companies healthy. but we could also make incredible deals for the country so that number will increase. >> the lack of oversight. treasury has this authority to do dole out all of this money. >> i'll be the oversight. we're going to make good deals. >> president trump is volunteering to personally oversee a $500 billion fund intended to help hard-hit businesses and state and local governments. good morning and welcome to morning joe. it's tuesday, march 24th. the world health organization says the spread of the coronavirus is picking up pace. it took 6 seven days from the first reported case to each 100,000, 11 days for a second 100,000 cases and just four days for a third. here in the u.s. the numbers

continue to surge with nearly 10,000 new cases reported in the last 24 hours. still with no bend in the curve in sight. president trump is calling for a quick end to the most effective tool that currently exists to combat the virus, social distancing. >> we cannot let the cure be worse than the problem itself. we're not going to let the cure be worse than the problem. at the end of the 15-day period, we'll make a decision as to which way we want to go, where we want to go, the timing and essentially we're referring to the timing of the opening. essentially the opening of our country. >> you said it's likely going to be weeks not months before you suggest easing these guidelines that you put out. have any of the doctors on your team told you that's the right path to pursue? >> we spoke to them today and i was telling them that we have two things to look forward -- don't forget, the doctors, they may see, let's shut down the entire world.

because, again, you're up to 150 countries. let's shut down the entire world and when we shut it down, that will be wonderful and let's keep it shut for a couple of years. we can't do that. >> where is dr. fauci right now? why is he not in this briefing? >> i was just with him for a long time. we have a task force meeting. >> does he agree with you about that? >> he doesn't not agree. he understands it's tremendous -- there's a tremendous cost to our country. you have 160 million jobs in this country now. the most ever by far, by far the most ever. the number of jobs. almost 160 million. so we can't turn that off and think it's going to be wonderful. there will be tremendous repercussions, there will be tremendous death from that, death. you're talking about death. probably more death from that

than anything that we're talking about with respect to the virus. >> okay. that 15-day period the president is set to decide whether to relax the social distancing guidelines recommended by government experts, it ends next monday. that's not stopping more and more governors from issuing stay-at-home orders as hawaii, new mexico, washington state, michigan, wisconsin, oregon, west virginia, massachusetts and indiana join other states in ordering residents to stay inside. and, joe, the numbers don't seem to match what the president is saying about, you know, getting the country open again. >> well, i personally -- and i could be wrong. i think the president is just talking right now. he's -- whether he's blowing off steam or he's sending a signal to businesses or his supporters

that run big corporations that he wants to get the economy restarted again. he's getting pressure from inside the white house, from larry kudlow. i know larry. i like larry. but larry is not a doctor. larry is the guy who said a couple weeks ago along with kellyanne conway that the pandemic was contained. >> these updates are to update people on the reality of this virus, where it is, what the numbers are, where masks are, where supplies are, where testing is. >> right. >> because people like rand paul walk around capitol hill interacting with everybody not knowing they have the virus. a case in point example in washington, d.c., in the republican party. what more do they need? we need updates. we don't need him riffing and surmising on politics. that's fine if you think he's

politicizing and trying to figure out how to play the odds with this for his own political needs, but it seems like i would rather see dr. fauci there, and i didn't know -- i missed him yesterday. >> i think most people were frustrated. yesterday, no new information that couldn't have been summed up in 60 seconds, 90 seconds, at the end of that press conference, by somebody else. but it's very interesting what you say about rand paul. because let's think about it, i keep talking about and banging the drum on the importance of nationalizing our effort and throwing absolutely everything we need, everybody we have into testing and expanding testing and of course, you've got an op-ed this morning by two noble prize winning economists saying if you want to reopen the economy, you've got to test everybody. that's the only way, if you're going to do what south korea has

done, you have to be able to do that. i want to bring in jonathan lemire. the white house is not making this a national priority. they're not making it a national effort. they've got to figure out how to get along with china to get the masks, to get the other equipment. china is making 120 million masks a day. >> my lord. >> we need to figure out, as i said throughout this entire process, afterwards, we'll do our after action reports on donald trump and everybody else. right now what we need to do is get those masks and help people on the front lines. jonathan, help me out here. you wrote a very revealing article about the president's state of mind, but i want to go down a list of things i was writing down as i was listening to the president. we have states shutting down. 10,000 new cases in the united states just over the past 24 hours.

10,000 new cases. u.s. numbers skyrocketing at such a rate that we're soon going to go past china as the country with the highest number of infections. boeing, i read a report that one of their main plants yesterday shutting down. you have, as you know, u.s. airlines are now talking to the government, they're talking about shutting the airlines down, shutting down -- basically a shut down of all u.s. domestic flights and most international flights. and you have new york city, of course, in a deepening crisis and your story, yesterday, understand your story reveals how he's growing frustrated with social distancing protocols which force the closing of mar-a-lago, forced him from getting out of the white house. but the president surely does understand, jonathan, does he not, that the rallies will come later in the summer, the rallies

will come later in the fall. but we haven't even -- we're still a week, two weeks away from seeing the worst of this in the united states if we're lucky. we're not opening up in two weeks. he understands that, right? >> it defies is advice of every medical expert around him including dr. fauci. his absence explained it wasn't his turn to be out there. they're doing a rotation system. there are reports, including ours, that the president has grown frustrated with some of the attention dr. fauci has received and some of the criticism that fauci has delivered in various interviews. that's something to keep an eye ongoing forward. but in terms of their -- it's not just the president. there are those -- and larry kudlow is one of them. there are people within the administration who believe the health experts have gone too far with this in terms of shutting down the economy and that it is delivering a mortal blow to the

nation's economy and the president's re-election chances. there's a movement. you heard the president yesterday at the briefing, it lines up with our reporting all day long and our story that moved yesterday afternoon, that he is considering this. that it would not be a nationwide lift. there would be hot spot that is would remain with these restrictions. new york city, california, washington. and a lot of this is going to be up to the individual state governors. governor cuomo is not going to listen to president trump on whether or not new york should reopen for business as the president said. but there is consideration here that when this 15 days runs out in about a week or so, they may start to ease restrictions across the united states because the president has been watching and worrying about the state of the economy. of course, we haven't gotten close to the peak of this pandemic in the united states. and i -- what will be very telling is if the physicians yesterday, dr. birx was on stage with him yesterday.

she distanced herself from this proposal. she didn't endorse it. she didn't rebuke it either. what pressure will fall on hers and others including dr. fauci to push this forward. to talk back and convince the president from doing this, to this point, the president who is frustrated, can't travel, can't go to rallies, he's turned those briefings into those rallies, that he is unsure of what to do. he's been up on the phone late at night, dialing around for good news. he's crashing white house meetings that he's not supposed to attend, forcing aides to redo their agendas and forcing aides to sugar coat their message. the president doesn't want to hear from any sort of subordinate something that didn't line up with his own world view and this includes this pandemic. such a dangerous moment. it's possible he's not getting, joe, the most accurate information he needs and therefore he's foraging forward with his gut which could mean

this reopening in just a week or so. >> he talked about it repeatedly at was one of the worst updates if that's possible. the numbers don't match, joe, with what the president is saying. they're not going down. there is absolutely to reason the president should be talking about reopening the country right now. if you look at it from any logical point of view. another person missing was the surgeon general. but his words were quite something compared to the president yesterday. this is going to be really bad and everyone should be acting like they have the virus. that was his advice. these people somehow don't make it to the stage anymore or if they do, potentially, if you look at jonathan lemire's reporting, the president getting frustrated with this with medical information, advice, guidance? >> the president and congress and we as a society are

balancing two things right now. we're balancing a pandemic, the worst public health scare, the worst public health care crisis we've had since 1918, in over 100 years. we're balancing that with what may soon be the worst economic crisis that we've had since 1929, since the crash in 1929. those are two extraordinary things that have to be balanced. if you just -- if you just take -- just drive around your community from a safe distance from other people today, you will see there are still far too many people who are just not taking this seriously. and with them not taking this seriously that virus is spreading. the pandemic spreading. there was a story in the "new york times" this morning about how one party in west port, connecticut, one party, birthday party, 40th birthday party

helped spread the pandemic to south africa and across the globe. people don't understand how quickly this spreads, how easily it spreads. and so, again, i think the president, if -- let us hope, let us hope the president was just trying to send a signal to the markets that he's on their side, he's growing impatient too. but, mika, i have no doubt the numbers are going to be so bad in the coming weeks, we're going -- the next, at least, two weeks that the president is not going to reopen anything. he understands that. right now, again, the white house is talking with airlines about cutting off all the domestic flights because they know this is getting worse. boris johnson was a bit of a skeptic weeks ago. >> he isn't now. >> it seems most populist leaders have made fools of

themselves. some people have just been dead wrong. larry kudlow a couple weeks ago was dead wrong when he said, again, that the coronavirus was contained. that was when, what, maybe we had 50, 100 cases in the united states. we had 10,000 yesterday. don't listen to larry kudlow on global health issues involving the pandemic. listen to larry on economic matters. that's fine. you might want to listen, though, to another skeptic in the past who yesterday came face to face with the pandemic and went against all of his political instincts to shut down his country because he saw what happened in italy, what happened in france, what happened in spain was coming to britain and america. here's boris johnson from a press conference yesterday. >> the coronavirus is the biggest threat this country has faced for decades and this country is not alone.

