that's not true. i mean the relationship is probably as bad as it's been throughout the three years of the trump presidency. there's a huge information warfare campaign going on between the two sides. china is putting out a lie, frankly, that the virus originated in the u.s. military lab and the u.s. are trying to really pin this on china, calling it the chinese virus. >> jonathan swan, thank you very much. we will be reading axios am in just a bit. that does it for us on this monday morning. "morning joe" starts right now. if i win, it's going to cost me a lot of money. it costs billions of dollars to become president. when i ran i said it's going to cost me a fortune. look at my legal costs. i think it's hard for rich people to run for office. there are a lot of rich people around, got a lot of rich friends. cost me billions of dollars to be president, especially with all the money i could have made for the last three or four

years. i got elected as a rich person. it cost me billions of dollars to be president and i am so happy i did it. who cares. who cares. >> all right. that is the president of the united states talking about his net worth during this national crisis. good morning and welcome to "morning joe." it is monday, march 23rd. >> so, mika, it's interesting, you and i had a different reaction to yesterday. >> yep. >> we also -- i mean obviously we've been very concerned from the very beginning, we've expressed our concerns about the president and starting in january, the intel agencies warning him that a pandemic was coming, that could really be deadly. also, very concerned about the president saying at rallies that the press was whipping this up into a frenzy and to a hoax

level. been concerned about people with cable news shows talking about how this was just -- the press was trying to get donald trump through this. a lot of things to be very concerned about, the president saying if you want to test you can get a test just weeks ago and still that not happening. that said, and maybe i'm doing this the wrong way, you can let me know, you can let me know, you know, we have our low expectations on what i call the ground noise, the president talking about how much he's worth, the president talking about mitt romney or reacting in a way that really is inappropriate when he finds out that mitt romney is isolated. but that said, sorting through that ground noise and looking at the signal, yesterday, i saw actually the president trying to be bipartisan towards the governors of the two most affected states.

i saw mike pence come up and talk about what i believe is most important still, other than everybody socially distancing and that is the testing. we have to be able to map where this disease is. we have to -- i mean, there were some positives that came out yesterday. i thought friday and saturday's press conferences were -- i'll just say it -- absolutely frightening and the president, of course, went on tangents and can't stay on script. he devolves into self- pity. and that is a very bad look for a commander in chief in the time of a crisis. also, for the life of me, i don't understand why he's not using all the powers that he's using to really coordinate a national response, like fdr coordinated a national response in world war ii. he's still holding back. he's still deferring to

governors. it's almost like he wants to blame governors if things go badly. now, harry truman says the buck stops here and in a pandemic, the buck doesn't stop with the governor. the buck stops with the white house. this was the mistake george w. bush made during katrina. and those of us that were on the ground in louisiana and mississippi know that federal government wasn't there because they were waiting for the state to come in and save the day. the state didn't have the resources or the leadership to do it. the pandemic starts at the top still looks like donald trump doesn't understand that. but you've looked at it completely different than i did. >> i didn't see much difference between yesterday's update and any of the others. in fact, i thought it was a lot worse. you know, there's no national mobilization. there's no triggering of the national defense mobilization act. we still don't have tests. we don't know where we are. the entire country is flying blind. flying completely blind as to

whether or not they've had it, had it or are going to get it. that's where we are right now still. and the president talking about his salary, making snarky comments about mitt romney, this is a man who does not have the mentality to lead us through this crisis. let's dive right in to the latest as to what we know with coronavirus spreading. state and local leaders pleading for help, laid off workers in need of immediate relief. washington providing little assurance to weary americans over the weekend. the president rejected calls yesterday to use war time powers to address shortages of face masks, ventilators and other critical equipment. the senate also failed to advance a sweeping stimulus bill aimed at boosting american workers and the faultering economy. that news sent stock futures tumbling once again. mitch mcconnell tried to set another vote for 9:45 this morning, 15 minutes after the

bell hoping tanking markets would put pressure on democrats but chuck schumer said no to that idea. the vote is scheduled for noon. the work of the senate was also complicated after senator rand paul announced yesterday morning that he has tested positive for coronavirus after reportedly having gone to the senate gym earlier that morning and attending a gop senate lunch friday. >> okay. let's ask this question really quickly because i think most americans are asking this, if you are tested for the coronavirus -- >> you suspect -- >> if you were tested to see if you have a pandemic or not, while you're awaiting the results of the test you go to a senate gym, you go -- some reports were from colleagues that he went swimming at the senate swimming pool, and then on friday again, sat in at a senate lunch on friday, that's

as reckless as you get. it goes against every guideline that every public professional has given. rand pauls has now put the entire united states senate actually in a horrible position. >> we're all doing it. americans are being asked to do this. everyone is trying to stay six to eight feet apart and wiping everything down and trying to stop the spread. everyone is trying their best and yet rand paul thinks he can walk around and go to the gym and have lunch with people and -- i mean did he even tell them he had been tested? not a good example. but we need our senate, we need our congress, we need washington to function from some level. rand paul is now in quarantine, as are senators mitt romney and mike lee. after having come in close contact with paul who has the

virus. meanwhile as the number of cases spiked over the weekend, now at nearly 35,000, more states and cities are announcing variations of lockdown orders. louisiana joins the mix with a statewide stay at home mandate to take effect at 5:00 p.m. ohio's starts at midnight and delaware is tomorrow at 8:00 a.m. let's bring in white house reporter for the associated press john thnathan lemire. what are the plans moving forward in this white house? these briefings are not heartening to worried americans about exactly when we're going to contain this thing, have a handle on it or have enough supplies to deal with it. every press briefing keeps putting off anything they're announcing, even warships, they're on the way. >> so let's go down the list, jonathan, and let's start first of all with some areas like, for instance, our concern, i think

most americans' concerns are making sure that american citizens can get tests, making sure that hospital providers, doctors and nurses, can get the masks and gloves and the protective equipment that they need, and that sick americans, whose very life depends on being a ventilator, can get the ventilators we need. from yesterday's press conference and the press conferences over the past several days, what can you tell us about progress on all three of those fronts and what the president and the white house is doing to move that forward? >> so let's start with the idea of the testing. as you said the vice president suggests that americans will be caught up, the backlog of tests, much better position in the middle of this week. that is apparently some progress. we'll have to see if they follow through. a different story with the masks and ventilators. the head of fema was on several sunday talk shows yesterday pressed by anchors as to when these medical workers will

receive the masks they need and he couldn't give a straight answer. he couldn't let them know. he said we're working from this stockpile or stockpile. we're asking the private sector. >> let me ask you this, jonathan, and i think every american needs to be able to go to a website, maybe it's coronavirus.gov, go to a website and get straight answers how many masks hospitals have, how many masks are in production, and when they're going to be delivered to hospitals because the real frustration here is, that we'll hear the same thing over and over again, i really don't need mike pence giving me just generalizations about how the american people are great and they're -- i know the american people are great. we don't need that -- we don't need to be told that in a pandemic. we don't need to be told in a pandemic that churches are great. we know that churches are great. jesus has got that. all right. we need to know about masks, we

need to know about testing, we need to know about gloves, we need to know about ventilators. so i haven't gotten a straight answer and i'm looking for it on tests, on masks,ed on ventilat. i hear the president talk about people who make liquor, says that every day, we get that, people that own distilleries are going to make enough hand sanitizer to last half a day in the united states. awesome. but is there any place where we can go to see what the federal government is doing and who they're coordinating with to see the numbers of masks and protective gear that are being made for our doctors and nurses and technicians who will save americans' lives over the next three weeks? is there a place where we can go

to get that number? >> the answer is no. and it's caused great frustration from those at the front lines. the mayors and governors across the nation. yesterday as i said the fema head couldn't say how many masks are being shipped. the president has been reluctant to fully invoke the defense production act. he said it was because we don't nationalize business in the united states. he pointed to venezuela and said look, you saw how socialism works there. we don't want to do that here. which, of course, is also because there's a political calculation to this, he's been painting democrats as socialists for months and plans to again when the general election heat up. so that is what's held him back to a degree, even though governor after governor has urged him to do so. we heard governor cuomo plead with the president, fully enact dpa, we need masks and vent laters. it crosses party lines. the republican governor of texas did the same. >> so we'll get to the ventilators in a second. i want to go back and ask why

donald trump, why jared kushner, why somebody in this government, cannot give us straight talk, straight numbers, straight information about how many masks are in production? what do they expect the states, the hospitals, the nurses, the doctors, to need over the next three weeks when maybe up to a million americans are going to be infected? maybe it's 500,000. we don't know. do you -- because these briefings are frustrating. i know a lot of people are starting -- a lot of journalists are saying, we need to just stop the briefings. that's really going to be very hard to do for a lot of different reasons. regardless of how bad the president can be at times during those briefings, americans are also getting information. but why can't they come forward and tell us this?

have you gotten an answer from the white house, why can't they tell us -- why can't we go to a site and see how many masks are being made, how many gloves are being made, what the need is, what the goal is, where we are, how long it will take in the process. all they say is 3m is making masks and we'll get some in a month. talking about 500,000 masks that's a lot, but is it the 35 million we'll need by the end of the crisis? not even close. have you gotten an answer as to why they continue to wallow in generalities, instead of doing what any business would do, instead of doing what any leader would do, and that is, have the goal, have the number in production, have the different points of contact who are making the masks, why aren't they doing any of that? what any leader would do? >> there is no straight answer. there are no details.

the white house is still struggling to catch up to the scope and severity of this crisis. they're playing catch-up. >> so let me ask you this, and i'm dead serious here, i think they are, i think they're struggling to catch up, but i'm having to tell people every day who think that this president is intentionally dragging his feet by not using all the powers he can use, somehow he's still not taking this seriously enough. he talks about giving cruise lines that aren't even based in america because they want to dodge taxes, he keeps talking about giving cruise lines tax dollars. he keeps talking about all of these bizarre -- i -- i -- that's just him. yes, yes, he's unfit, temperamentally to be president, i get it, but the question is,

is he trying his best? what do i tell people when they keep saying, he's still not taking it seriously and he's still just not doing what is required to save millions of americans' lives? >> would invoking the defense production act increase speed and focus on getting these products to the people? >> it absolutely would and governors and mayors across the nation are asking him to do so. there's a suggestion by some that he is not wanting to fully lean into this because he wants to point the finger elsewhere if the efforts fail. if he doesn't fully enact it we see him repeatedly shift the onus to the states to come up with these items that they need. we also know this, part of what's hampering the issue, joe, why there aren't the details, partially why that he can't -- the administration hasn't been able to level with the american public is that his advisors are sometimes afraid to level with him. the president is looking through this still with a glass -- with rosy glasses believing this will

be over sooner than later, dismissing science health experts, sometimes in meetings, when aides come and suggest hey this is dire and we're trying to present to you a realistic sense of how long this can take and how bad it will get he doesn't want to hear it. he is someone who his whole life has asserted his own sense of reality. he creates his own truth. that doesn't work in this situation. and it may have worked with page six and some of the gossip pages and worked to a degree during the campaign. it is not going to work here. that is what alarms so many people in washington and across the nation. i will point to his tweet last night, late last night, he tweeted, we cannot let the cure be worse than the problem itself. at the end of the 15 day period we'll make a decision which way to go, which lines up with what we're starting to hear around him, the belief that he feels these draconian measures to restrict the economy may do more harm than good even though that flies in the face of the health experts and he's going to be looking to push to a return it to a normal society far sooner

