we will take our leave. we thank you for being with us. dr. marc siegel, kt mcfarland among our guests here tomorrow. we hope you will join us. we'll see you then. good night from sussex. ♪. >> that may be something we need to go back to congress to get additional funding for? reporter: airplane or airline bill at all? >> completely different situation. what you have with the airlines is, we had a very, very good airline industry because of the virus. they basically shut down. we have a situation now with the oil business, partially because of the virus. okay for less demand. partially also because of too much supply. you know the president is determined, we want to maintain our energy independence. and the president has asked me to look at all of our options and what we're doing that. obviously it is pretty extraordinary situation where you saw the front month of oil

futures trade negative. reporter: hi. on the issue of the fourth stimulus bill and aid to state and low -- local governments any thought to proportionate for -- >> way too early to consider that. waver we do we'll do on bipartisan basis. the president has listened to the governors. i have had the opportunity to be on multiple videoconference calls with the president and vice president. we're reaching out to a lot of people. there is a lot of states that have been impacted but way too early to figure out that level of design. reporter: you mentioned a large company applies for one of these loans and they manipulate or works the system or works the loopholes to get it. what are some of the consequences to the large company trying to get one of these ppp loans? what can you do? >> you use the word manipulate. i will give people the benefit of the doubt. we'll put up very clear guidance so that people understand what the certification is, what it means if you're a big company.

again, there is a provision for, you know, where there are multiple affiliates that people can access this, but the intent was not for companies that have access to plenty of liquidity and other sources. to the extent these companies didn't understand this and they repaid the loans that will be okay. if not, there will be potentially other consequences. reporter: can you talk about what the consequences could be? >> you can look at the certification. they're quite significant. reporter: estimate how many jobs have been saved with all the money going out on ppp so far? >> the ppp so far is over 30 million jobs. that doesn't account for other money we sent out. again we're very pleased. direct deposits have gone out. we started sending out the checks. we're also going to be supplementing our capability and sending prepaid debit cards to get money out quickly to people. so everything that the president has had us working on is

providing significant stability, in the economy, while we're dealing with this difficult time for medical reasons we closed down major parts of the economy. thank you very much. >> thank you, steve. see you later. that was a nice question actually, a good question too. so the noble fight against the invisible enemy is inflicted a steep toll on the american workforce as we all know. millions of americans sacrificed their jobs in order to battle the virus and save the lives of our fellow citizens. we have a solemn duty to insure these unemployed americans regain their jobs and livelihoods. they're h -- they're in order to protoke american workers i will issue a temporary suspension of immigration into the united states. you heard that last night. by stopping immigration, unemployed americans first in line for jobs as america reopens, so important.

it would be wrong and unjust for americans laid off by the virus to be replaced with new immigrant labor flown in from abroad. we must first take care of the american worker, take care of the american worker. this pause will be in effect for 60 days. after which the need for any extension or modification will be evaluated by myself and a group of people based on economic conditions at the time. this order will only apply to individuals seeking a permanent residency. in other words, those receiving green cards. big factor, will not apply to those entering on temporary bases is as we move forward we'll move, examine what additional immigration-related measures should be put in place to protect u.s. workers. we want to protect our u.s. workers. as we move forward we will become more and more protective

of them. this pause on new immigration will also help to conserve vital medical resources for american citizens a short break from new immigration, depending on the time we're talking about, will protect the solvency of our health care system and provide relief to jobless americans. today vice president pence visited the hard-working men and women of general look trick health care in madison, wisconsin. we're working three shifts a today to quadruple their production of ventilators. we're way ahead of schedule on ventilators as you know. that is why it is never brought up by the media. they don't like to bring things up when we're doing so well. ge is working with ford to make 50,000 ventilators in the next 100 days. more than our entire country typically produces in a very long period of time. doing that in a matter of few weeks, and a few days.

earlier today i had a very productive meeting with governor cuomo as you probably saw to discuss his statewide testing strategy and how we can work together to help expand it, with the goal of doubling testing in the next few weeks. and, new york state will be continuing to control the testing of their citizens and will also manage the state and local laboratories. they have a lot of great lob tories there, more than anybody would have ever known, frankly. the federal government will work along with the state on national manufacturers and distributors. together we'll all work together to help them secure additional tests. we hope this model will work with the other states as well. i think it will for the most part. new york has a lot of very exceptional laboratories but most of the states do. you saw the chart yesterday. most of the states do. i'm proud of the relationship my

administration has forged with new york and, i can say very honestly with new york state and new york city, they have been terrific to work with. new york metropolitan area has been the epicenter of the outbreak here in america and the federal government has spared no expense or resource to get new yorkers the care they need and the care they deserve. we've sent over five million masks. five million masks and now that number has of about two days from now will be more than doubled. thousands of ventilators, in fact so many ventilators that the governor will be sending up some to, to massachusetts and a couple of other locations. we have a great deal of ventilators which people thought would be impossible about a month ago. thousands of hospital beds and the usns comfort was sent, as you know to new york and it was

