share with us? we'd love to hear it. send me an e-mail or go to our website, strangeinheritance.com. e tomorrow. "lou dobbs tonight" starts right now. lou: good evening, everybody. the chinese communist party is intense ifying and broadening its global propaganda and disinformation campaign as china refuses still to acknowledge their role in unleashing the worst pandemic on the world in more than a century. china's president xi jinping refuses not only to admit that china engineered the virus, but he also refuses to apologize to the world for unleashing the virus on unsuspecting nations, nations he could have warned as the contagion has raged outside communist china now for almost four months. the chinese foreign ministry and

its allies in western media today portraying china as either the victim of disinformation about the wuhan virus or claiming that western nations are using the contagion as distraction from their own policy failures. even insinuating in one case that the united states is, quote, hiding something. the trump administration official telling fox news today they also have reason to believe the chinese have underreported, dramatically underreported the tally of deaths and cases of the virus in their country by a factor of at least 50. can china's initial and persistent lies and deception about the dangers of the virus have now caused the infection of 3 million people worldwide and killed more than 209,000 people. china's maligned actions have killed 55,000 americans and infected nearly a million more.

much remains to be discovered, and among those discoveries we await are the dark reasons that motivated the ccp leaders to, first, release the virus and then to carry out can china's deadly deception of the entire world. we know communist china seeks world domination. could that be the simple truth behind it all? the white house now says china must be held accountable. >> china spawned that virus, they hid it for six weeks. they could have contained it in wuhan. they didn't. they seeded the world with this with hundreds of thousands of chinese getting on aircraft from milan to new york and other places. the communist party basically inflicted this virus on the world, and we should never forget that here in america. lou: president trump and his administration are watching china now closely while holding out some on the much that their

actions to combat the wuhan virus are working. a number of new states relaxing stay-at-home orders today with more planned by the edge of the week. the white house -- the end of the week. the white house also released new blueprints to significantly increase testing over the next two months in an effort to help more states reopen and help people get back to work. the white house wants to test 2% of every state's population in order to achieve that goal, the trump administration says they will develop a robust diagnostic testing man, a timely monitoring -- plan, a timely monitoring system and a rapid response program to isolate those who test positive and to identify anyone they came in contact with. the plan will include, of course, diagnostic testing for anyone who is symptomatic. diagnostic testing for first responders and all medical personnel and surveillance testing for high risk populations. president trump is expected to

expand on those new testing blue prints during a news conference to be held this hour, a briefing that follows days of the president ripping into the left-wing national media's coverage of his and his administration's handling of the wuhan virus pandemic. in a tweet this morning, president trump said this: there has never been in the history of our country a more vicious or hostile mainstream media than there is right now. even in the midst of a national emergency, the invisible enemy. the persistently spiteful left-wing media trying since the beginning of this pandemic response to discredit president trump, irrespective of whatever action and decisions he has taken. writing headlines that push a narrative that is seldom backed by the facts or the story beneath those headlines. it's a practice that even dr. deborah birx has taken issue with. >> we have to be responsible

about our headlines. i think often the reporting may be accurate in paragraph three, four and five, but i'm not sure how many people actually get to paragraph three, four and five. and i think the responsibility that the press has is to really insure that the headlines reflect the science and data that is in their piece itself. lou: the left-wing national media's efforts to besmirch the trump administration also being boosted by big tech. we told you friday about a uv light device made by the colorado company a2 bioscience. it's being tested to kill coronavirus in the lungs. this video that demonstrates how the device works was taken down over the weekend by the video site, that is google-owned youtube. twitter also suspending a2 bioscience's account. the company's ceo took umbrage with those actions.

he said, quote, we at a2 bioscience are confident that treatments for covid-19 will be found. we hope we can help. but above all, we hope science will ultimately speak louder than politics. well, the left-wing national media's prejudice if, biases and political intent also showing up in coverage of sexual assault accusations against the presumptive democratic presidential nominee joe biden. a former senate staffer claiming biden touch thed her inappropriately back in the early '90s. biden denies it, but there's criticism now of the national left-wing media and a number of key democrats responding to the claim. fox news correspondent jacqui heinrich has the story tonight. >> reporter: afternoon, lou. well, house speaker nancy pelosi indoorsed biden today, marking another pillar of support from the democratic establishment to the former vice president. but pelosi is also among a

