robert: optimim the president and caution from experts. dr. fauci: the re-entry of sunts into -- students into the fall term would be a bridge too far. toluse: to me it's not an acceptable answer. robert: a divide between health officials and president trump as straineds to reopen a nation. and a warning from a whistleblower. >> we need a national testi the virus is here. it's everywhere. robert: as states teeter on the brink ofeconomic collapse, congress debates another relief bill. thee must think big f people now because if we don't it will cost more in lives and livelihood later.

robert: and the campaign heats up as the president lashes out abouthe case of former national security adviser michael flynn. toluse: it was the greatest political crime in the has -- history of our country. >> corporate funding is provided by. >> life isn't a straight line and sometimes you can find yourself heading in a new direction. fidelity is here to help you work through the unexpected with financial planning and advice for today and tomorrow. >> kaiser permanente. additional funding is provided

by t estate of arnold adams and koo and patria yuen through the yuen foundation, committed to bridging cultural dierences in our communities. the corporation for public broadcasting and contributions to your pbstation from viewers like you. thank you. once again, from washington, moderator robert costa. robert: go w evening. thk ends with nearly 90,000 americans dead due to covid-19 and sta tst have struggled for weeks with testing are now struggling to reopen. it's a nation uncertain and divided. governors are clashing with state lawmakers and in nee of cash. neighbors are helping one another but arguing ove facemasks. millions of households are dealing with personal tensions and financial pressure. federal reserve chairman jerome powell t saids week that the country is in the middle of the biggest shock our economy has felt in modern times and possibly facing an extended

periodf weakness. here in washington on friday house democrats are considering speaker nancy pelosi's $3 trillion relief package but that is only the openinghid w negotiations with senate republicans and the white house just beginning. president trump is encouraging states to reopen and touting efforts to develop a vaccine. pres. trump: there's never been any vaccine projectere in history like this and i just swant to makeething clear. it's very important. vaccine or no vaccine, we're back and we' starting the process. robert: but health experts warn this week that the president and here is dr. anthony fauci and whistleblower dr. rick bright, l.rmer vaccine offic dr. fauci: there is a real risk that you will trigger an outbreak that you may not be able to controlhi, in fact, paradoxically, will set you

back, not only leang some suffering and death that could be avoided but could even set you back on the road to get economic recovery. >> if we fail to improve our response nowased on, scien i fear the pandemic will get worse and be prolonged. there will likely be a a resurgence of covid-19 this fall greatly compounded t by challenges of seasonal influenza. could be the darkest winter in modern history. robert: joining me are four all week. who were on the beat weijia jiang, white house correspondent for cbs news. jonathan lemire, white house reporter for the associated press. abby phillip, political correspondent for cnn. and jake sherman, senior writer for politico, and co-author of "playbook." weijia you're at the white house tonight. you're talking to sources inside the west wing. looking at that testimony from

dr. bright and dr. fauci, is the president listening or is he sidelining experts? weijia: it's greato be with you and i can tell you this really was a one-two punch for president trump because you hav top health experts undermining his argument that the country is ready to reopen, an argument that he took a step further just today, saying that withr without a vaccine, we are back. and because the president does not offer scientific data to support his side of this argument, he turns to attacking dr. fauci and bright, so we heard him say that fauci iso trying t play both sides here and that bright is just a disgruntled employee who shouldn't be working for the government at all. an so this really struck a chord for president trump the same time is having these events, trying to prove to the country thatdy we're ro move forward when these experts are saying, i you do that too

quickly, it will cost you. robert: abby, what's your read, yol reporting tu about the discord that's possiblyn goingside the task force? iau saw dr. standing behind president trump today in the rose garden. what's the story behind the scenes? abby: well, operation warp spee when they announcedoday with vaccines is something that absolutely has to happen and i think everyone's on the same page about that but there's anc real diffe of opinion about how quickly the white house should bemphasizing reopening versus encouraging states to use data, as weijia pointed out, to rationalize w they're reopening and how. remember, just a few days ago, the white house hadolled out these guidelines for states to use in order to decide whether not they could be phased in to different parts of the opening based on the way that president trump is talking at the moment, it seems they have virtually abandonedhat