originally for more of a normal medical purpose and we changed it over so that it could take care of people that had the unfortunate circumstance of going through the problem that we, that we know so well. unfortunately that we know so well. i said from the beginning that no american who needs a ventilator would be denied a ventilator and we have kept that promise, all over the united states. think of that. other countries are desperate for ventilators. they have many deaths because they don't have a ventilator. i asked andrew if we could bring the comfort back to its base in virginia so we could have it for other locations and he said we would be able to do that. javits center has been a great help to them but we'll be bringing the ship back at the earliest time and we'll get it ready for its next mission, which will, i'm sure will be a

very important one also but it was an honor. they reconverted it after it got there into handling an event they were not expecting to be handling. the fda is now authorized more than 50 diagnostic tests including as of late last night the first test that a patient can take home. it can take it at whom and that's highly accurate. lab corps intend to make the home collection kits available to consumers in most states with a doctor's order in the coming weeks. we also have four different antibody tests already authorized. the tests will help identify individuals who can donate convalescent plasma, providing potentially life-saving antibodies to american patients. dr. hahn will be providing you with an update on these developments in a few moments.

he has done a great job at the fda. we continue to gain ground in the war against the unseen enemy and i see light at the end of the tunnel. i actually see a lot of light at the end of the tunnel and we're starting the process. we're starting a very, very powerful important process. you see people are getting very anxious. they are wanting to get going, they want to get back to their jobs. they want to make money. they want to take care of their families. the light is getting brighter and brighter every day. with that if i could i will ask dr. birx to come up and then dr. hahn. thank you very much. >> thank you, mr. president. so looking at all of the information across the united states we do see improvement across all the large metros. i know you know that we've been talking about the new york metro area, new york city, rhode island, connecticut, long island

and really we do start to see improvement there and we see improvement even now in rhode island and connecticut. the detroit metro is doing quite well with significant declines now. new orleans is nearly back to their baseline of where they started for new infections. we also are seeing improvements in chicago and boston and that has been a great concern for us over the last several weeks. they appear now to be flattening. both also philadelphia and houston, atlanta, nashville, baltimore, indianapolis and sanity louis also appear to be flattening. the d.c. metro area we don't see a decline yet. i hope all of you are still social distancing, doing everything that you can. i want to remind everybody of two points. when we brought up and the president put out the guidelines for opening up america again it was very clear to use data and

to really work together to mitigate against any resurgence and also critically to protect the vulnerable and what we're seeing across rule america and some of the smaller population states is we're still seeing outbreaks in long-term care facilities. we asked everyone in phase one to make sure that they continued their social distancing in public, to insure that the vulnerable with comorbidities and other conditions and among the elderly were staying at home, making sure we're still providing service to them but as individual americans, as we begin to open up, we also made it very clear that individual americans need to continue all of their hygiene pieces, insuring social distancing, washing hands, not touching their face and making sure we're not bringing the virus home to vulnerable individuals within the household and remember those were to continue through all three phases.

i really want to call people's attention again to the guidelines. we are continuing to see outbreaks in nursing homes and in confined spaces and i think as americans we want to stop that and we have the ability to do that by really paying attention to the guidelines that were to be in all three three phases. so i'm calling on the states again to note that informed community and knowledgeable community is a protected community. make sure all of your states have cases up visible to the communities and they can make decisions and understand where the virus is in their community and understand how to tackle it with their state and local governments. this will be absolutely critical and the surveillance that we called for to find asymptomatic before people get sick, as a early warning signal, we asked for those to be in the federal clinics in inner-city more vulnerable areas, among indigenous populations and of

course in our long-term care facilities an prisons. we want to support states and local governments to move forward on this critical monitoring to protect individuals that may be in the most critically vulnerable states. we will continue to see mortality and death among our americans citizens, particularly in the citizens as they move past peak because deaths will lag. we really need to continue to unite and really, really, really support our health care providers who are still on the front lines. they have been on the front lines now for weeks and weeks and weeks. so no matter what city they are in, they have not seen the relief we talked about the end of the tunnel because of the delay in hospitalizations and deaths. so to our health care providers, to our respiratory therapists and everyone in the labs thank you for the work you're doing to protect americans and give us one of the lowest mortality rates in the entire world.

thank you. >> thank you very much. >> thank you, mr. president, and i just want to echo what dr. birx said just a few short months ago. i was one of those doctors on the front lines and i know how terrific they're working and how well they're doing for the american people and a shout-out to them for the wonderful work that they do every day. so president trump asked the fda to remove all unnecessary barriers that were in place to help with the development of both diagnostics and therapeutics and we have done that i'm here to give you an update on fda efforts arounder is logic tests which as you know are antibody tests. they the someone might response in response to infection in this case covid-19. these are not diagnostic tests but detect the antibody. an indication one has had the infection and responded. i think it is important for everyone to understand the timing of the response of the antibody to the infection isn't

completely known but we know that it takes some time to actually develop that and there is two types of antibody responses that can be detected. and the antibody tests are just one piece of the larger response that heard in america returning to work plan that the president has, with tests have developed and this pan dim mick is truly unprecedented in nature and you will see reports and the world of different antibody tests that have been used and i think that is a reflection of the fact that we're just learning and beginning to understand what that response looks like and many of these tests have different characteristics to allow detection at different points in the infection. i want to talk about one issue we're laser focused on in the fda. in an effort to provide laboratories and health care providers early access to test we issued a policy early in march allowed test developers opportunity to quickly get tests to market and address the needs

