there he is sampling the floral bouquet. the first batch is being sent to a new york city suburb, new rochelle, that's been hard-hit by the virus. that for us is our broadcast for this monday night as we start a new week. thank you for being here with us. good night from our nbc news headquarters here in new york. a couple of weeks ago a spokesman for the government of iran called a press conference to announce basically that all was well when it comes to the impact of coronavirus in iran. as a spokesman for the government -- it's the guy on the right there. he's wearing the kind of unofficial iranian senior official uniform, right? western suit and a shirt with no tie. and the government spokesman reassured everybody at this press conference that everything was under control. for added credibility he brought with him to the press conference a senior health official who stood next to him, the deputy

health minister of the nation of iran. that's the guy standing right next to the government spokesman. he's on the left side of your screen. the problem with the intended effect of having that deputy health minister there at that announcement from the government spokesman is that as you can see, the deputy health minister did not seem well during that press conference. in bits of that televised appearance that were tweeted out by people who saw it on iranian tv, that deputy health minister is seen over and over again mopping his brow, first with his hand. he's fidgeting. he's looking around. he can't hold still. eventually he produces a hand kerr schiff and more than a dozen times wipes more and more sweat off his forehead and the rest of his face. it didn't seem to be particularly hot for anybody else in the room. the government spokesman is doing all the talking. he wasn't mopping his brow. but clearly something was wrong with the health minister there. then sure enough, the following day that same deputy health minister for the nation of iran

made a very different video. this time in a t-shirt apparently at home or possibly in the hospital because he had been diagnosed with coronavirus himself, the day after he was propped up at a press conference to make clear to the iranian people that they had nothing to worry about from coronavirus, he himself was diagnosed, and clearly he was symptomatic. then the next day there was a meeting of the iranian cabinet. so all cabinet officials in the iranian government all met together in one room, including one of the country's vice presidents, the highest ranking female official in the iranian government. this was the day after the deputy health minister absolutely didn't help in that effort to reassure the public there was nothing to worry about when it comes to the virus. the very next day when he announced that, in fact, he had 2 and was symptomatic, this vice

president for family affairs, she went to a cabinet meeting and mingled and interacted with all the senior members of the iranian government at the cabinet meeting. and the day after that, she too was diagnosed affirmatively with coronavirus. in the ensuing ten days or so, nearly two dozen members of parliament in iran have tested positive for coronavirus. at least two of them have died as has a senior adviser to iran's supreme leader. the supreme leader himself now appearing in public -- look at his hands -- wearing protective gloves. iran had this initially super cocky, even, you might say, snarky response to coronavirus. in their initial public statements about the virus, iran bragged that they didn't think they'd have much of a problem with it, that they were happy to

export any needed medical equipment or personal protective equipment like masks and gloves to other countries that were actually going to have a problem with this thing, unlike iran, which was not going to have a problem. we still don't know what the death toll actually is in iran. we can tell from reports by individual hospitals that the death toll is higher than what the government is officially announcing. but we can literally see the toll. literally you can see the toll among the senior leadership of that country, in part because of their complacency and denial of the about the seriousness of what they were facing led senior members of the government to apparently infect each other at the top levels of the government in pretty significant numbers. today one of the american preside president's favorite member of kro, a republican provocateur named matt gatsz, last week he had mocked the coronavirus by doing this gag picture of himself in a full-blown gassing mask, which he then brought onto

the house floor. over the weekend, one of matt gaetz' constituents in florida died from coronavirus. today matt gaetz rode with president trump and the president's entourage and the secret service and everybody else all on air force one from florida back to washington, d.c. after getting off air force one, in which he accompanied the president, as of tonight that same congressman, matt gaetz, is himself in quarantine awaiting the results of his own coronavirus test. lucky guy, he was able to get one. he was tested, and he's now being quarantined after the congressman was advised that he had had direct face to face contact with someone who attended a conservative political conference last week, a person who is now known to have had the virus. at that conservative conference -- it's commonly called cpac -- you might remember at that conference, that was where then white house chief of staff mick mulvaney belittled and derided concerns

