good evening. i am nicolle wallace. as we continue msnbc's special coverage of the coronavirus pandemic, new york city mayor bill de blasio, at the encenter of the coronavirus crisis will be speaking in a moment, we will monitor for developments, turn them around, bring them to you when they happen. at this hour, awaiting a briefing from the white house and the coronavirus taskforce. we learned that attorney general william barr will be there the first time. this comes as the justice department is seeking broader authority to detain people during the crisis. this briefing comes amid growing tensions between public health experts and president trump over how long the country needs to shut down to fight the virus. perhaps wary of the economic and political toll of fighting the virus, the president is signaling his intent to potentially roll back social distancing measures enacted to

slow the virus' spread. tweeting we cannot let the cure be worse than the problem itself. the nation's top infectious disease expert, dr. anthony fauci, a very different tone and tenor, venting frustration with the president and how he has handled the crisis. in a striking set of interviews with science magazine, dr. fauci sounds exasperated with the president's inability to get facts straight, saying this, quote, what do you want me to do. seriously, john, let's get real. what do you want me to do. i can't jump in front of the microphone and push him down. okay. he said it. let's try and get it corrected for the next time. and "new york times" is reporting that, quote, mr. trump has become frustrated with dr. fauci's blunt approach which often contradicts things the president just said. according to two familiar with the dynamic. as tensions escalate, the number of cases and deaths in the u.s. is rapidly rising.

more than 450 people have died. more than 40,000 cases are confirmed, but that number is likely significantly higher due to an ongoing testing shortage. the number of states urging residents to stay home is quickly rising, the surgeon general today is out with a blunt warning that the worst is yet to come. officials in areas hardest-hit, including new york, are urging the president to use his power to compel companies to ramp up manufacturing of vital medical supplies. a number of them have, production is not expected to keep pace with skyrocketing demand. new york city mayor, frinor instance, at the epicenter of the outbreak, warning they're ten days away from running out of supplies. as we await the day's press conference, we begin the hour with a simple question we hope can cut through some of the political noise and dysfunction, what needs to be done and is the president willing to do it. joining us for that conversation

with the latest on the white house response, hans nichols, to help us with the science questions, which is top of mind for most americans, dr. ben gup at th ta, and to breakdown the political forces at play, msnbc political analyst and former democratic senator from missouri, my friend claire mccaskill. hans, take me inside this day at the white house. we've had some great reporting the last hour from jonathan swan and jonathan lemire that he is frankly frustrated that he can't get the economy going. what's behind the denial that the medical emergency is very much ahead of us? >> reporter: the economic numbers, right? when you talk to the economists, admittedly those advising the president say the numbers will be exceedingly grim. the president hasn't used the d word, hasn't said depression.

it will be interesting to see how close he gets or warning about recession. kevin hassett is working in the west wing, joined friday, he warned probability of recession was 100%. they're looking at the numbers. the president is looking at what's happening in the economy. he's really been silent today after the initial tweet, talking about the cure being worse than the problem. we have a little bit of insight, not a little, a big one, when you see lindsey graham advocating don't turn off the self containment measures, don't change the guidelines that you announced seven days ago that were supposed to be in there for 15 days. when lindsey graham goes to public channels to advocate for fighting a two-front war, shows you how intense the different information is coming inside the white house. >> doctor, there's no

discrepancy among medical and science professionals, front page story in "new york times" had i think over a dozen doctors and scientists interviewed with near universal call for more severe or more restrictive social distancing and that it go on longer. it would represent a real disregard for science if we did anything other than that, wouldn't it? >> you nailed it. i would argue we haven't had the right cure in place in the first place. what we needed from the get go was a national lockdown for consistency of approach across state lines. doesn't do good if 100 million americans are compelled to socially distance by law and the other 250 million are just being given suggestions. or allowed to be on a beach. it won't solve the problem.

