but we have a sheriff in town too, attorney general barr. he stood up here with attorney general barr and, bill barr said i will go out and bust them. guess what, three days ago, doj went into a warehouse in jersey, grabbed ppe and the beauty of

that, the beauty of that, it wasn't only seized but within hours it was turned around and given to health care professionals in new york and new jersey. that is a beautiful thing. that is a beautiful case of using the dpa now, what is going to happen tomorrow is president's going to sign another order which is in the works. this is interesting. there is a black market springing up which you have described where we're having people bid against each other, brokers come in, they're bidding and bidding on all this different ppe, driving the price up. guess what? you know where it's going? the domestic sources here are being exported. when president trump heard about that, he said, that is not going to happen anymore under my watch. so tomorrow we're bringing that order, what it is going to do, it will empower customs and border protection with help of people like the post office, express mail consigners like

ups, to basically deal with that issue. so we are going to crack down unmercifully, i would say to the hoarders out there and brokers trying to make money off the misery of people in this country, around the world, that has got to stop. you have got inventory, what you need to do is pick up a phone and not call somebody out in, around the world. you call fema and say we got some stuff. we'll give it to you at a fair price and be done with that. that stuff is absolutely got to stop. hang on. so that's what we're going to be looking for. when we hear cases like this, we're going to aggressively issue order after order to crack down on it. now before, this is not my role to take a bunch of questions but let me tell you one other thing before i leave the podium, it is a story which i would love to share with you today, because this again illustrates one of the key principles of this president and this vice president which is to wed the full force of the federal government with the full power

of private enterprise. two days ago, we at the white house got an urgent sos from the chief of police of the new york police department. and they are in a situation now because of the strain on their resources where personnel such as homicide detectives were having to go into houses and deal with covid issues, without protective gear. now the beauty of this president is, because of his leadership, we were able to solve that problem in two phone calls, two phone calls. the first one went to phoebe at general dynamics. phoebe, can you call tom kennedy at raytheon, basically scoop up all the tyvek suits you can and find any gloves you can. this president under that his leadership and voluntary efforts, pride and patriotism we talked about it earlier, that

which had 4,000 tyvek suits delivered to the nypd within 16 hours. that is a new record in trump time. at the same time a second phone call was made to tara engle at pernod ricard, and laura lane at ups. i got this issue. we need hand sanitizer. literally within two hours we had 50-gallon drums, 6,000 gallons of hand sanitizer on a ups truck heading up to the nypd. probably arrived today with a promise from pernod that they will continue to supply the nypd throughout the course of this crisis. so this is a beautiful thing that america is rallying. we are becoming a more stronger, united nation. i couldn't be more proud of this president, this administration. these guys up here r doing a heck of a job organizing the supply chain. my promise to you is that the

president is going to use that dpa to make sure that the american people, particularly our health care professionals get the ppe they need. let me stop there i don't think it is my place to field questions. >> you do a good job. reporter: defying a an executive order? >> go ahead, you answer. come here. >> one much the, one much the things that this crisis has taught us, sir, is that we are dangerously overdependent on a global supply chain for our medicines, like penicillin, our medical supplies like masks and our medical equipment like ventilators. we have right now, as we speak, over 50 countries have already imposed some forms of export restrictions in their country against the rest of the world.

and what we're learning from that is that no matter how many treaties you have, no matter how many alliances, no matter how many phone calls, when push comes to shove, you run the risk as a nation of not having what you need. if there is any vindication of the president's buy american, secure borders, and a strong manufacturing base philosophy, strategy and belief, it is this crisis because it underscores everything that we see there. so the buy american order which is going through process, would do a couple things. it would simply say, not during this crisis because we don't want to disrupt anything, i want to be really clear about that, but going forward, after this is over, va, dod, hhs, this government buys american for essential medicines. our medical counter measures and medical supplies and equipment we need. at the same time it will

deregulate so we can get the fda and the epa to facilitate dote domestic manufacturing and innovate. because the key here, the key here, is having advanced manufacturing on u.s. soil that can leapfrog other countries so we don't have to worry about competing against cheap sweatshop labor, lax environmental regulations, different tax regimes and the massive subsidies of foreign governments who are actually directly attacking our industrial base. so be patient with that, sir. it, the other priorities we have right now are the dpa and what the task force is doing but if we learn anything from this crisis it should be never again. never again should we have to depend on the rest of the world for our essential medicines and countermeasures. >> by the way we cut them out also, to be honest. we stopped orders going from

