this sunday, health and the economy. president trump pivots from fighting the virus -- >> this country can't stay closed and locked down for years. >> -- to promoting the economy. even trying to shut down the coronavirus task force before backing off. >> i had no idea how popular the ta force is. until actually yesterday. >> mr. trump questioning science. >> i feel about vaccines like i feel about test. this is going to go away without a vaccine. >> insisting it's time to get back to normal as the economy suffers. >> we can't stop working. we can't stop living.

>> but at what cost? >> if it really picks up, it's hard to stop again. >> while conquering the virus or getting back to work is a false choice. >> plus, three top officials now in some form of quarantine after possible exposure inside the white house. my guests this morning, infectious disease specialist miker osterholm and jeffrey shaman, and lamar alexander of tennessee. >> also -- >> historic unemployment disaster. >> unemployment numbers not seen since the great depression. >> i'm going to be homeless if i don't open my business back up. >> i'm trying to make a living. >> my conversation with billionaire businessman and philanthropist robert f. smith we come back from the pandemic we're in a better position. >> and the latest in the michael flynn and tara reade stories. >> joining me for insight are kristen welker, richard haass, president of the council on

foreign relations and "wall street journal" columnist peggy noonan. welcome to sunday. it's "meet the press" and our continuing coverage of the coronavirus pandemic. >> announcer: from nbc news in washington, the longest running show in television history, this is "meet the press" with chuck todd. >> good sunday morning, and a happy mother's day to all the moms out there. president trump is making it clear he's moving away from fighting the coronavirus to cheerleading an economic recovery. on tuesday, mr. trump announced he was winding down the white house task force. then a day later, undid the undoing while continuing to urge the reopening of the country in defy iance of even his own task force guidelines. he chose also not to wear a mask at a mask making factory because the a.p. reported he believes it would send the message he's more concerned with health than with the economy. >> meanwhile, three top health officials have begun a partial

or full quarantine after two people working in the white house became infecting indicating just how hard it is to keep the virus out of even the most testing and secure workplaces in this country. all this in a week where the confirmed cases in the united states passed 1.3 million and the death toll is approaching 80,000 now. it's not part whereisan to say administration's response to the pandemic has been confused and confusing, and it raises troubling questions. what's the plan for testing and contact tracing? or does the federal government think that's just too hard to do without a breakthrough? what's the plan for maintaining social distancing as states reopen? what's the plan for making people feel confident about returning to work when even the white house can't keep the virus out? and what's the plan for treating this pandemic as our greatest national crisis since the second world war? in other words, what's the plan? >> people want to come back. i think everybody in this room realizes we have to come back.

>> facing a pandemic that shows no signs of containment, the president is making it clear he is not willing to wait for a national decline in cases or deaths, instead pushing states to reopen now. >> there will be more death. but the virus will pass. >> i used to say 65,000. and now i'm saying 80,000 or 90,000, and it goes up. >> we may be talking about 95,000 people ultimately. we may be talking about something more than that. >> the white house is sidelining scientists, delaying the cdc's attempts at issuing detailed guidelines, reportedly out of fear they were too stringent. >> i respect the governors and i have given them great discretion. >> i have given leeway to the governors. >> do you cdc protocols to be an impediment to opening up the country? >> which protocols? >> the recommended guidelines that have been -- >> no, because i'm relying on the governors. >> the administration distances itself from a report predicting

an uptick in new coronavirus cases and 3,000 deaths a day by june 1st. and the president announced the white house task force was off. >> we're now looking at a little bit of a different form. >> before declaring it on again after public pushback. >> we're keeping the task force for a period of time. >> and dismissing the consensus of health experts that wide spread testing is a necessary step. >> we make ourselves look bad. >> repeating his claim the virus will disappear on its own. >> i feel about vaccines like i feel about tests. this is going to go away without a vaccine. >> the president's skepticism of public health guidance is now being echoed by many governors who support him. >> these models have been so wrong since day one. >> the modeeep changing so really they're not very good. >> because we did so much more testing, we have more cases. >> we were going to the hot spot and testing so of course our positive cases are going to increase. >> you have to be warriors.