we know what the solution is, wuhan, south korea and other countries have been through this, and the solution is difficult, but if we implement a national lockdown up front, 8 to 10 weeks time as china showed potentially we'll be in a much better place. right now, we don't have the right cure in place. >> dr. gupta, you don't have to live in new york to be alarmed by mayor de blasio's urgent tries for limited medical supplies. what could be behind a president who has the power to put in place war powers to compel production but doesn't? >> i can't even begin to speculate on the political side of this. i understand that the notion of nationalizing the private sector in the interest of the public good has optics that are political. i can tell you as an icu doc

caring actively with patients with disease and critical illness, we're lacking ventilators. we are using personal protective wear in icu, my respiratory therapist, nurse colleague, having to reuse critical supplies. i don't care what the political ends are, nor do my colleagues in public health, we want the right things done. talking about the defense production act, suggesting utilization versus doing it are two very different things, and we want to see action, all of us do. >> you know, hans, let me come back to you. the president flirted with doing this last week, then seemed to go back on his commitment to do so. what's behind the flip flop? >> reporter: it is hard to say because the president's message on the economy side of this, at least for the last week has been consistent, that is that you need to deal with the virus first, the public health concern first, then the economy will

fall into place, and it will snap back because all of the pent up demand and potentially $2 trillion of stimulus out there, the pumps are primed. overnight, he seemed to shift. as the idea that the cure is worse than the problem. i don't know what the problem is, i think that's one of the things incumbent on us to press him at the briefing, what does he define the problem, the problem his own guidelines that he announced, the 15 days of social distancing? it begs for clarity, and more broadly, who is the president listening to as he makes the decision? are any health advisers saying 15 days is sufficient? i think that's an important question. clearly he is listening to political and economic advisers, the question is what sort of information is coming in from the health side. i think that's crucial. >> claire mccaskill, my friend, something shifted overnight, the famous last words about donald

trump that make you wonder why he doesn't take ambien, what do you make of the fact that the president has levers he hasn't pressed. and the optics of running out of ventilators in this country, the human tragedy is something most people can't imagine, if you read some accounts out of italy and stories doctors told about not wanting to ever make choices about who gets a ventilator, that that could happen here should scare any public official silly. apparently donald trump isn't going to order companies to make much needed medical equipment and is flirting with on his twitter feed loosening some public distancing crackdown. >> there was some guy on fox last night that basically said exactly what the president tweeted in all caps, some guy, i'm not familiar with the hosts, some sunday night guy said the cure is worse than the disease, we need to loosen this up and poverty kills people, and

everyone is -- you know, basically said out loud what the president tweeted. you know, crisis is when leadership comes home and this is a crisis and when you have this kind of crisis, you have to have a leader who has confidence and who is secure and who surrounds himself with the very best minds that are willing to tell him the truth and be unwavering, not in their praise of him but in laying out the facts, and what this crisis has done, it has laid bare that we have no liedeader in the white house. we have a guy who is consumed with today's news cycle, this morning's poll, and close of the stock market. you know, in that order. and doesn't have any grasp of long term consequences and leadership needed at the moment.

by the way, the country is yearning for it. look at cuomo and the press conference he has done, he lays things out, he tells the truth, and he is very clear, and he explains it very well, and i challenge an american to watch governor cuoco press conference about the crisis and not say gosh, that's what a president should be doing. and you know, this is not who trump is. he is terrible at this moment and we're going to pay a very high price for it. >> claire, what do you make of twin reports oefver the weekendf anthony fauci, i think he asked in one interview how he's doing, he said i'm exhausted, i don't believe i have corona and i don't believe i have been fired, that the top infectious disease doctor and expert is worried about the twin pillars of his existence, catching the disease or being fired by donald trump. >> yeah. well, you watch these press