than any health expert or doctor would want. >> i mean see, that won't work. ed luce, it won't work because the virus doesn't care what donald trump thinks. a pandemic doesn't care what a nation's gdp is. it only cares about who it can infect next. it's staggering to me, donald trump, after getting it wrong time and time again over the past several months -- by the way, i'll say here, i'm cheering for him to get this right. i've got a lot of reasons. i've got as lot of family members who desperately need him to get this right. >> yeah. >> but after being wrong so many times about this virus, being wrong about the testing, being wrong about the protective gear, it seems that he's still not leaning all the way in to this and acting -- he loves saying he's a war time president, he's

acting like this is just another day. what -- what can you -- do you have any idea why he's not using the full powers of his presidency? >> no. i mean i think he has this weirdly romantic notion that he can exalt the private sector to do this somehow in an ad hoc, uncoordinated way. i think there is confusion within the white house about who is in charge. jared kushner has apparently ripped up the original pandemic plan and has handed it to fema, but fema has absolutely no experience in ordering and securing the flow of medical equipment and medical supplies. and the governors, as you've been hearing from jonathan, the governors are in a dog eat dog situation where they're

essentially scrambling on the open market to get their share of very scarce sources of supply. i don't know, i don't have any special insight into why president trump thinks this is a good way of ramping up production quickly because it's not working. production isn't being ramped up quickly. this applies to test kits as well still. you're hearing very credible anecdotal stories from all over america, people who would in other countries be getting tests, being turned down for getting tests. i don't know why president trump doesn't realize that it's still very bad. >> you know, the south koreans, the south koreans knew at the same time we knew, steve rattner, that they had a

pandemic coming. the same day they had their first case and we had our first case, within a week, they had a test. that was in, what, late january i think. here we are at the end of march, and we're still so far behind on testing and, steve, you know, i understand we need the testing primarily so we can find out who is sick, who is not sick, who needs to be isolated, who doesn't need to be isolated, but there's another part of this. you need to know whether you have the coronavirus because 80% of americans are going to go through that without a lot of serious conditions and when they're through that, they're going to be healthy and immune from the virus in the future so they can go on with their lives. they can go back to work. they can relieve those who are trying to keep businesses afloat. they can start reviving this economy again, but they can't do

that if they don't take the test and they don't know. i saw peggy noonan's tweet last night that she's taken a test and had symptoms for weeks and still doesn't know whether she has the coronavirus or not. it's really just remarkable how inevident the -- inevident epts the united states of america still is compared to other countries. >> we all know that the administration has been way behind the curve from the very beginning and that does start at the top with donald trump in the sense that he went through this period of essentially denying it existed, saying it was just a few cases, saying it was going to go away by springtime and never really doing anything about it and now he's trying to do something about it but not really a manager as we've talked about many times on the show. he was a real estate entrepreneur. trying to organize all of this

and figure out how to lead it and who is going to do what, has been beyond his skill set. plus he does these briefings and raises all these false hopes and drugs and when it's going to go away and so on that are unrealistic. instead of focusing his time on getting this done. i think jonathan's point about him using -- not using the defense production about because he wants to turn around and blame the democrats -- brand the democrats as socialists seems right and that's threatening our country over politics of all things. >> yeah. you know, john meacham, john is with us, john, the president keeps saying that he's a war time president, but he's not actually using war time measures to protect americans. what we're talking about, war, you know, one of the most prestigious groups that have put out a study on the coronavirus and what its impact may be on

americans, said that if we don't do this right, up to 2 million americans could die. we see these numbers doubling. every day we wake up and see them doubling. you can look at the chart. we're actually moving ahead of italy very soon on the number of cases. we are going to be the most infected country on the planet because of poor leadership. and john, it's interesting, also, unbelievably sobering that 2 million number is also about the number of americans who have died in every war we have ever fought as a country since 1776. yes. this is war. in fact, the death toll could be worse than easily be worse than any war we have ever fought, including the civil war where

700,000 americans died, unless we get this right. >> it's pure science. >> we're still having trouble not getting this right. this is pure science. this is medicine. these are facts. a pandemic doesn't give a darn about the art of the deal. because you know what, a pandemic doesn't negotiate. it just kills until people separate and it's killed. >> yeah. one of the tragedies, one of the many, many tragedies that's unfolding is to criticize the president for 40% or more of the country sounds as though we're all engaging in predictable partisan paintball about something. this is as serious as it gets. fdr said on his inaugural -- the line we all remember "the only thing we have to fear is fear

itse itself." the line that got the biggest cheer that day and mrs. roosevelt and she was chilled by this fact, was when he said "i might require war time-like executive powers to govern as if we had been invaded by a foreign foe" and the crowd roared because they were hungry for that leadership at a moment when a quarter of the population was out of work. there is a st. louis fed official who said last night or over the weekend, that we're probably looking at 30 wshs we may be looking at 30% unemployment before this year is out. that is worse than march 1933. i'm willing to grant and a lot of folks have not in the past, they dislike it when war time presidents, our friend michael beschloss wrote a book about war time leadership and how presidents often overreach, but take the best part of that, take the clarity of war, take the

capacity, cultural capacity of americans to agree to the projection of sources to what churchhill called blood, tears and sweat and follow it through. don't declare war and then say, it's up to andrew cuomo. a lot of us would take andrew cuomo now easily. and i'm not being a smart alec here for once. my sense is that you can just feel this. it is greek tragedy. there's an inevitable result. we know we're going to get to a national lockdown. we know what the experts are saying requires this stronger short-term pain to prevent long-term genuine chaos, both in terms of health, but the ripples on the economy in so far as there is an economy. it's going to be shut down. if we -- it pretty much is now,

and it's harder and harder to start it back up. you need a clarity of mind, a calmness of purpose, and a capacity to be honest and admit when you've been wrong. and i submit to you, whether those three characteristics are present right now in the oval office. >> they've never been. >> you know, the thing is, the president of the united states and those around him were told two weeks ago, two weeks ago, think about this, mr. president, you have to lock this country down. if you do not lock this country down, americans will die and the economy will be ravaged. here we are two weeks later still sleepwalking through history, still doing half measures, still not on a national lockdown.

this weekend in florida, people were still on beaches this weekend in florida, people were still gathered at sand bars jammed together on boats. this weekend in florida, five college students tested positive for the coronavirus who had been at spring break. >> miami herald editorial board, coronavirus is killing us in florida. governor desantis, please act like you give a dam. people in florida are begging for leadership from the governor, from the mayors. some of them are doing it. and from the president. >> that's just the thing. ron desantis proves that you can't trust 50 governors to do this right. ron desantis proves that he's been more concerned about allowing thousands of spring breakers to keep partying on because business interests are

pressuring him to let spring breakers party on, than he is on doing what's best for the health and well-being of senior citizens all across florida. i've talked to doctors and scientists who have said, this is the worse case scenario where you have a lot of young people that may have the coronavirus that may be asymptomatic that are going to come in touch with a lot of senior citizens in the oldest state in america. >> yeah. >> and they're not doing -- ron desantis is not doing what he needed to do two weeks ago to protect florida seniors. not only did he not shut down florida, he kept spring break open. we're starting to see in louisiana the effects of mardi gras, the effects of these mass gatherings. louisiana is being hit hard by people who went to mardi gras. and then got this virus. all of this is happening because

again, we're not even halfway in on battling this virus. >> we're blind. >> people are thinking they can take 30 pieces of silver here and 30 pieces of silver there and hoard it before the pandemic really hitsp and the impact is the economy gets ravaged more. i've said it for weeks now. mr. president, i'll say it again, this is not an economic crisis. this is a health care crisis. if you will do everything that's required to take care of the health care crisis, then the economic crisis will go away. but these half measures, are going to keep this economic crisis going on through the summer and into the fall if you don't act decisively. this is not going to be over in

15 days or 14 days. you can't put a number on it. you need to lock the country down, you need to get everybody testing, you need to be on war footing. you need to do everything that you can do right now to be on war footing, sign the -- i mean, don't sign it, use it -- >> trigger. >> trigger the defense production act for testing first but then for medical supplies and protective gear and ventilators. you should be working 24 hours a day. these factories should be working 24 hours a day like roosevelt and late '41 and '42 got american industry working 24 hours a day to produce bombers, produce weapons, to produce tanks. we beat the nazis and we beat the japanese, because what fdr did. and yes, half a million americans died in that long four

year war. 2 million could die in this war in the next six months if you don't do this. ed luce, on top of that, you have the senate that can't come to a deal. what that's going to do for markets in america at 9:30 when the markets open up, i'm fearful it's going to be more blood letting on wall street today. what's happening with that bill? >> the bill is kind of stillborn. there's clearly an unbridgeable gap between the democrats side and mitch mcconnell with steven mnuchin. this $500 billion in corporate bailout funds with very, very few conditions attached, enormous discretion for the treasury to select countries with weak strings attached to them for bailout while having

pretty weak protections for workers who are losing their jobs who have been furloughed is clearly something unpalatable to nancy pelosi and to chuck schumer so we -- we're looking at another day of a game of chicken between mitch mcconnell and the democratic leaders. it's a bill that fails to learn a lesson from 2008. the idea that you can get private jet companies and cruise liners and hotel groups, some of which are owned by the first family of america, receiving funds, discretionary funds, with minimal oversight is i think sort of spectacular misreading to what the public reaction to this would be. a bill like this needs aid going out to states, governors, mayors, as well as the direct checks to ordinary americans and

it needs enormous resources going into the medical sector first and foremost to fighting this virus by building up capacity at hospitals and amongst medical professionals across the country. it doesn't really do that. it produces a big round number, $1.8 trillion, but too much of the breakdown of that number is for like special rewarding industries that aren't necessarily at the front lines. i can understand why this has been voted down by democrats, but something new is not in its place and the markets are going to hate that. >> and the fact that -- >> come on -- >> they're still focusing on the cruise lines. >> come on. >> they're still focusing on private jet companies, still focusing on the $500 billion slush fund only mitch mcconnell would think in the time of this crisis that it made sense to

give the largest multinational corporations that already spent all of their money with the trump tax cuts on stock buybacks only mitch mcconnell would think that a $500 billion corporate slush fund was worth holding up help to working americans in kentucky and across the country. it's inexplicable. i think, mika, it makes sense to get nancy pelosi and steven mnuchin together. they have worked through some things in the past. i think that's what the president is going to have to insist on because right now, mitch mcconnell is not taking this seriously. he's still thinking that the american people are going to turn over $500 billion, a half a trillion dollars, to this administration so they can pass out slush fund money to their key supporters. it's not going to happen. >> we've got many more angles --

>> the markets are going to crash if mitch mcconnell doesn't figure that out very quickly. >> we'll be looking at that as well. still ahead on "morning joe" this is how we can beat the coronavirus, two leading doctors explain how the u.s. can still avoid the worst outcomes of the outbreak, but only if we act now. plus, the president of the american medical association who had a simple word to describe the vast shortages of protective gear for medical professionals on the front lines of treating coronavirus, unacceptable. florida congresswoman debbie mucarsel-powell on her push to get all of the beaches in her state closed. >> we can also get back to steve rattner talking about the markets today. overnight the markets crashed. we're going to ask him what all these things we're talking about including the senate bill, what impact they're going to have on your retirement funds later in this show. >> we'll be right back. to take me through this journey.