all over the world, we're seeing the devastating impact of this invisible killer. to put it simply, if too many people become seriously unwell at one time the nhs will be unable to handle it, meaning more people are likely to die, not just from coronavirus but from other illnesses as well. so it's vital to slow the spread of the disease because that is the way we reduce the number of people needing hospital treatment at any one time so we can protect the nhs's ability to cope and save more lives and that's why we've been asking people to stay at home during this pandemic. though huge numbers are complying, and i thank you all, the time has now come for us all to do more. from this evening, i must give the british people a very simple

instruction, you must stay at home. if you don't follow the rules, the police will have the powers to enforce them, including through fines and dispersing gatherings. >> this is a skeptic, but just to point out if you're watching in britain and trying to figure out where the country stands, you got a clear message. it was effectively communicated with empathy and there were no mixed messages, no politics in that, no wavering. it was not weak at all. the leadership from the top here is unfocused, there's no mobilization of nothing and it's weak. it's bad. it's going to drive us straight into this. >> that was an extraordinarily strong display by boris johnson and what the president needs to be told more, what his advisers around him need to tell him, they're obviously not telling him this, is that strength

against a pandemic is good politics. mobilizing the federal government and all the federal government and its resources to bringing the pandemic to a grinding halt is not only good for the public health, it's good for the economy. and it's good for the politician that's doing it. the harsher the restrictions are now, the shorter they will be, the less likely that it will drag on throughout the spring, summer, and fall. but, you know, with boris johnson, that was strong. sometimes i frustrate people because i'm good with late life conversions in politics and in life as well. our problem is we don't want a death bed conversion. >> no. >> we don't want our president -- >> that's really good. >> -- converting to this cause

when it's too late for too many americans who, again, the white house got worried last week, last weekend when they got the report that up to 2 million americans could die from this. i want everybody to listen who is still going out, hanging out, thinking this is some joke. even the white house believes that up to 2 million americans could die. they saw the report and they're taking it seriously, at least the health care advisers are taking it seriously and the president certainly took it seriously at the beginning of the week. right now, speaking of the markets, the asian markets rallied last night because they believe the senate is actually going to come to a deal today. >> senate leaders in the trump administration appear to be closing in on an agreement for nearly $2 trillion stimulus package to offset the damage

caused by this. after a series of meetings last night and a phone call with the president, chuck schumer and treasury secretary steve mnuchin said they are hopeful a deal will be reached by sometime today raising the possibility of a senate vote. let's bring in senior writer at "politico," an msnbc political contributor. and former treasury official and "morning joe" economic analyst, steve rattner. bring us up to date on what the sticking points are. >> the sticking points are the $500 billion funds which is used to help distressed businesses which is a very crucial parts of the bill. democrats has said the administration has too much oversight, too much leeway to disperse the money as it likes. it's a big problem, but about 11:30 last night the president urged republicans to be against this bill and i'm not sure what

to make of that. i can't just -- like all of us, i can't get inside his head. until the president fully embraces this bill, it's going absolutely nowhere because we've seen this time and time again, and we wrote this morning, if steve mnuchin is doing a deal with the senate, he's an independent contractor with kind of good intentions. the president needs to embrace this package to get it through a senate that is hobbled. there are five republicans that either have the coronavirus or are sequestered because they've been in contact with rand paul who was positive for the coronavirus. i would like to just put some skepticism here and the urgency is really great because steven mnuchin set a deadline of monday for this legislation and here we are on tuesday and the president is dumping all over it as it seemingly, according to schumer and mnuchin, is on the brink of

some sort of deal. >> steve rattner, what is the impact of the president actually trying to undermine this bill? what's the reaction that we're going to see in the markets when they open up this morning? >> i'm not sure the markets are going to believe that the president is really that much of a factor, that successful undermining the bill. let me go back for a second to what you were talking about earlier. i of course agree that the public health situation is dire and a crisis. but i think what you're seeing in -- and it may well be that the president is playing bad politics rather than good politics. but it may be what's in the president's head and what he's being told and i'm not at all suggesting that we change course. it's how bad this economy is going to get. we're going to be looking at a second quarter gdp number that's probably negative 30%. that would make that one quarter worse -- 1 1/2 times worse than the great recession itself.

you had the president of the st. louis fed say that unemployment could be over 30% in this country. that would be 5 percentage points higher than the great depression. i'm not advocating we get away from this tightening of social restrictions. i'm saying that the economic impact, i think it's beginning to dawn on people of how great the economic impact of this thing is going to be. the legislation is really being done between mnuchin and the democrats and mitch mcconnell and i think the president weighing in now is going to engender a huge backlash from those people who have been working to get this done. whatever the president was doing last night will ultimately not derail this. i think they're very close to getting a deal, whether it's a good deal or not, we can discuss. but i think they're close to getting a deal and that is totally what the markets want. >> jake, i hear people like

lloyd blankfein saying go back into work. let's get this economy started back up again. lloyd blankfein wouldn't go into work, a crowded space. lloyd blankfein wouldn't get on a subway. i know lloyd and i like lloyd a lot. but come on, man, he lives a cloistered life and to suggest is he going to go into a crowded deli in new york city? is he going to go into a crowded deli in san francisco? what is this talk that everybody is saying about getting back -- going back to their work. they're not -- >> they're not there. >> they're not going to do that themselves. the numbers go to the johns hopkins website or the financial times. they have these numbers. they have the charts. our number is going straight up faster than any country's in the world. our rate of infection will soon exceed china's and be the biggest number of infections in

the world and the next two weeks are going to be the worst two weeks. who's going back to work in the next two weeks? nobody. >> and congress wants to get out of session soon because they're sitting together and all of an advanced age and want to get home. and the house is not going to come back in session to deal with this bill. i just want to add one note here, mitch mcconnell -- senate republicans are not happy with the way negotiations are going here and are frustrated with mr. mnuchin for cutting a deal with chuck schumer and leaving republicans on the sidelines. i want to be careful here, but if the president does not fully embrace this compromise, it's a big, big problem and markets may or may not get wise to this. i couldn't tell you right now. but this is a problem, the president cannot inject

skepticism. but the house is going to have to pass this on unanimous consent. one person could scuttle this and force the entire chamber to fly back to washington. if you don't think there is one person that will do that then you haven't been watching politics for the next decade or so. >> the one thing i agreed with wholeheartedly with what the president said yesterday was that while he was trying to strike a bipartisan tone with the negotiations, he said we have no choice. the senate has no choice. they're going to pass this bill because they have to pass this bill. maybe these are the last-minute maneuvers, maybe he's trying to get a better deal from democrats, but i really don't see the democrats moving on that $500 billion slush fund that donald trump himself would be in charge of. that's never going to happen. >> joe, i'm not sure about that

as you are. the conundrum we face is we need a $500 billion fund. we need a very, very substantial allocation of capital to saving these companies. the 500 billion would be taken by the federal reserve and multiplied by 10 and create over $4 trillion of firepower to save companies and we have to have that. we simply have no choice. as you pointed out earlier in the show and on many other occasions, businesses are shut down. there's no economic activity going on in this country. you risk thousands of small businesses literally never coming back. you risk bigger businesses just shutting down because they don't -- we can talk all we want about mistakes these companies have made in the past. i will fully agree with you. but the choice we have now is between whether to save this economy, bite our tongue, hold our talk, whatever you want to

call it, save the country or let the country just vaporize because -- >> but, steve, let me -- let me ask you this, though, steve. the hold up is not the $500 billion fund. the hold up is that just donald trump is the person who decides where that $500 billion go. that's what i'm saying won't happen. if you had -- if you had the fed being in charge of where that money went or if you had people that dispersed the funds like we did after the 9/11 fund, that -- how would that look? what special masses could be put in charge, who could appoint those so both sides could trust each other better. >> i wrote a piece yesterday suggesting those two possible alternatives, which is to have a special master. we did that after the 9/11.

we've done it many other times. another possibility would be to give more responsibility to the fed which i trust. donald trump may not because he's been on jay powell's case. but my sense is, at the end of the day they are going to have to give substantial authority to the treasury which is putting up 425 billion toward this fund and what they're going to do, i believe, is put substantial guardrails or try to, anyway, around it in terms of reporting. crazy as this may seem, the original proposal called for these loans to be confidential, secret, for six months. that was designed to keep the companies from becoming stigmatized. they're going to put guardrails around the possibility that any of this money could be lent for my property or trump or any member of his administration is involved with. i think the democrats are going to have to agree to something like this. i think they will try to put as many guardrails around it as

they possibly can. but that is kind of where we are at the moment. and i don't know quite what the alternative is. >> well, and that's the key, actually. you need guardrails. you need special masters like we did after 9/11. i can't just be a $500 billion slush fund that donald trump uses. of course we need to inject that money back into the economy. thank you so much. >> thanks to you both for being on. still ahead on "morning joe" -- >> i want what's good for the country. and if that means meeting, i think that's great. i want what's good for the country, great for the workers, the citizens of the united states. that's all. >> have you spoken with pelosi? >> it's been a little while. >> president trump says it's been a little while since he last talked with the house speaker. does that help or hurt the chances of a deal on capitol hill? we'll talk to hans nichols who questioned the president

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joining us from the white house, nbc news correspondent hans nichols. there are reasons why dr. fauci wasn't there yesterday, the surgeon general. the experts who are concerned about this virus spreading and killing up to 2 million people didn't appear to be in stage in full yesterday. >> dr. fauci, according to the president, had been at the task force meeting. he didn't come to the cameras. their reasoning is they want to keep some social distancing up there by the podium so that you don't have too many officials crowded together. you had dr. birx. it doesn't look like we're going to have one of those briefings today, however, we will have a fox news town hall and that may serve in lieu of the briefing and all the reporters asking the

questions. guys? >> jonathan lemire? >> two points, we anticipate there will be -- the briefing will return tomorrow. the president has been reluctant to give those up. at sunday it was supposed to belated at 4:30 and he asked aides to push it back later so it would be into prime time. but my question to you is simply, take us behind the scenes today beyond the town hall. do we have expectations of meetings? what sort of talks do we expect the president to have if he's going to take a further step to begin reopening the economy? >> so i think we have to look at the numbers. what was clear from yesterday, very abundantly clear is the president's instincts on this is to open up the economy and after these 15 days have a shorter period. i pressed him on that, he said certainly not months. we know where the president's instincts are and he thinks the costs of keeping things shut

down are greater than opening them back up even if that means some infections. he appears to be willing to make that trade off. we don't know how much space the president preserved for him to snap back. that means in 15 days whether or not we see a dramatic increase, whether or not the president will change his tune. and yesterday as joe was suggesting, it was about signaling to the markets, look, the president, long term wants to get back to business t. most important conversations today are going to be between the president and his treasury secretary because they seem to be on different places on whether or not to get this deal. that tweet from the president at 11:30, it should have been a thunder bolt. it's clear the president is in a different space and wants to put the brakes on this a little bit. ultimately it feels like the president wants to make a deal. but i hate to do reporting here by saying it feels like it. but when you listen to what the

president was actually saying, he's in a deal frame of mind. that was before that surprise tweet. guys? >> all right, thank you so much. at the white house. we really appreciate it. jonathan lemire, how much -- as you follow the president very closely for the past four years. how much of his performance is impacted by the things you reported about yesterday, that he's trapped inside the white house, that he can't go to mar-a-lago, that he can't -- he and his family can't get away the way they're used to getting away. how much is that weighing down on him psychologically? >> it's a real factor. as much as the president is a home body, both here in new york and at the white house, he likes to spend most nights in his own bed, he misses the road. he misses the rallies, the time on air force one. he brings on aides and advisers