certain places. in a couple of places like, we had a big order going to italy on a important outfits and, some ventilators, it was going to italy. they made the order a long time ago. and i said you got to let it go. they had an order. i could have cut it under the act, i could have cut it. i said nope, can't do that, got to let it go. they have big problems. we had an order going to spain. i said let it go. i could have stopped it. i said let it go we'll be fine. i said let it go it works that way also. one other thing as to your question, off then times and we told this to the governors, mike we've been very strong on this, have, if you think there is bidding between federal government and state, let us know and we'll drop out immediately. or you drop out and we lower the price. reporter: bidding against each other? >> if we're bidding against each other, i said find out who it is. usually they know. everyone knows. we're notified and we get notified, we're either drop out or they will drop out but have

another problem. there are 151 countries out there beyond the states. there are 151 countries that have this problem. and they're ordering too. it is really a mess. now in a little while the hardest thing to get are the ventilators because they're, takes a while to build them. we have a lot, we have thousands of them being built right now. in a little while, they will be worth about $5. right now they're very valuable. we'll have a lot of them being shipped. in fact that is why general motors called up before mary, others called up two days ago, they called up they're all in production. and they are starting to arrive in a week 1/2 but there will be a time when we're going to build stockpiles. by the way, the states should have been building their stockpiles. we have almost 10,000 in our stockpile. we've been building them. we've been supplying but the states should be building. we're a backup. we're not ordering clerk. we're a backup. we have done an unbelievable

job. like for instance, whoever heard of a governor calling up, sir, can you build us a hospital of 2500 rooms? we built it. can you build us four medical centers? we built it. can you deliver a ship, a hospital ship with 1000 rooms? and we did it, and we did it in los angeles too. we've been an unbelieve -- we have done an unbelievable job, these people. and thousands of people behind them. but we're a backup. ideal those hospitals would have had all this equipment. ideally those states should have had all the equipment. i think they will the next time. you heard the case where thousands of ventilators could have been had at a very inexpensive price three years ago and a certain state decided not to exercise their right because they wanted to build a road or they wanted to build something else because there is big money. talking about i think it was a billion dollars. talking about a lot of money for something that may never happen. normally on a ventilator, other than a pandemic or an epidemic

you wouldn't, you wouldn't need anything like this. hospitals have three ventilators, big hospitals. they get by with it. now they want thousands. i mean they want thousands of ventilators. you call up a governor, they say, sir, could you send us 40,000 ventilators. nobody ever heard of a thing like this. they have done some job. let me just tell you when secretary mnuchin spoke they want you to call not dot-com but sba.gov, okay for the application and for information. okay? it is sba, small business, sba.gov. okay? if you don't mind. yeah, let's go, please. reporter: thank you, sir, thank you, mr. president. i want to follow up from a question yesterday regarding your administration's denial of the expansion of the obamacare special enrollment period. in the wake of this pandemic, gave a five minute non-answer,

people facing expert and illness, most experts say having health care is critical to our nation's health and financial well being. can you assure americans tonight you will reopen obama care, so many can be covered in the time of -- >> we're doing better than that. i understand the question. we're doing better than that we're going to try to get a cash payment to the people. we're working out the mechanic anything of that with legislatures. so we're going to try to get them a cash payment, just opening it up doesn't help as much we'll work it out and try to get for that certain group of people. it is a certain group of people, a cash payment. go ahead. reporter: i really want to ask you about masks but follow up on a couple of -- [inaudible]. question earlier about bidding. what happens when states are bidding against each other? >> they have that. they have to work that out. what they should have been doing long pandemic before the should

have been on open market, buying at a great price. the states have to stock up. like one of those things. they waited. they didn't want to spend the money. they thought this would never happen. their shelves in some cases were bare. in some cases they weren't. they were beautifully serviced they did a good job but in some cases their shelves were bare. the best thing they can do, times become normalized, hopefully soon, you will actually have a lot of excess material because so much is being done right now in terms of protective gear, protective outfits, a lot is being done. it will be within six months, it will be sold for the right price. stock up for the next time. but we are doing that. the admiral has done a fantastic job. senator schumer wrote a letter today, he said you should put a military man in charge. chuck, if you knew a little bit more, we have one of the most highly respected people in the military, the admiral. this is what he does, very