number of prominent female democrats who notably did not take questions over the sex assault allegation against biden this weekend. pelosi, along with two women on biden's running mate short list, made appearances on three networks, georgia's stacy abram arguing why biden should pick her, and senator amy klobuchar also didn't face questions on a segment on mail-in voting,al the she -- although she has commented previously saying all cases should be investigated. meanwhile, biden's camp adamantly denies the claim while being careful not to silence his accuser, former staffer tara reid. women have a right to tell their story, can and appropriators have an obligation to rigorously vet those claims. we encourage them to do so, because these accusations are false. tara reid told fox news the media needs to do a better job

of questioning biden saying networks would handle the allegations differently if the claim were against president trump or brett kavanaugh. and she railed against anderson cooper for not broaching the suspect. she told a local paper last year biden touched her and made her feel uncomfortable, but she said it was not sexual. this march she claimed it was sexual assault. today two people who knew reid back in the 1990s reportedly stepped forward to back her claims, and this past weekend a tape surfaced purporting to show the i accuser's mother calling in to larry king that live to talk about advice, seeking advice on issues her daughter reportedly had with a senator. however, that caller in that tape does not the mention biden by name and also does not describe the nature of the incident. lou? lou: jacqui heinrich, thank you very much. joining us tonight is kimberlys strassel, a member of "the wall street journal" editorial board,

author of the new book "resistance at all cost." we recommend it to you highly. i want to start, kim, if i may, with the allegations against biden and the way in which much of the left-wing media is just simply ignoring those claims and charges. >> yeah. i mean, look, lou, as a militant defender of due process, one part of me is happy to see the press e exercising a little bit more caution than they did, for instance, with brett kavanaugh and some of those allegations. at the same time, the complete radio silence is stunning to watch because the double standard is just remarkable. i mean, it isn't just that the press isn't doing any stories on this or asking anyone about it, but you haven't heard anything from a single liberal group, you haven't heard anything from the dnc or political bodies. you haven't heard anything from any of these candidates who are

all auditioning for joe biden. the me too movement just suddenly disappeared overnight. lou: and the vice president, what do you make of the silence from the so-called champions of the me too, #metoo movement? it's just a very strange moment for the national left-wing moment because, again, they are just simply en masse showing their absolute political orientation and motivation day in and day out in this one story. they're not in any way bringing critical judgment or typical journalistic adversarial fervor to the you issue as they would y republican. >> yeah. no, to thing e tent that there are even outlets that have done reporting on this, their attitude appears to be one and done. no matter that there are new things coming along that would normally raise the story and how people go back to investigate

these new claims. like, for instance, this larry king moment but the attitude i seem to be getting is that that was expressed by senator amy klobuchar who is i auditioning as a biden running mate. when she was asked a few weeks ago she said, you know, "the new york times" did a very thorough investigation, and then that seems to be the attitude that you don't need to do anything beyond that. lou: and the role of social media here, watching twitter and the way it is performing, google basically banishing that tape simply is, it has disappeared from youtube. i don't know what happens when you search it on google, but i suspect not much at all. >> well, we don't know exactly yet where, you know, the state of that clip, okay? but i think in general you bring up a very big question that a lot of americans are going to have to be watching during this

election season which is that we are increasingly seeing these social media companies have one standard when it comes to political speech and free speech for republicans, one standard when it comes to political speech and free speech for democrats and deciding, being the arbitrary judge with no real guidelines or standards about what gets to stay up and what gets taken down. you know, in a world -- i mean, these are private companies and they in some way get to set their rules, but they're also becoming outlets for the political debate, and it's very concerning when you do see bits of censorship only directed toward one side. lou: exactly. and the president's confrontation now with the white house possess if corps -- press corps, your thoughts about what the national media's doing in that room, why and why we have never, why we are effectively

accepting the behavior of national left-wing journalists that we have never seen to this degree. we've seen bad, you know, the media behaving badly, but this is over the top, and it goes on. and the corporate masters of each of those journalists bear great responsibility. your thoughts about the relationship between those journalists, the orders they must be getting from their corporate masters or at least the tolerance level of them. explain it from your perspective. >> well, my own view, lou, is that, actually, this behavior of the press has been going on since the president was elected and that they've essentially chosen one side of a partisan warfare. you saw that, for instance, in all of their russia coverage which was absolutely terrible. what's changed now with these press briefings is that americans can actually visibly watch it.