or friends to fly with him. he works the phones. as someone put it to me in the last 24 hours or so, he's feeling a little cooped up and there's another aspect of this. he's frustrated because this whole year was meant to be about his re-election campaign. he loves the campaign. he talks about the 2015, 2016 campaign all the time. he wanted to recreate that. and he believed he was going to face one of two options, a socialist, in his words, a bernie sanders, or if it were to be joe biden, joe biden would be weakened, that he would perhaps have to have a long, drawn out nominating fight, joe biden was struggling to raise money, we would start hearing about hunter biden again. that was their argument. and that is now all gone away. he can't run the campaign he wants. there was a hope on his team to use this time here, march, april, may, to really define biden again, to have an

onslaught of ads. trump has a huge financial advantage. it would have been akin to what president obama did to mitt romney. he can't do that. he can't run an advertisement right now it's too political. he can't have a rally anytime soon. the only silver lining, and i will say, for him, his aides have said, they're surprised they haven't seen more of biden in the last week or two. they're surprised that the democrat has seeded the stage to the president. the vice president had a virtual town hall yesterday. that's something that the white house is taking some solace in. to answer what you asked, joe, part of why the president is musing about pushing things forward is he is simply frustrated about how this year, this pandemic is defining his presidency and could take away his re-election campaign. >> and this is the president who

thrives on that mediate feedback and a total lockdown is not the answer to combatting coronavirus. what's the alternative? we'll find out just ahead. plus -- >> and this is not a drug that obviously -- i think i can speak for a lot of -- from a lot of experience because it's been out there for over 20 years. so it's not a drug that you have a huge amount of danger with. it's not like a brand-new drug that's been just created that may have an unbelievable affect, like kill you. >> that's president trump last week touting the potential benefits of an anti-malaria medication. nbc's vaughn hillyard has some exclusive reporting on the apparent deadly fallout from that, next on "morning joe." we made usaa insurance for members like kate.

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doctors are advising to be leery of new coronavirus symptoms as they learn more about the rapidly spreading disease. the "new york times" reports the loss of sense of smell and diminished sense of taste have emerged as telltale signs of covid-19 citing globally reported data, ear, nose and throat doctors in both the u.s. and uk have called on adults who lose those senses to isolate themselves for seven days, even if they have no other symptoms to slow the disease's infection rate. joining us know, a senior scholar from the johns hopkins hospital. you order that a total lockdown is not the answer to stop covid-19. so then what would you explain would be? >> what i want to try to avoid is this false alternative that

we let this virus rip and we're inundated in our hospitals. on the other, where you have the wuhan style lockdown, all these other effects that really aren't measured in terms of health care and hiv and heart disease and trauma which is what we saw happen in wuhan. the mortality rates from those went up. and we have this idea of businesses being locked down forever where people are unable to feed their family and you have a distinction between what's a life sustaining business and isn't. we have to come up with an exit plan trying to make sure our hospitals are safe, that we're able to take care of these patients and realizing that we have to think of a way to open certain bids businesses with modifications. not going to be doing mass gatherings, but the longer we do this, the more chance there are going to be negative consequences that have to be weighed in the models.

it's going to be focused on covid-19, but we have to think about what else is going on and come up with a balance and it's not this false alternative that's being pushed. >> right. and you talk about hospital preparedness to meet the demands, diagnostics, of course, health care worker to boost the number there and right to try, working on drugs that could be breakthrough. but given the fact that all of those aspects in the united states are still quite jumbled. we're not where we should be, not even close, at what point do you think that the u.s. should start to ease restrictions here given the realities we're facing? >> we got put in a situation that we didn't need to be put into. we basically botched multiple different aspects of this response and we're left in the world the botches have created for us. the most important thing is going to be hospital preparedness, number one. we have to start looking at the

epidemic curve as best we can and understand when you can start lifting these things in a nuanced manner, not at all, maybe with modifications. i think there are certain businesses that you might be able to perform in a social distancing manner with some caveats and looking at how you can do. we have to come up with guidance for businesses, what's safe and what's not. you're seeing blanket restrictions and not every business is going to have the same social distancing problems that other businesses are. you have to realize there's a way to go forward without completely shutting down the economy of every store and every shop in every city. there's ways to do this. i don't like the idea of state police padlocking businesses which is what's happening in pennsylvania. we have to think as a county, we have to have a national discussion on how to move forward with this because this isn't going to go we. we're going to have deal with it for months to come until there's a vaccine. i don't think the answer is a

lock down until we have a vaccine. >> doctor, senior scholar, johns hopkins center for health security, thank you very much. >> you know, what is so interesting, though, mika, i think jonathan lemire brought it up, that you have people talking -- you have the president talking about opening the country back up sooner rather than later, weeks instead of months. like i said, the airlines are talking about shutting down, congress, like the united states senate can't get out of town fast enough. the house is not going to come back into vote. why? if they do, they're all going to be a part of this pandemic, part of the pandemic story in a tragic way. you've got to say, again, testing has been the main problem. >> yeah. >> because we have -- >> we're still there. >> we haven't been able to track this. we can't map it. we can't figure out where it's spreading. we can't figure out who can go back to work. >> exhibit a, rand paul. >> think about rand paul.

if rand paul had not broken every single guideline, if he had not acted horribleably in the eyes of every single medical adviser in the white house and taken this test, the senate -- the entire senate would be infected right now. people say, we don't really need to test globally. we don't really need to have widespread testing for all americans. well, they don't understand. you can't open the economy until that happens. the markets aren't going to move again until we bend that curve. and like south korea, you do it by testing. and speaking of testing, i want to bring in "morning joe's" chief medical correspondent, dr. dave campbell. let's talk about what is really important. the fda approving a test from this weekend, that somebody can get the test and actually get their results in 45 minutes.

i have friends who, most likely, have the virus. that have taken the test, and have been waiting for five days. they still don't know their results. talk about this test and how widespread this could be in america. >> this is the most exciting thing i've heard in quite a few days. this week, we'll see the rollout of a test that will be able to identify this coronavirus directly. and it's a test that can be performed at the hospital, with the test result supplied at the hospital, at the clinic, the urgent care center, in 45 minutes. there's 5,000 machines that use this testing platform. and by the end of this month, they're going to roll this out, they're going to make it available. what's not clear is how many tests can be done per day or per hour.

this is the game-changer. i agree with you and a lot of the experts. testing is the achilles' heel right now. it's limiting our ability to work as health care providers. it is going to cost me today. i will be using this mask when i'm seeing patients today and gloves, and other protective equipment, as i can. testing is number one. mitigation, personnel, hospital beds, ventilators, that's all important. but without testing we are going blind right now, joe. still flying blind. we don't know the impact of how widespread this is and who can go to work and who can't go to work. we see the lines in new york city, going around the block, ef people lining up to take tests inside of hospitals.

this is a mistake we can never make again. it's asinine where you're bringing all these people to get infected if they haven't been infe infected. are we moving these tests to places where they don't have lines around hospitals where people are getting infected? >> everybody recognizes that problem. the problem we've had is the only place you can get a test for quite a few weeks was at a hospital. and for the long time, only if you were admitted to the hospital. but segregating the pool of people who may be infected with the coronavirus, from those that have heart attacks and strokes and appendicitis and other acute problems, is contained within the area of the hospital. >> dr. dave campbell, thank you.

we'll be watching as they try to get this all organized. >> be safe today. >> if you've been watching the president's briefings over the past several days. you probably heard him saying something like this -- >> now, a drawing called chloroquine, or hydro hydroxycloroquine. it's shown very encouraging early results. and we're going to be able to make that drug available almost immediately. >> it's not true. not available. the president has been citing a medicine meant to fight malaria, that he claims could have

potential benefits with coronavirus. >> this is one of the areas, by the way, that he and dr. fauci have been going back and forth. >> he ventures into these areas and talks about drugs that are not available on the market, not approved. >> we have friends and co-workers that have lupus that can't get the drug, now, because there's a shortage. >> that, it is approved for. and now, a man has died after taking chloroquine phosphate. they decided to mix a small amount of chloroquine. they drank it as a way to treat the virus. they did not use the form used to treat malaria patients. within 20 minutes, they both were ill. and the man was having respiratory problems. he died shortly after getting to

the hospital. his wife in stable condition, told nbc news, that she and her husband decided to take the toxic ingredient after watching president trump talk about its benefits during televised white house briefings. joining us now, vaughn hillyard, who spoke exclusively with that woman. vaughn, what can you tell us? >> joe and mica, this happened sunday night, shortly after getting to the hospital. the gentleman, the arizona man, guyed. his wife is in icu in critical condition. that's when i reached her by phone, after much conversations. not being recorded. she opened up. and the reason she opened up were the words very specifically from her to me were, quote, please educate the people. i want to let you hear directly from this arizona woman, who, to protect her privacy during this time, when she's in icu, we're

keeping her name private. but i want you to hear from her what led to ultimately taking this form of chloroquine phosphate. did you see the president's press conference? where did you hear about -- >> yeah. we saw his press conference. it was on a lot, actually. >> and then, what -- did you seek out chloroquine? >> i had it at the house. i used it for coy fikoi fish. it was in the back shelve. hey, isn't that what they are talking about on tv? and, yeah, it was. >> this woman is just coming to grips with the fact that her husband is now gone. you know, i followed up, asking if she had heard during that

same press conference you heard from president trump on this last thursday, when he talked about the success of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, fighting arthritis and malaria. i said, did you hear the follow-up that the fda did not approve it for coronavirus? yeah. but they kept saying it's approved for other things. and trump kept saying, it was basically a cure. people are watching the live press conferences on a daily basis, that the president is delivering. and you saw, perhaps, last thursday, when president trump suggested that the fda had approved these particular types of drug to be taken. he went on to say, could be an absolute, totally game-changer. he said, we've had very good tests and it's been successful. dr. fauci took the microphone

and said these were anecdotal reports. we should note today, in new york, they will begin clinical testing on some of the drugs to see if they have a positive impact on treating coronavirus. at the same time, as you heard from this woman, it was heartbreaking to engage in this conversation with her because this is an individual who grew up in the midwest, met her husband at work. moved to arizona for retirement and he's taken aback. she had been somebody who self-isolated herself, her and her husband. they're both in their late 60s. they were scared of the virus. and the way she brought it up, she listened to the press conference, and, you know, folks don't have to understand it. but she was fearful and she had this at her home and con conc t

concocted it with soda and took it. >> thank you very much. a very sad story for that family. of course, it wasn't in the pill form. it wasn't the form of chloroquine that is used for malaria. that said, the president should let his doctors talk about medication and let the fda approve it before people take it, even in pill form. >> people take the presidency seriously. they listen to him. coming up, the bbc's katty kay has been watching the coronavirus sweep across the u.s. and she poses this pointed question -- has america ever been humbled? this humbled? we'll get her perspective from overseas. plus, "the washington post," bob costa on the growing uproar of governors and may yors over trump's lagging response. we'll be back on "morning joe" in one minute.