we can't keep our country closed down for years. >> we can't keep our economy shut down forever. >> but 68% of americans continue to say they are more concerned that state governments will lift restrictions too quickly than that they may take too long. still, with the unemployment rate now 14.7%, pressure is growing and the president is accusing democrats of slowing reopening to damage his politically. >> they think they're doing it because it will hurt me the longer it takes -- it will hurt me in the election the longer it takes to open up. >> and joining me now are two infectious disease experts. michael osterholm from the university of jeffrey shaman. gentme reopen the all, let me say what do we mean by opening the economy, that's really unclear. we can't stay locked down for 18

months, but at the same time, when you have cases increasing, deaths increasing, health care without adequate protective equipment and we're suddenly going back to what once was our normal lives, that's not a safe place to be. we can't do that and not expect to see a major increase in cases. >> jeffrey shaman, have we squandered the eight weeks in lockdown in that are we either rushing the reopening in that we don't have the testing and tracing program in place yet or have we just squandered the eight weeks? >> we have not used the eight weeks as well as we could have, unfortunately. it would have been benefitted enormously from consistent messaging and a concerted, consolidated plan of attack for actually aggressively and proactively dealing with this virus. at this point, however, we have to pick ourselves up where we are and we need to start taking those measures. we need to look at some of the countries that have been very successful in quashing the virus down. i would point to korea, south

korea, and germany, and maybe even new zealand and taiwan. these are cases, particularly in the case of germany and south korea that had enormous outbreaks. they flattened them, crushed them down, and they did this because they tested so aggressively and used contact tracing and they were able to quarantine who were becoming infectious before they spread to other people. it's a very powerful measure. it requires real investment, but we already have models that show that it can work. and once you have done that, then you're in this position of strength where reopening the economy is not going to lead necessarily to the rebound in cases that i'm expecting giving this patchwork response we have right now and the reopenings taking place in some states. >> michael osterholm, is there -- it seems as if the federal government is sitting, waiting for a testing breakthrough before beginning. waiting to see if there could be a faster testing program before they commit to essentially a national testing program. you're going to hear a guest in a minute say that. we have heard dr. birx say this.

i think we all want a tech breakthrough. what do you do before then? >> well, we have to understand that we're riding this tiger, not directing it. this virus is going do what it's going to do. what we can do is only nibble at the edges, and i think it's not a good message to send to the public that we can control this virus in a meaningful way. what i mean by that, even though, as jeffrey just said, some countries have been able to suppress this somewhat, korea has now got a major outbreak problem occurring. germany has had an increase in cases. what we have to tell people honestly, what they want to hear, they don't want it sugar coated or coated in fear, but somewhere between now and tomorrow, next year, we're going to see 60% to 70% of americans affected with this virus. what we have to do is figure out not just how to die with the virus but also how to live with it. we're not having that discussion. as lewis carroll said, if you don't know where you're going,

any road will get you there. we don't want a false sense of security, but we also have to figure out how to live with this virus, and that's what we're not doi doing. >> one of the reasons why you hear, you heard it in our opening piece there, there are a lot of people that don't -- a lot of these governors are feeling as if the models let them down for some reason. maybe they were reading them for a specific that a model wasn't intended to give them, but no matter what, there's been some skepticism about the various models out there. first of all, what do the models show is going to happen by the end of the month due to this reopening? and what are the -- how do you know if a model is reliable? >> those are really important questions. firstly, the models can't forecast things. they're not prognostic in that way. so what is the point of running them into the future then? we have to do that because we want to get a sense of what may happen in the future. and the projections that we make with these models have to have

baked into them on top of a lot of other uncertainties scenarios as to what we're going to do. so if a number of states now in the 30s are going to reopen, we don't know what the impact of those loosening restrictions really is going to be. governors can open and say businesses are open, but it doesn't mean that all restaurants and businesses will open. and it also doesn't mean that the public will actually freak wnlt those businesses. as you quoted, 68% of the public is really concerned about the virus and considers that a greater priority than the economy. many people actually won't go out and use them to the degree they did pre-pandemic. as a result of all these uncertainties it's very difficult to know wlauts going to happen, how that's going to affect the transmission dynamics of the virus. whether it's going to accelerate and rebound and at what time scales. that said, in a lot of states in which they're loosening restrictions, they're barely hanging on. in some of them, they already have growth of the virus taking place. one would imagine that any

