>> a restless president and nation. president trump: we're going to be opening up very, very, very, very soon, i hope. robert: president trump at odds with his own officials. >> now is no time to back off. now is the time p to your foot on the accelerator. because we're going in the right direction. robert: but with unemployment rising, the president feels pressure to reopen the economy. in hot spots, black americans face alarming rates of infection. >> why is it that the prest people always pay the highest price? robe: and on capitol hill, a debate over funding. >> my colleagues must not treat working americans as political hostages. >> we need more oversight in terms of how this work and we can make it work better. robert: next.

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pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. oncegain from washingto moderator robert costa.d robert: gvening. the week ends with new reporting revealing white house that is far from settled. while the coronavirus pandemic gripthe nation, the is a growing clamor inside the west wing to reope the american economy. for "the washington post" and others, the economy is in free pressu to resume business activity as soon as next month. especially after the labor department said that 6.6 million americans filed for unemployment last week. the president spoke out friday about his position an he was echoed by the attorney general, william barr, earlier in the week. >> your doctors who are gathered here seem to be i doubt as to whether or not the country can reopen on may 1. if they come to you before may 1 and say the country is not ready, or huge parts of the

country are not ready toon reop may 1, will you listen to them in president trump: i listen to them abo everything. remember, there's no -- i understand the other side of the argument very well >> this period of time, at the end of april, expires, i think we have to allow people to adapt more.han we ha and not just tell people to go home and hide under the bed. robert: but the president's own experts are more cautious and they're unwilling to commit any date until they see more data. >> this is not the time to feel that since we have made such important advances in the sense of success of the mitigation, that wee need to b pulling back t all. robert: four top reporters join us to discuss these issues. yasmeen abutaleb for the post, carl hulse, chief washington correspondent for "the new york times," amna nawaz, senior

correspondent for the pbs news however, and jonathan karl chief correspondent for abc news and auth of "front r at the trump show," now a "new york times" bestseller. good evening to you all. yasmeen, you have been reporting on the task force all week. we saw all smiles today at the ite house be dr. fauci and president trump. but what's going on behind the hescenes? are winning the argument to keep the country closed down for weeks? yasmeen: i think we have to wait and see. some sources i have spoken to pointed to the fact that president trump, before, was pointing to easter as an opening date. seemed like that was inevitable. and then you know theying mored to talk him out o that. i think the health officials do agree we need to reopen the s country ae point, but you need to do it in a way that's safe and mhodical and make sure you have the right pieces in place. right now the understanding is, and the agreement is they certainly don't have all the pieces in place to be able to d it safely.es

brderng to make sure you don't have new outbreaks, contact tracing, teous to figure who has immunity to the virus. none of that is in place. it's being discuss bud certainly not going to be ready bethe end of the month or at theni beg of next month. robert: when you think about the economic task force, wl that be competing with health abexpes t the timeline for reopening the economy? jonathan: i think there's no question aboutsi it. the p has been hearing it throughout this period. even before he made d theision to go from april 15 to april 30. there have been two camps. the preside h has advisors from the start, robert, who have made the case that rlly the beginning of this was also an overreaction. that's their view. they believe, this is largely oo themic team, that you've got to have some kind of a reopening by april 30 and clearly that is not theio dire the medical experts are pointing to.

i think this will be a battle that will pit largely the economic team versus the hmlth care tnd i am not sure where the president goes on this, younow. on one hand he sounds like he's getting ready to call for an opening. problem can't be worse tn the cure. he is sounding like somebody who wants to do that. but at every major decision point s far, he has actually listened to the health care experts. robert: on the business side, john who is listening to?ha wh his ear? is it secretary me chew anyone? is it friends on walstet? jonathan: certainly secretary mnuchin is an parent port of. this but he works the phone. you know tt. his friends on wall street, his friends in the business world, he's talking to them, hearing from them, hearing a lot of arguments in favor of getting the country back to work again and he's also hearing warnis

that doing that too soon could be counterproductive and perhaps disastrous. robert: amna, i wg as watchu on "newshour" yesterday. as much as presidentrump wants to make this th decision about reopening the economy it's governors in a ltaot ofte who will make decisions about their own states an when they reopen. what did he -- governor tate tell you aou what are y learning about governors, whether they'll listen to the president or not? nena: you're seeing governors on the front f this making the decisions about how they're going to be handling theases, the infection rate , the test, procurement of the perform p.e., th protective medical equipment that frontline workers need. governors are on the ont e, tip end of the spear on all of this tip revis was saying, we hear the arguments, the hrpresident waitedee weeks before they had their first con -- that he waited three weeks