the coronavirus is the

biggest threat this country has faced for decades. and this country is not alone. >> we cannot let the cure be worse than the problem itself. we're not going to get the cure be worse than the problem. >> the time has come for us to all do more. from this evening, i must give the british people a very simple instruction. you must stay at home. >> we will make a decision as to which way we want to go, where we want to go, the timing, and essentially we're referring to the timing of the opening -- essentially, the opening of our country. >> if you don't follow the rules, the police will have the powers to enforce them, including through fines and dispersining gatherings. >> 160 million jobs in this country, the most ever, by war -- by far, the most ever. 160 million. we can't turn that off and think it's going to be wonderful. >> welcome back to "morning

joe." it is tuesday, march 24th. jonathan is still with us. and joining the conversation, washington anchor for bbc world news america, katty kay. host of casey d.c., kasie hunt. and robert costa, the moderator of "washington week" on pbs. great to have you this hour. >> we saw that mashup, mika, between the president and the prime minister. >> a tale of two leaders. >> i must say, i really believe the president. i could be wrong. but the president most likely was just talking to markets, talking to businesspeople, letting them know, he shared their concerns. he understands how bad the economy is right now and how bad it's going to get over the next several weeks. the worst is yet to come. but the worst is yet to come in

this pandemic. let's keep repeating what we've been saying time and time again. this is a public health crisis. the economic crisis ends when the public health crisis ends. you talk about america humbled. america can't open up businesses again. states are shutting down. 10,000 new cases in the past 24 hours. you look at the johns hopkins sites, infection rates are going up. boeing is deciding to close plants. you have united states airlines that are now talking about cancelling all domestic flights. new york city is in a deep, deep crisis. they understand what is happening in italy, what is happening in spain, is coming to america and "financial times" just had a headline break. 500 people died in spain yesterday, with 12% more infected. what's happened in italy is happening in spain.

and, yes, it's going to happen in america. it's just a question of to what degree? >> i think that's what boris johnson woke up to. it was inevitable that the u.k. was going to have to go the way of the other european countries who had implemented much more severe lockdowns. italy had done it exactly two weeks before the u.k. did it. and you have to start thinking that america is going to have to look at europe and think, it's coming west, it's coming our way. and the prospect of getting out of this, as the president is saying, now, it would be in seven days' time, seems to be diminishing rapidly. i hope that the president is just talking to the markets. but we also know from the reporting that he is frustrated by having to stick on this coronavirus. he's anxious about his re-election chances. he's at odds with some of his public health experts. he said yesterday in the briefing, that dr. fauci had not endorsed this idea of taking the brakes off of the economy, the

lockdown, sooner. and that's worrying. you listen to andrew cuomo in his press conference and he made a reasonable point. there will be an intersection between keeping the public healthy as possible and keeping the economy as healthy as possible. he just said, we don't know when we're at that intersection yet. and we wouldn't say we're at that intersection yet. that's a much more sanguine ponce. the concern with trump is, we're going to do it soon, we're going to do it now. he's running out of patience for what, now, is the only cure, given that america was so far behind, in what has been the key in the countries that have done this well, which is testing and isolation. without the testing and isolation, you have to have the lockdown. we missed the boat on the testing and isolation. we're stuck with the lockdown. >> and by the way, this is basic data. katty is right. you look at south korea, they had widespread testing. they had their first infection,

the same day we had our first infection. within a week, they had a test. and so, the curve turned. you look at what happened in singapore. you look at what happened in hong kong. you look at what happened in china. yes, they used restrictive means. but guess what? it's rush hour in wuhan again. people are starting to go back to work because they had severe restrictions and then they moved through this crisis. and they were able to bend the curve. right now, again, our line's going straight up. bob costa, what a sight for the world. we failed to take this seriously in january and february, when our intel chiefs were warning the white house about how bad this was. we have failed in getting testing. we wouldn't take any tests from the world health organizations. and we botched that. we failed on masks. we failed on ventilators. we failed on personal equipment. we kept having the president and

everybody around the president saying that, this was really much ado about nothing fairly early on. and now, we can't control all of this now. we can try to do better in the future. but now, we can't even get an economic relief bill passed in the united states senate. we've heard conflicting reports that they're moving closer together. but the president, of course, tweeted last night. can you tell us, what are the markets going to see when they open up this morning. is it going to be democrats and republicans moving to a deal? or more gridlock? >> what you should pay attention to is what leader mcconnell says. he is controlling the senate. but he has stepped back from the negotiations, allowing pressu i secretary, steve mnuchin, working from chuck schumer. can they get a deal hear? and "the washington post"

reported they have oversight provisions behind the scenes, for $500 billion in loans that the treasury wants to set up. democrats were wary of the proposal. they wanted to make sure there was oversight, and make sure that republican-favored businesses weren't just getting cash. senator schumer was optimistic on a call last night. if schumer and mnuchin comes up with a deal, that means there will be enough votes. but leader mcconnell has to be in a position to bless the whole operation. >> kasie hunt, how close are they to a deal? there's talk that something could finally happen today. >> i think the big question is what bob was laying out a little bit, and that is, is mitch mcconnell prepared to say, okay, and pave the way, if mnuchin and schumer decide they are on the same page?

i'm confident talking to sources that those talks are in a good place. but there was a huge breach of trust over the weekend between schumer and mcconnell. they thought they were in a good place. negotiations were moving forward. and democrats, when they got the text of the bill, felt like mcconnell has shredded the negotiations. there were things in the bill that were not negotiates. things they thought were finished, were out. so, the trust right now, between our leaders is broken. and that's putting this package at a moment of incredible crisis at risk. why did the president tweet that overnight? is it because somebody that was a decisionmaker on capitol hill suggested this was a problem? did he get a phone call from mitch mcconnell? i think mcconnell is invested in seeing something happen. but he was incredibly angry

yesterday. you saw this on the senate floor. he is not somebody who normally flashes his emotions in public. he walks off the senate floor and talks to reporters, he has been doing the last 36 hours. this is crunch time, today. if there's a day to get this done, it's today. everyone wants to get out of there. everyone is nervous, who rand paul has exposed. that includes his staff, who were unaware that he had been tested. you know, this is a very -- it's a situation that's balanced on a knife's edge right now. i think there's reason to be optimistic. but some questions still need to be answers before we can say how we're going to go forward. >> jonathan, markets are -- the futures are trading about 5% up. "the wall street journal" reporting that oil futures, also, were up. that the markets believe that capitol hill has moving towards

a deal, despite the president's late-night tweet last night. any insights? >> there's desperation for a deal to happen soon. the motives of the president's tweet remain unclear. it was nearly midnight when he sent it out. it did echo what he said in the press briefing earlier, that he was asking republicans to go to the deal and ignore what nancy pelosi is putting forth. our reporting lines up with what bob and kasie said. it's close. it's the president trying to i inject drama or he may be reacting from news coverage earlier in the day, when things looks less certain. if you're not sure of the origin of fox news is a

pretty safe guess. bob, i want to talk to you about what kasie just said. your paper looked at the movements of rand paul from six days ago. he went golfing in northern k virginia. went to the senate pool. spent time with staff and went to some lunches. i know you talked to republicans on the hill. what is the sense of anger and worry among paul's colleagues and congressional staffers as to what he did? >> there is growing frustration with senator paul. they obviously wish him well. many senators and aides called senator paul and his top officials in the last 24 hours, wishing him well. but after the phone calls, there was conversations among senators about why was he in the senate gym? why is there not a disclosure process for congress about different pandemic protocols or health protocols? and some of the senators told me privately, they would like to

see more rules in place about how to handle, not only a pandemic, but different health issues that come up on capitol hill. you had the mayor of d.c., close everything, in terms of gyms, restaurants that were being closed. but the senate gym was still working on capitol hill. and congress is always, in a way, part of washington but isolated from washington. and that is something, when it comes to health issues in particular, that's on the minds of many lawmakers. >> we've seen amy klobuchar's husband, sadly in hospital. how many more members of congress think they need to get tested? they all meet their constituents all the time. rand paul and amy klobuchar's husband is bringing it home? and many more of them should be tested and tested positive for this? >> yeah. i think we should take a moment and send our well-wishes to the

klobucha klobuchar/beslar family. anybody here in washington has met him at events. they have often times together. it's been a few weeks since she saw him. and he is ill in the hospital. she is telling people not to mess around because this could hit you in a personal way. ben mcadams, a young, pretty fit, as far as we know, member of congress -- member of the house, from utah, who landed in the hospital with symptoms of this. you know, i think, like all of us, this is far away until it isn't. with the rapid spread of this disease, i think it's inevitable, where most of us will learn of somebody that they know, who has been very

dramatically affected by what's going on here. it's a matter of time. when you spend your time in the corridors of power in washington, you are usually protected from the things that affect other americans in the country. this virus doesn't discriminate. it doesn't matter how much money you don't have, or power you have or don't have, it can come to you, as well. as far as the gym is concerned, the senators are used to operating under their own rules. we were talking about the fact that the gym was closed. but they walk in there with a combination lock. and so, i think that this is, really, a shock for everyone. politically speaking, to the point you've been making over and over, that it's a medical crisis and not an economic crisis, what i don't understand where the president is coming

from here, if you do not take the actions necessary, to stop this spread, if you do not keep the measures in place as long as you need them, the political ramifications are not going to ignore the reality that results. this is not something you can bluster or push or headline or whatever, your way out of. you just can't. if this medical crisis is exacerbated because the president lifts the social restrictions too quickly, we're going to have an economic crisis. if he wants to get re-elected, he needs to make sure that his decisions are not blamed for everybody having somebody they know, in the hospital or passed away. we at nbc news, had a beloved colleague we've already lost to this virus and we're still only at the beginning. >> kasie hunt, great insights.