they can see it happening in front of their face. and it's being motivated not by the story, not by truth, but by a disdain, a hatred for the current elected president and a desire to write headlines that they hope will make it harder for him to get reelected. that's not being honest with your readership. it's not being, not fulfilling the code of journalism in any way. and it's outright bias. and, again, partisan. so i actually worry that to some extent we have made mistakes this all of this coronavirus response in part because the press hasn't been doing its job, hasn't been trying to get to the real story and has been more driven by that partisan rage and allowing it to do its headlines and that we may be missing things that have made things harder. lou: yeah, i don't think there's any part of what the national left-wing media has done that's been particularly helpful either

to the people they purport to serve and fulfill the public's right to know. and to be, certainly in some cases, adversarial, but to take that on as the essence of their being as craftsmen is insipid. because adversarial is not the appropriate, the appropriate level of interplay between the presidency and that white house press corps. they should bring critical judgment, but adversary y'all? this has -- adversary y'all? this has become political activism. kimberly strassel, distinguished op-ed writer for "the wall street journal," thanks so much for being with us, kim. thank you. >> thanks, lou. lou: stay with us, we're coming right back with much more. thank you.

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people at higher risk, must take extra precautions. you are at higher risk if you are over 65, or if you have any serious underlying medical conditions, like heart disease, chronic lung disease, diabetes, or if your immune system is compromised for any reason. if you're at higher risk, wash your hands frequently with soap and water for twenty seconds. avoid touching your face. disinfect frequently touched objects. and wash up after being in public spaces. and when it comes to social situations...less is better. stay six feet or two arm lengths away from other people.

better still, stay home if you can. if you're sick, please stay home and away from others. and if you think you've been exposed to the virus, call your health care provider before going to their office. in challenging times, the choices you make are critical. please visit coronavirus.gov for more information.

lou: speculation now rising on whether former national security adviser general michael flynn could soon be exonerated. new court documents filed under seal friday said to include significant exculpatory evidence, shocking new reports suggest fbi general counsel was

acting in coordination with fbi director christopher wray to block the release of that evidence that would have cleared general flynn. well, u.s. attorney john durham reportedly now investigating the leaks of classified information to the national media in early 2017, and that leak leading to michael flynn's dismissal as national security adviser. at issue, articles written by "the washington post"'s david ig nays yous citing a, quote, senior u.s. government official, end quote. reported on a call between flynn and russian ambassador sergey kislyak in late december of 2016 suggesting flynn may have violated the logan act, of all things. well, joining us tonight is tom fitton, the president of judicial watch. tom, great to have you here. >> hey, lou. lou: couple things, let's beginning with a report that we

may see general flynn completely exonerated perhaps by the end of this week. >> well, if the government violated judge sullivan's standing orders to turn over exculpatory information -- that's a general requirement, and he's very conscious of this because he saw in the case against the alaska senator several years ago outrageous government prosecutorial misconduct -- if they violated his orders in such a way, he may just throw out the entire case. and maybe, just maybe, attorney general barr -- once he sees the full documentation, and presumably he has by now -- he may direct his prosecutors to pull the case. look, flynn was ambushed. he was the that target of a coordinated leak campaign, as john durham is now investigating, of classified information which is also a crime. comey sent his fbi people over there secretly to ambush him for the interview. they concluded initially he didn't lie, then they changed

their story later. now it looks like they were withholding information from the court and that they were trying to force him to plead out by threatening his son, something they didn't want the tell the court or the public about. there's all this misconduct around the prosecution of, again, the victims of the deep state, in this case general flynn. he should not only be exonerated, the president should pardon him just to be sure because if biden or anyone else wins in november other than the president, you can bet the same gang is going to come back to try to reprosecute if -- either on this or other charges. they should do a twofer, end the prosecution and pardon him just to make sure he's fully protected from more outrageous targeting. and remember, the president was being targeted here. when you go after flynn for talking and doing his job with foreign, foreign leaders like the russians, you're targeting the ability of the president to conduct foreign policy. he should pardon flynn just to protect his presidential powers and the powers of all presidents

from this coup attack that took place and began in the early part of his administration. lou: those who refuse, tom, to acknowledge that this was an outright effort to overthrow the president of the united states, they're absolutely lying through their teeth. there can be no other explanation, because every single figure in this was connected the donald trump, the president of the united states. both before he was elected and after. it is unprecedented by any, on any metric. what happened to this president had never occurred to any american president before. and as the president says, he doesn't want it to happen again. we can't assure that, can we, if this is, if this goes without an accounting, without people being held responsible for criminal, venal acts against the