professionally. and i is in charge but chuck didn't know that. reporter: mr. president you tweeted this morn about your call with saudi arabia and mbs. we have had some people say that the figures that you cited between 10 million and 15 million barrels per day is not what they're agreeing to. can you be more specific -- >> i don't know what they're agreeing to. i think they might agree to more than that. look -- reporter: sir? >> yeah. we did say that actually. russia, talked about 10 million barrels. russia and saudi arabia are fighting over this and as everybody knows it's, you know really killing an industry, hurting russia badly, hurting saudi arabia badly. i said this is an easy one, it should be an easy one and it may be 10 and it may be more than that i was actually told it may be 10 as i told somebody before, it may be 10 and it may be more than that.

maybe it is 15. maybe it goes up to 15. could be as high as 15. you know, there is a tremendous oversupply right now. that industry was it was oversupplied before the virus. when the virus came along, they lost 35, 40% of the world. and there is unbelievable, you can't get a ship now. every ship is loaded to the gills sitting out someplace in the ocean. they are storage tanks, they're not even ships. they are storage tanks t would be great for russia. it would be great for saudi arabia. i hope they make that deal. that is what they told me -- i think it will be hopefully soon. hopefully they will announce something soon. can a deal be broken? can something happen where it doesn't happen? i guess, in which case there is another alternative but i would rather not see the other alternative. i think they can make a deal. i think they both want to make a deal and they're both smart. they love their countries. they want to make a deal. it is good but also good for the

world if you do because you save an industry. yeah, please. go ahead. in the back. reporter: what do you mean by cash payments. >> i will let mike, because we went over this very specifically. i will let you talk about it, mike, because you responded last time. >> thank you, mr. president. as i said yesterday the president's put a priority on insuring, no american has to worry about the cost of coronavirus testing and we've been working every day to make sure americans don't have to worry about the cost of treatment. and at this point the white house coronavirus tack force is working on a proposal for the president to use some $100 billion we're making available to hospitals, to compensate the hospitals directly for any coronavirus treatment that they provide to uninsured americans. working out the details of that. the president will make a final decision tomorrow. we expect announcement but the president's made it very clear, we don't want any american to

worry about the cost of getting a test, or the cost of getting treatment. and, we've expanded coverage through medicaid. we expanded coverage through medicare. health insurance companies around the country including blue cross just today announced that all of their members will be waving all co-payments on coronavirus treatment. before there was some 30 odd million uninsured americans, the president has directed coronavirus task force to find a way to make sure that they know we will find a way to pay for your coronavirus treatment and president will be addressing that and announcing that tomorrow. reporter: point of clarification and then a follow-up question. yesterday you said you spoke to florida governor ron desantis before he issued his stay-at-home order. did you advise him to issue that order? >> no. but i talked to him about it and he wants toe do what's right for the people of florida. he has been a great governor.

you could see that just by his popularity which is extraordinary. we're proud of him. he has done a fantastic job. he made the decision. but we spoke before he made the decision, yes. reporter: you also said that he is considering putting people who are suspected of having coronavirus or who tested positive for it in isolation centers. >> that i haven't heard, no. reporter: he hasn't consulted with you? >> no, i haven't heard. reporter: thank you, mr. president, ebony baumann much "the new york post." few hours ago, de blasio new yorkers are wear leaving their house should wear masks and wear masks with people. are you considering a recommendation like that on federal level and how would you handle a rush of n95 masks? >> i think they will come out with regulations on masks, if people want to abide by them i frankly don't think they will be mandatory, but people don't want to do that. as an example on the masks, if people wanted to wear them they

can. if people wanted to use scarves which they have, many people have them they can. in many cases the scarf is better, it is thicker. i mean you can, depending on the material it is thicker but they can do that if they want. now recommendations coming out we'll see what that recommendation is but i will say this, they can pretty much decide for themselves right now. reporter: nationwide. >> nationwide. reporter: nationwide not just -- this question for dr. birx, we heard differing guidance here, w.h.o., not even the surgeon general talked about various studies that masks maybe not even being helpful may protecting people may increase rates illness, people touch masks an touch themselves. >> sure. reporter: can you talk -- >> dr. birx, you might mention the other point also. >> thank you. so i hope you got from the conference today we're triangulating data that we know