bob costa, thank you, as well. and thank you for your reporting. mika, i want to -- let's follow up for a second on what casey just said. this is one of the rare times that everything that a politician wants, can be achi e achievachiev achieved by one approach. >> one approach. >> you take care of the health care crisis. the underlying economic crisis will follow. and your political crisis will be alleviated. if you don't take care of the crisis, it will be measures like wuhan. it did begin there. you can be offended if you want to, but that's where it began. this morning, wuhan went back to work. rush hour is starting back again.

they took strict measures, severe measures, and they were able to kill the virus, or cut down on the virus enough, where they can go back to work. let's talk cynically. you think the president does he does it for his own cynical purposes, if you believe that, then the best thing the president can do, is have what's happen ed in wuhan and what happened in south korea, happen here. bend the curve. bring the crisis to an end, get the economy started. half measures and acting like a day trader where you think you can split the baby, that's going to drag this out. and it's going to drag it out into the summer. it will drag it out into the

fall. >> it will kill a lot of people. >> it will drag it out into election season. and yes, it is, most importantly, most concerningly, it will kill a lot of people. if you just look at this cynically, actually doing the right thing medically makes the most sense economically and politically. as kasie was saying, if you don't, this drags on. more americans die. more businesses fail. more markets crash. and this goes into the fall, during the president's re-election time. if that's what he's thinking about, then, actually, we all can be grateful that what is in his best political interest, is also in america's health interest and economic interest. and he needs to start thinking that way, and stop listening to people, like larry kudlow, who

told us this crisis, this pandemic, was contained weeks ago. it's not. we're about to go into the most difficult phase in america. and whether that lasts two weeks, three weeks, or three months, depends on what the president does over the next few days. the window for decisive action, is quickly closing. still ahead on "morning joe," how would a president, joe biden, be handling this crisis? we're going to ask one of his backers on capitol hill, senator chris coons. plus, the standoff in washington, how to deal with the economic fallout to the pandemic. you're watchi ining "morning jo" we'll be right back. (aurelia) i did have hearing aids from another company.

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trump keeps saying he's a wartime president. start to act like one.

let me be clear, donald trump is not to blame for the coronavirus. but he does bear responsibility for our response. and i, along with every american, hopes he steps up and gets this right. america is not getting clear leadership, clear action and clear accountability. management matters in a crisis. i've been there in the situation room. there's thousands of steps that need to be taken all at once. you need to be planning, not just for today, but for tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. the white house is planning for what it will take for the american people to return to something resembling a normal life? i don't know. just waiting to see isn't going to cut it. >> joe biden is looking to regain visibility, as this pandemic stretches on. biden's team, is scrambling to increase his presence on tv and online. including building a makeshift television studio inside his

home in delaware. today, biden plans to hold the first virtual press briefing of his campaign. joining us now, member of the foreign relations and judiciary committees. chris coons. he's backing joe biden for president. senator, i want to talk to you about what joe biden's leadership would look like right now. first, let's get to what's happening today. do you think we will come to something that will bring relief to americans? >> mika, i'm optimistic there's going to be a deal this morning. i spoke to senator schumer. they had positive talks. what has does aed the democrats to stand against this deal has been addressed. first, there's a $500 billion fund for bailing out large courses, without transparency or

accountability. there wasn't significant investment in our hospitals and health system, to support the men and women, who today, are out on the front lines, working so hard to keep people healthy and to care for those that are sick. and third, there wasn't significant support for state and local governments. as you know, mika, i ran a county government for many years. and we count on the folks to care for us, paramedics or orderlies and nurses in county hospitals. those are public employees. all three of the core issues, there's been progress on overnight. other issues, that problems try to put in the bill. something my colleagues are trying to put in the bill. we need to let our leadership come to an agreement and moving forward today. i heard from delawareans up and down my state, the last two days, they want unemployment insurance relief. they want the grants to small businesses and nonprofits, to

help keep them open and people them on payroll. there's a lot of angst and pain out there. and congress needs to come together and get this job done. i think we can. and i think we can today. >> we will get to the extraneous issues in a second. one thing joe biden said as we were coming in, a thousand things need to be done at the same time to deal with this crisis, the coronavirus. one big issue, is the election process. are you concerned it will be disru disrupted? and what can be done to make sure the elections happen on time and sort of the sanctity of the voters who intend to take part in it, is kept intact? >> mika, this is one of the issues. i view it as central and some of my colleagues have said this is not essential. i think we should make it possible for every state in america to vote by mail, given that we've had six very significant states already defer

the presidential primaries. there's a real risk that the primaries will get pushed back and pushed back and that the general election in november will have to take place under an ongoing cloud. so, there are some states, like colorado, that already mail a secure ballot to every registered voter. i have a bill being led by senators klobuchar and widen that i have supplied the funding for it, that would make every state vote by mail and 20 days of early voting. we managed to have our troops vote in the height of the civil war and the second world war, we ought to make provision for the senate to vote, if we have to go back to our homes and shelter in place, and for the american people to be able to vote. it's a fundamental constitutional right that i think we should be addressing. >> senator, yesterday, we heard the president say, more than once, the president is

considering reopening part of the nation and the nation's economy, at the end of this 15-day trial period, that will be over in a week or so. there's some states, california, new york, washington and others, that are hot spots and would be remain isolated. but parts of the country less impacted, can be reopened. you represent one of the states that's not a pure hot spot for this. what do you make of this processual? the push to reopen the economy of the nation, against the advice of the president's own health experts? >> the most important thing in public leadership is to know what you don't know. as a senator and a county executive. i relied upon the professionals, the experts. i've been on the phone repeatedly in recent days, with our director of health and social services in delaware, and folks in leadership, in cdc, in fema and nhi.

dr. fauci and dr. bixr, are seasoned held leaders. we should only be having a conversation about loosening restrictions on people's movement and reopening the economy when our public health experts say it's time to do so. other countries handled this testing and getting to massive amounts of testing. and to managing the expectations and the economy and having some loosening and reopening. not the other way around. decisions here shouldn't be driven by a political or partisan interest, or economic interest. we have a lot of people anxious and nervous about their children, and their health, and loved ones in the hospital. we need to listen to public health experts first. >> senator, we know what is happening in italy, and we see the big shutdowns in the u.k., as well.

the health systems are about to be hit here in the united states. >> yes. >> can you give us some insight of what is happening in your hospitals in delaware? what do they need in terms of equipment? what are they missing? and using the protection act, and getting companies to focus on the production of masks, gowns and ventilators help your hospitals? >> yes. like many hospitals around the country, they have a looming shortage of testing capacity, of equipment and ventilators. they are not, today, experiencing a critical shortage. given what the projections are for how many cases are going to come into the e.r.s, largest hospital system, that i've been communicating with several times a day, lack that equipment. i've been on the phone with companies that are involved in diagnostic equipment, in the

provision of ppe. our governor, has been doing a tremendous job. we're coordinating with construction companies to get them to donate some of the n95 masks. with some of the university resources, to help with more reagent, for a high-speed testing equipment that roche has but we have run out of the ability to run tests on at our main hospital. we need to be mindful of our rural hospitals and our medicare-dependent hospitals. that's a big part of the deal that senator schumer has worked hard to secure and senator murray has played a decisive role, is getting in this package i hope will move forward today, a big support for our public hospitals and our entire hospital system. >> senator chris coons, thank you very much for coming on this morning. coming up, we know new york is at the epicenter of america's coronavirus outbreak. we'll talk to congressman max rose about how the city is responding. "morning joe" is coming right back.

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i was speaking to governor yesterday about this. why are we competing? let the federal government put in place the federal defense production act? it does not nationalize any industry. all it does is say to a factory, you must produce this quantity. that's all it does. i understand the voluntary public/private sector partnership and the companies that are coming forward and saying let us help. it can't be, who wants to help? let me know. we need to know what the numbers of what we need produced and who is going to produce that and when. >> that is new york governor andrew cuomo, who is using the

national guard to convert part of a convention center in new york city for use as a hospital, rebutting the president's rationale for not ordering companies to join the national effort to fight the virus. >> again, there's no organization from the top. and when there's no organization from the top, there's going to be a scatter shot approach. there's going to be a patchwork approach. as we're finding, patchwork approaches do not work in pandemics. the president has to take control of this crisis. >> and he has the power to organize from the top and to mobilize. he's not doing it. new york continues to take the top spot as the epicenter of the outbreak, inching closer this morning, to hitting nearly 21,000 cases. that number accounts for 47% of the nation's total, that we know of. in new york city itself, the virus has infected nearly 1 in

700 of more than 8 million residents. mayor bill de blasio said the city received 400 ventilators from the government, as critical supplies dwindle. more than 100 members of the new york police department have tested positive for coronavirus. joining us now, member of the house, homeland security, and veteran affairs committees, democratic congressman max rose of nesw york. he is a veteran of the iraq war and receiver of the purple heart. he suggested that ft. hamilton be used as a field hospital site, as hospitals deal with the surge of coronavirus cases in new york state. thanks very much for being with us. >> thank you for having me. >> this would be for patients that are actually -- that don't have coronavirus, that are dealing with other things in hospitals? explain how this would work. >> so, what we have to do is look at overall expanding our

hospital capacity, so that existing hospitals can focus on covid patients. about six days ago, we called on the president to bring in a u.s. naval hospital, 1,000 beds, that would also focus on noncovid patients. to put this into perspective, the severity of the crisis that we're facing right now, every, single day, residents of my district, my own constituents, are dying. more than one every, single day. this is how severe this is. and we can no longer look at this crisis in silos, this is the city's responsibility, this is the state's responsibility. this requires a wartime mobilization. about seven years ago, i was an infantry platoon leader in afghanistan. we hit an explosive device.