loosening of restrictions there is only going to accelerate the growth of the virus. for the projections that we see, you're going to see a range of outcomes, and they have, as i said, all this uncertainty in them, and they're going to change as we come to realize, well, we actually did this and not this in terms of social distancing. and it has these consequences upon the infection. what i think we are probably going to see over the coming weeks towards the end of the month is we're just going to start to see a growth in cases. it's not going to happen over the next week or two. it's going to come in with a lag because there are lags in the system. that is the people who get infected today, we don't see them as confirmed casehabuilt-i changes we do to social distancing because of reopening we're not going to realize for a couple weeks until we're already into some period of growth. >> michael osterholm, i want you to respond to something the president said about the whole concept of testing. let me play it again for the audience. here's what he said earlier this

week. >> this is why the whole concept of tests aren't necessarily great. the tests are perfect, but something could happen between the test where it's good and then something happens and all of a sudden she was tested very recently and tested negative. and then today, i guess, for some reason, she tested positive. >> now, michael osterholm, the president seemed to indicate that was somehow a failure, but if you're doing a testing and contact tracing program, it sounds like what the white house is doing is a success story, no? >> well, it is to the extent that they're finding these cases. i think the point i want to come back to, though, chuck. this vire is going to keep transmitting whether or not whatever we do. we can nibble it at the edges, in some cases like new york and other cities did. you can surely shave off the top of the peak, but let's remember. in 1918, when influenza virus occurred, we had big peaks in the spring in several selected cities in the country and it

went away for four months and came back with a vengeance. i worry right now more than anything if the virus suddenly starts to disappear because in fact what that may tell us is we are going to act like an influenza pandemic and come late summer, early fall, we could have a peak that made everything else we have done so far look mild. contact tracing is important, but it won't stop that. what are the different scenarios that are going to get us from 5% to 15% of the u.s. population as has currently been populated to 60% or 70%. we don't have a plan for that. that's what we need a plan for. >> what is the likelihood, michael osterholm, that this testing situation can get ramped up without a tech breakthrough? is this something that if we just, you know, sort of trench warfare, is it something we can do as a country? >> you know, it's not. and it's one that, again, we're going to be putting a report out

next week that will really go into detail. we have all been talking about reagents. do you know we're running all the test equipment right now 24/7 in ways it was never meant to be run. imagine if you had a brand new car that could go 100 miles per hour and you ran it nonstop for six weeks 24 hours a day, at the end of the time, it probably wouldn't work well. we're seeing the testing equipment break down. so testing is an important issue, but the infrastructure is just not there. you know, we can't do it. so what we have to do, again, is have that plan. what are we going to do for testing, to bring the economy? what are we going to do to deal with health care and their protections? what are we fweg to do with too many people in the hospital such that beds are no longer available? that's what we need a plan for, and we don't have it. i can't say that enough times. we keep nibbling at the edges about whether a few people in the white house are infected or not. we need a plan. >> how we ended our opening monologue. what's the plan? michael osterholm of the

university of minnesota, jeffrey shaman of columbia university, thank you for getting us started with your expertise in this. much appreciated. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> and joining me now from maryville, tennessee, is senat committee, where dr. fauci will be testifying on tuesday. senator alexander, welcome back to "meet the press," sir. >> thank you, chuck. good morning. >> good morning. you have been a big proponent of this initiative at nih which you compare today the show "shark tank" to develop a rapid screening test that can be a game changer that will allow us to do rapid testing and quarantining of folks, be able to ramp up testing and contact tracing program. dr. birx on this program has said our solution to testing has to be a breakthrough. you are hoping for a technological breakthrough. dr. birx is hoping for a technological breakthrough. so are the rest of us.

what do we do in between? what do we do right now? >> well, here's what tennessee is doing. and the country is doing. you know, senator schumer was nice enough to quote half of what i said at our hearing last week on testing. i said what we're doing is impressive. he left that out. but not nearly enough. here's what the governor is doing today. he's testing prisoners in every prison, every nursing home. drive-through testing on the weekends. go to the local public health department and get a free test. his motto is, if in doubt, get a test. so as a result, tennessee has tested more than most states. so at about 3.6% of the population. he hopes to be at 7% by the end of may. >> look, that is what every state needs. i guess the question i have is, are you concerned that we have not ramped up testing and contact tracing in this eight-week period as high as we