constitution and this country. >> they knew early on, it's being reported this week or just now, lou, that there's additional transcripts coming out of conversations george papadopoulos had with the is spy ring that the obama gang sent after them where he disavowed any idea that trump was coordinating with the russians. it was further information -- lou: right. >> -- that there was never a good faith reason to target trump. and the fact that they continued to do so without telling the court the whole case was shutting down shows the criminal nature of what was going on here. and you're right, it's going to happen again unless there are significant prosecutions. and i'm hoping barr and durham do the right thing here or can make the case, but i'm not seeing indication that there's going to be significant prosecutions. but we've got to alert people to the evidence of crimes, because if the people don't know the evidence is out there, the doj will never do the right thing. so that's why it's important

this material be released. we just got new e-mails last week from strzok and page showing they were mocking donald trump, they were targeting flynn, and they knew early on that the whole leak operation targeting trump was a political operation. they knew mccain, for instance, was involved in leaking the dossier. they knew their guy steele was involved in leaking the dossier, and yet they just continued targeting him. when you look at the e-mails, you can see the obama fbi -- which continued, frankly, into the trump administration -- was out of control. and director wray has done little, in my view, to reestablish trust between the american people and the fbi. he seems more interested in protecting the institution than going after the bad guys that ruined it. lou: protecting an institution or protecting corrupt political actors within that institution's leadership. the institution itself has been held by absolutely politically

corrupt officials for so long now, it's stunning. wray is now being charged with sitting on this exculpatory evidence. what do you make of that allegation against him? >> it would be perfectly in line with what we've seen with the fbi in terms of sitting on material that, if released, would be harmful to investigators, the dirty cops who were targeting president trump. they're stalling, for instance, right now, right now -- i told you about those strzok/page e-mails? -- they've been sitting on that material for years. they're holding all the text messages back from us. they have mccabe's text messages they're holding back from us. that's fbi leadership making those decisions, i'm sure, and it wouldn't surprise me if they were behind this effort effort o suppress the flynn information. and if i was judge sullivan, i'd ask the fbi why is it you sat on this.

lou: well, it'd be interesting. it'd also be very interesting to understand why the justice department has not let us know, the public know what are in those memos. we have yet -- have you seen them, tom? i haven't seen them. we're well into this process. we're moving about four years into the investigation of a political -- presidential candidate and president. if i'd like to know what was -- i'd like to know what was on the wiener laptop. i would like to know why we haven't been able to find copies of those 33,000 e-mails that hillary clinton destroyed. i'm just curious, and i think, you know, an inquiring nation, i believe, would like to know as well. tom, there's so many things to go through with you each time, but we're out of time. i look forward to our next visit. thank you so much, tom fitton, judicial watch. thank you. up next, the european union backs down to chinese pressure. the european union. we take up the most recent

capitulation by the west to the communist regime. former trump deputy national security adviser kt mac far lane with us tonight. announcer: there are everyday actions to help prevent the spread of respiratory diseases. wash your hands. avoid close contact with people who are sick. avoid touching your eyes, nose and mouth. stay home when you are sick. cover your cough or sneeze. clean and disinfect frequently touched objects with household cleaning spray. for more information, visit cdc.gov/covid19. this message brought to you by the national association of broadcasters and this station.

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♪ ♪ lou: a new report reveals communist china successfully pressured the european union to soften their recent report on beijing's cover-up of the wuhan virus. the e.u., intimidated by communist china, changing the way which it characterized china's global disinformation campaign, the silencing of doctors, the underreporting of infection rates and deaths. the european union was reportedly concerned that such a damning report would strain relations and make it difficult to get medical supplies from china. in other words, they were blackmailed, extorted and intimidated by communist china.