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so before we went to break, we were talking about mitch mcconnell's bizarre $500 billion slush fund for multinational corporations. obviously that's not going to pass the united states senate. >> why waste the time now? >> they didn't get the majority for that. certainly the idea of having a $500 billion slush fund to give to private jet companies, $500 billion slush fund to give to cruise lines that avoid american taxes by setting their business headquarters offshore, giving $500 billion of the slush fund to give to donald trump's hotels, it's not going to pass. so it's working-class americans who are going to be suffering. steve rattner, i fear when the stock market opens up, it's going to be all americans with 401(k)s, with retirement plans, that are going to take another

hard hit because this $500 billion slush fund for multinational corporations has killed this senate bill and will now actually cause the markets to collapse even more. talk about what your concerns are with the bill and also your concerns about the markets today? what are we looking at? >> sure. let me start with the bill because the bill is central to the markets and the markets are going to react very heavily if not exclusively based on the developments around what happens with this bill. and let's go back a little bit in history, joe, and talk about 2008 because what happened in 2008 as you may remember is the bush -- then bush administration in september of 2008 came up with a bill, a little bit like this, that would have provided a $700 billion fund to be used by the treasury to save banks and ultimately it was used to save auto companies. the house voted it down. the markets collapsed. six or seven days later hank paulson famously went up to

nancy pelosi and said we need this and she agreed and they passed what became the t.a.r.p. bill. i'm not going to say everything about it was perfect but the t.a.r.p. bill was what saved the economy. i don't like many elements of this bill or the special treatment for airlines and for other industries that have gotten mitch mcconnell's ear. i don't like some of the -- they're actually reopening a loophole or two that was closed in the 2017 tax bill, i don't like that, a lot i don't like about this, but it's not practical for the congress -- we need aid to business and the people. if we don't save these companies there are not going to be any jobs and many companies are going to run out of money and we need to come up with a mechanism to do that. congress obviously can't sit there and say i'm going to lend this much to this guy and this much to that guy, it has to delegate the authority. the problem you're having in washington at the moment, i talked to a lot of people in washington, there's no trust. the democrats as you've said, view this as a slush fund.

they don't trust the administration to implement or execute it. there is no alternative because congress can't sit there and allocate loans one by one to every medium sized business around the country that needs it. and so the lack of trust that's existed on the hill for the last several years since trump really and even in late obama has essentially brought us to a place where we are deadlocked and based on that the markets are going to roll over. >> but steve, this -- it's hard to compare george w. bush and barack obama, because they in effect were working on this together because this happened at the end of george w. bush's term and the beginning of barack obama's term. you can't compare them, unfortunately, to donald trump and steven mnuchin because nobody is going to trust donald trump and steven mnuchin to pass this money out based on need. donald trump has made it very clear over the past three and a half years he rewards his

political friends and he punishes his political enemies. again, he keeps talking about cruise lines. he's going to bail out cruise lines that aren't even american companies that take american dollars, but then go off shore so they don't have to pay american taxes. there is no -- sometimes there's no trust because of a toxic political culture. sometimes there's no trust because the parties that are asking for trust have shown over -- by their past conduct they are not worthy of trust in government and i think most people in washington would suggest that donald trump and steven mnuchin are not worthy of trust and being handed a $500 billion check and say you can just go do what you think is best for america. that doesn't end well for anybody. >> i totally agree with you, joe. the american people are looking to washington to solve this problem and if we fail to solve

this problem because you have two sides that don't agree and i totally agree i don't trust donald trump or steven mnuchin either given their performance that they were going to drain the swamp but then they filled the swamp. we need to have an independent person look over this or delegate it to the federal reserve but we have to come up with a solution. in addition to helping ordinary americans, helping states, in addition to providing money to hospitals all the things you've been talking about, if we don't find a way to provide liquidity to millions of american businesses what's happened in the stock market and economy so far would be nothing compared to what would happen. >> so this money, this $500 billion, could be transferred to the fed for its discretion or -- >> i can't hear joe -- >> you could have donald trump or -- and nancy pelosi each select a special master and those two people, mika, would be

the ones who would make the decision on who was going to be getting the money. we've done it before in other areas. we can do it with this too. this is a non-starter having steven mnuchin have all the power and authority over half a trillion dollars. it's never going to pass. >> all right. we have a new piece in the "atlantic" magazine which explains how we can beat the coronavirus. joining us the two co-authors are professor of pediatrics at indiana school of medicine and contributor to "the new york times" dr. aaron carroll and director of the harvard global health institute dr. ashish jha, a practicing physician and professor of medicine at harvard. joining us dr. dave campbell. >> dr. carroll, how do we beat the coronavirus? >> we have to do two things. in the short term really engage in strong mitigation, slowing down the number of cases showing up really fast, and we do that

by a lot of the things we've already done. social distancing, staying in the house, staying away from each other and also creating a lot of the equipment that we're going to need to handle the massive surge of sick people. that's the short game. the long game has got to be suppression. we have to squash this thing and we do that by testing lots of people, figuring out who is sick, isolating those who are even though they might be living with, think about that at least and get prepared for the fall when this could get really, really bad. >> okay. but the suppression involves testing. we don't have it. >> yeah. >> right now you're talking about something that we can't do. >> no. but we have to. we know that we have to. so we have to stop saying things like it's going to happen soon or it's right around the corner or, you know, we're going to have it any second. we have to start really doing it. other countries have. it's clearly possible. we have the resources and the money. we really just got to get our act together and start doing it. testing is only part of it and

not necessarily the most important part right now. what we need to be doing is making the equipment and resources to protect our health care workers and get them what they need to care for the people who are going to get sick because they're going to get ca are going to get sick. they're going to get sick. it's coming. >> this is like december 8, 1941 and everyone said we need bombers. >> right. >> we can't just say oh, it's going to happen. it's going to happen. testing remains the most critical thing for our long term health. and we still aren't doing it right. i hope this week the president and the vice president tell us how we're moving forward on testing. >> doctor, how do we actually get a mass mobilization of supplies? it is the president actually using the defense production act? >> yeah. good morning. look, first of all, on testing, we tested 40,000 people yesterday. that's progress. so good news is we're not abysmal. now we're inadequate.

that's progress. we have to be testing three to four times as many people as that, right? we still have a long way to go. we have hospitals now filling up and doctors and nurses taking care of people without adequate supplies. that is a travesty. when those guys get sick, the doctors and nurses get sick, nobody is around the hospital to take care of you when you get sick. so we've got to fix that right away. every city and state is trying to figure out how to do this on their own. we need the president to come out and use the dpa or whatever powers he's got to say this is priority number one. we have the resources, the ingenuity, we're going to take this on. i haven't heard that. i mostly heard, hey, we got it. it's coming. don't worry. i'm worried. we don't have it. we got to get it. >> if we can prepare how this looks like in a week or two, dr. dave campbell ran paul tested

positive. a couple concerns about that story. of course, we're concerned about his health. but what other issues has his case raised? >> paul is a senator and a physician. americans right now are looking to leaders to follow their example. so it must be clear that senator paul needed the test because he had it done. and it was positive. but he was asymptomatic. so he is proven in one single person the importance of testing people who are asymptomatic who are having reason to believe they were exposed to the virus. only dr. paul knows how intimate his exposure was that caused him to test positive. it must have been intimate because he's positive. the part that is exceedingly hard for me to comprehend and even accept is that once he knew he was likely to be needing a test and got it that he went out

and exposed others. he went to a lunch. went to a gym. went to a pool. as a physician, that part doesn't make sense to me at all. >> and not practicing what the president even is preaching. dave campbell, one more for you. new york and california being hit hard, new york's hospitals already overrun. what is the next hot spot for the coronavirus? >> i believe it's going to be florida or at least likely to be florida. we have all the spring breaker that's have come down here, overrun our beaches and sand bars. they locked that down. but we have the senior citizens, the oler people that are sick that are ill, that live in nursing homes. that's a perfect storm. we have spring breakers and old people. i can't think of a worse combination. my guess is this week we'll see florida numbers spike, particularly deaths in older people.

>> doctor this underlines a bigger problem. ran paul and the mistakes that were made by florida governor allowing spring breakers to continue on spring break. i guess 45, 50% of people 18 are asymptomatic through this based on an article i read this weekend. so you could -- if you can't test people who came in contact with somebody who had the coronavirus but aren't showing symptoms, then we really are just flying blind right into the side of a mountain, aren't we? >> yeah. we're still flying blind. and it's really hard to fight a battle like the coronavirus until we have clear sight on how bad the cases are, how many people are infected, where they're infected, who they're infecting. none of that is doable until we get broad testing it which is why right now in last week i was on morning joe, i said we need a

national pause. we have to get our arms around this thing. once we have our arms around this thing, we can make smart decisions about can we let some places relax a little bit? what kind of things can we do? you can't make any of those decisions unless you have data and testing is what gives us data. >> all right. jonathan, at this point what these two doctors are talking about is what we can do to stave this off. the images of what this will look like a week or two from now from what i've heard from different doctors that we've been talking to and scientists could be really bad. >> that's right. and mayor diblasio was on "meet the press" yesterday and said new york city is a week or two away from running out of equipment. let's talk worst case scenario for a moment. new york city emerged as the nation's hot spot for this. the cases i believe went from 300 to 9,000 in the span of a week. what are we looking at in terms of how do you expect the numbers to spread in new york and how

dire could it be the federal government doesn't step up with the needed equipment? >> so first of all, we should recognize that even with good protection a lot of the infections are baked into the cake. the numbers are going to continue down the path way they've been which is doubling every three days. that's horrific but it's going to continue probably for a little while even if we do a good job with this. the hospitals are running out of equipment they need to protect themselves which means that as they get sick, it's going to be harder to provide care for americans. again, there is only so many ventilators and beds available. we need to start ramping that up. there's not yet the real commitment with actual numbers and dates of delivery that we need to be seeing. it's important to state again and again this is the short term game. we've got the fall to worry about and the long term game.

all those numbers of millions coming. that's still to come. >> aaron campbell, thank you for being with us. doctors, thank you as always. dr. za, will you stay with us for one minute? i have a question for you it he top of the hour. >> our thanks to dr. aaron carol as well. president trump had to deal with several crisis in his business career and his personal life. he's no you troo w trying to us and bra vad yoe to combat a global pandemic. peter baker joins us next with the latest reporting. plus, michigan congresswoman haley stevens on how to mobilize u.s. manufacturers to create the medical supplies that hospitals desperately need in this public health crisis. "morning joe" will be right back. crisis. "morning joe" will be right back to take me through this journey. they're not just treating the cancer, they're treating me as a whole person.