from the case numbers, the testing numbers, the supply chain numbers, to create an integrated picture so that we can really support hospitals in their needs, and i think that level of grand -- granularity is really critical. i want to make the point that we really applaud the governors looking at a whole of state, a whole of metro approach and what do i mean by that? the united states going into this had about 160,000 ventilators across the united states and another 60 to 70,000 anesthesia machines. that is five times what most of the european countries have. but it a distribution need. i applaud the governors bringing together public hospitals with more private hospitals and visibility across their state. because what we tried to talk about yesterday is every state, every county is different.

that is why we're looking at it at that level of granularity. as we move through this epidemic the needs need to be very tailored to those counties and frankly those hospitals. i mean there is a reason why the president and mr. kushner have been very much involved in finding out what the public hospitals need. why is that? because the public hospitals sometimes have the weakest supply chain because they're often sometimes not as attractive to private sector distributors or they may be too busy caring the needs for patients and on top much their order forms and supply chains. listening to the community at the front of this fight, and getting feedback from those specific communities, no matter where they are, and listening to the front line health care workers, because it is their reality that is important to all of us, whether you're the mayor or the governor or the federal government. and if they're saying they need

something, we have to work together to supply that. so that is what you're seeing with this triangulation. every county will move through this differently. that allows us to move around vital issues that protect front line health care workers and protect the patients through the ventilators to make sure the supply chain is aligned about the need as it happens. now you have to have very good data in order to be willing to work in that level of granularity. that is what we're working on to develop that level of granularity to insure that. so i wanted to say one other thing about testing. just to give you the bottom line data of what we're seeing. we appreciate the groups who are reporting. not everyone is reporting yet. and this is part of us trying to understand at a very granular level. we do have two states that do have 35% positives and that is new york and new jersey. sew that confirms very clearly

that is very important and clear hot zone. louisiana though, has 26% of their tests are positive. michigan, connecticut, indian narcs georgia, illinois, that should tell you where the next hot spots are coming are at 15 test positive. colorado, d.c., rhode island, massachusetts are at 13%. there is a significant number of states still under 10%. everyone that i didn't discuss. california an and washington remain steady at 8% rate. what we're seeing finally testing improving, more testing being done. still a high level of negatives of states without hot spots. allowing them to do more of the surveillance and containment. then prioritizing this new rapid test kit to those areas that may not have the same amount of access to the indian health services and to the public health institutions and public health and state labs so they

can use that and start forward leaning into surveillance. we know there are people waiting for tests and they're waiting for tests because when these areas became very, when they got on to the logarithmic curve, we prioritized people whose decisions, where the test decision would make it critical for their care. so we prioritized hospitals and we prioritized nurses and doctors and front line workers. so that means if you went through a drive-through or you went through your doctor, you could have that delay. so the masks, so what i tried to give you is how we're using data in a very granular way. and so there is experiencal data, when you look at communities often times utilized masks in general for personal protection from, when they particularly themselves sick and have used their mask in public. we have looked at the rate of

this covid-19 in those populations and we're looking at the scientific evidence to bring those two pieces together. let me just say one thing though, the most important thing is social distancing and washing your hands. we don't want people to get an artificial sense of protection because they're behind a mask. because if they're touching things, remember your eyes are not in the mask. so if you're touching things and then touching your eyes you're exposing yourself in the same way. so we don't want people to feel like i'm wearing a mask, i'm protected and i'm protecting others. you may be protecting others but don't get a false sense of security that that mask is protecting you exclusively from getting infected because there are other ways that you can get infected because the number of asymptomatic and mild cases that are out there. so this worries us. that is why the debate is continuing about the masks because we don't want, when we're trying to send a signal

that every single person in this country needs to stay six feet away from everybody, that means to be washing their hand constantly and know where their hands are, to send a signal we think a mask is equivalent to those pieces. so, when the advisory comes out it will be an additive piece if it comes out rather than saying this is a substitute for. we want to make sure everybody understands it is not a substitute for the presidential guidelines that have already gone out and to be absolutely clear about that. reporter: dr. birx, there is a lot of evidence we're seeing, experts are saying high number of these tests could be producing false negatives so -- >> of roche and abbott tests? reporter: many as one in three tests could be providing false-negatives is. >> that would be almost be impossible with having 35%