needed to in order to reopen? >> well, what we have done is very impressive. i mean, according to johns hopkins, the united states has tested more than 8 million people. that's twice as many as any country, more per capita than almost all countries including south korea. enough to do what we need to do today to reopen but not enough, for example, when 35,000 kids and faculty show up on the university of tennessee campus show up in august. that's why we need what dr. birx called, what francis collins is working on, a breakthrough. for example, you might be able to put a lollipop in your mouth with a swab, take a picture of it with your cell phone, if it lights up, you're positive. or you send the swab to a laboratory that's not too far away. and they use what they call gene sequencing machines which are already there, they can do 10te of thousands of tests very quickly. >> what do you do -- let me ask

you this philosophically about businesses. you can open an economy, but you can't force the return of demand. so whether you're an airline or you're a restaurant, we know demand is going to be down. at the same time, their demand is down through no fault of their own. how do you rescue those businesses, and how do you rescue those employees? >> number one, vaccine. and the administration has an amazingly ambitious goal of 100 million vaccines by september and 300 by december. i have no idea if we can reach that. number two is treatments. but between now and then, testing. i mean, if you take a test and you know that you don't have covid-19, and you know that everybody around you took a test that same day, you're going to have enough confidence to go back to work and back to school. >> are you concerned that the

white house doesn't see the testing issue as important as you and others do? >> i have talked to almost everybody on the task force. talked with the white house chief of staff, mark meadows, who helped negotiate what we call the shark tank where you throw all these early concept ideas in with francis collins who heads the national institutes of health. i think we're all pushing for as many tests as fast as we can get them. track one is to accelerate the technologies we already have. but if you want the lollipop that will give you an instant test, you need a new technology, and that's what dr. collins' shark tank is all about. >> final question. are you disappointed that the president decided to go ahead with the obamacare lawsuit? there was a window where he could have pulled the justice department could have pulled out of it. they didn't. he wanted to continue forward. if you undo obamacare, what's the plan to replace it?

>> well, the answer to your question is yes. i thought the justice department argument was really flimsy. what they're arguing is when we vote today get rid of the individual mandate, we voted to get rid of obamacare. i don't know one single senator who thought that. >> all right. senator lamar alexander, i'm going to have to leave it there. actually, before i let you go, you do have a mask that will for longtime alexander watchers, will be fitting. show it to us. >> there it is. and i wear it. >> i was just going to say, there should be no other mask any member of the alexander family should be wearing as well. senator alexander, thanks for coming on and sharing your views. we look forward to seeing your committee hearing with dr. fauci on tuesday. >> thank you, chuck. when we come back, that devastating jobs report and how one man is trying to make sure that help gets to pe

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welcome back. as devastating as the jobs numbers were on friday, they were even worse for some. unemployment among african-americans, 16.7%. 2 1/2 points higher than among whites. latino unemployment was even higher. that comes after small businesses, especially those in communities of color, were largely shut out of the government's paycheck approximation program, while enter billionaire businessman and philanthropist robert f. smith who is making sure minority-owned businesses get their share of the funds in phase two of the ppp program. robert fft smith joins me this morning. mr. smith, thank you for coming on. >> good morning, chuck. >> let me sart with this observation and get your big picture take. when you look at what this pandemic has it has been an mri on inequality, whether it's on

health outcomes for communities of color and now we're seeing the economic impact. it's communities of colors getting hit first. knowing that going forward, what is our rescue plan need to look like as far as you're concerned? >> sure. chuck, thank you for having me on the program this morning. you know, as a good friend of mine said, this is a pandemic on top of a series of epidemics. and i think the important thing that we have to do is continue to rally as americans to come with real, lasting, scalable solutions to able the communities getting hit first hardest and probably will take the longest to recover, with solutions that will enable their communities to thrive again. we were coming in to a period of time, quite frankly, in america where we were actually getting some economic activity back in these communities. so i'm thinking and working with a number of folks in washington, with community leaders, with

fintech companies including one we own to enable these banks to really drive some economic opportunity back into these communities. >> what do you think frankly that washington failed to understand about how frankly how small businesses, particularly in communities of color, what did they fail to understand about their banking relationships where this money just didn't get to them? >> well, what's interesting, i wouldn't necessarily say it's a failure to understand. the fact is we had an erosion of the -- what i term as a capillary banking system in america. you know, many of these small communities, urban, rural, aren't being banked by the larger institutions. and what actually gets to these small businesses are these community development, financial institutions, minority development unusuinstitutions, are the capillary banking systems that actually get to