framework. many of the states are clearly not following and there general lack of guidelines coming from the white house and from t c.d.c. and other federal agencies about what should guide states asre they en. this is being led by the president and a lot of his economic advisers who want to focus on reopening while some of the medical experts say there needs to be a slow, steady and data-driven approach to this issue. robert: jonathan, abby mentioned operation warp speed, this vaccine effort inside the white house, helmed in part by a former pharmaceutical executive. what's the reality here? what are the a factsut how long a vaccine could take? jonathan: first of all, it's great to be here. yes, operation warp sed, apparently an appropriate "star ayek" reference on the same they unveiled the space force flag in the oval office, is meant to be a crash course to

develop a vaccine and the president has taken to saying recently that h tbelieves vaccine can be developed and widely disseminated bnd the of the year which is an extraordinary accelerated time table. members of the task force, the new vaccine czar, eciod -- echoed that and said they could do it. dr. fauci hasaid he believes it could take a year to 18 months and even that would be an aggressive time table. the president doesn't want to hear it. he, of course, i ts lookingo get the economy going as quickly as he can. wants states toeon and he's doing it with one eye towards november. he knows that in order to be-e cted, odds are, his advisers believe, he needs to show that the economy i moving again. he and his team saw the dismal unemployment, hpltoric unment numbers from a week or so ago. they're rattled that it could take quite some time even with

states slowlyeopening, for some of the jobs to come back and he feels that pushing forward, a rosy take on the whole scenario butrl particu eest wayim cs heinleadther for the i country, ass put it. abby: when i talk to administration officials who have craftedo thi bs n tewime ws manufacturing and distributing. they said, look, it's like if we were bting on a horse in a race, we are going to bet on a few horse a few promising vaccines and start to manufacture thove before one emerges as a winner so we'll be readyo push it out and get it to t people who need it. the problem is that you can't rush the actualevelopment part. there are about 100 different groups around the world that are racing to try to get something they know isffective and safe and that's the part that doctors say you just canno control when

it comes to a time line. robert: jake, as the white house and the doctors have this standoff over the course on howo theyd move on the pandemic, your beat, house of representatives, the deliberating on speaker pelosi's $3 trillion relief package day after federal reserve chairman jay powell prodded congress to act. let's hear from him. >>he scope and speed of this downturn are without modern precedent. significantly worse t any recessionince world war i additional fiscal support could be costly but worth it if it helps avoid long-term damage and onlegeaveswi recory. robert: thedent and senate republicans have voiced opposition to thera dem' plan. >> it's got so mh unrelat to coronavirus it is dead on arrival here. pres. trump: ashey say, o.a., dead on arrival. of coursws nancy pelosi k

that, obviously. robert: still, as i repted with my post colleagues this week, the white house is open to a deal withore money for states on the table. in exchange, the white house wants tax baks for businesses. but jake, tonight, frid night, inside the house of representatives, there's still not a final vote on speaker pelosi's package. what's going o on the floor? jake: that's exactly right, bob. right now we are at the tail end of a day during which nancy pelosi spent much of it,uch of today twisting arms and gettingm herratic colleagues in line, she hopes, to vote for this major piece of legislation. $3 trillion. they took jay powell'squ words e seriously and crafted a package that nancy pelosi herself described as onof the broadest pieces of legislation to come in front of congress in a very long tim the risk is quite obvious politically, bob. there's two ris, right. there's the risk that they don't

do enough at the end of the day which we'll have to see when the end of the day is and then there's the other risk which is she's putting h 3 democratic lawmakers who were elected in stricts that donald trump won, she is forcing them -- not forcing them. she's asking themot to for a $3 trillion bill. we all lived through the 2009 stimulus bill and all the actions that were taken after that recession and house republicans ran campaigns for years based on those stimulusvo s, those pricey stimulus votes, which many people argued were necessary but were politically very tough so republicans are betting that this bill which as the president said, he's right, it's dead on arrival in the senat theyre betting ty can make political hay in november out v of thisy tough $3 trillion vote. we don't know how it's goingen o up but we assume nancy pelosi is going to be able to squeeze this through. she's very good at that and quite frankly her members want to legislate, the vast majority

them want their prints on the bill. democrats to vote on they think. robert: abby, you're talking to voters and candidates. are governors, state officials satisfied with what they're hearing from washington? you said they're not getting the guidance neededn testing. what about on the financial front? is this enoug abby: there's so much anxiety in the states about how they are going to be solvent given that the coronavirus has wiped out theirevenues on a number of different fronts, whether it's sales tax, income tax,nd added this extra burden of millions of people on unemployment rolls so they're desperate for help from washington to resolve those issues so that they can fraly just pay their bills and there's a sensehat times of the essence here. it's not jus thetate and local aid in order to balance their budgets. there are alsoy some rea