very successfully. well, joining us tonight is kt mcfarland, former deputy national security adviser to president trump, author of the new book -- which we recommend to you highly -- "revolution: trump, washington and we the people." kt, good to have you with us. let's start with secretary of state pompeo saying point-blank that the obama administration should never agreed to allow iran to buy conventional weapons, should never have made any deal with iran. this is, this could have consequences unless the united nations actually stands up to a state -- a terrorist state to which they have capitulated for quite a long time now. >> well, i mean, you're absolutely right, but i wouldn't expect the u.n. to stand up to much of anybody except maybe

israel or the united states. president trump said the iran nuclear deal was a bad deal, it didn't cover missile technology, and it didn't cover the iranian support of the terrorist militia groups that it was using to foment, you know, violence is and revolution throughout the middle east. it spread its radical islamic terrorist ways. so trump was right. and for trump to have called out the iranian nuclear deal, to have canceled it -- and i think it shows just how incompetent and mad the iranian regime was and how stupid the obama administration was to go along with it. lou: well, this administration in tehran is having its way -- >> yeah. lou: -- given all the sanctions that are awried against it. -- arrayed against it. what can the trump administration do to effectively stop that -- iran are under the terms of that old deal will be

allowed to buy conventional weapons? >> well, trump's handling iran perfectly, i think. he's given the shot across the bow saying your navy messes with our ships, we're going to take you out. what we should also do is push the iranian regime, frankly, over the top. because their economy's going to collapse. the mullahs are in their late 80s, and they're sick. so new regime. lou: yeah. the president is walking out, kt -- >> okay. lou: -- right now to the rose garden where he is expected for -- and i apologize to you. the president of the united states will be making a few remarks before beginning the press conference. we're told that he is stepping out. we will, kt, i do not see the president there, despite our advisories to the contrary. i want to get in, it looks like

general flynn will be, will be exonerated, at least that is the claim. your thoughts about it and the way in which general flynn has been treated by the justice department and the fbi for these three years. >> well, i've not talked to general flynn since he left the white house, but i can say that the amount of pressure, 20, 30 hours of just intimidation and inquisition by the justice department and the mueller investigation, if i faced that, flynn faced it even more so. and it was all because they wanted to get trump. they didn't care about flynn, they didn't really care about me, they just wanted to get to trump, and flip was the way they thought they could do it. they trump up charges, they trick people, they threaten people with charges that they were not true, and in my case, wanted me to plead guilty to crimes i didn't commit. they wanted me to say other people committed crimes like general flynn or the president, the crimes i knew they commit.

so whatever they were doing to flynn was exponentially worse. so i certainly hope these charges are dropped. he doesn't deserve this. nobody does. lou: how in the world are we going to get -- i just don't know how this works out. an fbi so obviously politically corrupt and obviously has been such for a very long time. a justice department in the obama years that was more corrupt than nip could have ever -- anyone could have ever imagined. even the harshest critics of the obama administration, i don't believe, would have dreamed they were carrying out such venal acts in violation of the constitution and everything that is decent. everything that they did that was so against american senses of right and wrong and values. >> i think until those people are brought to justice at the highest e levels of the obama

administration intelligence community -- lou: kt, i apologize. the president now at the podium. the president of the united states. >> thank you. today i'd like to provide you with an update in our war the coronavirus. thanks to our comprehensive strategy and extraordinary devotion to our citizens, we've had such tremendous support all over, we continue to see encouraging signs of progress. cases in new york area, new orleans, detroit, boston and houston are declining. denver, seattle, philadelphia, washington, d.c., atlanta, nashville,ing indianapolis and st. louis are all stable and declining. all parts of the country are either in good shape, getting

better, in all cases getting better, and we're seeing very little that we're going to look at as a superseding hot spot. things are moving along. really a horrible situation that we've been confronted with, but they're moving along. as we express our gratitude for these hard-fought gains, however, we continue to mourn with thousands of families across the country whose loved ones have been stolen from us by the invisible enemy. we grieve by their side as one family, this great american family. and we do grieve. we also stand in solidarity with the thousands of americans who are ill and waging a brave fight against the virus. we're doing everything in our power to heal the sick and to gradually reopen our nation and to safely get our people back to work. they want to get back to work,

and they want to get a back to work soon. there's a hunger for getting our country back, and it's happening, and it's happening faster than people would think. insuring the health of our economy is vital to insure the health of our nation. these goals work in tandem, they work side by side. it's clear that our aggressive strategy to slow the spread has been working and is saving countless lives. for those who are infected, we've taken unprecedented action to insure they have the highest level of care anywhere in the world. the federal government has built more than 11,000 extra beds, shipped or delivered hundreds of millions of pieces of personal protective equipment, as you know. in fact, some of the people here are going to be talking about it, some of our greatest executives, some of the greatest anywhere in the world. and distributed over 10,000 ventilators, and we now have, in a very short period of time many