these customers, these small businesses, and they didn't have access going into this program, the ppp program, to the sba in many cases. but i will say that through frankly leadership in washington, you know, we had people like ivanka trump and senator mnuchin, who have been very engaged in this process with me and a number of community leaders to build out and rebuild and fortify some of the infrastructure for these cdfis and ndis so they now in the second wave have had access to the ppp funding and hopefully if we get this right, which we're all determining to, it will leave permanent infrastructur institutes to drive regenerative capital back into these communities. >> go even bigger picture for me. in the rescue plan that congress put out the first time that essentially put $6 trillion in play, $4 trillion in the credit markets with the fed, $2 trillion in actual cash, and yet now it looks like they

underestim see the next round o being more like the first or do you think it needs to be reimagined? >> i think it needs to be reimagined. we have to take this opportunity to reinvest in our business infrastructure in these small to medium businesses, in our banking infrastructure in what i call these capillary banking systems so we can actually emerge out of this even stronger. we have to invest, i'm in the world of software, as you know, we have to invest in technology and software so the banking systems, the capillary banking systems are more efficient. they have more access to capital. they have more transparency. they actually then can engage with these businesses that are in the communities that are frankly underbanked and in many cases not banked at all. 94% of african-american are sole proprietorships.

70% are underbachked or there are no banks. we have no banks in these communities. we would be remiss if we didn't take a significant portion of capital to reinvest in the infrastructure delivering capital back into those businesses and frankly reinvest in those businesses and give them technology and capabilities so there's more transparency, visibility, and giving their businesses an opportunity to grow, scale, and operate more efficiently. it's our opportunity even though we're in a challenging time, and my heart goes out to many families who have lost people and the fact of the matter is our first responders, a lot of them are coming from our communities, we have to reinvest so when we come out of the back end of this pandemic, we're in a much better position. i don't want to see us going back to the same position where we are where banking deserts in these communities. >> we're at about the one-year anniversary where you were the commencement speaker at morehouse and you took care of the entire graduating class's student loans.

took care of their debt. basically an attempt to try to deal with some of these generational inequalities. i can't help but in those same communities, what do you tell those young african-american men who see what happened to that young man who was killed just going out for a jog? it certainly shines an uncomfortable light on those inequalities again. >> in exactly the same stage, exactly. what i tell them is look, we have been in this country as a community over 400-plus years. i had the great fortune through a lot of help and people in my life to be able to provide a liberation to another 400 families in that context. but i tell them, look, focus on building systems that are scalable, that bring your capacity as a human spirit into our government, into our justice system, into our world frankly, into our economic

unfortunate events, we have to, what i call, beat down the hate, bringing frankly love and systems that actually help people understand that wee all humans. we're in this together. we ve to actually fight to insure that our country continues to strive and accelerate. so that's the message i tell them. i want them to focus on education, focus on s.t.e.m., doing things thereat are the right elements around human rights and justice in the country that we live in. and i hope that that message resonates with them, and i frankly hopefully have given them an opportunity to do it without the burden of debt that gives them a chance to now express their best severals in the work they do. >> robert smith, thanks for coming on "meet the press," sharing your views on how we can move forward after this pandemic is behind us. much appreciated. thank you, sir. >> thank you for inviting me. when we come back -- >> it has been an absolute chaoticdisaster, when that

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welcome back. the panel is with us from their remote locations. nbc white house correspondent kristen welker. richard haass, president of the council on foreign relations and author of, the world, a quick introduction. and "wall street journal" columnist peggy noonan. quite the ambition there, richard, the world. you know. a small -- a small focus for one book. but let me start, kristen welker, with you. there's a report this morning that staffers in the white house are a bit rattled. two positive tests in the last week. suddenly the virus is even still inside their house. >> that's right, chuck. this is the week that everything changed at the white house. this is the week that they went from fighting an invisible enemy, as the president has dubbed it, to an enemy that