of the nation posed by epidemic n march we provided this regulatory ability from manufacturers here and here is what they required of them. the manufacturers had to validate their tests. they had to notify fda they had proformed that validation and they had to label their products appropriately in the packet insert with information about the validation as well as the fact it is not a diagnostic test. it is an antibody test. and the bottom line here fda still expects manufacturers and test developers to validate their antibody tests even under this revised policy. now we've done a couple of things to actually help end-users to help laboratories providers, et cetera, states, in terms of that are use of these antibody test. one is that we're working with cdc and nci to actually validate some more than 90 manufacturers who know thefied us that they brought tests to market to do independent validation and that process is going.

we expect to hear more information this week about that. we will provide that information in a transparent manner. we also want to go after anyone who is saying that the test has been authorized or has been approved by the fda but actually hasn't. we've authorized four applications for antibody tests and 140 test developers are pursuing applications for us as we speak. so it's not okay for someone to say a test is authorized or approved by fda when it hasn't and we are pursuing them both by direct contact with the manufacturers but also at the border. and so we have increased these interdiction efforts and we will continue out reach and do that with the manufacturers to make sure we provide the most up to date information to the end user of these products. we will continue to make all of our efforts both on diagnostics and therapeutics to help america open up again. thank you, mr. president. >> thank you. reporter: dr. hahn?

dr. hahn, speaking of 140 different developers, more than 90 manufacturers. how many of tests actually work? >> as i mentioned 90 come forward marketing in the u.s., they are required by us to have self-validation and they're required to label that appropriately in the package insert. they also said what we're doing we're working with folks around the country but here at home, u.s. government with the nci and cdc to validate some of those tests that have come forward to us. we're actually doing independent validation. reporter: what have you found so far? >> we don't have the results yet. i expect to have more results this week but we'll be transparent about the results because i think it is very important. your question is superb if someone wants to use a test that's come to market really important to read the information that's in the package insert but often in some of those cases it is also important for the independent labs to do the validation also. you may have seen reports in the press of labs around the country that have done that we have reached out to them, many

academics and we'll be including that in information in the information we generate as well to provide to the american people. reporter: while we have you here, there is a study out of the va on hydroxychlorquine found higher mortality rate compared to those who got standard of care. this isn't a large-scale clinical trial since this drug is out there, people are using it, can you give takeaways from that study? does that change your thinking at all on hydroxychlorquine. >> this study is small retrospective study at dva. similar to the data with the french study this is something a doctor would need to consider as part of a reaching a decision to write a prescription from hydroxychlorquine. as i mentioned mentioned in thim and other venues before, what fda will require data from clinical trials, randomized clinical trials, hydroxychlorquine, pa plebe --

placebo. doctors i want do ask them to incorporate the data as we have it come forward it is not definitive data doesn't help us make a decision from regulatory point of view but doctors shut import that on decision making on one-on-one basis. reporter: timeline on clinical trials and getting a read out of that data. >> the good news they with have over 30 clinical trials. the settings are very different. they're in the outpatient setting and also the inpatient setting and what we call the postexposure prophylaxis. if you're a health care worker front line provider, take the drug for period of time, see if you can prevent the development of illness related to the virus. all those trials are in progress. it will be probably early summer before we get a read out? reporter: mr. president, can i follow up? >> in addition to the tests we are have, we have tested more people than anybody anywhere in the world by far, by very far. reporter: mr. president, did. >> did you have a question? reporter: you wanted to follow

up on hydroxychlorquine, wonder if you're concerned this va study showed that actually more people died that used the drug that didn't, i am wondering if governor cuomo brought you back any results from -- >> no, we didn't discuss it. i don't know of the report. obviously there have been some very good reports and perhaps this one is not a good report but we'll be looking at it. whoo he will have comment on it. reporter: panel. expert as nih is now recommending against the use of hydroxychlorquine in combination with zpack which is something you recommended? >> always willing to take a look. reporter: on subject, signing executive order, when do you plan to do that? >> the executive order will be, it is being written now as we speak. probably tomorrow sometime. reporter: will it have exemptions in there for -- >> will have certain exemptions because you will need certain exemptions we'll notify you tomorrow. we'll sign it most likely tomorrow being drawn now and tonight and is something we have

to have. reporter: people say it doesn't track with opening up country to shut down immigration across the board for companies that, and the pipeline that is already in place. what do you say to that? >> i think it really does. i think it is very strong obviously. it is countrywide as opposed specifically like china or some of the other ones that i have shut down. we're going to see, you will see a very accurate definition tomorrow after it is completed by the attorneys. reporter: last one for me. north korea, what do you, what can you tell us about the status of kim jong-un? >> well these are reports that came out and we don't know. we don't know. i've had a very good relationship with him. i wouldn't, you know, i can only say this, i wish him well because, if he is in the kind of condition that the reports say, that the news is saying that would be a, that's a very serious condition as know but i wish him well. we've had a good relationship. i have said it, and i said it many times, if somebody else

were in this position we would have been right now at war with north korea and we're not at war. we're nowhere close to war with north korea. so, i just have to say to kim jong-un, i wish him very, good luck. good luck. he came out with very, very serious medical reports. nobody confirmed that. cnn came out. so what cnn comes out with a report i don't place too much credence in it. reporter: governor cuomo, did he convince of need for expanded testing? >> we had a great talk on testing. we have an agreement, we have an understanding on testing. they have labs, tremendous labs as you know in new york, especially in the manhattan area but all over the state. and great, great medical schools and federal labs. so we have a very good understanding. we're going to do very significant testing. you know not everybody wants to do such significant testing.