about coronavirus. remember he called coronavirus at cpac just the latest hoax, the latest hoax from the democrats. well, contact with an infected person at cpac has now not only caused congressman matt gaetz to be quarantined after he took a plane ride with the president today, it also caused at least three other members of congress, republican senator ted cruz, republican congressman paul gosar, and republican congressman doug collins to all go into quarantine for the same reason. here's a picture of doug collins on friday meeting and shaking hands with president trump after he was exposed to a person with coronavirus at cpac. apparently texas republican congressman louie gohmert was also advised that he had had direct contact with a person positive for coronavirus at that same conference. but gohmert has decided he does not feel like quarantining

himself, so he will not. he may now be at risk for contracting it because he was in direct contact with somebody who has it. he's not at risk himself, if in fact he gets coronavirus, whether or not he's symptomatic, congressman gohmert may end up being a vector of infection to other people. nevertheless, he does not care. he is not quarantining, which tells you something about what he thinks about his staff and his family and his neighbors and the people who shop at the same grocery store with him or pass him on the street on a regular basis. we also learned late tonight that the president's brand-new chief of staff, who is replacing mick mulvaney, republican congressman named mark meadows, he's also in quarantine. he came into contact with that same person at that same conservative conference who tested positive for coronavirus. unlike congressman louie gohmert, the president's incoming chief of staff is in quarantine after having been in contact with that person, presumably he's been in contact

with the president since he had that exposure at cpac, but we'll see. today was a very unnerving day. the markets alone were terrifying, right? dropping more than at any other time since the 2008 global financial collapse. we're going to get some expert advice this hour as to why today was different and worse than all the other bad days we've seen in terms of the market and economic indicators since this crisis really came to fruition. but even on a day when, you know, the dow lost over 2,000 points, even on a day when the market cliff dive was so steep it triggered an automatic shutoff of market trading, even as we just plummeted through the worst day on wall street in more than a decade and it doesn't file like a panic, it feels like a real reflection of the global economy shutting down and going cold turkey, even on a day with all of that happening, i will tell you the single most

unnerving piece of news i saw today was this from the associated press. and as you see it, it ran under this kind of benign-sounding headline. official: white house didn't want to tell seniors not to fly. it doesn't really sink in at first. the double negative there plus a colon. what's official mean in this context? they didn't want to tell seniors that, but did they ultimately? the headline, at least at first glance, doesn't necessarily do it justice. but read the story. i mean listen to this lead because as bad as this problem is, and forgive me, as bungled -- is that the right word? that's the nice word for it. as bungled as the response has been from our federal government, this is actually a problem of a different kind, and this is -- this is the thing that i've sort of most been worried about, and it has

apparently come to pass. quote, the white house overruled health officials who wanted to recommend that elderly and physically fragile americans be advised not to fly on commercial airlines because of the new coronavirus. quote, the centers for disease control and prevention submitted the plan as a way of trying to control the virus but white house officials ordered the air travel recommendation be removed, said one official who had direct knowledge of the plan. trump administration officials have since suggested that certain people should consider not traveling, but they've stopped short of the stronger guidance that was sought by the cdc. quote, the person who spoke to the associated press on condition of anonymity did not have authorization to talk about this matter. so if this associated press report is correct, the centers for disease control concluded inte internally that not just people with underlying health

conditions, not just people with other health challenges, but all older americans should not fly. that was the cdc's reported conclusion about the advice americans should be given in the context of this virus in order to keep ourselves safe and alive. older americans don't get on planes. what happened to that recommendation? quote, white house officials ordered the air travel recommendation be removed. and the reason we know about this reported conclusion of the centers for disease control, but what americans should be doing, about what advice americans should get in the middle of this crisis, is because somebody who is not authorized to speak publicly about the matter was apparently freaked out enough by this advice being spiked by the white house that this person instead went to the press, went to the associated press to make sure that the word got out because otherwise how will people know? if the best expert advice from the centers for disease control