landed squarely on the steps of 1600 pennsylvania avenue. and so there's a lot of discussion about how many more officials may need to be in quarantine. of course, we saw that the head of the fda, as well as the cdc, dr. anthony fauci, is going to be kwquarantining in a measured form. but really, it put on display the sharp disconnect, chuck, the fact that the white house is essentially urging the country to reopen cities and states, yet those same cities and states do not have the same level of testing that exists at the white house. we know the administration is ramping up testing, 8 million tests so far. they want to try to double that by the end of may, but not clear what the plan is moving forward, chuck. >> peggy noonan, that's -- it feels like that was what i took away from all of our interviews so far this morning, which is, you know, nobody is saying you can't reopen. you just have to have a plan to

do it. and there's just a lot of frustration that there isn't one. >> yeah. i think there's a lot of frustration that there is not really a clear national plan. as for state plans, their criteria for opening in some cases seem a little complex, a little provisional and dependent on testing and tracing and such, turning out very well. it seemed to me, chuck, your whole theme on this show has been what is the plan? i think we're realizing we don't have one, and it's going to bubble up from regionally, probably not nationally, but i thought the most interesting thing said this morning that sums up the moment we're in was from one of your doctors at the beginning who said where are we? we must learn how to live with this virus. there was a sense of, from him,

as he spoke i kind of thought, yeah, he's saying we're going to have to muddle through. i think maybe one of the ways that would be most helpful to muddle through at this point, as citizens and states take on a lot of responsibility, is just to understand this is a dual crisis. not only an illness. it's an economic crisis that's going to demand creativity and ingenuity from all of us. >> richard haass, given your expertise, i want to ask -- i want to look at this from a global perspective here. because the other part of this is, this is odd. the united states is the infected country. it's the country that others around the world don't want to emulate right now. we're not the country that's leading the response to the pandemic or doesn't feel this way. what does that mean to you going forward, and how concerning is that to you? >> well, you're right, chuck. we're not leading by example.

and we're not leading full stop. this comes against the backdrop where this administration has largely addica lly abdicated th u.s. leadership in the world. we didn't even participate in the europe-led effort to come up with a vaccine. and people ought to be worried. think about the situation right now. you've got all the traditional problems. a rising china, an angry russia, north korea, iran, with their nuclear ambitions. then you have all the global issues including the pandemic but also climate change, terrorism, problems in cyberspace, all this at a time thedistracted. that's a really toxic brew for the future of the world, and what we learned from the crisis, if things go badly in the world, we are not immune. they go badly for us as well. >> kristen welker. >> well, chuck, we know against that backdrop the president's key focus right now is not just

on the medical crisis but on trying to restart the economy. and it's not clear what the plan is there. we know his administration officials have shown him numbers that really rattled him. an unemployment rate even greater than what we see right now. we're told the worst case scenario was topping 30%. so there's a lot of discussion right now within the white house about what to do, how to move forward. we know that some of the things under consideration, delaying tax day, for example, a moratorium on new regulations, but no decisions yet, chuck, and a sharp divide in congress between democrats and republicans about what if any next steps need to be taken. republicans say, look, we already passed $30 trillion in stimulus, but democrats say state and local governments need even more. >> peggy noonan, this feels like this is really going to divide the republican party on the issue of spending. because you do have some sort of the more populist members, people like josh hawley, marco

rubio, who do think you need more federal spending, and then you have the more traditionalists who believe, no, no, let's focus on the debt, let's focus on the debt. that could hinder the recovery. >> i think what we're seeing now, if we see this in the republican party, as i suspect we will, between say josh hawley and marco, who say look, this is a crisis. we must spend as wisely as we can but as much as we need to, versus others who will say, look, almost ancient conservative principles involve controlling the power of government. its onru its expense, its cost. sure, that will be fought out somewhat, but i have to tell you, that argument has been fought out since it's almost part of what produced donald

trump, who really said to his audiences in 2016, hey, i'm not going to touch government spending. i'm not going to bother these intitlements. i think the base of the party would support an attitude of throw whatever against the wall you have to. see what sticks. we are in a historic crisis. if going against our traditional views will help dig us out, go against them. dig us out. >> richard haass, i want to get your reaction, the secretary of state walked back one of the most roughest charges that the u.s. government has been making about the virus against the chinese. let me play for you first the accusation and then the secretary's walkback. >> the chinese government hasn't permitted american scientists to go into china. and the wuhan lab, but whatever it needs to go to learn about