conferences and it is like a "saturday night live" skit, you go through the people that come to the podium, they all in almost rote fashion, our president is wonderful, the president has done great, the president is so smart. and then fauci gets up and says here's the deal, and you know, it is just obvious who has a grasp of the subject matter, has a grasp of what needs to be done. it has to be painful for him. i'm sure the president's advisers are saying you can't fire him, i guarantee he wants to fire him, he is not towing the line and paying deference to the leader. >> dr. gupta, a debate has gone on all three years of the trump presidency, why do good men, jim mattis, others that sort of abide by the dear leader requirement of working for this president, why do they stay. tony fauci seems to be threading the needle between at least to

this point not agitating donald trump by telling the truth but still getting out information that he deems important from a public health perspective. you can speak more freely than dr. fauci can. what else do you think he wants to convey, would he like to tell all americans with pre-existing conditions and at risk not to watch fox news, do you think there's pent up straight talk from doctor fauci and what would it include. >> when i was first starting out, i think we are all inspired by his example in public health, as somebody whose commitment to the country is so strong that he is willing to tow the line as you said, but also still retain his position of influence so folks like myself and my colleagues have guidance to look to, and that's really important.

i think dr. fauci is the same person he was two decades ago, he is telling it as it is on the podium i think, and he has basically been saying this, let's not overemphasize testing. testing is important, we're getting it online in the coming weeks, and that's key. the real key is social distancing. we know what works. what works is us taking agency from americans so they can't do what they want to do necessarily all the time. and that's tough. that's tough for patients, tough for americans at large. i am assuming he would say we need a federal lockdown now, need consistency of approach, use the defense production act, mobilize the military, mobilize the national guard, i am former military. i know what it is like to put triage hospital up in no matter of time. we need more icu beds.

i think that's what he would want to say. he is basically saying it. >> i'm grateful to have you. you put a sharper point on it. grateful for doing that. thank you, hans and claire. you'll be hanging out throughout the hour. ahead, this is not the time for a deadlock senate, so say the vast majority of americans, i'm sure. here we are waiting for an economic relief bill to pass, are there any signs of progress? we have the privilege of speaking to senator dick durbin about that next. about that next. take prilosec otc and take control of heartburn. so you don't have to stash antacids here... here... or, here. kick your antacid habit with prilosec otc. one pill a day, 24 hours, zero heartburn.

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i'm all for employment insurance being expanded, supported democrats in that endeavor. now we're in the land of the unnecessary. this has become a liberal special interest grab bag and we need to end this. >> bill still includes something that most americans don't want to see, large corporate bailouts with almost no strings attached.

>> business as usual there. welcome back. right now, senators remain deadlocked over $2 trillion coronavirus relief bill, a procedural vote failed for a second time today, both sides accuse each other of using the pandemic as a tool for partisan politics. urgency to get a bill passed is growing. workers and businesses are facing uncertain futures over massive shutdown. after rand paul tested positive for the virus, he is in quarantine with two other senators he interacted with prior to his diagnosis. none of them will be able to vote. republican senator cory gardner has been quarantined about a week, and rick scott in quarantine nearly two weeks. house speaker nancy pelosi is forging ahead with her own version of a package. joining us, dick durbin. senator, tell me something good? >> the good news is the

negotiations are continuing between the white house, senator schumer, and people trying to bring this to a good conclusion. they continued since the vote yesterday on a positive note. there are things we can point to already that are improvements over the mcconnell bill we were asked to vote on twice now. first, dramatic investment in the public health care across this country. we all know our hospitals, clinics are about to be inundated with people that need help. these hospitals need a helping hand, whether in rural areas of the state of illinois or city of chicago, they are asked to dramatically expand services. we are putting money on the table to make it happen and move forward. secondly, we said from the start we want this to work for workers and families across america. i think you'll see some positive changes already in the negotiations that are going to help families move forward. they're going to be able to get assistance, keeping their families together, even if furloughed or laid off, giving small business 50 to 60 small

businesses in a bipartisan proposal by senator rubio and cardin an opportunity to weather the storm, ready to go back in business once behind us. these are positives. last point, we have been insisting the state localities carrying the lion's share of the load be given a helping hand. in my state of illinois, for example, the governor told me the state budget is in trouble because of all of the expenditures made for public health services. we want to include that as part of this package. >> so what's the rub? all of that sounds like stuff that would have 80, 90% public approval, hospital supplies, support for small businesses, i mean, what is it hung up over? there must be something else we're missing. >> well, just remember, what i just described for the most part was not in the mcconnell bill that was brought to the floor, the one that we voted against yesterday and again today. these are improvements which happened because we said the initial bill was unacceptable.