is that older americans should not fly and the white house has spiked that advice for whatever reason, and so individual officials have to leak it in order to let the american people know that's the real advice, this is an important moment in this crisis, right? this is sort of -- this is the worst-case scenario that you get from a government that doesn't know what they're doing and is willing to lie to the people about things that will keep them alive. and so this apparently, this kind of leak, anonymous tip to the press, is how we the american public are going to get access to the real recommendations of the real experts who are supposed to be giving us advice to save lives. there have been a lot of problems with the federal government's bungling -- i'll say it again. i'm trying to be nice. and slow and internally contradictory and craven and dishonest and ignorant handling

of this crisis. but honestly if the white house is blocking the cdc from telling americans very basic stuff like this, very simple, direct rules and advice, if you're old, don't get on a plane, i mean if this is really what's happening, that is, a, really bad and, b, i would expect more people at cdc to be squawking about it beyond one unnamed official, quote, with direct knowledge of the plan, who felt the need to no anonymously leak this out to the press so the people would know what the real advice is. meanwhile, the actual advice that is being dispensed from the federal government right now is comparatively woolly and maealy mouthed and not all that directive. alex azar said older americans and those with health problems should avoid crowd, quote,

especially in poorly ventilated spaces. crowds and poorly ventilated spaces. you mean like airplanes? is that what you're trying to say? is that what you mean but we have to piece it together? has somebody told you, you can't say old people shouldn't get on airplanes right now? are you hinting at that? blink twice if you are. on the cdc website, they now say that people with severe medical conditions and older people should, quote, take actions to reduce your risk of exposure. but they don't say anything specifically about flying. what actions should people take to reduce the risk of exposure? by any chance do you mean that older people shouldn't fly in commercial airplanes now? is that the conclusion you have reached but you're not allowed to say it? i mean we've only got one government at the federal level, and we've got to do our best.

but are we really supposed to piece this together and read between the lines and take a nudge and a wink and an anonymous tip over what you're saying? tony fauci from the nih was asked about this report by chris wallace on fox news. dr. fauci, widely respected and for good reason, insisted that nobody has overruled anyone and that he himself is free to say what he wants. off tv, perhaps in a place where the president might not hear about it, senior cdc officials do continue to give fairly blunt telephone briefings, regular briefings over the phone to reporters where the language about the virus and the threat, maybe because it's a phone briefing, feels perhaps less mediated by these efforts to try to line up with the president's message of the day and his consistents efforts to downplay the impact of the crisis, to lessen its perceived impact. i actually want to play you this

because reporters have been hearing this but i'm not sure the general public has, and you ought to hear this because the on-camera public stuff you're hearing from government officials is getting woollier and woollier and mealier mouthed all the time. you have to believe that is being influenced by the president going out there and contradicting them and telling them to give good news. i'm just going to play you this from the phone briefing. you might not have heard about this today. i suspect you haven't. i'm going to play it here on tv because here is, on this phone briefing for reporters, a senior cdc official today, despite everything else going on in the government, today she's actually giving on this phone briefing straight talk about the status of the virus here and how serious it is and how we should prepare to get it. >> risk can be looked at in two ways. there's a risk of being exposed and getting sick from this virus, and there's a risk of getting very sick or dying from illness with this virus.