this came from the laboratory. the statements can both be true. >> i'm of two minds on this, richard haass. if this is true, should we be shouting it from the rooftops, go to the united states, present the evidence and go from there, or is this something we're going to regret because it creates basically a cold war over this virus for the globe to deal with? >> chuck, chinese performance has been bad, whether this came out of a lab or not. they have covered up, they allowed people to leave wuhan, and we're all paying a price for it. what started in wuhan didn't stay there. so that's a fact, again, whether they're covering up the fact it came out of a lab, we don't have information supporting that. the secretary of state got forward on his skis, and that's always a mistake. people say in war, truth is the first casualty. we ought to husband the truth carefully. the larger issue, though the two most powerful countries of this

era, the two most inflew ngs ue our relationship will go a long way in defineing the character of this era in history, the challenge is to push back against china where we can, criticize them on their pandemic, criticize them on human rights, push back ought what they're do in the south china sea, but we still need to protect and preserve areas of potential cooperation on climate change or say on dealing with the north korean nuclear challenge. that's going to be a hard piece of foreign policy to get right, but that's the challenge. >> all right, i'm going to pause the conversation there. just an excellent group dynamic. much appreciated. when we come back, how president trump's slippng (vo) since our beginning, our business has been people. and their financial well-being. it's evident in good times, with decisions focused on the long-term. and crucial when circumstances become difficult. that continued emphasis on people - our advisors, associates, clients and communities

gitoday. and always. strength and a way forward. especially lately. at farmers we've seen a thing or two. we've seen you become sweat-pant executives, cat coworkers and pillow-fort architects. we've seen you doing your part. so, farmers will keep seeing you through. with fifteen-percent-reduced personal auto premiums and immediate savings through our signal app, which gives a discount for safe driving. and then we'll do the next thing, and the thing after that, until this is another thing we've seen and done. 16. (laughter) how many pints of iced tea are left in the pitcher? times... ten... so, wait... (errhhhhh)

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welcome back. data download time. with election day less than six months away, it is a good time to remember that control of the united states senate is also in play, along with the white house. and the last eight weeks have shown promising signs for democrats who hope to flip control of the chamber. in early february, the cook political report listed three republican-held seats as toss-ups.

seen here in gold. arizona's martha mcsally, cory gardner, and maine's susan collins, and three more as leaning republican, those in pink. the open seat in kansas left by pat roberts and north carolina's thom tillis and georgia's kelly loughlin. by the end of april, there were four in each category with steve daines of montana and iowa's joni ernst in the leaning column and north carolina shifting to the toss-up column. let's look at a few of them for which we do have polling data. in arizona, mcsally has faced a touch race from the beginning against democrat mark kelly, a former astronaut and husband of gabby giffords. it's still a toss-up, but the real clear politics polling average shows mcsally down eight points. been a while since we have seen any poll showing mcsally ahead. then thom tillis in north carolina who was in the lean gop category. by the end of april, it became a toss-up race and polling shows why, because tillis essentially tied -- is tied with the democratic nominee, cal

cunningham. then montana, where steve daines was in the solid gop category. that is until steve bullock, the current governor, decided to run. and now cook has placed the race to lean gop. in fact, bullock was up seven points in a recent poll, indicating the race is likely a toss-up already as well. remember, if joe bide wins in november, democrats will need to flip four republican-held seats assuming democrat doug jones loses in alabama and three if he somehow holds on. right now, polls show most americans disapprove of president trump's handling of the coronavirus crisis, and these trends suggest that downballot republicans are being pulled down by the president's performance as well. when we come back, tara reade, mi ♪ ambient sound fades in and plays throughout. ♪ ♪ ambient sound fades in and plays throughout. ♪ ♪ ambient sound begins to rise. ♪

♪ ambient crescendos and then goes silent for the tagline. ♪ ♪ ambient sound begins to rise. ♪ (vo) tell me, what do you build a network for? what did verizon build their network for? people. every hole dug, every wire spliced, every tower raised, it's for people. and when people's every day is being challenged, that's when a network stands up and shows what it's made of. ♪ businesses are using verizon's added capacity to keep them running and connecting with customers in entirely new ways. when government and public health agencies asked for network resources, they were delivered in more than 30 states. and verizon customers are making an average of over 600 million calls and sending nearly 8 billion texts a day, every day. ♪