testing is good in some cases and in some cases it is not. you have governors don't want to go all out on testing because they think they can do it in different manner and do it better but we had a very good meeting today. the governor and i had a very good meeting. reporter: more federal aid can be used to help positives who want to expand testing? we keep hearing -- >> we have $25 billion. that is a tremendous amount of money. that is far more money than in my opinion than we'll need. and again, already we're testing more by far than any country. i think i read yesterday a report that we've done more than everybody else, every other country combined. i think our people should be getting a lot of credit for that. we've done a lot, more than everybody else combined. you never hear that in the news. unfortunate. yeah, please. reporter: a [inaudible]. you mentioned the there will being some exemptions. we're reporting right now -- for employment but not --

>> green cards. we'll be reporting on that later on. might be tonight or tomorrow. we'll give you an exact report. reporter: said people may be worried about the ability to bring immediate family members? >> no i think it is covered pretty accurately in this case. most people know what it is. some people will be able to get in. we have to do that obviously even from a humane standpoint but some people will be coming in but it is a strong order. it's a strong order. it involves a a big circle as yu know. please. reporter: already in the country, are they at greater risk of deportation based on this order? >> i don't think so. they're not supposed to be. are you saying they're here illegally, what you're saying? for example if a immigrant is here for a court order, are they efforts -- >> court order you have to go to court. then the judge would make a determination as to whether or not they're going to be staying f they have a court order, they won't have to leave until they go through that process. we'll see what happens. but with, there are some with court orders.

that means they have a trial coming up, please. reporter: obviously on immigration executive order you raised concern for a long time, even in good economic times about immigrants taking americans jobs so under what conditions would you consider lifting this halt on immigration? or is this sort of an opportunity to address what you see as a problem for a long time? >> i think look, right now, obviously there never has been -- we had the greatest economy in the world. one day we had to shut it down. they said we had to shut it down. we did the right thing because i think we would have a million or maybe even two million or more than that deaths. so we did the right thing but certainly this would pertain. when you look at it, right now, the last thing we want to do is take american workers jobs. one thing when we were essentially, used to call it full employment and it is another thing right now. right now we have people that have lost their jobs. we hope they're going to come back and come back fast. then we can have a even deeper discussion.

right now we have to have jobs for americans. reporter: do you have any sense, like if unememployment gets to 4% or 5% -- >> we'll have to see. i hope we're in that position to have that debate. right now we're not in that position. right now we closed down the largest economy, the greatest economy in the history of the world. it's the most successful economy, when you look at the stock market and breaking records, virtually every week. sometimes every day. and the stock market is still not doing badly considering what this country has been through which tells how strong it was in the first place but no, i hope we're going to be able to have that discussion. i hope we're in a position. that is like a good discussion to have, but that will be a little bit later. bret? reporter: dr. birx about the cdc director said in an interview perhaps this second wave of coronavirus in the fall could be worse because it is timed with the seasonal flu. just wondering if you could talk about that in context of as you're opening up the country

and these guidelines that you have laid out? >> so we were very clear in the guidelines that we believe we can monitor, again, monitor communities at the community level by using influenza-like illness and syndromic respiratory and goose troh intestinal components -- gastrointenstinal components of this virus. obviously when we have flu, we're working on algorithm that you test for flu and you test for covid, making sure we're building the testing capacity to be able to do that. because i think it is very important that you will be able -- on the surface, a patient when they come in with early flu and early covid can look very close identical. so we need to have testing in place to be able to separate and insure those patients receive the best treatment. we're also hoping by that time that we have additional treatment options for people with covid-19 so that there will be a additional treatment

available in the fall. reporter: your message would be prepare for that time thinking it will come back together? >> the president has made it clear that we have the emergency which we have been working on, the opening up guidelines, just likes he talks about phase four, he has us working on the next, 60, 90, all on with fall. he has not stopped any of the ventilator orders. it is very important that we have completely refreshed and comprehensive stockpile going into the fall. i think that is why we continue to bring in those shipments and work on the ventilators so that those would be available, not only for the united states but certainly for, if other partner countries have this level of tragedy. reporter: follow up on that. so you awe agree this could come back actually come back worse in the fall. >> i don't know if it will be worse. i think this has been pretty bad. when you see what has happened in new york, that was very bad.