have been delivered and hundreds of thousands are being built. and, frankly, every governor has more ventilators right now than they know what to do with. they're actually shipping them to different locations, and we're shipping some to our allies and others throughout the world because we have ventilators like -- the job that they've done in getting this very complex if piece of equipment built is actually incredible. you don't hear about ventilators anymore except in a positive way. we've launched the most ambitious testing effort, likewise, on earth. the united states has mow conducted more than 5.4 million tests, nearly double the number tested in any other country. more than twice as much than any other country. think of that. moments ago i came from a meeting with some of our nation's largest retailers including walmart, walgreens, cvs, rite aid and kroger. we're joined by the leaders of

those great companies, and we also have with us the leaders from the world's top medical diagnostics companies and suppliers, thermofisher, lab corp., quest, and the american clinical laboratory association. these are great companies. these private sector leaders, along with others, such as roche, abbott, becker dickenson and -- [inaudible] have been exceptional partners in an unprecedented drive to expand the states' capabilities and our country's capabilities. the job they've done has been incredible. the testing that's been developed and being developed right now has been truly an amazing thing. i want to thank abbott laboratories for the job they've done. i want to thank roche and in particular those two have really stepped forward. abbott with a 5-minute test that

people can take, and in 5 minutes they know what the, what the answer is. i'd like to ask, if i could, the executives of these great companies, and they are, they have really helped us a lot over the last 45-day period. we're talking about a 45-day period when many of us met and since then what walmart and the others have done has been nothing short of amazing. i just want to ask them to come forward and say a few words about their company. plus, they're going to make a big contribution to our country. please, come forward the, please. thank you. >> thank you, mr. president, and if thank you for, all of you with, for being here today. what we'd like to talk about is the progress we made. the last time we were here was march 13th. we've made tremendous progress. none of that progress could be made without the 47,000 people

at quest diagnostics that are working around the clock, working up the test and running the test and delivering the results that we need. as far as results, we've made tremendous progress. we are currently, at quest diagnostics, testing about 50,000 tests per day. we've been pushed by the task force to bring up that number by the end of may, we'll have 100,000 tests per day. about 3 million tests, and these are the molecular tests that we to do today. we've also brought up serological testing. we started that this past week, and by the end of may, we'll be close to 250,000 a day. so so you put those two numbers together, it's about 10 million tests at the end of may that we'll be doing at quest diagnostics. we're doing that in a quicker way, turn-around times were an issue. in the early days we produced in 1-2 days. our turn-around time for people in hospital beds is less than 24

hours, and we're doing that the same way we've done it with the fda, delivering the quality you all expect. convenience will improve as well with convenient solutions that we'll be able to swab individuals more easily and also deliver to consumer the ability to have consumers choose a test online with a telehealth provider. so with that, i'd like to offer my colleague the podium as well. >> mr. president, thank you very much for your leadership and for having us all here today. our scientists and our lab technicians are working day and night in order to do as many tests as we possibly can for the american public and to turn those tests around as quickly as possible. just 45 days ago we said we could do several thousand tests a day. we can now do 60,000 tests a day, and we're continuing to expand that capacity every single day. in addition, our scientists are working to make testing more

convenient and easier. we have the swabs now that are much smaller than the original ones that we originally launched with, but with we also have the pixel by lap corp. at-home test. that -- lab corp.. for first responders, but we will be rolling that out much more broadly over the coming weeks. and we're going to roll it out with absolutely no up-front cost for the individual consumers. at the same time, we are building our capacity for serology testing, and we can currently do about 50,000 today, and we'll be able to do several hundred thousand per day by the middle of may. and we're going to be working with the retailers, our colleagues that are here today, to help them as they expand their testing capabilities across the entire country. and lastly, mr. president, we have a rather large drug development business, and we will continue to work with our colleagues in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry to insure we do everything we

possibly can to enroll clinical trials fast so that we can get new treatments and potential vaccines. thank you. >> thank you very much. [inaudible conversations] >> mr. president, thank you, and thank the administration for all of the collaboration to enable thermal fisher scientific to be able to produce the test kits that companies like labcorp. and quest and the public health labs around the world run. we met our original commitments of producing a 5 million kits a week, and we're up to scaling that to double that in the coming weeks in terms of supporting testing around the world. i'd like to thank my 75,000 colleagues around the world for their tireless effort to make that a reality and supporting all of our customers that have the testing necessary to get america back to work. >> thank you.