this virus is capable of spreading easily and sustainably from person to person based on this available data. the report of the world health organization mission to china describes the virus as being highly contagious. and there's essentially no immunity against this virus in the population because it's a new virus. based on this, it's fair to say that as the trajectory of the outbreak continues, many people in the united states will, at some point in time, either this year or next, be exposed to this virus. and there's a good chance many will become sick. but again, based on what we know about this virus, we do not expect most people to develop serious illness. reports out of china that looked at more than 70,000 covid-19

patients found that about 80% of illness was mild and people recovered. 15 15% to 20% developed serious illness. let's talk about who those people are. so far, it seems like it's not children. of the 70,000 cases, only about 2% were in people younger than 19. this seems to be a disease that affects adults and, most seriously, older adults. starting at age 60, there is an increase in risk of disease, and the risk increases with age. the highest risk of serious illness and death is in people older than 80 years. people with serious underlying health conditions also are more likely to develop serious outcomes, including death. >> that is a senior cdc official with some straight talk today on

a telephone briefing, even as the white house continues to play down the crisis. and because there apparently is so much pressure in front of house and behind the scenes from the white house in terms of what officials are allowed to say, i feel like these, at least for now, these phone briefings may have escaped the president's radar, and we may be able to get straighter information on those than the sort of woolly and complimentary of the president's stuff we're getting from other senior officials and other parts of the government. today after this phone briefing, vice president mike pence is still out there saying, the risk to americans is low. the risk to americans of contracting the virus is low. meanwhile, here's the cdc on their telephone briefing saying this is highly contagious. the virus is capable of spreading easily and sustainably from person to person. there is no immunity against this virus in the population. as the trajectory of the

outbreak continues, many people in the united states either this year or next will be exposed to this virus. starting at age 60, there's an increase in the risk of disease. the risk increases with age from there. the highest risk is people over 80 years and people with serious underlying health conditions. 80% of people who get it, mild illness. 80% of illness is mild. 15% to 20% develop serious illness. in terms of people getting serious illness, starting at age 60 is increased risk. highest risk is people over 80 and people with underlying health conditions. thank you for being straightforward about that. meanwhile, an anonymous report from an anonymous federal official suggests that the cdc wants to recommend to the american people that older americans shouldn't fly commercially anymore because of those facts, but the white house has reportedly stopped them from issuing that warning. so we get all this mealy mouthed stuff about think about social isolation. think about protecting yourself.

consider delaying plans. i mean if they were going to say tell older americans not to get on planes, that would have an impact in terms of the way people live. why don't you want that if the reason that our lives would change in that way is to keep ourselves alive. italy has the second largest outbreak. they have over 9,000 cases. they reported about 100 additional deaths just since yesterday. initially italy tried to effectively quarantine the whole northern part of italy but the prime minister announced today that won't be enough. all of italy is essentially now on lockdown in an attempt to try to slow the spread of the virus in that country. it's basically a nationwide quarantine. the italian government is telling all italians to stay at home. bars and restaurants must all close by 6:00 p.m. virtually all public gatherings are banned.

sports events are playing in empty stadiums. schools and universities are already shut. but this is a leap in terms of what they're demanding and expecting from the italian public. thrill h in france, the culture minister today tested positive. in israel today, they announced that anybody arriving in israel from outside that country will be put on 14 days of quarantine no matter where you came from. any country in the world, if you have arrived in israel, 14 days of quarantine. in ireland, they have canceled all st. patrick's day parades, as has the city of boston, which is almost unimaginable. universities in the united states are closing, particularly on the coasts. the university of washington in seattle, stanford in the bay area, usc in southern california, hofstra in new york, columbia new york in new york, princeton in new jersey, uc berkeley. nobody really knows how sustainable it will be pfor

colleges and universities to move to all online learning on an ongoing, rolling basis, but that's starting now at colleges and universities around the country. fulton county schools in georgia shut down today. that's atlanta. that's a huge school district. the rector of a major episcopal church in georgetown attended by lots of influential and well connected people in washington, d.c., turns out the rector has himself tested positive after leading services recently, not only giving communion to parishioners but shaking hands with hundreds of them. he has now tested positive. that is causing a special kind of frisson through elite circles in washington. in new york and new jersey, the top official who is in charge of what's call the port authority, which is the agency that runs all the new york-area airports, he himself has been diagnosed with the virus. but everybody's dealing with this now. it's more than 30 states now