the things that remain to be resolved, for example, is this loan fund that the secretary of treasury wants in the initial version of the kamcconnell bill they didn't have to report it for six months. little accountability. we are changing that. i want it quickly as possible, within a matter of days if we can do it. >> senator, my colleague claire mccaskill has a question for you. >> dick, i'm curious, have you all gotten a deal on mnuchin's ability to stop stock buy backs? looked like to me the mcconnell bill would allow mnuchin with the wave much his hand to allow stock buy backs, i think everybody in america understands, this is supposed to be about workers, not enriching people with stock buy backs. has that been decided on? has there been agreement to limit ability to play favorites? >> claire, you put your finger

on it. the mcconnell bill we asked to vote for, would allow the secretary of treasury to weigh stock buy backs. these are windfall profit taking by executives in a corporation. we have seen it happen over and over again. we're not going to be party to seeing it happen again. i think it is one of the last things we have to negotiate, but we feel strongly, the money should go for workers, getting the economy back on its feet. we are not trying to find a vacation hide away for someone to buy because we have come up with this package. >> it looks like you guys are close and what i'm confused about is mcconnell knew the negotiations were ongoing with the white house and that schumer was busy negotiating with the white house and pelosi was involved. why would he bring up a bill again for vote today unless it was a political stunt? why did he ask for another vote when he knew negotiations were ongoing and there was likelihood to get a good bill by the time the day was over?

>> claire, if you saw what happened on the floor, senator mcconnell gave a fire and brimstone partisan speech against the democrats and of course against senator schumer at a time when senator schumer was literally in negotiations 30 feet away with secretary mnuchin. it was totally unnecessary, the vote was unnecessary. what followed on the floor was a lot of emotion, primarily from their side of the aisle that i didn't think was necessary. i said to my colleagues, get a safe distance, take a deep breath, we're going to get this done on a bipartisan basis. negotiations are under way. schumer isn't stonewalling, he is sitting down now with parties that will make the decision on the serious issues that will make a big difference how quickly this vote takes place. we didn't have to have the vote yesterday or even today, but that was senator mcconnell's decision. >> senator, quick question. are you working on finding a way for remote voting so you all can self isolate as the rest of us

are doing? >> well, what you've done in announcing my presence is recount the five republican senators who didn't answer roll call vote yesterday or today, either because of senator paul being diagnosed or in self quarantine for fear they're exposed, i hope that's the end of it, but it is naive to believe it is. more and more senators, we meet so many people, are likely to be impacted with self quarantines or worse. john portman and i have come up with a process that looks like the 21st century, you can verify accuracy of vote for those that should not or cannot be on the floor of the senate, should be able to do that in times of national emergency. >> senator dick durbin, stay safe. thank you for spending time with us. we need all of you healthy, democrats and republicans. as we wait for the white house briefing, we know the president is eager to get the country back to business. we know his recent appearances

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welcome back. we continue to await the start of the white house coronavirus taskforce briefing just minutes from now, we think, and we continue to await president trump's latest message to the american people, especially in light of the late night tweet we have been talking about that

said this. quote, we cannot let the cure be worse than the problem itself. even the president's own allies on capitol hill are urging him to take the public health risk seriously. senator lindsey graham tweeting president trump's best decision was stopping travel from china early on. i hope we will not undercut that decision by suggesting we back off aggressive containment policies within the u.s. former missouri senator claire mccaskill is with us with reporter and analyst jonathan lemire, and axios national political reporter jonathan swan who have both been riding out the last couple hours with me. jonathan, start with you, you started with reporting on tension for donald trump between the tragedy that is this growing and perhaps exploding pandemic, and the calamity for most americans that is the economy being ground to a halt. explain how they play out based on your reporting. >> so the president has been