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we're a country not based on

nationalizing our business. a person over in venezuela, how did nationalization of their businesses work out? not too well. the concept of nationalizing our businesses is not a good thought. we may have to use it along the supply chain in minor way. we have millions of masks being done. we have respirators and ventilators and a lot of things happening. just the threat of using it. using it is a big deal. >> again, it's generalities. like i said last hour, we need to see the numbers, mr. president, every day. it's just a rolling mass of generalities. we need specifics on how many masks to public health officials say we need? how many masks do we have. and what are you and your administration doing to get us to where we need to be on masks,

on gloves, on protective gear, on ventilators, and most importantly, i'll say it again, on testing. how ironic it is that the same man who told larry king in 2009 after the bank crisis, after the bank collapse that we needed to consider nationalizing banks. now as president of the united states, he won't even nationalize, like, the makers of masks for, again, for a short period. like fdr did in world war ii. again, i'll say it again. we got on our war footing in world war ii 500,000 or so americans died in that war. it was a grave war. and, yet, if this is not done right, again, the best minds in this field say up to two million americans could die if the president doesn't lock this country down and get to work, have washington get to work,

organizing, coordinating the creation of this productive -- this protective gear. >> that would call for him to actually fully envoek tinvoke t production act and that is him refusing to do so. it's the law that allows the federal government to compel production by private companies of things such as ventilators, testing kits, masks and gloves. according to the "new york times," the administration has enacted mostly minor provisions of the law. but industry leaders have lobbied the government not to fully enact it. companies argue it would bog them down in red tape when they need to be free to react to market changes. right now though, we've got chaos. we've got no numbers. the times reports that executives are also reluctant to freely offer production of the needed supplies without purchasing guarantees. so here is the latest as the president rejects calls to use wartime powers to address shortages of facemasks, vent

lateo ventilators and other critical equipment. the senate failed to enact a sweeping stimulus bill. that news sent stock futures tumbling once again. mitch mcconnell tried to set another vote for 9:45 this morning, 15 minutes after the opening bell hoping tanking markets put pressure on democrats. but chuck schumer said no to that idea. the vote is scheduled for noon. the work of the senate was also complicated after senator ran paula announced yesterday morning he tested positive for coronavirus. >> it's just unbelievable how reckless he was. >> reportedly having gone to the senate gym earlier that morning knowing he had been tested and attending a gop senate lunch on friday exposing other senators to the virus! paul is now in quarantine as are senators mitt romney and mike lee after having come in contact, close contact with senator rand paul.

as the number of cases spiked over the weekend, now nearly 35,000 more states and cities are announcing variations of lockdown orders. louisiana is joining the mix with a statewide stay at home mandate to take effect at 5:00 p.m. ohio starts at midnight. and delaware is tomorrow at 8:00 a.m. meanwhile, the coronavirus continues to rampage across the globe with italy reporting more than 1,400 deaths over the weekend. and the total death toll, the highest in the world, nearing 5,500 as the country moved to ban all travel within its borders. and the summer tokyo olympics could be postponed according to the international olympic committee. australia and canada said they will not attend the games if they happen this year. back with us, white house reporter for the associated press. the director of the harvard global health institute, dr. za.

and let's also bring in our capitol hill correspondent and host of kacie d.c. on msnbc, kacie hunt and former white house adviser for health policy under president obama, dr. he manual. >> so, doctor emanuel and dr. ja, i have a personal question first. we're talking about quarantining, isolating, keeping people in and out of our homes and our lives if they possibly have been exposed. what -- have we figured out what the time is between exposure to the coronavirus and catching it and the first symptoms? the world health organization says 5 to 14 days.

do we have a better grasp on that? i'll start with you, zeke. >> 5 to 14 days is right. the problem is it's variable. some people have literally no symptoms and don't even know they're sick or they have a cough and that's all. or they're having a fever. i think that incubation period is part of the problem of figuring out who to test and who not to test. it's one of the reasons we need this community survey to find out how prevalent it is in the community, what proportion of people aren't having any symptoms or what proportion of people are having symptoms, needing to be hospitalized. we have data from china. that may or may not apply to the united states. i think doing that widely in two cities is kind of important to go forward. but joe, it does seem like the president is deciding to run in the opposite direction.

rather than taking bold moves to lock down the country. i prefer rather than social distancing, it's not the social you want, it's the physical distancing you want rather than say that we need physical distancing throughout the country, closing down restaurants, schools, throughout the country, he seems to be saying, you know, well, maybe we'll open up things. we'll let some businesses, some states go. this is irresponsible. it's irresponsible just as you're watching health systems collapse. you know, we're talking about masks. the government itself projects we need 3.5 billion masks over the next 12 months. and, you know, president trump and vice president pennsylvania are talking about millions of masks. we're off by, you know, three orders of magnitude as us scientists like to say. >> and dr. ja, we talk about that period between five and 14 days.

so if you want to make sure that somebody has -- does not have the coronavirus and can actually come into your house, is it -- are we talking about a full 14 days? should it be closer to five days or do you need to stick hard and fast to that 14-day limit? >> yeah. look, there's a lot we're still learning. what we think is -- you may not develop symptoms for up to five days after you got infected. but you should still test positive if you have the infection. dr. fauci has, again, we're all going with the best available science. dr. fauci laid this out pretty well a few days ago f. if i got infected this morning, my test should turn positive in three to four days. if i was exposed to day, if a week later i'm negative, i probably don't have it. but this is the kind of stuff we're going to find out when we start doing more extensive testing and tracking people. but we're still pretty far behind. and so we got to really keep pushing on ramping up on all of

this. >> so let me ask you, doctor, i'll go back to zeke on this. we have the ability to see how this pandemic moved in china. we don't know if we can completely trust their numbers or not. but still, china is an example for us to look at. italy, also an example. i noticed this weekend it was a horrible weekend for italy. had something like 750 deaths on friday. i think it went down about 100 to 650 or so deaths on saturday. and, of course, they're paying for the sins of politicians from two weeks ago who were still telling them to go out and drink wine and go out to theaters. i'm wondering do we believe that we're soon going to see the effects of social distancing and the quarantines in italy, are we probably two weeks in going to

start seeing that curve flatten out? how is the united states comparing to italy's arc right now? >> yeah. so, look, everything we do this morning we're going to seat benefits of that in two weeks. that's the basic rule of this stuff. so we're going to, you know, so italy went on lockdown about ten days ago. my hope is that over the next few days you start seeing that arc sort of start to flatten a bit. i think we'll see that with italy. of course the people that are sick in hospitals are going to continue dying for -- as their disease course continues. i'm hoping the case numbers there will flat en. look, in the u.s., we still haven't done what every health expert i know believes we need to do which is take a national pause, to take a national break to do physical distancing. and then we have two more weeks to run. so anybody who thinks like we're around the corner, we're going to beat this thing, we're going to be back doing everything we were doing three, you know, two months ago, no.

we've got a ways to go. every day we delay, we're delaying the time that life can begin to go back to normal. i don't understand what we're waiting for. like it's not going to get better tomorrow. >> i think we're waiting on the president. >> i think we're waiting on the president as well. i don't understand it, zeke. i know health care professionals. i know business leaders have been telling this president for two weeks to shut the country down or this pandemic will explode. and the economy will go into a depression. and, yet, the president still taking half measures. i'm curious what would you tell the president if you could talk to him right now? >> so first of all, joe, want to say that the half measure or the lockdown idea had been told to the president weeks ago.

we definitely need to break it down. on the physical distancing, we need to definitely have the country shelter in place. we definitely need to close restaurants, close schools, close all social gatherings, cancel events, especially things like spring break in florida where you had the sort of petri plate with revellers and elderly people. and we need to enforce that as dr. xwchlt a said, what we're seeing today reflects what happened two weeks ago. we're going to have to keep this in place probably for eight weeks. there is just no alternative to that. even when we get to the top of the curve, you can't ease up. so, you know, you have to wait to come down. if you look at china where they did a much more severe lockdown, it took eight weeks to come back down. that's what we have to do. people have to understand that. and people have to be, you know, encouraged and told that that's

the way. you need strict enforcement of that. we've seen that even in places like new york where you put it in place, you don't have strict enforcement. people are ignoring it. it's hard for americans to say, look, i feel fine and then say i have to be in the house for the next three, four weeks? that doesn't compute with people unless you explain it to them in detail. i think the second thing we need to do is we need to think about how we can serve health care workers and serve the stuff they need and redistribute it. you know? one thing china did is it flooded the province with all sorts of vent lateors, doctors, and other things and we're not doing that. repositioning the masks we have so that they're in the hot spots like new york and california and washington state. we need a full inventory across the country. same thing with ventilators. we need a full inventory and we need to move them to where

they're absolutely needed. we need to take the testing out of health care systems. we should not be doing testing at hospitals. we need to establish thousands upon thousands of testing places so doctors and nurses are not testing and they can stay healthy to treat and care for patients not test patients. there's a long list of the to dos we need to take doctors out of retirement. and keep doctors who have, you know, visas here to stay in the united states. so there is a long list to do. we're not doing it there in washington. >> it's raily taa really tall o. let's bring in peter baker. peter, your latest used to meeting challenges with bluster and force. trump confronts a crisis unlike ever before. you just heard that long list from the doctor as to what is needed to get a handle on this crisis. is the white house even close to doing what needs to be done? >> back it seemed like the president last night overnight seemed to be heading the other

direction seemed to be worrying that the cure, as he put it, is worse than the disease. he put it in all caps and tweets. the tweet saying that 15 days we'll reassess and he doesn't want things to get worse because of what they're doing. they have to convince them to keep going in the direction they're going. this is a huge disruption, especially for a president that is calling on the economy to be his calling card. now the economy is in a meltdown. a lot of people getting hurt economically and so he's trying to balance what he sees is the economic issues with the medical issues. he's not probably seeing it in the same way that the doctor outlined. >> yeah. go ahead, joe. >> i'm wondering, peter, we have to ask a question. we probably know the answer. is there anyone around the president explaining to him that the economy is never going to get better if we don't get past

this pandemic? that the pandemic doesn't have a 15-day deadline. the pandemic is not looking at markets. it's looking at the next person, the next ten people, the next 100,000 people to infect? >> there are moments you think he understands that. he says in the briefings, look, i don't care about the economy right now. we'll rebuild it once we're done. i care about the deaths and preventing human tragedy. he says that. when the cameras are off and he's in the, you know, oval office or wherever with his advisors, there is obviously a part of him that is wondering about that. is doubting that. the tweet last night seemed to case that i've talked with people at the white house who worry that they're overreacting even today. and they're creating a $2 trillion hole in the deficit and putting 30% of americans out of work. those are daunting numbers for any president. and so i think that, you know, the medical advisors, the health advisors are telling them one

thing. the economic advisors are the once flashing the yellow light. and he's left there to try to figure out the way forward. >> all right. kacie hunt, let's talk about what is happening on capitol hill. we have similar issues where direct care is needed. a direct response is needed for the american people for our hel health care workers, for our hospitals and in terms of supplies and rerouting money to people who are going to be out of money for the weeks and months to come. what is holding up a response, a full throated response with no bells and whistles for other interests to the american people? >> right now there is functionally a standoff in the senate when the stakes have literally never been higher. mitch mcconnell wanted to press forward with setting up how they could get this done with a vote on sunday. and democrats after speaker nancy pelosi came back to washington and sat down in a room with mcconnell and schumer,

essentially put a stop it to. democrats all went down on the senate floor and said, no, we're not going to do it. and, you know, it's left us with a ton of questions about how this unfolds. peter is right, spending $2 trillion at or $1.8 trillion where it stands right now is impossible to wrap your head around that, you know, republicans would be on this path to doing it. now, of course, democrats are concerned about particularly the $500 billion nasdaq there for business. they think that he can do whatever he wants it with. they're saying, look, we need more protections. this money can't go out to corporate america. the bottom line here is that i'm not sure anyone sees a way through this right now. it's been true that congress has inevitably, sometimes messily stepped up in major crisis. we saw this with the financial billout. there was a bill, i remember

sitting in washington it from the house gallery, there was major financial rescue package on the floor. on the first vote it failed. the markets absolutely tanked. and that seems to be the game that we're going to be playing throughout the course of the day today. mitch mcconnell wanted to have another vote on this at 9:45. why then? the markets would be open and absorbing the shock he thinks they're going to take because of this. now that vote is put off to noon. that doesn't mean you won't see the same effect. so this is something that needs to happen. urgently for americans that need the help. if they stall those and turns into giant, you know, messy game of back and forth, there is no telling what might happen if this president decides he doesn't want to see it at all.