>> thank you, mr. president. i'm john with u.s. cotton, and we are the company that is going to produce the swabs to be used in these testing kits. we have about 12 the 00 people this -- 1200 people in our company, and in our cleveland operation they have pivoted from, as you've said, the q tip style swab to a swap that's going -- swab that's going to have a plastic stick with a polyester tip. our cleveland team has done a wonderful job with this, and i'm very -- they're very excited to be able to help in this effort. so thank you, mr. president. >> thank you very much. appreciate it. >> mr. president, thank you. i'm with cvs health, and it was just over a month ago that we opened up our first drive-through test site. and since that time we have opened large scale testing facilities across five states in partnership with the administration and working with the governors of rhode island,

massachusetts, connecticut, georgia and michigan. and these sites are enabling us to test approximately 1,000 individuals a day with realtime results. we now have a capacity to test about 35,000 individuals each week. and this afternoon we announced plans to expand that capacity even further. beginning in may we will install testing capabilities in up to 1,000 cvs pharmacies. we'll be using our drive-throughs and parts with swab testing. -- parking lottings. again, you'll see that coming online in may. and we also recognize the fact that, you know, the virus is disproportionately affecting our minority commitments, so we're working in partnership with organizations like the american medical association to bring care into the traditionally underserved communities. we're also beginning to implement mobile capabilities with which to do that, and as

businesses are, you know, restarting their work force, we'll also be looking to assist them, you know, as they begin to come back to a normal operation. and finally, as my other colleagues, i just want to thank my cvs colleagues. they have done a phenomenal job in helping people many different ways all across communities in the country. they're part of this army of health care professional, and, you know, front store and, you know, first line supervisors and workers that are doing terrific things to bring our country together. and for that, we owe them a a huge amount of gratitude. thank you. >> thank you, mr. president. appreciate the invitation to be here today, and it was just 45 days ago when we were here. i'm richard ash worth with, i oversee walgreens in the u.s., and i just want to start off thanking the over 200,000 team

members who are in stores every day all across america taking care of our patients and our customers, giving them essential daily needs, the prescriptions, obviously, that they need and even covid testing while we're here. we also announced today we'll be expanding our testing capabilities across all states including puerto rico. we'll be able to triple the volume that we do now in partnership with our lab partners, and we're excited to be able to do that. we're really excited with the public/private partnership that we have here, because that's what's enabling us to do this, and we look forward to working with the additional states to get these sites up and running as fast as possible. as a pharmacist, i just want to say one quick thing. i'm really proud to be part of this profession, and not just walgreens pharmacists and pharmacy employees, but all of them across grocery, mass. you're doing what you went to school for, helping patients, counseling them on their medicines and helping them understand the problems that

we're facing. you know, pharmacy is right here, in it with everyone together in the community, and we look forward to being part of the testing like we are now, serology, whatever that might look like in the future and eventually treatment when the vaccine does come. thank you, mr. president, for the opportunity. >> good job. thank you very much. >> thank you, mr. president. thank you, mr. vice president. we appreciate all you're doing to get america back to work and doing it safely. i represent kroger, and my name is rodney mcmullen, and i am so proud of our nearly half a million associates that are doing everything every day to keep customers safe and our associates safe. and one of the things that we were able to do was provide the basic practices we're doing, we call it blue print, and it's the things all of us can learn from on how to get america back working. we also announced earlier today continuing to accelerate our practice on testing, we are actively engaged in six states.

in the next couple of weeks, we'll take that to 12 states. and the number of tests that we do continues to grow faster than that. together we will win, together we are solve this problem and move on. america is always great. thank you again. >> thank you very much. thank you. >> thank you, mr. president. my name's doug mcmill large i'm a walmart association, and i would like to thank our associates for everything that they're doing in our stores, sam's clubs, distribution centerses and in our e-commerce fulfillment centers. they've been inspiring and continue to have a can-do attitude, and it's much appreciated. we started 45 days ago, as did everyone else, and we've been operating sites now for a while. we're up to 20 sites across 31 states, by the end of next week we'll be at 45 and by the end of may at 100. we also a few weeks ago vice president pence and i were in a food distribution center in