losing patience with the public health guidance from people like dr. fauci. this has been playing out the last five, six days, not just the president, but members of his senior team, economic team, including larry kudlow and others who are feeling they need to give at least a signal to the markets, to business owners and the consumer there's light at the end of the tunnel. what i'm hearing more and more, particularly the last 24 hours, is the desire to put some end date on this. and of course, a virus doesn't have an end date. a virus is its own entity that spreads and unfortunately for trump you cannot draw this distinct line. that's what people around him want to do. they want to be able to say on this date maybe life doesn't go back to normal, but you will be able to at least start to participate in commerce again in

a way that will allow the economy to restart again. >> and just to nail you down on the source of frustration, you said public health officials, is he irked with tony fauci and the credibility he has in those rooms where they share a podium? >> i have been told that. and more than anything it doesn't take a giant leap of imagination to think that, you know, when you have tony fauci doing the kinds of interviews he's doing over the last 48 hours that, you know, there might be some issues there, but more than anything it is not so much a personality thing, it really is, he is starting to get very, very worried about the economy, about re-election, about the markets, and losing patience with the idea of a nationwide social distancing and quarantining. >> jonathan swan, i know you

have to jump off. let me say thank you for spending better than two hours with us. thank you, my friend. >> thank you. >> jonathan lemire, you have been here so long, you have broken stories since you have been on air. take me through what you're reporting and something you reported last hour about a member of the white house press corp. >> nicole, we have to multi task. first, on that, the white house correspondents association put out a note saying a member of the press corp is suspected positive case, awaiting test results. so therefore there will be further seating guide lines in the briefing room. reporters will be spread out much further. those are the details being released. there are privacy concerns about the individual who is not identified. we hope that person has a negative test, if not, recovers as soon as possible. the white house of course is aware of this as well.

in terms of reporting, you're right, we had the story a short time ago, a lot of it piggy backs what we discussed last hour, there's increasing frustration from the president about how long this is taking. again, let's point out, 15 day guidelines, we're only nine in. most health experts think we need more than that. they're keeping an eye on markets that are faltering. watching things stall on capitol hill, the relief package is not settled. there's growing frustration the economy will get to a place it will not recover, could endanger president trump's re-election with a bad economy, recession, maybe even depression. it is bad for any incumbent, particularly one that is with the stock market like this one has. the president is trying to seize control of the crisis not perhaps how he should in terms of ventilators and masks, he is out doing the briefing against

the advice of a lot of advisers, in fact to the point sunday, the briefings tend to start late, the one sunday was more than an hour and a half late in part because the president wanted to slide from late afternoon to prime time, including the slot occupied by 60 minutes, his favorite news magazine. >> i want to ask this artfully, understanding you're an objective reporter that follows the facts wherever they lead. is there anything about the president's response that has anything to do with anything, i listened carefully to everything you and jonathan swan and hans nichols said the last two hours, i can't pull a thread back to a single concern about the business owner or the person who will be knocked on food stamps, i haven't heard a shred of reporting that suggests there's any humanity awoke en in donald trump, we have kids, parents, worried about kids out of school, parents that fall into

the risk category, is there any reporting that suggests any concerns about the economy or any of it have anything to do with anything other than his political fate? >> i'll answer it this way, we hear him at the podium talk about wanting to protect american lives. according to our reporting, certainly a lot of this is the implication to the economy, wanting to do well, a lot of it because of how it could impact himself, his legacy and re-election chances. that's how he viewed this from the beginning. this for him was far less a health crisis at the start as economic one. i was with him on a trip to india when that was sort of -- when the market first started to slide about a month ago. it was on that call, on that flight from new delhi on air force one when he landed, he reprimanded a top official at the cdc that warned reporters the day before things were about to get bad because he didn't want that kind of information out there spooking the markets. that's part of the reporting