before they had their first shelter inlace, he said i don't think we should be doing this weeks and week os end because we'll have an economi dastthorne back end. this huge debate has emerged now which is whitech disr do you mitigate? do you try to address the healsh dier which we know is spreading arn the country and really stop the economy in its tracks to do that first? or do you try to do both things at the same time? do you worry about the economic fallout and not take as many aggressive steps to address theo hell fut early on? health experts will say you can't addrenoss the ec fallout before the health fallou and we don't have a good sense of what's needed to address the health issue right now. mississippi even said, they were late to starting. didn't start until after the cases in early march. they don't have nearly the testing kits they need to be able to figure out how widespread it is and there's a patchwork of responses across

the ate before the governor stepped in robert: carl, when you talko your sources on capitol hillmark republicans are telling me privately t they're nervous about president trump's decision here because their own electoral fates are on the lin tied i with what the president does. what's the white house hearing from top republicans in congress an democrats? carl: what they're hearing iso they havet these test , the antibody test, to show people have been infecteybd and they're safe to go back. i heard this repeat think from republican senators saying this is the key. we've g to g tha going. we need to have millions of these by memorialay. so that's where they're focused right now. i think they'reery nervous about reopening and have this another spi later on in the year closer to the election. they know they're actually in pretty big trouble on the hill right now in terms of holding on toorheir my. saw some ratings shift on senate

races this week. the president's trying to bolste these endangered republicans announcing, i'm f ventilatorsbers o to colorado, sending x to arizona. unease. ink there's a lot of ople are pulling back from the idea already that congressou come back april 20. so i think they're probably signaling to theresident, let's slow down until we know exactly what's going to happe because not only is your political fortunes at stake, ours are too. robert: on another front, hlth care, you're seeing a new development that's really important this week. reported by "the new imes" and the "post" shows the coronavirus is infecting and lling african-america and latinos at an alarming rate.>> we have a particularly difficult problem of exacerbationhf a hea disparity. we have known literally forever that diseases like diabetes, hypertension, osity, and asthma are disproportionately afflicting the minority

populations, particularly theam africaicans. robert: this was on the front page of many newspapers. it's a development that leaders acront the c are grappling with. when you look at the data and talk tou youres, what are you learning about why this is happening? yasmeen: i think, you know, there's an understanding that a lot of this comes down to systemic inequities between minority communities and white communities. part of this is, is that some states only recently started collecting databased on race. so much of the early response was tests, getting tests, but u didn't address the inequities that are inherent to the u.s. health care system. part of it is, as dr. fauci sai in the clip, pre-existing hypertension occur in higher rates in minority communities. we know that one cirus is especially risky to people who have underlying health conditions. you see all of that starting to

take effect. the state is still not very comprehensive so you've seen a lot of lawmakers calling for administration cat to think about ways to address this. robert: when youto listen hat yasmeen just said and think about all your reporting over the years abouteah care access, the burdens of care, what are you seeing right now thhi pandemic and communities of color? amna: yasmeen is absolutely right. the numbers don't and paint an astonishing picture even with the patchwork of data we have s far. it's limited, early data and we're relying on states to collect that data and offer it up. the federal government is not ig collecting it now. they're not releasing it in a comprehensive way. but to take mississippi, in mississippi, africricans make up less than 40% of the state population, far theyupake over 70% of all covid related deaths.

they also make up a majority of the infection rate. we know this is happening across the country. in places like michigan a ohio and virginia and north carolina, cities have started relatsing thattoo. yasmeen is right, there's a higher chronich burden, hea burden, carried by african-americans in particular. but it's also a matter hen they are able to access care. there's a minimizing of pain. there's a dismissing of simp tops there. all tho things will lead, according to the experts i've taed to, to a profound rtality or morbidity rate. one of the reasons it's important to get the data across the runt country is to know where to surge the resources when you do get them. robert: there was an exchange today between reporter and the surgeon general about this issue. when you talk to sources at the white house, are they confront this? are they dealing with this in the trump administration? jonathan: it caught their attention.