pressing needs when it comes to elections. as jaketi med, we're less than six months away from a general election. a lot of states he to mak really big changes in responses to this virus preparedness. there's a need for that to be deal with in some of these bills. it's dealt wit in the house bill from pelosi but a lot of those provisions are what some of the mos liberal members of the house want and as the presidt said, is dead on arrival ithe senate but i think we can expect movement on a lot of these issues because think both sides of the aisle know there needs to be middle ground in ordero stop the bleeding at the state and local level as a resul of of this crisis. robert: jonathan -- jake: can i just jump in. i thinkhe big questio is timing. we're about to hit memorial day. the question is, is what's goi to come first, the next round of legislating or layoffs in cities and states across the country. the white hou sees a final bill, final compromise on spending in the next six to

eight weeks but the real question is do we see layoffs and furloughs in cities like new york, detroit, chigo, and wil that press president trump and the congress to act. that is the political dynamic on top of what abbysaid, that i the political dynamic we need to be keeping an eye on, what is >> pressure on the white house but you have a new conservative chief of staff in mark meadows. will the white house really come tax breaks for state aid? jonathan: they're going to try to push it, you'reight it certainly goes against the chief of staff has spent much of his career arguing when he was on the hill but the president doesn't care about deficits. stimulus.nt needs the he's made that clear. he needs those jobs. he knows -- advisers have told him state and local governments could lay peopl off and that would be another blow to his re-election chances.

i think we can expect the white house, the president himself is a haphazard lobbyist and does more harm than good sometimes and republicans feel when he tries t put weight behind legislation but there's a sense at the white house, he believes ghe needs to something done and do it in time to see the good come out of it well in advance of november. robert: with just six months until the election, as jonathan is eagersident trum to rally his core voters. this week he lashed out at long-time targets. >> many times that the u.s. is doing far better than any other country when it comes to testing. pres. trump: yes. >> why does that matter? why is thisba a g competition to you if every day americans e still losing their lives and we're still seeing more cases every day? pres. trump: well they're losing their lives everywhere in the world and maybe that's a question you should ask china. don't ask me. k china that question, ok. when you ask them that question, you may get a very unusual answer. yes, behind you, --

>> sir, why are you sayin that to me specifically? i should ask? chi pres. trump: i'm saying it to anybody who would ask a nasty qution like that. robert: what it is is outrage about the case of michael flynn that is now front and cen friday. since the justice department dropped criminal charges against the former national security adviser, he has accused president obama aormer vice president vob -- joe biden of conspiring to out flynn from office in 2017. in a declassified list of former officials includiiden, animated the president's denders accusing democrats of a conspiracy with the president every terem at pres. trump: this was all obama. this was all biden. these people were corhopt. the thing was corrupt and we caught them. we caught them. robert: weijia, as always, holding firm as a reporter. when you look at the

comments this week whether it's on china or general flynn's case, do you seeim trying to motivate his political base? what's the strategy here? weijia: sure, definitely. when it comes to that, he's been tough on chinaince he was a candidate in 2016. and we know that anything that remotely has to d with the russia investigation is something that he is going to use because that wound has not even healed for president trump and so any time he has a chance in hiss e to discredit the probe and certainly his impeachmenwill do that and that's what we saw in the case of what he is w allegingh general flynn but even the president himself was not abl to offer clarity about what crime was committed. he's talking about people should go t jail. he has kind -- coined yet another phrase, obama gate, to talk about this. d he hasn't talked about what

he's talking about and that doesn't matter sometimes becau we know when he -- when hede vers a message and he has this catch phrase, we see him hammering it aver over and over and i think that's what's happening in this case with inynn. he's really t to send that message that he was wrongedy his predecessor. you're atnathan, when the associated press writing stories for newspapers across country. jake: can i jump in? robert: please jump in. what be the real facts here that matter with general flynn's case as you hear everything from t president,ion than? jonathan? jonathan: bob, i was so eager to get in on this particular suect. first of all, the unmasking, which the president has ack k for make routine terms sound sinisternd this is common occurrence in the intelligence world. there's not surveillance on michael fnn, it was about the

russian ambassador and they realized there were contacts with americans and those americans were identified. michael flynn was one of them. there's no sense of scandam g most observers but that hammering it home and obama gate he's coined, a nickname for a scandal he hasn't elaborasd what ibout but i was talking to senior trump campaign officials in the last 24 hours about this and they acknowledged this will probably not bknowledge too many swing voters, it'se play but emey think it will be useful where they a to drag down joe biden's negatives. biden has not nearly the negatives that hillary clinton in fact, in 2016, voters who did notike clinton and trump largely voted for trump. this time around, at least so far, according to polls, they're breaking for biden and the president's team realizes they need to drag biden numbers down and that's their focus far