here, too. it is not just what we've seen in the briefing room, snapping at peter alexander and others when they deliver bad news, try to ask him about the number of cases or the scourge of medical supplies, he does the same in the white house to the point some aides are reluctant to bring him bad news, because he is unable to travel, esshe is attending more meetings, crashing them, getting in the way, according to advisers, they have to redo agendas because we know from beginning of the administration, the president doesn't want to be challenged by aides, doesn't want to hear things that go against a preconceived notion, so there's a real concern that he is not getting the most up to date, accurate health information about the crisis. >> claire mccaskill, i've always had an ill feeling that the problem is not that we're too tough on trump, it is that we are not tough enough, when he takes a sharpie, tries to alter the map from the forecasters of

a storm, we let it go. we don't keep it in the news long enough to pressure congress, distorted science, emails come out, the truth emerges, but by then we've moved to something else. i wonder if you think, i asked congressman himes about this in the last hour, there was a report in friday's "the washington post" that the intel was flashing red. that's the exact same language or eerily similar to what dick clark said about intel assessments about bin laden leading to 9/11. does this represent an intelligence failure, is this worthy of a closer look? >> yeah, and the fact this president doesn't take intelligence briefings, doesn't take them seriously has given the back of his hand to the intelligence community, going so far as to stand at a podium with putin and basically say i believe putin stead of my own intelligence community, sending

the attorney general all over the world, trying to get dirt on his intelligence community, and then he praises china in january, obviously now they're trying to blame china, and we also just learned i sends a letter to kim jong-un in north korea saying we want to help you. well, what in the world? what is he doing offering help to a thug in north korea who kills his own family for power and tells governors in a phone call hey, you guys are going to be better off trying to buy your own stuff. there's so much incompetence here, and we have fatigue, we have outrage fatigue from this president. but this is a whole new level. now human lives are at stake, and the way he has handled this with gross incompetence has cost people lives and it is unfortunate and it doesn't seem to me that he has a grip on it

yet. >> jonathan lemire, let me give you the last word, ask you to pick up that thread from claire that he doesn't seem to have a grasp on his role yet is abundantly clear. i watched the entire i think 106 minutes of the briefing last night, tried to catch some of them last week while i was off, and he doesn't seem to understand that there's a role there in providing information. it seems to always come back to i think i called it this earlier, open mike night for the president. >> sure. from the beginning of the administration there's a sense he governed more as spectator than driver of action. in terms of this particular crisis, you were right. first of all, briefings are substitutes for rallies, no question. it is his outlet, he knows he can dominate the newscast.

those around the president are pleased his likely democratic foe has ceded the stage lately, although we saw a video today. more than that, the president is flailing for answers a little bit, and he is struggling to -- he has never been one to deliver much in the way of empathy or compassion, but also creating distance. a final point, the defense protection act that he invoked last week but hasn't utilized, he said yesterday he hasn't done that, it is socialist, didn't want to nationalize the business, look at venezuela as example. he also painted democrats as socialists the last few months, doesn't want to be seen as going down that course, that would take away perhaps the political argument. more than that, by not compelling his private businesses, by not nationalizing them, he puts more onus on states to do it, and therefore things don't work, he has

distance from it, potentially could escape his mind. >> with that as backdrop, the worst kind of breaking news. "the washington post" reports coronavirus for the first time it surpasses 100 in one day. 500 total. claire mccaskill, we are reaching horrific kinds of milestones in this country. >> yeah. and hopefully the third issue of help will get out of the senate tonight. i think it will, if not early tomorrow. you know, it is really interesting how this thing has developed. the first two that helped with a lot of she is, both came in from a bipartisan support in the house with nancy pelosi leading that effort, i think mcconnell felt he got jammed on some of that, that's why he's acting out today, yesterday, but you know, if you look at it, the republicans in the senate don't