>> he obviously put the secretary at the forefront of this. but my two questions for you, first, do you anticipate there is more white house pressure in the next day or so or next few hours? and secondly, talk to us about the rand paul situation. all the senators in quarantine. how the mechanics and logistics of them not being there, how is that going to effect what happens today? >> they are so angry with rand paul. many senators didn't know he took the test. there are two that are self quarantining because they sat next to hichlt he was in the gym. he was in the pool. people are blown away he would

have gotten the test and then put himself in that situation. the senate gym has been closed. it is usually staffed. staff has gone home. they're not doing that. but it is combination lock. the senators are legislate themselves in to the gym, you know, while all americans, you know, here are dealing with the fact that no one can do that. they're all closed down because we're supposed to be being more careful. ben mcadams has been hospitalized, his office said with coronavirus symptoms. i mean, people are very frustrated dhoent feel as though rand paul was taking this seriously. and there is a risk to the entire senate. they have no plan to vote remotely if they need to. >> if senators are using the combination lock to get in the gym, what are you, teenagers? do you have the teenage brain? do you think nothing applies to you? because actually i think this virus is coming most of your

ways. because you're in that age category of risk. and i'm not trying to be funny or snarky. we need leadership in washington and can you not get sick. this sounds insane the way they're behaving. >> i guess dr. emanuel, it is stating the obvious. but rand paul did just about everything wrong personally. if you're being tested for the coronavirus and if if you're still awaiting your results. he did what everyone has said on this show the worst. he got tested because he suspected it and then rather than self quarantine which we advise everyone to do after a test until they get the result, went out and he literally spread

it. and i think your analogy with the teenage brain and behaving like an irresponsible teenager is right. and you're also right the senate is a perfect petri plate, even better than florida because everyone is together. they have to negotiate and sit side by side down there on the senate floor. this is a very bad situation. totally irresponsible. we should be looking to our lektlek elected officials to be models gf behavior. we have a lot of politician that's are not models. we have president trum thap gets up at the news conferences and you notice behind him, i can't tell you how many e-mails and phone calls i got, what are all those people doing behind him? i thought we were talking about physical distancing, 6 feet apart. those press briefings ought to have one other person and that's it without all the crowding together. and, you know, this level of

lack of leadership, again, the things we're asking the public to do that were not emulating, is not being emulated by our public officials and especially by a physician. i can't tell you. multiple times rand paul sort of violated his basic oath of being a physician that he should model good healthy behaviors. doctors, thank you. peter baker, kacie hunt, thank you for your reporting. still ahead on "morning joe," president trump touteded his great relationship with china. but did that great relationship cloud his ability to listen to intel warnings about this coming crisis? plus, we'll look at the reporting that the justice department is now seeking new emergency powers amid this pandemic. and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle outraged. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. "morning jo" we'll be right back. we find a way to get through it. it's not about taking care of ourselves,

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i have great respect for china. i like china. i think the people of china are incredible. i have a tremendous relationship with president xi. i wish they could have told us early better what was going on inside. >> president trump on saturday still touting his tremendous relationship with the leader of china. it's a relationship that reportedly led trump to dismiss u.s. intelligence information that he and his aides received as early as january that the outbreak could turn into a pandemic. according to "the washington post," the intelligence report did not specify when the virus would come to america or give particular steps on how to tackle it, but it did track the spread in china as well as in other countries. and warned that chinese officials appeared to be downplaying the threat. president trump, however, seemed to trust his relationship with xi whom he believed was

providing him with reliable information about how the virus was spreading in china. despite reports from intelligence agency that's chinese officials were not being candid about the true scale of the crisis. hoeing yn gigley said it is more than disgraceful -- >> don't even read that. it's a lie. let's just come on out. it's a lie. i'll tell you why it's a lie. because you have the president's own words. of his own tweets. >> how did these people do this right now? >> it's amazing. t it's amazing he would lie to the american people. he trusts the leader of china. and we have the information. it is a matter of record that the intel agencies warned them and we have the president's tweet. so what is despicable is actually the person lying to the

american people and the time of a pandemic. >> joining me, president and founder of the group and media, ian bremer. >> the president seems to have a schizophrenic response to china. he trusts the president. he trusts china and n. january and february when he shouldn't. then he starts calling it the china virus and everybody gets, you know, outraged at that. then he talks about how much he loves china and how much he loves president xi. why the schizophrenic response? >> well, on the one hand, he understands that a patriotic response in the united states and a war fighting scenario against a foreign chinese virus and it did come from china and the chinese did cover it up and it is why we have the explosion we do across europe in iran, in the united states, around the

world. that's go to help the approval ratings. on the other hand, by the way, pretty much the entire cabinet is onboard for a consistently hard line message that's particularly true for secretary of state pompeo who is leaning into it a lot harder and more consistently than trump has. but trump also understands that reopening a trade war between the u.s. and china especially right now is pretty counterproductive. and you could feel him talking about that and his press conference last night when he said, well, there's still going to be buying. i'm hearing they're buying lots of ag. there is no way on god's green earth that they're going to make their $200 billion of commitments under the phase one trade deal. it's going to be massive i did lee laid if it ever hits. so trump wanted an excuse to hit them hard right now on that. he certainly could. he is trying to have it both

ways. unlike the united states, the chinese are on point. they have a consistent message. they are responsible for all the critical supply chain and medical supplies. they're getting it out there. the they're even donating it around the world. they even took the step of exonerating that whistle blowing doctor that died from the virus and originally was trying to tell china and the world about the virus. you never see the chinese government that -- do that. they just did it over the last couple days. >> so ian, let's also talk about as americans. what we're facing. schizophrenic response from the president. also, we have two very real realities that are competing with each other. one, you're correct. this started in china. everything that we're enduring is as a country right now started because of china. and what happened in china.

anybody that is not is a fool and a science denier. the second part of that though is that we've got to depend on china. they've already been through. this they're working furiously on a vaccine. they're working furiously to present themselves to the world as actually a savior in a virus, in a pandemic that they started. so we really don't have the option of just bashing china. they are. whether we like it or not. they are our partner not only in the economy but the chinese are our partner in bringing this pandemic to an end, aren't they? >> joe yushgs rig, you're right more difficult than. that our trading that just in time supply chain is really dangerous when there's big crisis. and so you're going to have a whole bunch of american

corporations that before were pretty happy using china as the va factory for the world. now they're decoupling. they want to show they're patriotic, have more jobs in the western hemisphere and move out. the pressures around technology, around manufacturing and services and moving way from the chinese which is why the americans and chinese have a comparatively stable relationship is because we rely on each other so much. so, joe, your point we need to figure out what the chinese have done and are doing to respond to this extraordinary global coronavirus crisis, we need the private and public sectors cooperating. yes. we need to do that when there is virtually no trust. when they were responsible and when our countries are actually moving in opposite directions. this is a really tough one right now, joe. i don't expect the end to come. >> ian bremer, thank you so much. we greatly appreciate you being with us. come back tomorrow if you can.

this is the sort of crisis and this is the sort of nuance that your father was so extraordinary with. you have to deal with two competing realities that actually aren't just competing with each other but are clashing with each other. you have to synthesize those two realities and figure out how to work with china, how to fix this pandemic, how to bring it to aend with the help of china and then after this is over have those really tough, difficult talks with the leadership that did too little too late. >> and you need, like a trace of trust to align strategic interests. >> it's critical for both countries right now. >> one way china combatted thur coronavirus outbreak is to engage in massive surveillance and indefinite detention of its citizens. the u.s. department of justice is reportedly seeking new emergency powers that would potentially ask chief judges to

detain people indefinitely without trial during emergency situations. yes, i just said that. according to p"politico," they detail the department's requests to lawmakers on a series of topics ranging from statute of limitations to asylums to the way court hearings are conducted. the requests also propose that congress grant attorney general william barr power to ask the chief judge of any district court to pause court proceedings in times of emergency. >> no. no. no. >> this should be very concerning to most. the requests are unlikely to make it through the democratic led house. but they're asking. "politico" notes the move is tapped into a broader fear among civil liberties advocates and some of president trump's critics he would use a moment of crisis to push for controversial policy changes. when asked about the doj's documents to congress, the

department spokesman declined to comment. >> of course. >> joining us now, chairman of the libertarian party. thank you for being on this morning. >> nick, what works in china, obviously does not, should not work here, the united states of america. one of good pieces of news is bipartisanship in the most dramatic way. mike lee is saying over my dead body this will never pass. the doj is pushing for some pretty radical powers right now. >> this is exactly the wrong response for this kind of crisis. the issue with the spread of the pandemic is proximity. it's not a public order issue.

putting people in indefinitely detained inside a corrections facility or a jail is exactly the wrong thing you want to do if you're trying to stop the spread of an infectious virus. >> jonathan? >> nicholas, we're seeing this as joe pointed out rather loudly rebuked from both sides of the aisle, but we are, of course, seeing changes to american society. this is, you know, we have guidelines from the federal government. we've seen states order shelter in it places. and the president sel said he'll re-evaluate after 15 days. what is the right balance between personal freedoms for americans and the collective good in terms of health and safety? >> so the right balance is that we need a president that can show leadership. leadership is not what you say. leadership is what you do. as other people have noticed,

the president says one thing but he acts in a completely different way. just like your children watch what you do, even if it krikts what contradicts what you say, this president needs to show leadership. the government needs to get out of the way of businesses and industry that are working hard right now to try and help. factories are converting to printing masks instead of dvd covers. philanthropists are sending supplies in. harbor freight is asking hospital that's don't have enough personal protective equipment to contact them. and this instinct that the government should do something is the wrong one. we have anned amgs that has proven it is incompetent at managing the resources it already has let alone the idea that they should manage other parts of the economy. what the president needs to do is get out of the way and remove those barriers to massive testing so we know what is going on. and leaders like gavin newsom in

california that have random testing data about the background level of infection in the state need to release that data publicly right away so that we can confront this crisis. >> so, nick, there's a fight going on right now in the senate. mainly over $500 billion slush fund that mitch mcconnell is pushing. so donald trump and the secretary can decide who gets the $500 billion and who doesn't. should americans be concerned about that slush fund without really any strings attached? >> so here's what needs to happen in the congress. leaders of both parties have been engaging in political gamesmanship. there is a bill that would pass with no problem at all. a clean bill that offered cash payments to americans and delayed the tax filing deadline and had no bailouts for any industries, for any businesses, for any politically connected

donors would sail through the house and senate and get signed and get help to americans immediately and then they can spend as many weeks as they want to arguing over who gets the better side of any bailout for corporations or politically connected interests. but they're in the way of help getting to real americans right now and what we need is congressmen and senators to stand up and submit discharge petitions to get a clean bill to the floor and get sintd by the president. payments to people not industries. because the economic dislocation that is going on here, there are industries that will never be the same. and having the government try and figure out where to spend your taxpayer money to invest in businesses that may not make it through this because they're fundamentally different, you know, the federal government can't handle the money very well. it's probably better if they're not investing yours and mine. >> and we just got kacie hunt just tweeted, chuck schumer is

meeting at 9:00 this morning. the chairman of the libertarian party, thank you very much for joining us. >> always great to you have on, nick. thank you so much. >> still ahead on "morning joe" -- >> we have very good liquids for doing this, sanitizing the masks. that is something they're starting to do more and more, sanitizing the masks. >> president trump on saturday suggesting that health care workers sanitize and reuse their masks instead of throwing them away. we'll talk to the president of the american medical association about that and much more ahead on "morning joe." g joe. >> craig melvin, i'm reporting from home. i came in contact with someone that tested positive for coronavirus. so out of an abundance of caution, i'm here. but we're going to get through this.

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welcome back. new york's version of a stay at home order is in place. the governor called a pause. it went into effect last night. in the hours before the mandate took effect, the state reported 4,000 new cases. there are now close to 17,000

cases in new york. that's 48% of all nationwide cases. 5% of all cases worldwide. new york city alone has more than 9,000 cases with hiss status really the national epicenter. governor andrew cuomo says new yorkers should prepare to be in isolation for up to nine months. >> this is not a short term situation. this is not a long weekend. this is not a week. the time line, nobody can tell you. it depends on how we handle it. but 40%, up to 80% of the population will wind up getting this virus. all we're trying to do is slow the spread. but it will spread. it is that contagious. again, that's nothing to panic over.