we go to a state-of-the-art field hospital, that was built by the u.s. army. we know how to do this. we just have to dedicate the resources. this is a military operation. and in any successful military operation, you have to have solidarity, you have to have a plan, and you have to have resources. and we need the same for our economy, as well. >> joe, i'll just -- you follow-up. i mean, the president mobilized the military at the border for his caravans. why not for this? >> i don't understand. max, you have the president of the united states saying that this is like a war, that he's a wartime president. and he's already talking about walking off the battlefield when the worst wave is coming, especially for new york city. what do you need from the president? what does new york state need from the president? what does america need from the president right now? >> first of all, the president has to understand -- i sincerely

op hope he does, as well as his aides, this is not political. none of us are trying to politicize this. none of us are trying to unnecessarily krcriticize him. nothing would make me happier than if this president and this administration rose to this challenge and we could celebrate this victory as americans, united statesed as americans. here's what we need. it falls into three buckets. we need a vast expansion of testing. the state has been able to set up testing centers. the federal government should be setting up thousands of these and expanding lab processing capabilities. the second thing we need is a dramatic expansion of hospital capacity. we need a surge of hundreds of thousands of beds. and without ventilators, those beds do not do us much justice. we need the staffing, as well, for the beds. and the last thing is, we need an economic stimulus that's immediate of a size we've never seen in the history of this

country. i have small businesses, medium-sized businesses, large businesses, we all do, that are fail right before our eyes. and we can't distinguish between what kind of business you are. if you're working for those businesses, it doesn't matter. we have to keep you on the payroll, so when we get out of this crisis, it is a recovery that looks more like a recovery after a natural disaster, not a recovery after a financial crisis, which is a much slower recovery. >> congressman, jonathan has a question. >> good to see you. >> good to see you, too. >> on the idea of a stimulus, we had senator coons on a little bit ago. it sounds like you think a second part, a bigger package might be needed down the road. before i ask you that, let me ask you this, has speaker pelosi

has indicated to you, the mechanics of what happens next, will you be summoned back to washington? there will be a way to vote remotely? >> let me talk about, first of all, the overall legislative dynamics right now. now is not the time to try to establish a slush feund for you donors that mitch mcconnell has attempted to do. now is not the time to put in your legislative projects, the tenants of the green new deal that will stifle this. there is a fierce sense of urgency that we are feeling on the ground in new york. and new york right now is experiencing what other parts of the country will very likely experience weeks or months from now. this is not theoretical. they have to get the job done, lock themselves in a room and not leave the room until they have a deal. and when the house passes it, i, for one, want it done as quickly as possible. i don't care whether it's remote

or otherwise. we have to get it done and get money in people's pockets and save our businesses. >> congressman, max rose. katty go, real quick. >> where are you on testing? it seems like testing is falling off the list of priorities. when you look at countries like germany, it seems to be key to getting us out of this. >> i'm happy you brought this up. we have to double down and triple down on testing. if we want to rev the economy back up -- because really what matters are not the people who have symptoms. we can assume that people who have symptoms have the virus, most likely. it's the asymptomatic carriers. we have to ramp up testing to the point where we are also identifying those asymptomatic carriers and isolating them. but we have to remove the mystery from these tests.

in my district, staten island was the first site of a new york state testing center in new york city. this is a drive-through area where someone gets swabbed. but it's not rocket science. it just takes resources. and it takes the lab processing ability behind it able to process what i hope, one day, is millions of tests per day. that's the only way we rev up this economy. we can't look at the economic crisis and the health crisis as separate issues. until you solve this pandemic and get people confident again, there's no way to jump-start the economy, i don't care how much money you put into it. >> couldn't agree more. congressman max rose, thank you very much. and coming up, richard haass wrote the book. he joins the conversation, just ahead on "morning joe."

good morning, craig melvin here. i recently came in contact with someone who tested positive for covid-19. in an abundance of caution, i'm here and we're going to get through this. this is the new reality for lots of folks all over this country.

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he's a good man. i like dr. fauci a lot. no, he is not here, because we weren't discussing what he is best at. he will be back up very soon. >> president trump's response when asked why dr. anthony fauci was not at the podium. "the new york times" is reporting on how trump has given unusual leeway to fauci but aides say he is losing his patience. according to "the times," dr. fauci has grown bolder in correcting the president's falsehoods and overly rosey statements about the spread of the coronavirus in the past two weeks and has become a hero to the president's critics because of it. now trump's patience has started to wear thin. jonathan, you had similar reporting noting trump is losing his patience not just with fauci but with the medical professionals who have made the case that the only way to

prevent a catastrophic loss of life is essentially to shut down the country. >> that's right. his frustrations have grown on two levels. one, he is part of a number of medical professionals who are urging the president to be cautious and not reopen things. but as it often is with the president, it's about media appearances. the president and a few key advisers have noticed fauci while talking to conservative media tends to praise the president but whether tan talki mainstream media is more willing to express his differences with the approach from donald trump. that is starting to wear on him. i will note, the president has tweeted twice this morning about dr. fauci. mixed messages. on one he thanks him. he said, thank you, tony. on the other he retweets the meme of fauci burying his head in his hands when the president

said something that wasn't true. it's not clear what that means from the contradictory retweets this morning. your guess is as good as mine. >> yeah. >> what it means is the president is tweeting this morning, katty -- or the president is tweeting instead of trying to figure out how to get testing more universal across america. >> it's ridiculous. that universal testing, katty, it's what is guiding other countries through this. until we have that, this mysterious killer or invisible enemy as the president calls it, we will have these carriers. >> we heard it from the congressman in new york, testing is key. we need to test who has got it. we need to test eventually who has had it so they can get back to work. in a sense, it's going to take a certain amount of humility here. i don't know if the president

thinks the united states is different. it's not. if you look at what is happening in other countries, it's going to come here. health care systems in the united states are going to be hit in the same way. to somehow be able to wish it away and wish it's not like italy or the uk or other countries in europe, it's not going to happen. >> katty, thank you so much for being with us. we appreciate it. isn't it interesting, the president keeps calling this the invisible killer. make it so you can see it. you can see it. you can track it. you can map it. if you have tests. you are making it the invisible killer every day you don't throw the entire weight of the federal government behind getting tests to every american who wants one. more to cover this morning on the coronavirus pandemic from the fight to stop the spread to the economic fallout to the battle on capitol hill over how to provide financial relief. as we go to break, here is the great neil diamond who changed

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who is going to hold treasury accountable for this $500 billion corporate rescue fund. >> we need that to help all of the companies that have a chance of not being companies anymore. stock for america. we will take back stock for the united states. at the same time, most importantly, we will keep those companies healthy. we can also make incredible deals for the country so that that number will increase exponentially. >> it's about the lack of oversight. unilateral authority to dole out this money. >> look, i will be the oversight. i will be the oversight. we will make good deals. >> president trump is volunteering to personally oversee a $500 billion fund intended to help hard hit businesses and state and local governments. good morning and welcome to "morning joe." it's tuesday, march 24. let's dive in. the world health organization

says the spread of the coronavirus is picking up pace. it took 67 days from the first reported case to reach 100,000, 11 days for a second 100,000 cases and just four days for a third. here in the u.s., the numbers continue to surge with nearly 10,000 new cases reported in the last 24 hours. still with no bend in the curve in sight. president trump is calling for a quick end to the most effective tool that currently exists to combat the virus. social distancing. >> we cannot let the cure be worse than the problem itself. we're not going to let the cure be worse than the problem. at the end of the 15-day period, we will make a decision as to which way we want to go, where we want to go, the timing and essentially we're referring to the timing of the opening, essentially the opening of our country. >> you said it's likely weeks

not months before you suggest easing the guidelines you put out. have any doctors on your team told you that's the right path to pursue? >> we spoke to them today. i was telling them that we have two things to -- the doctors, if it were up to the doctors, they say, keep it shut down, shut down the world. you are up to almost 150 countries. let's shut down the entire world. when we shut it down, that would be wonderful. keep it shut for a couple years. can't do that. >> where is fauci? >> i was just with him for a long time. he is at the task force meeting right now. we have a task force meeting. >> does he agree with you about the need to -- >> he doesn't not agree. we had a long talk. he understands it's tremendous -- there's a tremendous cost to our country. you have 160 almost 160 million jobs in this country now. the most ever by far.

by far the most ever. the number of jobs. almost 160 million. we can't turn that off and think it's going to be wonderful. there will be repercussions. there will be tremendous death from that. death. you are talking about death. probably more death from that than anything with respect to the virus. >> okay. that 15-day period the president is set to relax the distancing. however, that's not stopping more and more governors from issuing stay at home orders. hawaii, new mexico, washington state, michigan, wisconsin, oregon, west virginia, massachusetts and indiana join eight other states in ordering residents and non-essential workers to stay inside. the numbers don't seem to match

what the president is saying about getting the country open again. >> well, i personally -- i could be wrong. i think the president's just talking right now. whether he is blowing off steam or sending a signal to businesses or his supporters that run big corporations that he wants to get the economy restarted again. he is getting pressure from inside the white house from lar larry cudlow. but larry is not a doctor. he said a couple weeks ago along with kellyanne conway that the pandemic was contained. >> these updates are to update people on the reality of this virus, where it is, what the numbers are, where masks are, where supplies are, where testing is. because people like rand paul

walk around capitol hill interacting with everybody, not knowing they have the virus. a case in point example in washington, d.c., in the republican party. what more do they need? we need updates. we don't need him surmising on politics during these updates. that's fine if you think he is politicizing and trying to figure out how to play the odds with this for his own political needs. it seems like i would rather see dr. fauci there. i didn't know where -- i missed him yesterday. >> i think most people were frustrated yesterday. really no new information that couldn't have been summed up in 60 seconds, 90 seconds at the end of the press conference by somebody else. it's very interesting what you say about rand paul. let's think about it. i keep talking about and keep just banging the drum on the importance of nationalizing our effort and throwing absolutely everything we need, everything

we have into testing. and expanding testing. you've got an op-ed this morning by two nobel prize winning economists saying that if you want to reopen the economy, you've got to test everybody. that's the only way if you are going to do what south korea has done, you have to be able to do that. i want to bring in jonathan. the white house -- they are not making this a national priority. they are not making it a national effort. they have to figure out how to get along with china regardless of where this started to get the masks, to get the other equipment. china is making 120 million masks a day. >> my lord. >> we need to figure out -- as i said throughout this entire process, afterwards, we will do our after action reports on china and donald trump and everybody else. right now, what we need to do is get those masks and help people on the front lines. jonathan, help me out here. you wrote a very revealing article yesterday about the

president's state of mind. i want to go down a list of things i was writing down as i was listening to the president. we have states shutting down. 10,000 new cases in the united states just over the past 24 hours. 10,000 new cases. u.s. numbers skyrocketing. at such a rate we're going to go past china. as a country with the highest number of infections. boeing, i read a report one of their main plants yesterday shutting down. you have as you know u.s. airlines are now talking to the government. they are talking about shutting the airlines down, shutting down basically a virtual shutdown of all u.s. domestic flights and most international flights. you have new york city, of course, in a deepening crisis. your story yesterday -- your

story reveals how he is growing frustrating with social distancing protocols which forced the closing of mar-a-lago, forced him from getting out of the white house. the president surely does understand, jonathan, does he not that the rallies will come later in the summer, the rallies will come later in the fall? we haven't even begun to see the -- we're still a week, two weeks away from seeing the worst of this in the united states if we're lucky. we're not opening up in two weeks. he understands that, right? >> it defies the advice of every medical expert around him, including dr. fauci. his absence yesterday explained is that it wasn't his turn to be out there. they are doing a rotation system. there are reports, including ours, that the president has grown frustration with the attention dr. fauci received and some of the criticism that dr. fauci has delivered in various interviews. that's something to keep an eye on going forward.