virginia, and he was kind enough to thank our associates for us, which is much appreciatedded. the president and the vice president were on the phone speaking about surgical gowns, and the president asked if we could put in an order for millions. we don't normally buy those, so i wasn't sure if we were going to be able to do that. but i'd like to thank our apparel team in particular for partnering with us. we've been able to, in the month of april, secure an additional 2.5 million surgical gowns and by the end of may, another 6 million to help thank you for the opportunity to serve and be here. >> great job. thank you. >> thank you, mr. president. and thanks to the team for getting this great operation up and running for the benefit of the country. i'm hayward done michigan with rite aid, and we are currently operating 40% of the current test sites in 25 locations across 8 states. and we had, i had the opportunity the as i was driving

up to stop as our rush monday location and see -- richmond location and see it in action and thank associates. whether it be security, pharmacy, front end, everybody who's helping with this great effort. and all of the customers appreciate this so much. it was really amazing to see. and if i want to thank my 50,000 associates also for keeping these retail locations up and running during these really, really tough times. it's been quite amazing. and we, too, are going to expand our testing, and we're doing about 1500 a day. thanks. >> a thank you. so thank you all very much. it's incredible, what we've done together over a shot period of time. i want to thank our vice president for the task force and the work. every day it gets better, and we had a fantastic call with the governors today. i would say that they are as thrilled as they can be

considering that the fact is that there has been so much up necessary death -- unnecessary death in this country. it could have been stopped, and it could have been stopped short. but somebody a long time ago, it seems, decided not to do it that way, and the whole world is suffering because of it, 184 countries at least. but i want to thank all of these great businessmen and women for the job they've done. they've been fantastic working with us. as you know, for several weeks my administration has encouraged the governors to lev are range unused -- leverage unused testing capacity in states. very few understood that we have tremendous capacity. and one week ago we provided each governor with a list of names, addresses and phone numbers of the labs where they could find additional testing capacity in their states. within 48 hours the number of tests performed across the country began to absolutely skyrocket. on saturday alone more than

200,000 test results were reported, which is a gigantic number, bigger than any country anywhere in the world for a much longer period of time. a number that is an increase earlier in the month when we tested roughly less than 100,000 a day. so we much more than doubled it, and that will be doubling again very shortly. we are continuing to rapidly expand our capacity and confident that of we have enough testing to begin reopening and the reopening process. we want to get our country open. and the testing is not going to be a problem at all. in fact, it's going to be one of the great assets that we have. today we're releasing additional guidance on testing to inform the states as they develop their plans for a phased and very safe reopening. our blueprint described how states should unlock their full capacity, expand the number of testing platforms established monitoring systems to detect local outbreaks and conduct

contact tracing. we have it all. other countries are calling to find out what are we doing and how do you do it, and we're helping with them. we're dealing with a lot of countries, helping them on . i directed our medicare program to make it easier for seniors to get the testing that they need and the pharmacies, as you know. we are allowing pharmacies now to do testing. and, we have other testing locations that we're going to be allowing also but having pharmacies get involve in testing is a very big deal. we're also asking governors to do the same in their medicaid programs. so they're going to be able and authorized to do the same in medicaid. so it is a big, that is a big deal. so we're deploying the full power and strength of the federal government to help states, cities, to help local government, get this horrible plague over with and over with fast. there is tremendous energy in our country right now.

there is energy like people haven't seen in a long time. a spirit that they have not seen and, we're doing very well. very well, considering what happened to us considering if you look what happened to others, this is something that the world has not seen for a long, long time. you can probably go back to 1917 where it was a terrible period of time. you all know what happened in 1917. that is over 100 years ago. with that i would like to introduce if i might, dr. birx. if you could come up and then admiral, you're come up. between the two of you will explain the entire process, explain what progress we made and war we're going. thank you very much. lou: that's it for us tonight. the president and a number of pharma executives bringing everybody up to date on their plans, their progress and, getting the economy really to be opened again.

tomorrow night here, dr. ian lipkin, mark cuban, general michael flynn attorney sydney powell, dr. michael pillsbury among our maria: welcome and good tuesday morning, everybody. thanks so much for joining us. i'm maria bartiromo, it is tuesday april 28th, top stories 6:00 a.m. on the button on the east coast. coronavirus testing heats up. the white house lays out plans to assist states in expanding tests these as states are laying out guidelines to reopen the business. american automakers looking to restart production on may 18th. it is round 2 for the paycheck protection program. once again bumps in the road as small businesses seek much-needed money. la lakers and nathan's refamous