these figures are a reflection of inequalityam in ica and about the outlines of that inequality. tink it's goingbe a similar situation to look at the economic impact. we have had some 16-plus million people file for unemployment benefits over the past three week. as you know, so many americans e get theith care coverage through their employer. this is an economic crisis and health care crisis that is intertwined ver closely. robert: such an important point. when you think abo the economic crisis, these dual crises in health care, carl, it all ties into, inclung the racial disparity, with this ongressional showdown over funding, in brief here's what we need to know. the trump administration wants to shore up th $2 trillion stimulus package with an addional $250 billion for small businesses. speaker pelosi an democrats wanm guarantees f repubcans that half of that money would go to minority-owned businesses and

community banks andhey'd like to see another $250 billion for hospitals and states. senate republicans and democrats bothried to pass their versions of funding late this week. both efforts failed. carl, the issue about race, tabout who is goingo get access to capital, they persist notst n the health front but also the economic front. what's next on chill as they continue to negotiate about small business funding? carl: you know, you can't quarantine partisanship. we saw some of that happen this week. i think, oou know, of the interesting things to me about this, bob, isthat senator mcconnell has been very successfg in mov judges on a majority vote. he's gotten used to doing thing osen a majority vote. now he's strog face democrats who have real leverage in this because he needs 60 votes for legislation. they're going to press their ,vantage. thou know, what happened was senator mcconnell in the white house wanted a straight

through $250 billion for small siness and the democrats said hey, wait a minute. we want to take care of some of the proems we see there too. got into a stalemate. i do think they are going to work this ou probably by next week. democrats areealing with secretary mnuchin who is their favorite partner they like dealing with him. i think then the bigger figu come do ink the road is the so-called phase four that'll be a much brotter thing. the democrats, they are not going to just sitndhereay we're going to take what the white house wants. i think one of theti fasci things about thispidemic is how it hasoliceallized some of these divides that we've had in the country and i think democrats see that and going into election they want to make sure they take care of d -- whas they see their focus. robert: yasmeen, carl mentioned phase four, t next round of talks. i spoke to speakerelosi this week who said hospitals need billions of dollars.

when you talk to y our sources, where are the needs? as congress starts to look ahead to ihase four,n terms of health care, where is money needed right now as the pandemic continues? yasmee hospitals are seeing disproportionate numbers of are sta in the i.c.u. longerho than usual.ey e -- insurers have waived fees for testing and you know, some insurers have waived certain money for types of t coronaviruatment. but i think the biggest thing is that hospitals are seeing a huge rge of patients, many of tm dicare patients, so the payments are lower than in private insurance. and i.c.u. stays are longer and the i.c.u. is verype ive. a lot of hospitals especially rural hospital or hospitals in smaller communities are -- say ey're bleeding money tiing to respond to this crisishand don't enough resources. you know, a lot of people here talked aut need for supplies, protective equipment, ofs of just about everything

right now. they've got staff that you know need to work overtime for some of these tests thatou're sending out, you need technicians actually operating these tests is very ebs expensive. the need is spread throughout bufor smaller hospitals, i think they say they're hurti and bleeding moneyryg to respond to the crisis. robert: let's finish by coming o the president. he is at the lectern every day casting himself as the pandemic patron, personalizing the overnment's spread of cash and supplies new reporting shows him reusing his powers to remove two past tors general in the week. michael atkinson the intelligence community inspector general, an gle fine, chairman of the panel congress create t.d. oversee t administration's handling of the 2 trillion stim jus. john, mark meadows is the n chief oftaff, former north carolina congressman. he's in there put in a new press secretary tals week, but been the president's tnity

danl try to push out i.g.'s. is this part of a pge of i.g.'s we'll continue to see? jonathan: i wou add a third inspector general, the h.h.s. al inspector genhe president bitterly complained about this week, he hasn't fired her b bitterly complained about her and the fact that she served in government under the previous adshnistration. served under plinton, bush, obama and now trump e's what you call a career public servant. i would expect a continuation of a purge that's already been under way. when the predent hears the words inspector general right now, what he think about is he thinks about the i.g. for the intelligence community, atkinson, about the fact that atkinson was the one who passedl on the whister complaints regarding the ukraine call to congress that set forth the series of events that led tois

impeachment. he aibitterly comd about this, even the notion of an inspector general. when he realizes, learned that these areop largely that have done this from administration to administration, these aren ag career public servants, he sees this as an iextension of whats allies call the deep state and y particul nefarious one because they're out to get hem at least in his mind. so yes, i think you'll see more robert: what's tt for this kind of executive action? think about inspector general atkinson, very protective o whistleblowers. one of the people who protected the whistleblower about the ukrainian call between president trump and predent zelensky. does this mean whistleblowers may be more hesitant to come forward? amna: there's no doubt.