more than raising the president up and they see this as a way to do it, recycle will 2016 aybook, allege personal corruption. we'll hear hunter biden's name quite a bit in the days ahead and they'll suggest nefarious doings by the vice president as part of the obamais admation when it comes to flynn trying to thwart this presidency before it began. robert: abby, what's biden's response t the barrage of attacks? abby: i think the biden campaign has really studied what happened with the hillary clinton campai in 2016 when it came to this email scandal and they have really been very aggressive in trying to undermine the strategy and this attempt by the trump campaign to bically rebrand all of the controversies of the last three years, the impeachmt investigation, t russia investigation, as

something that was actually a scandaln the part of the obama and biden administration. so they're really trying to put pressure on media organizations to not cover this incredulously and to take a skeptical loo at all of this and they're also focusing on the issue of the coronavirus because i thinkhey understand that ultimately this is a diversion from the central issue for the country which is how is this administration dealing with this historiccr is that it is facing and presidt trump i think they also know is not a perfectn messenger wt comes to the issue of china. yes, there are many americans who are concerned about how china haned the coronavirus crisis but the president has criticize chinese president jinping x personally and hold him responsible personally for the chinese government's misdeeds. so i do think that the biden campaign is trying to stay focused and there tryingo

avoid getting dragged into this melee that the trump campaign is trying to create with the obama gate. robert: you know who also seems to want to avoid being dragged into this, congressional republicans. senator lindseyraham said, whoa, not so fast, when the president called for making presidentbama a witness before the senate judiciary committee. are republicans in step with the president but not willing to go that far? jake: i think there's an element of that. i think there's an element of the fact tt they don't want to make this a circus. mitch mcconnell for the first time wn i was in the capitol this week, you know him as well as i do, bob, he's not one to answer questions he doesn't want to answer. he was asked this week by man raju, fur friendm cnn, what he thought of the senate political landscape and he said it's tough. we have to remember the senate is in play, too. and that's very important. if this looks like a circus for people in colorado o arzona or north carolina where we have

these very difficult senate ras on the map, that's not good and bringing pbasident barack in front of the senate some worry would not be something that when 85,000, 90,000 people are de, would not be something that people want to see and would not be seen as a legislature doing its job and attune to the situation as it exists in the country robert: weijia, i know you wanted to jump in. weijia: i was going to jump in to abby's point about the president trying to maintn this firm stance on china and the clip that played ilt but in wanted to point out that the reason i followed up was becau my original question had nothing to do with china but even people that i've talked to after that happen told me that when the president hears anybody bring up that lives were lost, that american lives were lost and the number of u.s. cases continues to go up, he becomes very defensivend that's why he

might have brought up china. of course, we'll never exactly what he was thinking in tt moment. robert: weijia, thank you not only for that sharp answer but for all your rekorting this i know reporters never want to be the story and you made sure you wer asking the question and doing your job like everyone else here. not easy butci i appe you night.king the time on a friday weijia jiang, jonathan lemire, abby phillip and jake sherman, really appreciate it. thank you all for joining us. we will take you as close to the news as wethan and o "extra," we'll dig in more to 2020. you can find it on our social medi or website. good night from washington. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy visit ncicap.org.] >> cporate funding for

"washington week" is provided by -- >> life isn't a straight line and sometimes you canind yourself heading in a new direction. fidelity is here to help you work through the unexpected with financial planning and advice for today, and tomorrow. >> kaiser permanente. additional funding is provided by the estate of arnold adams andci koo and patyuen through the yuen foundation, committed to bridging cultural differences in our communities. the corporation for public broadcasti and by coributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you.

nathan masters: once upon a time, the cosmic stage was s-aller. the sun, the plan the entire universe--all orbited our unmoving earth. at least, that's what our best astronomer and theologilieved, until brighter minds like copernicus and galileo proved otherwise. with their heretical shove,ck they k hanity off its pedestal by provg that the the cosmos. and yet, theirr of revised cosmology continued to place us close to the center as recently as a century ago, scientists doubted whether the universe extend beyond our own milky way, until an astronomer named edwin hubble,rk g with the world's most powerful telescope in the mountains high above los owangeles, discovered just vast our universe truly is. and the proof of this historic discovery is securely locked away right here in southern