positive. if that was true, you would have 100% positive or 66% positive. so what i can tell you is that the number of positive tests is tracking very closely with the number of cases diagnosed. so i don't, i will look into that. i look at the roche and abbott numbers every night. they're trending exactly in the same way. that is important when you're valet -- validating data, does this same site -- i'm looking between testing sites, to see are there consistencies? is there anomaly, to make sure for what you very specifically asked. so i will go back and look at it more carefully. i haven't seen that kind of an anomaly. this is the same platform that is being used across the country and that is a range from what i reported% positivity up to 35% positivity. that range reflects also what we're seeing with the hot spots

and number of cases. frankly, we hate to talk about but it tracks with hospitalizations independent of diagnosis and mortality that we're seeing. all of those pieces validate the -- reporter: people might be getting a false sense of security or we might not see all the data here? >> i tell you i'm still missing 50% of the data from reporting. i have 660 tests reported in. we've done 1.3 million. so there is, it could be those sites. so we do need to see the bill said you need to report. we're still not receiving 100% of the tests. reporter: dr. birx, with regard to the test, president's sample test took one minute. report took 15 minutes. i realize you're the president of the united states. when will everyone get to take a test that works that quickly and you get results that quickly? >> so these are new tests and we

have prioritized groups we think have least access to testing right now? what do we mean by that? indian health service, they're often in remote areas, rural areas. governors of the northwestern states, that may not have the advantage of these high through-put machines often across the east coast and high metro areas, colorado and across the west coast. so we prioritized the presidential, 15 minute test to the indian health services and public health labs so they can support nursing home testing and other areas where we think surveillance is absolutely key. so at this moment they're prioritized in that way. reporter: [inaudible] >> 1200 of them are going out that way. reporter: more tests need to be made in order for -- >> they are being made. reporter: so in -- >> they're moving very quickly. >> i'm glad you asked that, because today, there is 18,000 of these machines. already out there. we're trying to find out exactly

where everyone is, because you can see that gives you amazing flexibility because if people would allow it to be loaned to a state that is in a hot spot or a state where you want to do additional surveillance, 18,000 tests, 18,000 machines is a huge amount, it really gets to your very question about how we can prioritize what we have at the same time we're moving out what is new. so really figuring out who should those go to, who can we ask communities. because these will be in the community, to share those machines into the community who need the testing now and i think that's really an incredible question that really needs to be answered over the next 24 hours. reporter: dr. birx, point of clarity about the states covering guidance, it is still a point of debate, use the phrase, guidance if it comes out. is the guidance coming out? >> yes. reporter: when, sir? >> in the days ahead we're

working currently with the task force seeking consultation advice, cdc, our top health experts. we're bringing forward the guidance from the cdc in the next several days. >> just remember, it is not a substitute for. everything we're asking people to do. just to everybody out there across the country, when we say no gatherings of 10, worry looking at we wanted to be clear, if you have a family of 10, we don't want you to be split up but we don't expect people to be having dinner parties, cocktail parties. i mean i know you've seen the slope in the united states versus the slope in italy and we have to change that slope. we have to change the logarithmic curve that we're on. we see country after country having done that. what it means in the united states is not everyone is doing it. so we're only as strong as every

community, every county, every state, every american following the guidelines to a t and i can tell by the curve and as it is today, that not every american is following it. and so this is really a call to action. we see spain, we see italy, we see france, we see germany, and we see others beginning to bend their curves. we can bend ours but it means everybody has to take that same responsibility as americans. reporter: mr. president, can i have a quick follow-up on oil please? in your conversations with russia, saudi arabia did you have to make any concessions to agree to get them to cut their production? did you agree to cut u.s. production of oil? >> no, we didn't discuss that they want toe do that. that is good for their countries. we did not discuss that. reporter: nbc learned that the

navy is firing the captain of the uss theodore roosevelt. elizabeth: thank thank you for watching. that does it for us. you're watching "the evening edit." we'll be back on the story tomorrow night. have a good evening