have much leverage because the president knows he is going to do whatever he tells them to do, so if the president says take this bill, he knows fall in line and do whatever he says, and mnuchin has been given his power to negotiate this and so now this is being worked out between schumer, pelosi, mnuchin, and mcconnell isn't that important because the president can take those folks for granted. i think schumer knows how important it is to get this done, all of the democrats know how important it is to get done, but they also know it is important money go to workers, front line health workers and states that need it, not placed on blue or red, those that are in a krie in a crisis. hopefully that gets done, that will be another piece laid down that will reassure the american people that somebody is home trying to help. >> claire mccaskill is staying with us. jonathan lemire has given us the

better part of two hours is getting back to work. thank you for being generous with your time. we're taking a break. we'll be right back. king a break we'll be right back. got a chip. >> man: we drove to safelite autoglass for a same-day repair. >> woman: and with our insurance, it was no cost. really? >> man: safelite has service we can trust. >> singers: ♪ safelite repair, safelite replace. ♪

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we are today issuing an emergency order that says to all hospitals you must increase your capacity by 50%. you must. mandatory directive from the state. find more beds, use more rooms. you must increase your capacity 50%. we now have 53,000 beds, we need 110,000 beds. >> that was governor andrew cuomo this morning, issuing a state directive, ordering hospitals to increase their capacity as fears grow of the hospital system being overwhelmed with coronavirus patients. pictures like these keep flooding in of nurses, health care workers working long shifts. yet another sign our health

system is on a dangerous path as the number of coronavirus cases and death toll both continue to rise. joining us now, aaron carol of indiana university school of medicine and nbc's tom winter, covering the issue of shortages of medical supplies and equipment in new york city which is now the country's epicenter. let me start with you, tom. you had an interview today with more about urgency of shortages. take us through that. >> that's right. i had opportunity to speak with commissioner of the fire department of new york, that also includes ems, emts, people that will try to transport people from homes and offices, less offices now obviously, but if you're in a bad spot with flu-like symptoms, they're the people that run the ambulances and they're the people there to take care of you. themselves, they're being impacted by it. you have 46 people that are members of the fdny that tested positive for coronavirus. two have been hospitalized. the spokesperson telling us that

of the two hospitalized, it was not because of patient contact, and they know because they note when there's a ppe failure. if a mask comes off or there's exposure to a patient, that would be something to be concerning to them but there's obviously a lot of community spread in new york. the key thing, though, nicole, is the lack of ppe. it's that protective equipment. it's the masks. it's the gloves. it's the stuff that these guys need to keep themselves safe and it's a plea, really, that the fire commissioner is making directly to washington. let's have a listen. >> i think, like all healthcare providers in the city, in the state, ppe is critical. you've heard from the governor. you've heard from the mayor that we're at levels that's dangerously low. the department has, i would say, weeks rather than months of supplies and all we can hope for

is that the pleas from the governor and the mayor have been heard in washington. >> i think, nicole, what you're looking at here is a situation where it is weeks, not months. typically, the fdny tries to keep several months of supply on hand every time they've gotten a flu-like call. this goes back before we even knew coronavirus was a thing, before coronavirus probably even existed, they've been gearing up for any sort of flu-like call. they don't want to get other people sick so they've burned through some of that supply and the fire commissioner tells me they're burning through a lot more supply because these calls are going up. they're getting more requests for people with flu-like symptoms, coronavirus-like symptoms and that's something that's going on at hospitals. typically, we know some hospitals, we know from a letter that was obtained over the weekend, they'll go through 4,000 masks in a week. they're already up to 40,000 masks a day they're going through, projected to get to 70,000 so when people are