i believe that we'll have early warning signals both from our surveillance that we've been talking about on the vulnerable populations. we'll continue that surveillance from now all the way through the fall, to be able to give us that early warning signal. i think what we've learned how good americans are about immediately reverting to all of those issues that they need to do in order to insure that they're protected and their families. reporter: mr. president, what do you say to concerns like georgia is opening up barbershops and bowling alleys and the like? you saw lindsey graham saying he is concerned that georgia may be going too far, too fast, it could affect people in south carolina? obviously people travel back and forth between states. how do you protect the people of south carolina for example, from potentially bad decision by a governor in georgia? >> so he is a very capable man. he knows what he is doing. he has done a very good job as governor in georgia, by the way and south carolina.

governor mcmaster also. so you have two very capable people. we'll find out. in fact i'm scheduled to speak to the governor of georgia in a will while. we'll find out. reporter: concern what happens in georgia -- >> i'm concerned what happens everywhere. we have those concerns. as far as coming back, if they do come back and they could come back together with heavy on flu and much lighter -- i think we'll be able it put out the fires. like fires. we've learned a lot. we become very good at this. when you look at what's happening, when you look at numbers coming down, a lot of states are in really great shape. see a lot of openings. but i'll be speaking to the governor of georgia in a little while. okay. reporter: mr. president, the american people need to be prepared for going back to social distancing even if things relax over summer, over the summer but come the fall if virus comes back and -- >> i could see them. i will speak for the doctor and if you would like either of you to say but i would say you keep away until this thing is gone.

it will be gone at some point. it's going to be gone, gone. i would say you keep away and you do the social distancing until such time as you know it's gone. we'll know when that time is. reporter: your executive orders last for 60 days. how will you decide whether to extend it? >> we'll see where we are with the economy basically and, i think i will have a very easy decision to make. i hope, i hope that the economy is going to be great by that time but we'll see. right now in light of the fact that americans are out of jobs, i can't be taking in -- reporter: another 60 days or -- >> i could. i could roll it for 30 days or roll it much more than 60 days. we'll look at the time. we'll look at 60 days. see what it is. in the back? reporter: on immigration order, immigration order -- >> you go. why don't you go. then you. reporter: on immigration order, competing with that, there is report you may actually sign a second order to even limit more extensions you were talking

about. can you confirm that? >> it cohappen if i want but i won't be doing it tomorrow. i'm signing primary order. we'll have a secondary order if i want to do that to make that determination. we can do that at a little bit different time if we want. reporter: that under consideration at -- >> secondary orders, yeah. please. reporter: thank you, mr. president. i have two questions one from me, and one pro reporter couldn't be in the room. >> you always have [inaudible] reporter: first question is about the immigration order. you campaigned on reducing legal immigration. i remember your speech in phoenix in 2016 reducing legal immigration. >> i campaigned on legal and illegal. i always said you have to come into the country legally. so not legal. what i campaigned on was people just flooding our border and stopping. by the way speaking of that, we have 170 miles, almost 170 miles of very powerful border wall up and it is moving rapidly, very quickly and it is having a tremendous impact and it is

making our job a lot easier. plus mexico has 27,000 soldiers right now on our southern border that we share with them. and mexico has been terrific. they have really helped. reporter: you also campaigned on reducing legal immigration and i'm wondering if some critics are saying that you are using the virus now in this crisis to follow through on that promise to reduce legal immigration. >> no, no. i want people that are in this country, i want our citizens to get jobs. i don't want them to have competition. we have very unusual situation where something came in that nobody has seen for many, many years decades, probably 1917 would be closest analogy when you talk about the kind of contagion we're talking about. not at all. i want american worker and american citizens to get jobs. i don't want them to compete right now. there is a big difference when we have a full economy, frankly

where some of the companies, we have many companies moving in where they actually need workers that is a big difference between that and where all of sudden a lot of people lose jobs. reporter: as you know a lot of farmers rely on seasonal migrant workers -- >> that will not impact it. the farmers -- that is important point. the farmers will not be affected. that is very important point. i mean it is a great point actually. i'm glad you brought it up. no, farmers will not be affected we have had cases where they stopped everybody from coming in, all the farmers went out of business. they were literally out of business, you remember that, brad. not so long ago. it is easier to stop everything cold than it is to plan it so that the farmers have the people that have been working in those farms for many years and that's what we're doing. no, farmers will not be affected by this at all. if anything we'll make it easier and we're doing a process that will make it better for those workers to come in to go to the farm where they have been for a long time. reporter: question for reporter

out of room, "washington times," tom howell. why hasn't cdc, the main disease fighting agency more public facing rule pandemic holding media calls early on but not held on early to mid-march? >> well i can tell you cdc has been terrific. we worked with them very closely. they were very much involved even in the in the border decision i made last night. the directors doing a good job. we have always, whether it is tony or deborah or steve, we have always, a lot of people up, certainly you have seen director has been here a lot, right? he has been here. he has been sitting here. he has been speaking a lot. no, no cdc is very much involved in everything we've done. reporter: director of cdc says protest against stay-at-home orders are not helpful. you encouraged some of these protests. what are your thoughts on cdc

director saying -- >> people is, it is not a question of helpful or not. people want to get back to work. i watched some of the protests not in great detail. i've seen that. they're separated a lot of space in between. i mean they're watching believe it or not, they're doing social distancing if you can believe it and they are protesting but they are, groups i have seen in, very much spread out. so i think that is good. look, people, they want to get back to work. they have got to make a living. they have to take care of their family. they have don't want to do this. you know, unfortunate, maybe one way or the other, both are unfortunate, both are unfortunate but you have a lot of people out there anxious to get back. yeah, please. reporter: are indicating people are more concerned, more people are more concerned about the virus spread and they don't with to go out and don't want to work outside. >> there are two groups, big groups, both of them. reporter: my question what good is it for business reopen if the customers are not --