plus d.c. and with the federal government's response being so slow and confused and self-contradictory and untrustworthy, it is state and local officials who are really leading this response on the ground, in some ways on their own without clear guidelines about what they should do. washington state is the hardest hit of all american states, and that means there that the governor, jay inslee, has been in charge of the largest outbreak in this country. governor inslee has not been doing a lot of press since this kries is has broken out in his state, but he's going to join us here live next. stay with us. us to pay for bites of this... ...with this. when kids won't eat dinner, potato pay them to. ore-ida. win at mealtime. [ natural drums and [ music begins to build ]] [ drums beat faster ]

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bellevue is a city in king county, washington. it's the fifth largest city in the state of washington, population of about 150,000. tonight bellevue's police department announced that they're closing two of their police substations in a couple different neighborhoods as a precautionary measure against coronavirus. a little snapshot of how they're having to refocus public resources there. in kirkland, washington, which is just one town north of bellevue, about a third of the city's firefighters are off the job right now because they are being quarantined as are a

number of the city's police officers. one kirkland firefighter has tested positive. the university of washington has shut down its campus as has seattle university. seattle children's hospital has closed its doors to volunteers. there will be no more public events, at least this month, at seattle public library. there will be no st. patrick's day parade. comic-con is off. that brings about 100,000 people to town. can't have that. schools are closed, including the north shore school district, which started its all online curriculum today. now the governor of the state is talking about whether washington may need new mandatory measures beyond all that kind of stuff, whether the state may need to shut down or postpone movement or activities that may risk further spreading the virus. washington state's the hardest hit state in the country so far. over 160 cases confirmed in the state. over 100 cases in king county alone. so far, 22 deaths.

in the midst of a muddled, slow, contradictory federal response, state and local officials are in the lead. no one so much as the governor of the state of washington, which thus far is the state on the front line more than any other. joining us now for the interview is washington state's governor jay inslee. governor inslee, thank you so much for making time. i know you're very busy and not doing a lot of national press. i appreciate you being here. >> mm-hmm. you bet. >> so let me just ask you for your overview in terms of how things are in the state, and let me ask you about the resources that you perceive the state as needing that you don't have right now. >> well, i'm going to start with what we do have, which is a very united state that understands the seriousness of this. obviously we've lost 22 of our citizens already, and i think one of the virtues or strengths we bring is the recognition of science. we listen to, believe in, and follow science in our state. and now people are really united in all being leaders. it's one of the things i've

stressed in this, this all of us can be leaders in following good decision-making of not going to work when we're ill, of washing our hands, of caring for our people who are most susceptible to this, which are those of a certain age and people with compromised physical conditions. and people are making those really wise individual decisions. so that's going well. we are increasing our capacity for some of the medical things we need both in testing for the virus and in stocking up for the surge capacity we will need in our hospital system. all of these are wise decisions. you might think in some sense these are relatively small numbers in a nation of, you know, hundreds of millions. the problem is that we really need to, as leaders, make decisions looking forward to where this is going rather than what it is today. we might have 1,000 people infected today in washington, but this doubles every week in

an epidemic like this. and so seven weeks from now we might have 60,000 people plus infected. so the decisions we're making today i think are good ones and building up the stockpile we need. we are getting some assistance from the federal government. we appreciate that. we've made some orders for stockpiles. they are coming in. but over time all of us are going to have to expand our capacity to fight this virus. >> tell me about that surge capacity idea in terms of hospital beds, in terms of intensive care resources. we've seen initial references to that when that sort of dramatic decision was made in king county to purchase a hotel for the use of people who need to be isolated but don't necessarily need to be hospitalized. local officials saying bluntly, we need to preserve hospital capacity for what we expect to be a real demand in the future. how do you plan for that? how much flexibility is there to