>> in another development, usa today reports that auto giant general motors has agreed to use its currently shuttered factories to help make vent lators for overrun hospitals. tesla will join in the effort also while ford continues to weigh the task. the auto companies were fearful just days ago that they couldn't produce the small components of the precise machines to fda requirements but the president announced yesterday that the agency has relaxed the approval process for the medical devices. but there remains the question of how fast the production lines can be converted for the much needed production to begin. joining us now chairwoman of the house research and technology b subcommittee congressman. she served as chief of staff to president obama's auto rescue task force that saved gm/chrysler and more than a million jobs. thank you very much for joining us. i guess the first question i

have for you is how can these auto companies get in line with kind of a mass mobilization to try and help this country stem the curb of this crisis without really an order from the top, president trump? >> well, first let me start by saying, thank you so much for your dedication and your team's dedication to your profession at this time. to everybody watching, we know that you are worried about your financial security, your health security, and house democrats are fighting for you and we will not let you fail. in terms of a national call to action, this is our world war ii moment. this is our time to come together as a nation, to rally our manufacturing base. the announcement came last week. . the big three halted production and with that thousands of suppliers, millions of jobs, countless individuals have been impacted, and now is our time to rise to the occasion, meet the

need of producing the protective equipment that our hospitals need, ventilators and put people to work. secure this nation at this time. this is an industrial call to action. >> okay, but if you get that industrial call to action, you can either do it individually i guess in your district with different companies but wouldn't it make more sense if the president actually invoked the defense production act and got some uniformity going here? >> the defense production act is absolutely a tool. many of us in michigan and throughout the country, members of congress are calling on the president to do that. that's certainly a tool. also working with the companies to do so. what we would like to say is we're not going to let you fail. we know people are worried. we know companies -- i drove past many of them on my way in here today -- are seeing zero revenue. jobs are on the line as well as

help on the line. we're looking at great depression levels and we need the president to step up. i'm calling on him. i'm willing to work with anyone. i'm here representing my people in a moment of triage. >> congresswoman, some of these automakers maybe pushing the effort here to manufacture ventilators but their future is uncertain. will this auto industry as part of the stimulus, part of the relief package being negotiated will the auto industry as the governor of your state just nungsed yesterday will need some help? >> it's all tied in together. this isn't a bail out. we're not talking about bail outs. we're talking about securing assets. securing the industrial assets of this nation. we're seeing an unpleasant picture here. we don't know what this looks like on the other side. we do know we don't have a country if we don't make things, if we don't have an auto

industry. we're not looking for cash to companies. we're looking to secure their assets through federal monetary policy. the other thing is and i've been saying this all along direct, cohesive, clear assistance to every american. i got engineers who are making $80,000 and going to be out of a job and their w-2 is not meeting the levels they want. it's time to give them financial security. this is not normal. this was not expected. this is a pandemic. it's global. we're not the only nation fighting it. by golly we're the nation to lead it globally and ready to do it here. i'm willing to work with anyone. the time for politics and partisan back and forth is over. manufacturing is the great uniter. it's coming from michigan and we're doing it here. >> who is coordinating the auto try efforts at this point and what exactly do you need from president trump if you could talk to him directly? >> so, we need him to

re-establish what we had in the obama administration with a senior counselor for manufacturing policy. we created this national network for manufacturing innovation. there's a dozen labs all over the country that's focused on open sourcing, the digital thread that will connect these suppliers to one another so they can meet the on time delivery that our hospitals need in this moment. let's get that roll back in place. i'm paying attention to what kudlow is saying. i'm working with my colleagues through the manufacturing process that tim ryan and congressman reid were coming together. it's all hands on deck. doesn't matter what party you are. what matters we coalesce, come together and the president appoint somebody in his office to lead this charge. also our friends at the national association of manufacturers, they are doing a fabulous job. they put out a big call to all the manufacturers.

we need to open source this. we need to regionalize this and "meet the press"ing needs in our hospitals. i want to tell you something else. i talked to a mayor in my hometown. he spent his weekend going to construction sites trying to source the ppe for hospitals this need it. that was saturday. today is monday. what does this look like on thursday? we should have been doing this yesterday. we're all hand on deck, though. we're ready and willing to work with anybody. i'm telling the president right now i'm willing to work with you on this. >> congresswoman haley stevens, thank you very much. still to come this morning two more important voice in the fight to stop the spread of the virus. florida congresswoman debbie mulcarsel-powell urging the governor to shut down the beaches. they'd of the medical american association raising

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if i within it will cost me a lot of money. it cost me billions of dollars to become president. when i ran i said it will cost me a fortune. look at my legal costs. it's very hard for rich people to run for office. there are a lot of rich people around. got a lot of rich friends. cost me billions of dollars to be president, especially with all the money i could have made for the last three, four years. i got elected as a rich person. so it cost me billions of dollars to be president and i'm so happy i did it, because who cares? who cares? >> all right. that is the president of the united states talking about his net worth during this national crisis. good morning and welcome to "morning joe". it is monday march 23rd.

>> so, mika, it's interesting, you and i had a different reaction to yesterday. obviously we're very concerned from the very beginning. we expressed our concern about the president and starting in january the intel agencies warning him that a pandemic was coming, that could really be deadly. also very concerned about the president saying at rallies that the press was whipping this up into a frenzy and to a hoax level. been concerned about people with cable news shows talking about how this was just -- the press was trying to get donald trump through this. a lot of things to be very concerned about. the president saying, if you want to test you can get a test. just weeks ago and still not happening. that said and maybe i'm doing this the wrong way, you can let me know.

you know, we have our low expectations on what i call the ground noise. president talking about how much he's worth, the president talking about mitt romney or reacting in a way that really is inappropriate when he fines out that mitt romney is isolated. with that said, sorting through that ground noise and looking at the signal yesterday i saw actually the president trying to be bipartisan towards the governors of the two most affected states. i saw mike pence come up and talk about what i believe is most important still other than everybody social distancing and that's the testing. we have to be able to map where this disease is. there were some positives that came out yesterday. i thought friday and saturday's press conferences were, i'll just say it, absolutely frightening, and the president, of course, went on tangent, he

can't stay on script, eddie evolution into self-pity and that's a very bad look for a commander-in-chief in the time of a crisis. also, for the life of me i don't understand why he's not using all the powers that he's using to really coordinate a national response like fdr coordinated a national response in world war ii. he still holding back. he's still deferring to governors. almost like he wants to blame governors if things go badly. now harry truman said the buck stops here and in a pandemic the buck doesn't stop with the governor, the buck stops with the white house. this was in tthe statement geor. bush made in louisiana. the state waited for the federal

government to save the day. the state didn't have the resources or leadership to do it. a pandemic still starts at the top. still looks donald trump doesn't understand that. you look at it completely different than i did. >> i didn't see much difference between yesterday's update and any of the others. i thought it was a lot worse. you know, there's no national mobilization. no triggering of the national mobilization defense act. we still don't have tests. we don't know where we are. the entire country is flying blind, flying completely blind as to whether they have it or going to get it. that's where we are right now still. and the president talking about his salary, making snarky comments about mitt romney. this is a man who does not have the mentality to lead us through this crisis. let's dive right into the latest as to what we know with coronavirus spreading. state and local leaders pleading for help, laid off worker in need of immediate relief. washington providing little

assurance to wary americans over the weekend. the president rejected calls yesterday to use war time powers to address shortages of face masks, ventilators and other critical equipment. the senate failed to advance a sweeping stimulus plan to boost the faltering economy. that sent stock futures tumbling. mitch mcconnell set another vote for 9:45 this morning, 15 minutes after the opening bell, hoping tanking markets would put pressure on democrats. but chuck schumer said no. the vote is now scheduled for noon. the work of the senate was also complicated after senator rand paul announced yesterday morning that he has tested positive for coronavirus after reportedly having gone to the senate gym earlier that morning. and attending a gop senate lunch friday. >> so, let's ask this question really quickly because i think

most americans are asking this. if you are tested for the coronavirus, if you are tested to see if you have a pandemic or not, and while you're awaiting the results of the tests you go to a senate gym? some reports were from colleagues that he went swimming at the senate swimming pool. and then on friday, again, sat in on a senate lunch on friday. that's as thoughtless as it gets. it goes against every guideline that every public professional has given. rand paul has now put the entire united states senate actually in a horrible position. >> we're all doing it. americans are being asked to do this. everyone is trying to stay six to eight feet apart. everyone is wiping everything down.

everyone is trying to stop the spread. everyone is trying their best and yet rand paul thinks he can walk around and go to the gym and have lunch with people and, i mean did he even tell them he had been tested. not a good example. also we need our senate. we need our congress. we need washington to function from some level. rand paul is now in quarantine as are senators mitt romney and mike lee. after having come in close contact with paul who has the virus. meanwhile as the number of cases speck over the weekend now at nearly 35,000, more states and cities are announcing variations of lockdown orders. louisiana joins the mix with a statewide stay-at-home mandate to take effect at 5:00 p.m. let's bring in white house reporter for the associated press, jonathan lameer.

jonathan, i guess what are the plans moving forward in this white house? these briefings are not heartening to worried americans about exactly when we're going to contain this thing, have a handle on it or have enough supplies to deal with it. every press briefing keeps putting off anything they are announcing, even war ships. they are on the way. >> so let's go down the list. let's start, first of all, with some areas like, for instance, our concern most americans concerns are making sure that american citizens can get tests. making sure that hospital providers, doctors and nurses can get the masks and gloves and protective equipment that they need and that sick americans whose life, very life depends on being on a ventilator can get the ventilators we need. from yesterday's press conference and from the press conferences over the past several days, what can you tell

us about progress on all three of those front and what the president and the white house is doing to move that forward? >> so, joe, let's start with the idea of the testing. the vice president suggests that americans will be caught up, backlog of tests should be in much better position by middle of this week which is a little delay from what they said but that's parental some progress. we'll have to see if they follow through. different story with masks and ventilators. head of fema was on several of the sunday talk shows yesterday pressed by anchors as to when these hospitals, medical workers will receive masks they will need and he couldn't give a straight answer. we're working from this stockpile, we're asking the private-sector remember >> let me ask you this, jonathan, and i think every american needs to be able to go to a website. maybe it's coronavirus.gov, go to a website and get straight answers about how many masks hospitals have, how many masks

are in production, and when they are going to be delivered to hospitals, because the real frustration here is that we'll hear the same thing over and over again. i really don't need mike pence giving me just generalizations about how the american people are great. i know the american people are great. we don't need that -- we don't need to be told that in a pandemic. we don't need to be told in a pandemic that churches are great. we know churches are great. jesus has got that, all right. we need to know about masks. we need to know about testing. we need to know about gloves. we need to know about ventilators. so i haven't gotten a straight answer, and i'm looking for it on tests, on masks, on ventilators. i keep hearing the president talking about people who make liquor. he says that every day. we get that. people that own distilleries are

going to make enough hand sanitizer to last half a day in the united states. awesome. but is there any place where we can go to see what the federal government is doing and who they are coordinating with? to see the numbers of masks and protective gear that are being made for our doctors and nurses and technicians who will save americans lives over the next three weeks. is there a place where we can go to get that number? >> the answer is no. and it's caused great frustration from those at the front lines. the mayors and governors across the nation. yesterday as i said, fema couldn't say how many masks are being shipped. the president has been reluctant to fully invoke the defense production act. yesterday he said it was because we don't nationalize business here in the united states. he suggested, pointed to venezuela and said look you saw how socialism works there we don't want to do that here