>> at the same time, we have to build back our country, and i'm going to make our country bigger and better and stronger and we have to get started. there is a big difference though because people have really been through a lot. they understand what to do now. before nobody had ever heard of a thing like this, wouldn't you say? nobody ever heard of a thing like this, distancing, social distancing what does that mean? washing your hands every 15 minutes, what does that mean? people had never seen or heard about anything like this. now they really are, they have not only have they done it but of this done a good job of it. you have people, you can't break the country. at some point you have to go back. hopefully the governors will do, i want the governors, i always wanted that, call that federalism, call it whatever you want, the governors i want them to do it if we see them doing something we don't like we'll stop it very quickly but they're doing a good job. they're being careful. some of the governors frankly they're in a position where they

can do it sooner or do it a little bit later, and that's okay but people, they don't want to, they need money. they need help. we're going to lose -- we can't break our country over this, we can't do it. we have to get going. with that being said, some are going to go soon and some are not. back, please? reporter: might just, pardon me, hair salons, nail salons, tattoo parlors, dr. birx, can you weigh in on this? the people of atlanta want to hear from you as well as much as they want to hear from the governor and you, mr. president. >> that's fine. reporter: how do you safely have hair salons and nail salons and tattoo parlors where people apparently -- >> where is that? reporter: in georgia, people inherently have to be close together? >> i think what i've been trying to communicate that the governors clearly communicate to their communities. we want data, data

evidence-based, data they utilize to make decisions and data mayors should use in each of the communities because it will have to be on a community by community opening because there are different communities in different places, even in georgia. and so i believe people in atlanta would understand if their cases are not going down, that they need to continue to do everything that we said, social distancing, washing your hand, wearing a mask in public. so if there's a a way that people can social distance and do those things, then they can do those things. i don't know how but people are very creative. so i'm not going to prejudge but we have told people very clearly in the president's guidelines made it very clear about the expectation of phase one. remember phase one also included social distancing in restaurants. social distancing in every place that was entertainment and keeping your own individual

social groups to less than 10. we've been very clear in the guidelines and i think it is up to the governors and mayors to insure that they're following the best they can, each of those phases, to make sure that both the public is completely protected but the governors and mayors also need to communicate very clearly on the data that was used for decision-making, make that transparent and available to their communities. >> as an example that you just gave, are they doing testing before they go in? we have to find that out. that's why i'm speaking to the governor a little while. i will be asking him those questions. please. reporter: thank you, mr. president. how do you get a sense what you have left in the tool box as it relates to oil. you hashed out the deal with opec plus. you ordered for purchases in the spr. what else can be done? >> the biggest thing, the tool box is to get our country open. that is by far the biggest thing there is. if we can open pretty well, i think we're going to over a

period of time, piece by piece, puzzle, remember, if we can open well, i think that is your biggest part by far. that is were the engine is, more important any other thing you can work on. please. reporter: thank you, mr. president. two new york related questions. in your meeting with governor cuomo was there talk about providing states like new york with aid in the fourth stimulus package? wondering if you have any thoughts that aid should be tied to infection rates, whether states like new york, new jersey, that have been hardest hit should receive more money. do you have any thoughts on mayor bill de blasio would like to host a tickertape parade of sorts once this is all over to honor the health care workers? >> frankly sounds like a good idea to me, when it is all over. sounds like a great idea they deserve it. they're warriors. they have done an incredible job. we mentioned briefly the state aid. we talked about that, governor cuomo and myself. i agree with him on that. i think most pubs agree too and

democrats. that phase four. infrastructure will be a big part. we have to rebuild our country. you take a look, we go over this all the time eight trillion dollars in the middle east. we want to rebuild our country and that means our bridges, our tunnels, even schools. we're doing something with schools. we have to do our roadways. what's happened, we spent so much money on other countries that don't even, they don't appreciate it okay? they don't appreciate it. we'll spend money on our country and it will be our jobs, and our equipment, much of it will be made here. hopefully at some point all of it will be made here. john? reporter: mr. president, back at podium on march ninth, vice president pence over a million tests were distributed, said, exact quote, before the end of this week, another four million tests will be distributed. as you know now, six weeks later we still aren't at four million

tests. >> i don't know what his statement? with testing, are you ready. say it for the fifth time. which have tested more than any country in the world and some of the countries are very big. more than any country in the world. we have one of the most successful, if you call mortality rates because, one person and i always say that for you in particular, one person is too many. but we've done very well. our testing, if you add them all up we have tested more. now i don't know what mike pence said but i'm sure he could answer that question. reporter: four million tests and six weeks later -- >> again we tested more than every country in the world, even put together. so that's all i can say. as far as mike he will answer your question. he will be back tomorrow. reporter: want to go back to the china deal, phase one of this china deal. >> yeah.