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i learned a lot by watching richard nixon. of course, there was one difference, one big difference. number one, he may have been guilty. number two, he had tapes all over the place. i wasn't guilty. i did nothing wrong. and there are no tapes. >> welcome back. that was president trump on friday, on fox and friends, embracing the comparison with richard nixon, as he gloated about the michael flynn news and denied involvement with russia to tip the 2016 election. the panel is back. kristen welker, the president is

obsessed with undoing the mueller report. and he was -- he tweeted some 40-plus times this morning, it seems like, mostly about michael flynn. >> 40-plus times about michael flynn just this morning, chuck. it underscores the fact that this is an issue that looms large for president trump. it does come after he was gloating, after the attorney general recommended that a judge drop the charges against michael flynn. it is worth noting that ultdimately, it's going to be up to that judge whether he actually decides to move forward with that, but it's opened the justice department up to all sorts of criticism yet again that the attorney general may be working hand in hand with president trump, something that bill barr has denied. but chuck, here's what i think the critical issue is. the president is still very focused on this. and yet his aides and allies say ultimately, on election day, he's going to be djudged on one issue alone, his response to the

coronavirus crisis, chuck. >> you brought up bill barr. peggy noonan, i want you to listen to this bill barr answer to a question about what will history say about this. wait until you hear this answer. take a listen. >> when history looks back on this decision, how do you think it will be written? >> well, history is written by the winners so it largely depends on who's writing the history. >> i was struck, peggy, by the cynicism of the answer. it's a correct answer, but he's the attorney general. he didn't make the case that he was upholding the rule of law. he was almost admitting that, yeah, this is a political job. >> well, my read on it was it was a more resigned and world weary sort of look. we all know the facts on this. i kind of -- i assume that barr thinks he did the right thing. i mean, my read on this whole thing is that a fellow general

flynn who was early on new at the job, rather hapless, perhaps out of his depth, made a terrible mistake. he told a lie. an overexcited government agency or parts of a government agency essentially pushed him around after that. it became a mess. my feeling is, you know, this absorbed a lot of people, was very interesting for a long time. but we are in another point in history, baby. we've got a pandemic and an economic collapse. so whatever on that. can i say something about trump? he compared himself this week to nixon. last week, it was lincoln. i just sense there, 40 tweets today, he kind of, i think, knows the fact that the original sin of his handling of the pandemic was the failure of testing, the laxness, the lack of focus, the lack of being able

to make this work. i think he knows it will haunt him politically. and i think will haunt thing. so i think he's deflecting a bit. >> hey, richard haass, how does this look to the rest of the world? >> some of the most important things in diplomacy are not what people who work for the state department do, it's the example we set. whether it's the vibrance and cra creativity of our economy, the functioning of our political system, our ability to correct mistakes. so the rest of the world looks at this and they shake their head and go, this is not the knew. and this has real implications. not only does this weaken would-be democrats in the world, again, we're heurting the cause of democracy, but increasingly, other countries are saying we're not going to put our eggs in

america's basket. we have done that now for three quarters of a century. we have been well served by our closeness to the united states, but increasingly, countries are going to go their own way. that to me makes for a more dangerous world because we need collective answers to some of these challenges like disease orclimate. if people start taking matters into their own hands, this will be a world of much more proliferation, much more violence. a lot of what we have taken for granted over the last decades i'm afraid now that's been put at risk. >> well, unfortunately, we ran out of time to talk about the world of biden. that's part of joe biden's problem these days, when he does get talked about, it's only about one story, the tara reade thing, but he's still leading in the polls. we'll geet that topic hopefully again throughout the weekend. thank you for watching u thank you for trusting us. happy mother's day to all the moms out there. remember to call or zoom your mother. we'll be back next week because if it's sunday, it's "meet the

press." ken foreman: over the years, i've had the chance to take

several groups from the church on a pilgrimage over to the holy land. one day on the tour, there's always this stark contrast. we start the day with going up to the mountain fortress of king herod, 1500 feet in the air. there's a trail you can take all the way to the top. i take the tram because a man's got to know his limitations. and then from there, we go all the way down to the lowest part of the earth, the dead sea, 1388 feet below sea level. and it's the strangest thing, if you put on your bathing suit and wade into the water, you can lay flat on your back