upsize the number of beds, the number of ventilators, the number of icu beds that you might need? >> well, the good news is we've been planning for this for some time in the recognition that this is probably going to be needed, and there's easier and harder resources to acquire. the easier ones are providing isolation opportunities. that was the hotel that was purchased in kent, washington. we're doing that in the state where we've essentially provided rvs in a former youth justice facility so we can isolate people in safe quarters while they have to go through an isolation period. i think we're going to handle that with not too much difficulty. the difficulty issue in the surge capacity for hospitals, and that's where having the personnel that we need, we have planning to do that. we've identified and located the extra beds that may be available. but we're going to have to make some hard decisions. i'd just share one with you. we need to free up capacity in

our medical system to really prioritize the people who will have severe respiratory problems because of this. we may need to look at things like postponing elective surgery, for instance. we've not made this decision to do it, but all of us are going to have to make priority decisions of what really counts to save people's lives here. we know we can do it, but we've got to buckle down in making those priority decisions. but we do have a good plan, and i believe we're going to get through this. >> governor inslee, i have a couple other questions i'd lov r to ask you if you could stick with us for just a moment. >> you bet. >> we'll be right back with washington governor jay inslee. oscar mayer is found in more fridges than anyone else, because it's the taste you count on. make every sandwich count.

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joining us once again is washington state governor jay inslee, who is in the middle of helming the response to the largest outbreak of coronavirus in the country thus far. sir, thanks again. before the break, you mentioned that -- i had said there was 160-plus confirmed cases in your state, and you said that the way you're thinking about it, you and other officials are thinking about it, is you're thinking there may be as many as 1,000 cases in the state. is that what you're estimating based on the number of people you've been able to test? >> yes. you can do genetic modeling, and we've had our ep deemologists at the university of washington, some of the best in world actually, look at this. the situation is we might have 160 people who have been tested that come back presumptively positive, but that means -- but

obviously there are many, many more people who have not been tested out there yet. and the geneticist can estimate that. the estimates could be several fold more than 1,000. i use that number because it's basically in the ballpark. and the concern about this -- and that's why as people who are listening tonight, as communities get hit with this, and they will unfortunately because it's a matter of slowing this epidemic at the moment. when you're asked to take action, and you say, why? there may be only three people in my community, the problem is that when you double whatever that number is and you double it every week, these things can explode. and as i've indicated, if it's 1,000 people today, it will be 64,000 people in week seven if you just double that number. so that's why all of us have to be dedicated to making decisions earlier in this epidemic even when it may not seem, you know, overwhelming at the moment. and that's what we're working through right now, making

decisions to get ahead of that curve. and i want to compliment the people of my state because they've been extremely cooperative, and people have pulled together. they have not been driven by anxiety. they have been driven by science and a recognition that we're all in this together. so i'm actually pleased how our state is pulling together on this right now. >> do you have plans to rapidly increase the amount of testing in washington state and do you have the resources to do so if that's the direction you think this ought to be heading? >> yes. we've actually increased our capacity by a factor of 20. we were very fortunate. we made a decision, one of the first states in the country to develop this testing criteria, and we've been building that capacity. it's gone up by 20 times since the last two weeks or so. we also have brought on the university of washington. they have now capacity of probably over 1,000 a day, and we are bringing on commercial labs, and this is very important. here's where the federal government is helping and needs

to help to develop commercial labs to be able to have a very rapid throughput so they can do tens of thousands of tests. we need that eventually as this epidemic increases. so, yes, but we are right on the edge right now of having enough testing capability and we're doing that as quickly as we can. i want to mention something that may be pertinent to people's personal lives as well. if you do happen to develop mild symptoms and as -- you had a doctor talking just before i came on, talking about the fortunate effect that probably 80% of the people who get this virus fortunately will only have mild symptoms that really won't require any medical intervention, and if you do go to your physician, most of the time if you have mild symptoms, they may not recommend a test because it really won't vary how you're treated. and you can get the test now. i urged the federal government. they previously had a restriction to prevent people