reporter: flight ban is still in place. are you confident are you the chinese will not use, invoke the natural disaster clause to just wait before getting into the deal? >> we're going to see. look, there is nobody ever been tougher on china than me and that means for 20 years. you go back 20 years. i probably got elected at least partially on the fact that i've been very tough. i said china has been ripping us off for years. i would go into michigan. i would go into pennsylvania, make speeches unrelated to being a politician. i would be invited. i would be speaking to people which i like to do because i love the people, i love the people of this country, i would make speeches how did you let this happen with china? i even asked the leaders of china, how did this ever happen? where our country loses tens of billions of dollars a year and i don't mean just tens. take a look, 200 billion. 300 billion.

400 billion. $500 billion a year, how did they ever let a thing like this happen? last year the deficit went way down, and i'm talking about even before. now it's much different but a lot of things are happening. great things were happening, except all of sudden, out of nowhere came the invisible enemy and we think we know where it came from and we'll be talking about that probably a lot, but came the invisible enemy. there has been nobody tougher than me on china. reporter: no guaranties they will go ahead? >> if that happens we'll do a termination and we'll do what i can do better than anybody. yeah, please. reporter: on china, has u.s. intelligence analysts told you that they think that the vice are you escaped from a chinese research lab, that it was -- >> i can't tell you that. have u.s. intelligence agents told me, what kind of a question is that? i can't, you want me to tell you, tell you what they told me.

they told me plenty, they told me plenty. bret? reporter: follow up on you said the small business program. harvard is going to pay the money back. how confident are you that you can claw back money. >> i don't like when harvard, i think 40 billion-dollar endowment to some incredible amount of money that harvard get this is money? harvard should pay the money back. i want harvard to pay the money back okay. if they won't do that, we won't do something else. they have to pay it back. i don't like it. i don't like it. this is meant for workers. this is not meant for one of the richest institutions not only far beyond schools in the world. they have to pay it back. i want them to pay it back. yeah. reporter: mr. president, your florida clubs had to furlough workers. >> yeah. reporter: have you thought about asking your family members keep some of the workers on the payroll to help -- [inaudible] >> yeah. doral, you're not allowed to have the golf courses open.

you can't have the clubs open. you can't have anything. it's a big hotel and resort and i think there is probably 700, 750 people. you can't have anything open. you say what are we going to do? have full payroll and have the whole place with, there is no income coming in. first of all everyone's home. and they're supposed to be. second of all in florida you can't use golf courses. that one i'm not sure i agree with. you have parks and golf courses where you have open space but that is what it is. so i have others also, that i have others in different states. i have a lot of different properties. again my children run them and i love my children and i wish them well. i look forward to comparing my numbers to my children's numbers. i think i will do better. reporter: you haven't thought of asking -- >> it is a closed property, you have to close them up. then hopefully when things get better we'll just open it up

but, you can't have, you know many hundreds of employees standing around doing nothing. there is no customer. you're not allowed to have a customer. so in some places it is very instruct. new jersey is instruct. new york is strict. you have to do what you have to do and it's too bad. i feel so badly when i see that. i think that, it is a tough policy but i go by whatever the policy. that is a state policy in the case of florida. please. reporter: you communicated regularly with kim jong-un, the north korean leader. are you going to try to reach out to him to check on his condition? >> i may. i just hope he is doing fine. i had a very good relationship with kim jong-un. and that's to the benefit of the country. that is not a bad thing. that's a good thing. i would like to see him be well and we'll see how he does. again i don't know that the reports are true. reporter: a line of suck section as far as you know? >> i don't want to ask him that.

i don't want to ask him that. it is not my purpose to tell you that in all fairness. but, you know i hope he does well. please? reporter: follow up with dr. birx for a moment. dr. birx, if you don't mind. wanted to follow up on the question we're asking you about with social distancing and in some of these states. so, with georgia opening back up, you know things like tattoo parlors, getting a massage, social distancing there are creative ways but seems very difficult to do social distancing, do you have a message for people in georgia who are soon going to have a choice about going into hair salon, nail salon or getting that tattoo, if they're not six feet apart and they're not able to follow these social distancing guidelines? what is your message to people in a state like georgia? >> we made it very clear in our message to all of the american people with opening up america again. the criteria that we want the

states to follow, those were careful criteria. there were only six. they were carefully, carefully selected in conversations with epidemiologists around the world and with cdc to really pick things that people could understand and use platforms that people had utilized in the past but it was built on the premise it needs to be data driven and it needs to protect those who are most vulnerable. then it went through the phases. the very first thing it says in all phases, all individuals need to continue to wash hands, protect the vulnerable, insure the safety of others but in phase one it made it clear that social distancing was absolutely key. and you think it's on the white house website. we asked every american to read it and to use that as their guidelines. now we've also asked governors to create county level information, so communities see the information and understand