with the pressure from the highest in the land there was a chilling effect from people who felt they had something to share. i heard this from different government agencies along the way. 1-2-3 inning ast real concern, a real fatr out there. why you heard from lawmakers that more needs to be done to potentially protect those because of the language and consistent actions -- robert: c speaker pelosi with her select committee overseeing the stimulus try to be the oversight branch even if there's an i.g carl: this was one of the big problems with phase 3, the democrats insisting on idoversight. prt ump doesn't think the congress should have a role in overseeing how he operates. this is a tremendous amou of money that's being shelled out to coin a phrase. it's not just aut corruption. it's about waste and inefficiency. you have to keep an e on mon in this amount. i think the president will keep

doing this as long as senate republicans kind of roll ovey which tve done so far. they sent an angry let cher is sort of a joke in washington, angry letter to come. i think if you're going to st the president, they're going to have to take some serio actiee. i have no indication so far that they're willing to do that. so thisther group that speaker pelosi and senator mcconnell noe o come to agreement on a chairperson of that group, i think that's kind of anin resting negotiation that's going on right now. but the president will fight oversight until he's stopped by his own party. robert: yasmeen -- e.carl: i'm not d jonathan: the president thinks thate's the inspector general. no oversight, he'll do t.e oversi the president will oversee his own actions. i mean he said this explicitly. s what he says privately as well. he doesn't need somebody lookins over -- hoing to make the

right decisions. he detests the entire -- the idea -- these are internal tchdog, two ofhe dirty words or phrases he's come up with, nd whistleblowernspector general. he does that. he wille the ethics watchdog. he doesn't want somebody else doing. this i think carls exactly right. unless republicans in congress stand up and say no, there needs to be oversight by congress, and by inspectors general, this purge or this effort to stymy this will continue. robert: that's a critical point. it brings up the question of hydroxychloroquine. the president is not going to war with his own officials on the i.g. issue but whent comes to the f.d.a. which is taking its time with tries on hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malaria drug being used by some doctors to treat covid-19, the president i gting ahead of his own f.d.a. what kind of tensions has that

used on the task force as they move ahead? yasmeen: you know, i think it actually plays into the division we were talking about earlierbe een the economic task force, the president, the people who want to get theeople open and the medical professionals who want to do things methodically and make sure you're doing it safely. the drug factors into that. one of the argues medical professionals an outside ex-pers have bn making is if you're going to get the country back to work art reopening things, you need a therapeutic, at something to toronavirus. the president and some of his advisors are leaning onhy oxychloroquine as the answer to that as something they can point to say it's fine, youan taket, you can take it to prevent it, i think the president at one point might take it to try to prevent conavirus even though there's no evidence of that working. so i think a lot of this comes from the desire to have some magic bullet that can treat the virus, can get the country back to work, but the reality is the dat isretty mixed and not

at all conclusive. one thing i've hrd from sources over and over is you can't put too much pressure on a single drug because -- a dr. fauci said this publicly if it doesn't work you need to move on to the next thing.ro rt: we must leave it there. thank you to our guests for joining us. make sure to watchhe "washington week extra," it airs live on social media at 8:30 eastern and is later hosted on our website. for now, thank you. our audience is growi in this difficult time. we welcome those who are new to this wvekly cation and we appreciate those who keep coming back. we will continue taking you all aslose to the news as we can. i'm robert costa, good night from washington. [captioning performed by the nation which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> funding for washington week

provided by -- >> life isn't a straight line. and sometimes you can find urself heading in a new direction. fidelity is here to help you work through the unexpec with financial planning and advice for today and tomorrow. ♪ >> additional funding provided by -- the estate ofrnold adams. and koo and patricia yuen through the yuen foundation, commted to bridging cultural differences in our communities. the corporation for public broadcasting. anby contributions station from viewers like you. thank you.

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