talking about, hey, we need the federal government to step in and provide masks. we've heard calls from the governor, from the mayor on both of those issues that really this is a kind of a critical thing here going forward, that as this is expected to ramp up, there's really some serious problems ahead. >> dr. aaron carroll, can you just sort of explain for our viewers and for me, i mean, to not have the resources, for the president to refuse to use sort of those wartime powers to order the production of the kind of equipment, it's pretty low tech, frankly. low-tech equipment that would save the lives of first responders, people in the front lines. it would seem that if just one person on the front lines of protecting sick people goes down, it's an exponential number of individuals who have one fewer person to help them. i mean, how grave is this crisis right now in your eyes? >> it's really grave and it's a problem as well because we're falling further and further behind the curve. it's baffling that no one is

stepping up to try to produce these things. there's nobody who thinks this is getting better. i mean, if anything, it's getting worse every day, the number of cases are doubling, almost every two to three days, and it's going to take time to ramp up the equipment that we need. you just can't buy it. it has to be made. and so every day that we delay is going to make it not only more dangerous for all the people who are working in hospitals, it's going to make it that much harder to catch up. we're losing time. >> what is a day like today -- i've read all the stories coming out of italy and china about the toll, not just physical and the physical risk but the emotional toll of taking care of so many sick people who were, you know, probably fine a couple weeks ago. what is this like? take me inside what this experience is like for healthcare professionals in this country now. >> i mean, it's not as if healthcare providers were sitting around not doing anything before this started. they were busy taking care of people who were already sick, especially in the intensive care units where the sickest patients

go. but right now, hospitals are becoming overwhelmed. the number of patients showing up in the emergency rooms to be seen are getting greater and greater. the number of patients being admitted is going through the roof. the number of patients requiring significant resources. and at the same time, they're failing to see any response from the federal government trying to help them and get them the equipment they need to protect them, and as this just gets worse and worse, it gets harder and harder, they get more and more tired, they're falling further and further behind, and if we don't start acting soon, we're going to get to a point where they just absolutely become overwhelmed. >> tom winter, this is your beat. you spent a lot of time with the men and women -- part of your beat. your beat is nypd and the fire department. i detect in some of your notes that we benefit from that there's some growing -- these are not people who scare. these are not men and women who frighten easily. they're the people that ran into the towers as everyone not just new yorkers knows but it feels like there's mounting concern,

mounting alarm. it's not a designation new york city wanted, to become the epicenter of coronavirus in america, but it appears heading or has arrived at that place. take me inside what it's like inside the first responders universe. >> well, i think it's a couple things. first, nicole, it's not something that you can get away from at the end of your shift or at the end of the day, right? so, typically, if this was some sort of a major fire, even a terrorist attack, when we look at the -- what happened on the west side highway in new york city, you and i were talking a lot that day, that's something where the people, when they're done with that day or when they've made a arrest or they've taken people to hospitals, that they've kind of -- that's the end of that shift. i think it's the great unknown going forward that has people concerned, so in other words, how many more cases are we going to get? how many more people are going to be hospitalized? are we going to have an outbreak in the fire department in the nypd?

over 120 cases according to a text i just got from a senior nypd commander, over 120 people that are part of the nypd have tested positive so this isn't something that you can distance yourself from and i think that's a real concern for them going forward and really a tremendous unknown as far as how many more people are going to get sick and how bad will their conditions be. >> unbelievable. dr. carroll, tom winter, thank you both so much for spending some time with us. and clara, thank you, my friend, my anchor buddy for sticking with me for the whole hour. we're going to sneak in a break. we'll be right back. we're going to sneak in a break. we'll be right back.

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we are still waiting for the coronavirus briefing to get under way at the white house on this day, a sad day, a sad milestone reached in this country for the very first time, the deaths from coronavirus were in the triple digits. more than 100. so we will get right to that briefing as it begins. chuck todd will be back in this chair at this time tomorrow. msnbc breaking news coverage continues right now with ari. hi. >> hi, nicole. thank you very much. and thank you for staying with us at home as nicole just mentioned. it's another serious day in this pandemic. let me tell you exactly what we're going to do for you right now. we're keeping our eye on that white house briefing room. you can see the live shot right here. this is a scheduled press conference that would have happened within the last half an hour. we expect it, of course, to still take place at some point in this hour, and we will bring at