why they may be different than a different county so it is a very transparent and understandable. i had a question couple days ago on jacksonville beach and jacksonville is dramatically different than miami. and i think that was reflected in why jacksonville had a different set of information and regulations. so i'm not going to second -- you know, judge anyone about their decision making. what i'm going to say is, we were very clear in what we really believes protects safety of americans and that is clearly laid up, laid out in the opening up of america again. reporter: i have a question because we got data from tokyo increase in cases, doubled of the cases in singapore. what, we've been looking a lot at europe, after china and then we're back into this area of the world. here we're -- plateau and cases going down. any lessons to take out of what

we, what is happening in this area, in asia after -- [inaudible] >> u.s. needs to be careful. we've got to be very careful. we don't want that to happen. it could happen. i think we stamp it out if it does happen. we're not going to be doing any mass closings i hope. so i think we could, you know, call them some burning embers and we put them out. i think we've gotten very good at that, but we'll see. we have don't want that to happen, absolutely. reporter: mr. president, what the real -- happened we won't need to go back into reclosing? >> i don't want to do that. you don't want to do that. nobody in this room wants to do that you look forward, i think, bret, very soon, john sitting next to a lot of your fellow reporters, right? the room seems so empty this way. but it is one of those things. yeah, go ahead, please. reporter: mr. president, thank you. on public support for the

immigration -- >> right. reporter: "usa today" quote came out found 80% of americans are supportive of the immigration halt, temporary freeze. >> yes, i know that. reporter: does that have any, do public support have any effect on your decision making here an are you surprised by those numbers? >> yeah. it is a high number. did not see the number. i heard there was a poll. i'm sure there will be a lot of polls. look i think american people want to make sure they have jobs for the american people, not for people that come in many cases illegally into our country. so we're doing that i don't know what the numbers are but, i think just common sense tells you that is where we should be. that is where the american people want to be. we're going to build our country back. i'll telling you with all the things we're doing and infrastructure which we desperately need, there will be incredible thing taking place. i think it is going to be a renaissance. we'll have something that will be a, a lot of people will go to work building those roads and bridges and tunnels and

highways, all of the other things we're going to be building, and broadband for the middle west. farmers have not treated fairly. the farmers have been treated terribly when it comes to the internet. so we'll take care of that. we'll make them very happy. so we'll see you all tomorrow and we'll have some interesting things to put out tonight. i appreciate you being here. honor to have bret baier here. i used his slot a lot, john. used that slot a lot. reporter: thank thank you, mr. president -- >> we have want to have you back soon. thank you very much. thank you, everybody. elizabeth: okay. this is elizabeth macdonald with "the evening edit." let's bring in senator martha mcsally on her reaction on the president suspending immigration for those seeking permanent residency, not guest workers. senator, great to have you on. your reaction to that news? >> well in my state and my community we have so many people that have no work right now,

22 million americans and counting, and we are in an unprecedented challenge. so we need to do everything we can to defeat this virus, support families and workers and small businesses but those jobs need to be for americans right now as we get them back on their feet. so we'll be looking at details that come out tomorrow but right now we need to focus on american workers and american families. elizabeth: you know, to your point many countries in europe, certainly china, canada, mexico, countries like iran have imposed border restrictions that as well, at least 75 countries have some kind of a travel limitation already themselves, either locking down borders or limiting question. you heard the question is the president trying to take advantage of this pandemic doing immigration reform. he pushed back on that. your take own this question? >> there are two elements, liz, one is mitigation and

containment of the actual virus. the early travel ban from china highly criticized by the left, travel bans from europe, to stop the virus before. that is important part moving forward, considering how we continue to restrict travel to virus isn't coming in from outside. there is the second piece about american workers, american jobs. people want to go back to work. when they can safely do that while still saving lives, let's support americans being able to get back to work in these jobs that will be available. elizabeth: yeah, 22 million people now out of work. protests growing in dozens of states. now tennessee, south carolina, texas, georgia, now reopening. media critics saying you could cause more infections. the media attacking them but the media is earning paychecks. these 22 million people are out of work. some orders are draconian. many of them are on food lines.

your reaction to that? >> i have pulled many shifts at food bank and other entities that are helping people right now. we would see families showing up, mother, father, with three kids in the back seat. they never needed help before but how are they going to feed their kids tonight? we're doing all we can, right up on my street. i'm in my dining room right now. there are people with zero income on my street, wondering how they will feed their families tonight. there is a lot of media out of touch what is going on in america right now. we need to support them and support their families. okay. elizabeth: terrible story we'll stay on developing story. we really appreciate it. >> absolutely. >> i'm elizabeth macdonald. you're watching "the evening edit." you too. you're watching evening edit. thanks for watching. watching us tomorrow as we said we'll stay on this developing story. have a good evening.

♪. now. [♪] lou: good evening, breaking news tonight. the senate has agreed to a deal increasing funding to the wuhan virus relief package, $320 billion being added to the paycheck protection program helping 2 million small businesses and their employees. the agreement coming after weeks of delays from the radical dimms. in addition to the money going to the small business relief program, another $60 billion will go to economic injury disaster loans.