from getting that test if they really, really wanted it or if their physician wanted to give it. so we were successful. we asked the federal government to remove that restriction. so physicians now can order the test. talk to your doctor. ask what they're suggesting to you and follow their advice. >> and hope that depending on where you go to the doctor, they've got access to the test to give you. >> that's correct. >> governor jay inslee of washington state, sir, i know it's an incredibly busy time. really appreciate you taking the time to talk with us. >> thank you. much more ahead tonight. stay with us. stay with us allergies with nasal congestion

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whether or not you're a market savvy person who's up on, you know, market indicators and investment strategies, whether or not you watch business tv or not, here's the thing to watch alongside the horror movie market numbers that we saw today. today the dow was down 2,000 points, worst day since the 2008 crash, and this comes after days and days of it swinging wildly but mostly plummeting. and these market numbers show

you what's happening in terms of stocks, right? this is the stock market. but here's the thing to watch that is not directly at least about stocks. it's about bonds, specifically u.s. treasury bills. people invest money in stocks because they think things are going to happen in the stock market that are going to benefit them. but if for some reason thinks are going in a way that you're scared to do that, one of the things people do instead is take their money out of stocks and look for somewhere else to put it. maybe they put it in a place like gold. that's one place people put their money when they're scared. another thing people do is they take their money out of the market and like put it in their mattress. you can do that too. but you can also put it in bonds. and the safest bonds are ten-year and 30-year u.s. treasury bonds. the only bet you're making by putting your money there is that the u.s. government will exist and be solvent at the end of the time of that t-bill, and you'll get back your principal and a little bit of interest. but it's usually a very little bit of interest.

it's a very conservative investment. and the yield rate, the amount of interest you get on that kind of investment may go up sometimes. treasury bonds, they may try to make them more attractive at certain times when they're competing with stocks. but when nobody wants to put their money in stocks and everybody is looking for someplace safer 20 go, treasury bonds are going to be attractive no matter what. people are going to put all their money there anyway. so when people start flooding their money in bonds, the yield goes down and down and down. when it drops below 1%, say, you're going to get less than 1% interest over all those years while you've parked your money in that instrument. it's not a great place to park your money, right? but at least it's safe. at least you're betting on being able to get it back at the end of the term. before last week, the 10-year treasury bond had never dropped below 1% yield. on thursday it went below that.

it went to 0.9 on thursday. today it dropped below 0.4. what that means is that people are taking their money out of stocks, putting it into bonds instead, and they're basically locking themselves into getting no return on that investment at all, getting no interest on that almost at all. now, why is everybody rushing to put all their money into bonds, into treasury bills? part of it is they feel there are no safe stocks. we've seen stocks crater in airlines and cruise ship companies, other parts of the travel industry like hotels, the tech industry. u.s. bank stocks are down. the entertainment industry is suffering. movie theaters aren't being filled. it feels like there's nowhere safe in the stock market. but even with all of that happening over these last couple of weeks, it does feel like something sort of qualitatively different happened today, right? we knew the dow was going to open 1,000 points down before it even opened today.

that's because something different happened today compared to all of the other bad days we've had recently. something specific happened in oil, and it was not the same kind of bad news as all the other bad news days that we have recently had. this is a new special kind of bad news, which is worth understanding right now, particularly if you are not a person who follows the markets every day and is a business kind of pages person. this is going to have a real world impact, and so especially if you are not a person who marinates in this kind of stuff, this is worth taking a second to make sure you get it. we've got an expert here to help us with that next. re to help us with that next. yeah, you heard that right. two dozen golden, crispy shrimp piled high on one plate! time to double down when the captain is callin'. captain d's. we make aspirin to help save wlives during a heart attack... so it never stops the heart of a family. at bayer, this is why we science.