which, of course, also because there's a political calculation like this he's been painting democrats as socialists for months and plans to again when the general election heats up. that's what held him back to a degree even though governors after governors have urged him to do so. we heard governor cuomo yesterday plead with the president, we need masks and ventilators. it crosses party lines. the republican governor of texas did the same. >> we'll get to verz ventilatoa second. i want to go back and ask why donald trump, why jared kushner, why somebody in this government cannot give us straight talk, straight numbers, straight information about how many masks are in production. what do they expect the states, the hospitals, the nurses, the doctors to need over the next three weeks when maybe up to a

million americans are going to be infected. maybe it's 500,000. we don't know. because these briefings are frustrating. a lot of people are starting, a lot of journalists are saying we need to stop the briefings. that's going to be very hard to do for a lot of very different reasons. regardless of how, how bad the president can be at times during those briefings americans are also getting information. but why can't they come forward and tell us this? have you gotten an answer from the white house, why can't they tell us, why can't they go a site and see how many masks are being made, how many gloves are being made, what the need is, what the goal s-where we are, how long will it take? all they say 3m is make being masks we'll get some in a month. again talking about 500,000 masks that's a lot of mavericks. is it 35 million masks that

we'll need by the end of this crisis? no. not even close. so have you gotten an answer as to why they continue to wallow in generalities instead of doing what any business would do, instead of doing what any leader would do and that is have the goal, have the number in production, have the different points of contact who are making the masks. why aren't they doing any of that, what any leader would do? >> there is no straight answer. there are no details. the white house is still struggling to catch up to the scope and severity of this crisis. they are playing -- >> let me ask you this. and i'm dead serious here. i think they are. i think they are struggling to catch up. but i'm having to tell people every day who think that this president is intentionally dragging his feet by not using all the powers he can use. that somehow he's still not

taking this seriously enough. he talks about giving cruise lines that aren't even based in america because they want to dodge taxes. he keeps talking about giving cruise lines tax dollars. he keeps talking about all of these bizarre -- that's just him. yes, yes, he's unfit temperamentally to be president. i get it. but the question is he trying his best? what do i tell people when they keep saying he's still not taking it seriously and he's still just not doing what is required to save millions of americans lives. >> jonathan, would invoking the defense production act increase speed and focus on getting these products to the people? >> it absolutely would and governors and mayors across the nation are asking him to do so. there's a suggestion by some

that he's not wanting to fully lean into this because he wants to be able to point the finger elsewhere if the efforts fail. if he doesn't fully enact it -- we see him shift the onus to the states to come up with these item that they need. we also know this, part of what's hampering this issue, part of the why there's not the details, park shally why the administration hasn't leveled with the american public is his advisors are afraid to level with him. the president is looking through this still with rosy glasses still believing this will be over sooner than later, dismissing the science and health experts and sometimes in meetings when aides come to him and suggest this is dire, we're trying to present to you a realistic sense how long this can take and how bad it will get he doesn't want to hear it. he's someone through his whole life has his own sense of reality. he creates his own truth. it doesn't work in this situation. it may have worked with page 6, on the gossip pages and worked

to a degree during the campaign. not going to work here. that's what alarms so many people in washington and across the nation. i'll point to his tweet late last night. we can't threat cure be worse than the problem itself. at the end of the 15 day period we'll make a decision which way we goes which lines up what we're starting to hear around him he believes these draconian measures to strict the economy may do more harm thanned good even though it flies in the face of the health experts and he's looking to push to return to a normal society far sooner than any health expert or doctor would want. >> but see that won't work. it won't work because the virus doesn't care what donald trump thinks. a pandemic doesn't care what a nation's gdp is. it only cares about who it can infect next. it's staggering to me that donald trump after getting it

wrong time and time again over the past several months -- by the way, i'll just say here, i'm cheering for him to get this right. i got a lot of reasons. i got a lot of family members who desperately need him to get this right. but after being wrong so many times about this virus, being wrong about the testing, being wrong about the protective gear, it seems that he still is not leaning all the way into this. he loves saying he's a war time president. he's acting like this is just another day. what -- do you have any idea why he's not using the full powers of his presidency? >> no. i mean i think he has this romantic notion that he can exhort the private-sector to do this in an ad hoc, uncoordinated

way. i think there's confusion within the white house about who is in charge. jared kushner has apparently ripped up the original pandemic plan and has handed it to fema. but fema has absolutely no experience in ordering and securing the level of medical equipment and medical supplies. and the governors as you have been hearing from jonathan, the governors are in a dog eat, dog eat situation where they are essentially scrambling on the open market to get their share, very scarce sources of supply. i don't know. i don't have any special insight as to why president trump thinks this is a good way to ramp up production quickly because it's not working. production isn't being ramped up quickly and this applies to -- this applies to test kits as well. still, you're hearing very

credible aanecdotal stories whee people in other countries getting tests, getting turned down for tests. i don't know why president trump doesn't realize that it's still very bad. >> coming up on "morning joe" we'll speak to daniel newman who was an actor in the zombie a apocalyptic drama. mr. newman recent lie tested positive for coronavirus. and in his saga to get that test he saw some eerie real world echoes of his "walking dead" past. "walking dead" past my patients

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dr. anthony fauci head of the national institute of allergy and infectious diseases on friday having to temper president trump's remarks about the possibility of using an

anti-malaria drug to treat coronavirus patients. dr. fauci gave a pair of frank answers over the weekend in which he addressed what seems to be his frequent need to push back against misleading or false claims by president trump regarding the coronavirus pandemic. one was with the "new york times" which fauci said quote, i've been telling the president thinks he doesn't want to hear. i have publicly had to say something different with what he states. it's a risky business but that's my style. i say it the way it is. and if he gets pissed off he'll get pissed off. thankfully he is not interestingly. fauci says quote i don't want o embarrass him or act ike a tough guy. i want to get the facts out. instead of saying you're wrong, instead just talk about what the data and the evidence is. >> it's been quite a balance,

mika, it's been an important balance, and he is right. the president seems to grant him deference on medical issues even if they disagree. let's hope that continues. he does keep going back to this malaria medicine, and there's an article in bloomberg by kristen brown and riley griffin where three been writing a series of articles in bloomberg about how the president is depending on a study where there were six subjects. and there's no science -- people hope this medication works. but the president keeps talking about it over and over again, and there's no evidence that it is going to work. and there's a quote in this bloomberg article that says this is like the captain of the ship taking the only lifeboat where passengers are forced to drown because doctors have been getting a rush for this malaria medicine which is used to treat

lupus and arthritis. and there's going to be a shortage of drugs for the areas where this actually does have an impact on improving people's lives. to an area where we just literally don't know. we have absolutely no clue what the impact will be. >> as the coronavirus continues to spread across the u.s. some lawmakers are taking the necessary precautions to ensure the safety of their residents. last thursday governor ivy of blaem issued statewide shutdown of all beaches, child care facilities, dine in restaurants and bars in a bid to increase social distancing. in florida governor ron de santis issued a number of executive orders that include the closure of all movie there auditor y auditoriumss beaches. yet the florida governor is under intense heat for not acting forcefully enough in his

state. and in mississippi officials are pleading with governor reed to shut the beaches in their state. >> this guy is unbelievable. he said he has no intention of doing that and he's asking people to pray for the people of mississippi and yet he's not going to help the people of mississippi. protect their state from the ravages of the coronavirus and this isn't like it's happening in wuhan any more. look at louisiana right next to mississippi and look at the devastation that could sweep through that state. >> this once again is why, you know, leaving it to the governors can be extremely chaotic. it can lead to very inconsistent response. it's beyond me why there isn't uniform national guidelines and national mobilization to deal with this.

this is almost to the point of why, like what would be month at the vafting the president to not want to help people. >> you can't help a patch work solution, mr. president, to a pandemic. there is no -- >> he's got to know that now. >> there's no patch work solution to a global pandemic, mr. president. you have to take the steps that people were begging you to take two weeks ago. i understand you ignored the warnings from your intel community in january and february. i understand that you trusted president xi and china. you said it in your tweets. i under you messed up on testing. you said if you want a test you can have a test. well still weeks later people can't have that test. you know what? you can start new today, right? we need you as a nation to start

new today. america is hoping you will start new today and take the steps that you are asked to take two weeks ago. shut down this country for two weeks. it will look radically different on the other side of those two weeks. the economy can start moving again. but if you do a patch work approach to a global pandemic, this economy will be ravaged for the next six to ien months. >> joe, to your last point, very close friend of ours who has lupus cannot get lupus medication since trump announced it would help with covid. it's on back order every where. your point in real life to someone that we know and love dearly. >> that's the president of the united states continuing to talk about this recklessly on the air when he has no idea whether it

will work or not and dr. fauci has warned him time and again. that's what this bloomberg says. it's like taking a lifeboat away from people and having them drown and so our loved ones, your loved ones that have arthritis that have lupus or that have malaria are not going to be able to be treated with this drug because the president is speculating about something he knows nothing about. mr. president, do what you can do. shut down the country for two weeks. if he did it two weeks ago we would already be -- the markets wouldn't be crashing today. shut down the country for two weeks, mr. president. because ron de santis has proved in florida you can't trust governors. the mississippi governor has proved you can't trust governors. there is no patch work solution

to a global pandemic. >> you can't trust all the governors. okay joining us now, democratic congresswoman debbie mucarsel-powell of florida and msnbc contributor mike barnicle joins the discussion as well. congresswoman, florida look like it's next in terms of having staggering numbers. what your hearing in terms of supplies being in place for the people who will need it and also testing in florida? where does it stand? >> good morning, mika. look i've been getting calls from health care providers that they are going to be running out of supplies within the next few days. so this morning i sent a letter to governor desantis asking him put a stay-at-home order for the entire state. do not conduct -- try to control this pandemic and the spread of the virus here in the state of florida by conducting patch work solutions. we need to start being proactive, not reactive for two

weeks now. we've been having communication with the department of health and two weeks ago they couldn't accept or declare fact that we had immunity spread. we have over 1,000 cases here in the state of florida. a third here in miami-dade county which has closed down their hotels, restaurants. economically we've seen a huge impact on our economy but we're not going to be able to start our road to an economic recovery if we can't control the spread of the virus. we have a very vulnerable population in the state of florida almost a quarter of the people here are over 60 years old. i'm concerned that the governor is not keeping appropriate action. >> you know, mike barnicle, it's really incredible that ron de santis has continued to let people congregate on beaches all over the state of florida. we had pictures of people on sand bars just jammed together

in boats, partying this weekend. this weekend as americans are dying. and the president won't aggressively use the defense production act. he won't put this country into a national lockdown. when health care officials and business leaders were begging him to do it two weeks ago. >> joe, if you talk to a lot of experts, i was fortunate enough to spend most of friday afternoon around one of the greatest hospitals in the world, the one here in boston, your find what they are looking at and dealing with every day and in the case of governor desantis in florida he's going the opposite way from what the experts the people on the front lines indicate ought to be done. the first thing we need is fact based truth from public officials. that's what they will tell you. you get it here in massachusetts from charlie baker, you get it from andrew cuomo in new york,

governor newsom in california, you're getting fact based truth. second thing they talked about is there's absolutely no need and in fact kind of dangerous to have these daily pep rally from the white house led by the president and the vice president that what you do need is you need anthony fauci and a stream of epidemiologists and experts in their field stand up and tell the country about the fact based truth. that threads our biggest dilemma. you know what is it. in order to solve this problem, in order combat and defeat this virus or put it in abeyance you need total buy in from the american public. nearly total buy in from what they are going to be asked to do and they will do it. they've shown in the past they will do it. but it's hard to get total buy in from the american public when the people -- when a person asking for that total buy in sometimes is donald trump who has spent 40 months dividing the

country. i mean you can look -- we've all gone back and look at the past talk of the past four or five weeks, hoaxes, it's a myth, it will go away, only 15 people have it, all of that. but we have to fight ourselves and put that in the background because there's a vehicle to take care of all the lies and all the incompetence that the american public has been dealt and that vehicle is called an election and it's held in november. >> then that's what i've been saying. you're so right, mike. we'll worry about this all in the fall. what we can do is what we can do right now. what the president can do is what the president can do right now moving forward. jonathan lameer, it's so interesting that health care officials are warning us about how savage this pandemic could be with americans if we don't do the right things. and yet you have mike pence going out just beforery other day going, in effect just

americans, you need to know it's really not that serious, it's not really that dangerous, it's not going impact most of you. and he's just sending the absolutely wrong message to those teenagers who are going to a beach, to those teenagers and college students that are going out on sand bars and congregating in the hundreds and then taking that pandemic home to their parents and grandparents and possibly killing them. >> you're right, joe. and more than that the president has now declaring a message himself that seems directly in contradiction with what his health experts are advising him and could make matters worse. we talked about his tweet last night saying about the 15 days. he's on a retweet binge on the same idea after 15 days perhaps he's suggesting this moment of national its ligs should end.