in terms of -- it's not just the president. there are those -- there are people within the administration who believe the health experts have gone too far in terms of what they recommended in terms of shutting down the economy and that it's delivering a mortal blow to the nation's economy and potentially the president's reelection chances. there is a movement, it's not committed to yet, but the heard the president yesterday at the briefing, it lines up with our reporting all day long and our story that moved yesterday afternoon, that he is considering this. it would not be a nationwide lift. there are certainly -- would be hot spots that would remain with these restrictions, new york city, california, washington. a lot of this is going to be up to the individual state governors. governor co-mofvernor cuomo wil on whether new york should open for business. but there is consideration here that when this 15 days runs out in a week or so, that they may start to ease restrictions across the united states,

because the president has been so watching and worrying about the state of the economy. of course, we haven't even gotten close to the peak yet of this pandemic here in the united states. what will be telling is the physicians -- dr. burke distanced herself from the proposal. she didn't endorse it. she didn't rebuke it either. what pressure will fall on her and others, including dr. fauci, to push this forward? to sort of perhaps talk back and convince the president from doing this. to this point, as our story highlights, the president who hunkered down in the white house, frustrated he can't travel, go to rallies, he turned briefings into his rallies, it's his outlet with the press, he is unsure what to do, he has been calling around. he is crashing white house meetings he is not supposed to attend, forcing aitds e ining a sugarcoat their message. as we know from the beginning,

the president doesn't want to hear from any sort of subordinate something that doesn't line up with his world view. that includes this pandemic. a dangerous moment. it's possible he is not getting the most accurate information he needs. therefore, he is forging forward with his gut, which could mean this reopening in a week or so. >> he talked about it repeatedly yesterday at what was one of the worst updates, if that's possible. they hit so many lows. the numbers don't match. the numbers are still spiking. they are not going down. there is absolutely no reason the president should be talking about reopening the country right now. if you look at it from any logical point of view. another person missing from that update yesterday was the surgeon general. his words were quite something compared to the president yesterday. this is going to be really bad and everyone should be acting like they have the virus. that was his advice. yet these people somehow don't

make it to the stage anymore. or if they do, potentially, if you look at jonathan's reporting, the president gets frustrated with medical information advice, guidance. >> the president and congress and we as a society are balancing two things right now. we're balancing a pandemic, the worst public health scare, the worst public health care crisis since 1918, in over 100 years. we are balancing that with what may soon be the worst economic crisis that we have had since 1929, since the crash in 1929. those are two extraordinary things that have to be balanced. if you just take -- just drive around your community from a safe distance from other people today, you will see, there are still far too many people who are just not taking this seriously.

with them not taking this seriously, that virus is spreading. the pandemic is spreading. there was a story in "the new york times" this morning about how one party in west port, connecticut, one party, birthday party, 40th birthday party on march 5, help spread the pandemic to south africa and across the globe. people don't understand that -- how quickly this spreads, how easily it spreads. again, i think the president -- let us hope -- let us hope the president was just trying to send a signal to the markets that he is on their side, he is growing impatient, too. i have no doubt the numbers are going to be so bad in the coming weeks. the next at least two weeks, the president is not going to reopen anything. he understands that. right now, again, the white

house is talking with airlines about cutting off all domestic flights because they know this is getting worse. still ahead, we will go like to the uk where keir simmons has a look at london's lockdown. you are watching "morning joe." open road and telling people e that liberty mutual customizes your insurance, so you only pay for what you need! [squawks] only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ i'm happy to give you the tour, i lohey jay. it. jay? charlotte! oh hi. he helped me set up my watch lists. oh, he's terrific. excellent tennis player. bye-bye. i recognize that voice. annie? yeah! she helped me find the right bonds for my income strategy. you're very popular around here. there's a birthday going on. karl! he took care of my 401k rollover. wow, you call a lot. yeah, well it's my money we're talking about here. joining us for karaoke later? ah, i'd love to, but people get really emotional when i sing. help from a team that will exceed your expectations. ♪

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senate leaders in the trump administration appear to be closing in on an agreement for nearly a $2 trillion stimulus package to help offset the economic damage caused by the coronavirus. calls by the country being shut down for a long time. after a series of meetings last night and a phone call with the president, chuck schumer and steve mnuchin told reporters shortly after midnight that they are hopeful a deal will be reached by sometime today raising the possibility of a senate vote. let's bring in senior writer at politico jake sherrman and

former treasury official and economic analyst steve ratner. jake, bring us up to date. >> the sticking points are the $500 billion fund which is used to help distressed businesses, which is a crucial part of the bill. democrats said the administration has too much oversight, leeway to disburse the money as it likes. here is a big problem. i don't mean to pour cold water over this. 11:30 last night, the president urged republicans to be against this bill. i'm not sure what to make of that. i can't -- like all of us, i can't get inside his head. until the president fully embraces this bill, it's going absolutely nowhere because we have seen this time and time again, and we wrote this this morning, steven mnuchin is no more than an independent contractor with good intentions.

the president needs to embrace this package to get it through a senate that by the way is hobbled. there are five republicans that either have the coronavirus or are sequestered because they have been in contact with rand paul who was positive for the coronavirus. i would just -- i like to just put some skepticism here. the urgency is great, because mnuchin set a deadline of monday for this legislation. here we are on tuesday. the president is dumping all over it as it seemingly, according to schumer and mnuchin, is on the brink of some sort of deal. >> steve, what's the impact of the president actually trying to undermine this bill? what's the reaction that we're going to see in the markets when they open up this morning? >> i'm not sure the markets are going to believe that the president is really that much of a factor. let me go back to what you were talking about earlier.

i agree the public health situation is dire and a crisis. i think what you are seeing the -- it may well be the president is playing bad politics rather than good politics. it may also be what's in the president's head and what he is being told by a number of people -- i'm not suggesting that we change course. it's how bad this economy is going to get. we're going to be looking at a second quarter gdp number that's probably negative 30%. that would make that one quarter worse -- one and a halftimes worse than the great recession itself. you have the president of the st. louis fed on sunday night say that unemployment could be over 30% in this country. that would be 5 percentage points higher than the great depression. i'm not advocating we get away from tightening of social restrictions. i'm simply saying that the economic impact, i think it's beginning to dawn on people how great the economic impact of this thing is going to be.

legislation i think is being done between mnuchin and the democrats and mitch mcconnell. i think the president to weigh in now is going to engender a backlash from that group of people, including his own team, that have been working night and day to get this done. my prediction is that whatever the president was doing last night whiill not derail this. i think he had are close to getting a deal. whether it's a good deal or bad deal, we with discussion. i think they are close to getting a deal. that's what the markets want. >> jake, i hear people like lloyd blankfine say, go back to work, get the economy started back up. he wouldn't go into a crowded work space. he wouldn't get on the new york subway. he wouldn't get on a washington, d.c. bus. he wouldn't do -- i know lloyd. i like lloyd a lot. come on, man. he lives a cloistered life and to suggest -- is he going to go into a crowded deli in new york

city? is he going to go into a crowded deli in san francisco? what's this talk that everybody is saying about getting back -- going back to work? >> we are not there. >> they are not going to do that themselves. the numbers go to the johns hopkins website or the financial times, they have these numbers. they have the charts. our number is going straight up faster than any country's in the world. our rate of infection will soon exceed china and be the biggest number of infections in the world. the next two weeks are the worst. who is going back to work? nobody. >> congress wants to get out of session really soon, too, because they're sitting in a building and they're all of advanced age, let's be kind, and want to get home and the house is not going to come back in session to deal with this bill. i want to add one note.

senator republicans are not happy with the way negotiations are going here. are frustrated with mr. mnuchin and the administration for basically cutting a deal with chuck schumer and leaving republicans on the sidelines. i just want to be careful here and i don't want to inject too much skepticism. if the president does not fully embrace this compromise, it's a big, big problem. markets may or may not get wise to this. i couldn't tell you right now. there's a problem. the president cannot inject skepticism -- the house will have to pass this on unanimous consent, meaning one person could scuttle this and force the entire chamber to fly back to washington. if you don't think there's one house republican who will do that, if the president is noting a skepticism or doubt about this, then you haven't been watching politics for the last decade or so. coming up, "the washington post's" eugene robinson has a way with words. his latest column is no

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ha hans nichols. there are reasons why fauci wasn't there, the surgeon general. the experts that are concerned about this virus spreading and killing up to 2 million people didn't appear to be on stage yesterday. >> reporter: doctor fauci according to the president had been at the task force meeting, he just didn't come to the meeting. the reasoning is they want social distancing up there by the podium so that you don't have too many officials crowded together. you did have dr. burkes. doesn't look like we will have a briefing today. we will have a fox news town hall. the president is taping something at 12:30 with fox. that may serve in lieu of the briefing and all the reporters asking questions. >> jonathan? >> i wanted to follow up with two points. we anticipate the briefing will return tomorrow. the president has been reluctant to give those up. in fact, on sunday he was supposed to be slated at 4:30

and he asked aides to push it later so it would be in prime time, so viewers who will tune in to "60 minutes" could see it. my question to you is, take us behind the scenes today, beyond the town hall, what expectation of meetings, what talks do we expect the president to have if he is going to take another further step in a week or so to begin reopening the economy? >> reporter: i think we have to look at the numbers. what was clear from yesterday, very abundantly clear, is the president's instincts are to open up the economy and after the 15 days have shorter period. i pressed him on that, weeks not months. he said not months. we know where the president's instincts are. he thinks the cost of keeping things shut down are greater than the costs of opening them back up, even if that means some infections. he appears to be willing to make that tradeoff. what we don't know is how much space the president preserved for himself to snap back.

that is the next six to seven days when we are under the 15-day period, whether we see a dramatic increase, whether the president will change his tune. yesterday, as joe is suggesting, was just about signaling to the markets that, look, the president long-term wants to get back to business. the most important conversations today are between the president and his treasury secretary. they seem to be different places on whether or not to consummate this deal. as jake sherman is reporting, the tweet from the president, it should have been a thunderbolt. it's clear the president is in a different space and wants to put the breaks on this a little bit. ultimately, it feels like the president wants to make a deal. i hate to be reporting here by saying it feels like it, but when you listen to what the president was actually saying, he is in a deal frame of mind. but that was before the surprise tweet. >> hans nichols, thank you so much at the white house. we appreciate it. coming up on "morning joe" --

>> i'm a wartime president. this is a war. this say war. different war than we ever had. >> donald trump says he is a wartime president. up next, we will talk to the historian who literally wrote the book on that topic when michael beschloss joins the conversation. "morning joe" is back in a moment. yes! yes. yes. yeah sure. yes. yes. yeah, yeah no problem. yes yes, yes a thousand times yes! disover. accepted at 99% of places in the u.s.