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joining us now here on set is john kill dof. he's a cnbc contributor who specializes in energy trading. in other words, he is a guy who explains what happens to oil in the markets. boy, are you the guy i want to talk to today. we've seen the markets get battered over the past couple weeks with this coronavirus crisis. then today something happens between russia and saudi arabia where the price of oil goes through the floor and that seems to have driven the even bloodier day on wall street today. is it a coincidence that this oil thing happened alongside the coronavirus thing, or are they related? >> i think the coronavirus was sort of the predicate to this breakdown between saudi arabia and russian relationship regarding managing or trying to manage the oil market. >> okay. >> the russians in particular, i

think, have seen the u.s. shale and other producers nipping at their heels in terms of market share, particularly vis-á-vis china. as the russians and the saudis were meeting last week to determine how much oil production they should cut back, the u.s. posted yet another record week of oil production and, rachel, another blockbuster -- not another, but a blockbuster week of crude oil exports. one of the biggest factors w was -- competing directly head to head with the kind of crude russia sells to their main customer, china. so russia said we've had it, and they told the saudis as much, and the saudis threw a hissy fit basically and went nuclear over the weekend. they said they were going to bump up their production next month over 10 million barrels a day. that's a lot. they also gave huge discounts. imagine going to, you know, walmart and getting a blue light

special back in the day. that's what's flashing over every saudi oil tanker right now. they cut their selling price to all the major regions of the world by over $10 a barrel, which was just a feat that none of us in the market had ever seen before. >> the idea is to make oil so cheap that russia can't make any money doing it so that it breaks russia's will and russia gets in line with opec the way they want to deal with the crimp and demand and what they want to do with production to address that. >> that and i also have to say the u.s. shale is in the crosshairs with that move too because nobody can come even close to competing with saudi arabia in terms of their cost of production. it's in the single digits in. permian down in texas where this whole boom has sprung up over the past number of years, they really have to have $50 a barrel. maybe some can be as low as $40. >> it went below $30 today. >> it got as low as $27 a barrel at one point.

>> as the price comes down, are they trying to force bankruptcies in the u.s. can't really force the russian oil to go bankrupt because it's the russian state. are they trying to force producers out of the market or are they just trying to change russia's behavior or both? >> i think they'd be more than happy to get russia back in the fold but also be happy to do damage to the higher cost u.s. shale producers, to wring out some of that excess capacity. for years saudi arabia has been carrying the load in terms of trying to balance this oil market and keep prices at a decent enough level for all of them to sort of be happy and keep the home fires burning and come close to meeting their fiscal break-evens for crude oil, not the cost of production break even but the money they need to support all their government programs and keep everybody happy. >> this is a time that if saudi was ever going to do this, this is the time where the world is, well, over a barrel for them doing it but they could have

done this anytime? >> anytime at all. they have the market share. they have the market power. this is for students of history that i know probably watch your show. this is right out of rockefeller's playbook. the beauty rose theory where you low ball price the competition and wipe them out. that's what the saudis have the power to do in this market and that's what they're doing right now. >> john kilduff, thank you for helping us understand it. we'll be right back. stay with us.

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politics. election day in the democratic presidential primary in idaho, michigan, mississippi, missouri, north dakota and washington state. i'll be right here starting at 7:00 p.m. eastern covering all of i will see you then. now it's time for "the last word" with lawrence o'donnell. his interview with vice president joe biden. good evening, lawrence. >> good evening. i interviewed joe biden this morning in michigan and my an in this case -- airport report, i don't know, three days. i've been in one, two, four airports is very few masks out there in the airports, very few lines and on the airplanes, which are still reasonably full, the ones i've been on. one thing you don't hear, two things you don't hear, you don't hear any babies crying in my experience, meaning babies aren't traveling, people changed those plans and you don't hear anyone with a cough or sniffle or anything. it seems that people who are feeling healthy are the ones who are going to the airports at this