america should go back to work. there's an impatience from the president. i had a question also for the congresswoman, you know, we obviously right now the state of a fiscal stimulus bill is up in the air, it's in limbo. the senate is working on it. can you give us an update to what house speaker pelosi has told you and how quickly you need to mobilize to get back to washington? >> at this point we're not in agreement with the republican senate proposal. we'll work on our own package. part of the concern is it doesn't have enough funding to support our health care infrastructure again. to control the spread of this virus. we need to make sure american families and american workers are able to get a paycheck, get that cash influx. we can't pass a $500 billion economic stimulus package just to support large companies

without having workers rights being protected. i can until i'm getting calls on a daily basis from constituents that have already lost their jobs. we have to ensure they not only get cash into their pockets but those still employed can remain employed. we agree with the small business part of this deal but at this point we're going to be having a conversation later on today to talk more about the details we support family leave, we need to expand the sick days that many companies are not right now enforcing. we need to make sure states protect unemployment benefits. in the state of florida we have the lowest rate of unemployment insurance. we've been asking the governor to raise the insurance. but at this moment we're still in talks, and we will be told when we need to get back to d.c. i'm one that supports the fact that we need to look at ways where we can legislate while we're in our districts, home

working here because it could put a lot of us who have to travel back to d.c. for a vote. but we need to put the american families and american workers first. >> all right, congresswoman, this afternoon you so much. >> debbie mucarsel-powell, thank you so much. >> we really appreciate it. mika, there's not a single scientist, not a single physician, not a single health care expert that would tell the president that people can go back to work in two weeks. that would be radical and it would affect the lives of millions more americans in jeopardy. >> before we go to break stock futures surged in to the green a few minutes ago after the fed announced several new measures. one includes a pledge from the federal reserve to buy unlimited bonds. whatever amount is needed to get markets moving again. before this announcement futures were tanking after the senate failed to advance an economic stimulus bill. up next, the president of the american medical association on

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officials are calling the widespread medical supply shortages unacceptable as more concern is raised for health care workers working on front lines to treat the coronavirus. joining us now we have the president of the american medical association dr. harris. dr. harris, has president trump said anything that gives you any hope that these supply shortages will be stemmed any time soon? >> well, good morning, mika and thank you for having me and first let's start with the why. people are dying and more people are at risk of dying and becoming infected and all of us can do our part. we need to physical distance, we need to stay away from large crowds. but the american medical

association is calling on the president to use allele seve le government, to do whatever he can to get us the supplies we need, the personal protective equipment. we still need more tests. the a mrcama has been requestine tests for a now. we need more ventilators in anticipation of the surge. the president need all levers at his disposal to get the ventilators and equipment. today we don't have them. i'm hearing stories ofry day where physicians are reusing masks and being asked to resterilize masks. the community is coming together making masks but this is unacceptable of ad hoc way of getting professionals and other health care professionals the supplies they need. >> mike barnicle has a question.

mike? >> doctor, what you were just saying, i was in contact with a nurse just last weekend, this past weekend, and she has been using the same mask for a week, a week with the hospital where she works, a large, very reputable hospital telling her take the maverick home with you. but my question to you, doctor, is how is it that given the warnings and the signs that were out there that physicians, that medical experts knew of from november and december, how is it that these hospitals, so many of them are without critical things like face masks? >> well, certainly it's due to the supply. we know and have known for many weeks that we were going to get a surge of folks who will require testing, who will be ill. but somehow we have not matched

the moment and making sure that the supply meets the demand. now it's certainly difficult to predict exactly what the demand will be, but we knew that we were going to need more of this equipment. and certainly we need, again, the administration, the president, to call on industry, the ama has suggested a sort of marshal plan effort or manhattan type project. this is all hand on deck. and today is already too late. and so it's enough about talking. we can no longer just say the right things. we have to do the right things. and for us the metric at the end of the day is whether or not these supplies are in the hands of doctors and nurses and other health professionals and that we do have ventilators that are being delivered. >> right. doctor, how bad is it? talk to the president right now

and tell the president how bad it is for doctors and nurses on the front lines in new york and rural health care areas and in los angeles, san francisco, washington state? >> well, joe, i'm hearing heartbreaking stories. you know, i heard another one of my colleagues say that at any other time we're using a mask or southeast things that we are being asked to do would be grounds for dismissal. certainly many of these products are for one time use only. and certainly using these products over and over again put us at increased risk of infection for news health professionals as well as the patients. so, you know, again enough of the words to get to action. >> yes, we do. dr. harris, thank you very much. our next guest, daniel newman is an actor who standard on the hit

television show ""the walking dead"." in his recent "new york times" op-ed entitled acting in ""the walking dead"" didn't prepare him for the pandemic. he compared his tested for the coronavirus after experiencing symptoms following a trip to australia. and daniel joins us now. did you ever get the test, daniel? >> good morning. they did test me, but they said that the government did not allow them to process the test. unfortunately, they said it's really just for severe symptoms, elderly and specifically people that have just traveled to china and italy. it took me all day calling every urgent care that i could possibly call in georgia after i got news that somebody in our group tested positive. and i developed symptoms when i came back. so i really wanted to protect my family and the community.

and nobody had these tests. we are so, so far behind. nobody had these tests. and so finally after they transferred me to the health department, the health department couldn't help and they transferred me back to calling more hospitals, i finally found one emergency room that said we have the test. they quizzed me. they asked me all about my symptoms and then they told me to come in immediately. and, yeah, they had me test for everything and then they said your symptoms are too mild. we're going to send you home to self-quarantine along with a long line of everyone else that was there to be tested just they couldn't process tests. >> wow. mike barnicle has a test. >> yes. >> first of all, how are you feeling today, right now? >> i'm feeling a million times

better and honestly, that was really my biggest kind of issue with this whole thing and concern is that i felt like i had maybe a common cold or a little bit of a flu. i didn't feel great, but you hear these horror stories about people dying and you're like, well, i don't have that. >> yeah spoenge, so on a normal situation i never would have gone to get tested, especially to an emergency room, but when you hear somebody in your group tested positive, you take it really seriously real quick. >> but you -- >> you must realize -- sorry. go ahead, mike. >> you must realize now that you could be used as an object lesson for what to do because a lot of things you did, through no fault of your own, you did wrong. the thing is to call your pcp, your personal care physician immediately and not go to an emergency where it's all clogged up and tied up but as long as

you're okay now and feeling better, we feel better. >> yeah, thank you, sir. appreciate that. unfortunately my pcp did not have the test and none of the urgent cares i could find in atlanta had the test. again, i had to call around until i found an emergency room that had it. and i didn't want to waste any time and potentially expose anyone else if i had it. real concern is you're seeing all the spring breakers out in florida and you're seeing everyone playing basketball and doing normal things, and you wonder if people were able to get these tests would they really be taking those risks and exposing people? that's a huge concern. >> daniel, thank you very much and, gosh, we hope you feel better. >> yeah, daniel. >> that's sort of what we're talking about here. his point, joe, is that we're

walking blind through this. if we had mass testing, where anyone could get a test, we would know so much more about where we stand with this and perhaps there wouldn't be the risks being taken right now which is spreading this virus around the country. >> jonathan lemire, the president is talking about getting america back to work. here's a great example of how the testing not only helps those who are sick but actually those who catch the virus and, yeah, let's look at daniel's example for instance. he may have had coronavirus. it sounds like a real possibility. he's not going to know whether he did or not because he didn't get the test results. but if he did get coronavirus, then he won't get it again, and he will be able to go back into the economy. if 100 million people are infected by the coronavirus, 80% are supposed to get through it with fairly mild conditions. that's 80 million people that could go back to work, go back to their lives, get the economy

kickstarted again. but because we weren't able to test all these americans, we're never going to know who has been infected and who hasn't. and we keep flying in the dark. and it's the economy and its workers and it's small businesses that will continue to suffer in the midst of this pandemic. >> it can't be underscored enough the sea change the president's tweets and retweets would indicate if he does follow through. >> we'll hear freedom him at a briefing. he's been very impatient already. only a week or so into this, about how things are going, about the slow progress against this virus and the toll it's taking on the economy. if he does push for this, if he suggests that 15 days would be enough and that america should go back to work, how does dr. fauci, how do those other health experts handle that? do they resign? do they publicly break with him? that would add another layer of

real concern to this ever-deepening crisis. >> mike, it would be an act of suicide for our society if the president did that. an act of suicide. for millions of americans, it would be the height of recklessness and irresponsibility as every medical professional says he needs to do just the opsposite and he's been told that for two weeks. >> you may be re-creating the 1918 plague. it would be that serious. every doctor tells you testing, testing, testing. but when we're testing nba players before we're testing nurses who are working every day, police officers working every day, public safety officials out there emts working every day, there's something wrong with our priorities. >> all right. we really have to pray that the next presidential news conference is more serious and

the president stops talking about himself, stops ripping, stops talking about things that are not true or that are not going to happen for weeks and starts giving this country some uniform guidance across the board. that does it for us this morning. stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage after this short break. i thought i was managing my moderate to severe crohn's disease. until i realized something was missing... me. you ok, sis? my symptoms were keeping me from really being there for my sisters. (announcement) "final boarding for flight 2007 to chicago" so i talked to my doctor and learned humira is for people who still have symptoms of crohn's disease after trying other medications. and the majority of people on humira saw significant symptom relief and many achieved remission in as little as 4 weeks. humira can lower your ability to fight infections. serious and sometimes fatal infections, including tuberculosis, and cancers, including lymphoma, have happened, as have blood, liver, and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure. tell your doctor if you've been to areas

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hi there. i'm stephanie ruhle. it's monday, march 23rd. here's what's happening. at this very moment, negotiations are set to resume on a multitrillion-dollar relief package to help businesses and workers being decimated by the coronavirus. as of this morning, there are roughly 35,000 confirmed cases across the united states. about half of those are in new york state. 446 people have died across the country. today, you have states, businesses and everyday americans pleading with the federal government for more help. the administration announced some new action last night offering fema to build medical stations and ordering them to -- and offering to pay for the national guard in the hardest hit states of washington, california and new york. but it is up to congress to come up with a stimulus bill to help american business owners and their employees. and so far, they have failed the american people. after negotiating all weekend long, t