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the coronavirus is the biggest threat this country has faced for decades. and this country is not alone. >> we cannot let the cure be worse than the problem itself. we're not going to let the cure be worse than the problem. >> the time has come for us all to do more. from this evening, i must give the british people a very simple instruction. you must stay at home. >> we will make a decision as to which way we want to go, where we want to go, the timing and essentially we are referring to the timing of the opening, essentially the opening of our country. >> if you don't follow the

rules, the police will have the powers to enforce them, including through fines and disbursing gatherings. >> we have almost 160 million jobs in this country now. the most ever by far, by far the most ever. the number of jobs, almost 160 million. we can't turn that off and think it's going to be wonderful. >> as president trump signals his desire to ease up on restrictions, boris johnson just announced new strict measures in the uk. >> it's amazing the contrast between the president's words and boris johnson's words. of course, the texas lieutenant governor is in trouble for suggesting that grandparents would be willing to die so the economy can get moving again. they are talking about tough choices, steven moore basically says tragedies happen. you actually are having people

that are suggesting that, we will have to let a lot of people die in order to get this economy moving again. i don't know. is that they call death panels? >> the contrast is also -- >> it's grim that this is -- this is actually -- this argument is making its way into the mainstream of the republican party now, the republican party now -- the mainstream of the republican party is suggesting we're just going to have to let people die is what they are saying to get the economy going again. lieutenant governor suggesting that grandparents be willing to die for their grandchildren so our gdp would be higher. >> the president was -- >> think about that. >> the president was making those statements and also joking during this news conference yesterday as we have hit 500 in terms of the deaths here in the u.s. joining us from london, nbc news senior international correspondent keir simmons.

what is the latest there following the prime minister's announcement and also we know there's breaking news just moments ago on the olympics. >> reporter: that's right. more news that is likely to have a big affect on the world economy. the announcement that the olympics will be delayed until 2021. the ioc and the japanese prime minister abe just announcing that in the past few minutes. i gotta say, the prime minister here in the uk, boris johnson, had to be pushed to get to the point of that lockdown that you just played. look at the effect. this is noting hill, you remember from the scenes in the famous movie how bustling it could be. look at it now. from mainland europe, we are hearing two messages. one is just how devastating this thing can be if you don't get the lockdown in place early

enough, comprehexre x comprehen. out of italy, suggesting the lockdowns do have an impact. britain has never seen anything like it in peacetime. no living european leader had to make such an address. on monday, the british prime minister announcing a nationwide lockdown. >> we will stop all gatherings of more than two people in public, excluding people you live with. we will stop all social events, including weddings, baptisms and other ceremonies, but excluding funerals. >> reporter: france's national quarantine in week two. the government empowered to extend the restrictions for two months. ♪ in paris, this family, originally from boston, are keeping a video diary. >> i took our dog pepper out on a walk the other night at 11:30.

it was just completely silent. >> you tried to go running last night. >> yeah. i wasn't dodging anyone. so that was nice. it was creepy. it was spooky. >> reporter: as airlines ground their fleets, the state department says more than 13,000 americans have asked for help getting home. from italy, maybe, just maybe signs the draconian measures work. another decrease in deaths and infections. in the chinese city of wuhan, where the virus started, many restrictions will be lifted in early april. globally, cases are soaring. from india, where the population is over a billion people, to egypt where they are disinfecting the egyptian museum, israel's first fatality, an 88-year-old holocaust survivor. in this spanish hospital, the halls lined with the sick, some lying on the floor. everywhere, the sound of patients coughing.

the calling card of coronavirus. you know, guys, for those on both sides of the atlantic who are struggling with this isolation. here in the uk nationwide isolation. let me show you this. this is a message that a million british people with underlying conditions received. it tells those people to stay indoors for 12 weeks, even to distance themselves from people in their homes. the suffering for those folks is intense. >> nbc's keir simmons from london. thank you. stay safe. we appreciate it. again, keir was showing horrifying images coming out of spanish hospitals. we have seen it out of italian hospitals. here is the thing. this is all predictable. it's all coming our way.

you can actually look and see the three weeks -- two to three weeks, what's happening today is a result of what happened three weeks ago. for people to be talking about, again, reopening the economy, saying that grandparents would be willing to get the coronavirus -- we don't know how widespread this is going to be. you know why? the line of infections in the united states is going straight up. not only are we not bending the curve, we're not slowing down the explosion. i've said it before. probably by the end of this week or early next week, we're going to have more infections in the united states of america than they ever had in china, italy, spain, all these other countries who are experiencing such a horrible outcome because guess

what politicians were doing in italy two, three weeks ago, telling people to go out, saying drink, go out, party, go to dinner, just ignore this. it's nothing that serious. come on. and here we are. we now see the impact in italy. we see the impact in spain. god help us if we have to see the impact in the united states of america. >> joining us now, columnist and associate editor of the "washington post" and msnbc political analyst, eugene robinson, president on the council on foreign relations and author of the book "the world, a brief interjection" and michael

beschloss. >> you look at the number of deaths in spain over the past 24 hour hours. look at what's happening in italy over the past several weeks. this is predictable. it's too predictable. u.s. policymakers seem to be mired in gridlock while the white house continues to be running in circles, talking about an invisible virus while doing nothing to reveal its existence through widespread testing. >> joe, your metaphor has been war. we are fighting a two-front war. a medical public health war and we're fighting an economic war. right now, there's not a lot of progress to talk about on either front. i think there could be more progress on the economic war once congress and the administration decide what it is they are prepared to do with the strength of the private sector. the more difficult one is the public health war. that's where -- how would i put

it? it's anything but churchillian. rather than preparing the american people, the president constantly looks at false cures. he talks about how soon we will get back to normalcy. if anything, it should be the opposite. it would be better to be president and prepare people for the worst and not have things turn out that bad than to have the opposite where you hold out false hope, that hope is demonstrated to be false and then you have this psychological, political, economic letdown of a country that wasn't prepared for what's hit them. >> especially since -- you would think the president would do that now. we have been pleading with him over the past several weeks to start doing that. this is a president who ignored his own intel briefings in january and february when he was warned this was coming. this was a president who ignored what needed to be done as far as testing goes. this is a president who was still talking about the media

and his supporters talking about how the media was ginning up a hoax about how bad this was going to be. he said this was going to be -- like 15 people who have it. it will be down to zero. that came a week after he said there's one person from china who has it and they will be gone soon. here we find ourselves in this situation where millions of people could die. >> a little different from war presidents in our history. you know, joe, i think the greatest war leader we ever had in the presidency was franklin roosevelt. everyone remembers it in terms of the big victory. go back to december of 1941. roosevelt made terrible mistakes moving the ships to pearl har r harbor. they were there sitting ducks. there was an attack. americans were saying, this is the president we have got in wartime who brought us pearl harbor? the thing is that roosevelt very quickly recouped. he took a nation in 1940 was as divided as probably what we have

been in terms of people who thought we should go to war against hitler and the japanese and people who thought we should not. he said, i've got a plan. i'm going to run my part and america's part in a global war for unconditional surrender. the news will be worse before it gets better. but i'm going to level with you. he gave the fireside chats. the white house would put out -- everyone should buy maps and globes before the president's speech so they can follow along while he tells what's going to happen in the pacific. that's what a great war leader is. johnson talked about the war on poverty. nixon talked about the war on cancer. you had presidents use that metaphor. great war leadership i think is embodied in what fdr did in world war ii. >> this morning, the ford motor company announced it would lend their engineering and manufacturing expertise to quickly expand production of urgently needed medical

equipment and supplies for health care workers. first responders. patients fighting the coronavirus. the auto giant joins general motors and tesla who announced earlier this week they are devotingresources to help solve the nation's shortages of ventilators. so michael beschloss, obviously, this has echoes of a past time where these companies stepped in. but would the defense production act, if he president -- isn't that -- wouldn't that be a way he could coordinate this better? >> yes, and that's another big test of presidents in war time because it's a test of whether they can mobilize resources both public and private. that's why i was glad at first to hear donald trump say he was thinking of himself as a wartime leader because i thought, you know, that's sort of the message to all of us that he now is going to use every resource he's got to try to mobilize this country against this virus.

>> right. right. >> it's jonathan -- >> he's not using it. >> your latest piece in "the washington post" is about -- that the president is, as usual, making things worse. tell us what you mean about that and perhaps zero in on what we saw yesterday in his seemingly move to reopen the nation and its economy against the advice of his health experts. >> it's what we've seen, jonathan. we just heard michael beschloss tell us what sort of presidential leadership we could really use in this war against this plague, against the covid-19. and what we've got instead was a long period of denial. we've got a long period of inaction, nand now we have a reaction, a response that's all about donald trump. as everything is with donald trump. it's all about donald trump.

on sunday, he was complaining that no one thanks him for not taking his presidential salary. yesterday he was obviously itching to begin reopening the economy prematurely over the objections of the medical personnel who know better. i mean, you saw -- we all saw the heartbreaking, terrible scene from italy. we saw just now the same scenes repeated in spain, and if you look at the -- you plot it on a graph and look at the way not just infections but deaths in this country are skyrocketing and the rate of increase and you see those very pictures, we're going to be seeing here in our country if we don't act. using the defense production act to mandate the production of ventilators and other equipment

and to get it. using the military, if necessary, to get it to the right places at the right time. that is the kind of thing that could head off what i fear is coming. >> and it is unfortunately coming, and public health officials have been saying for weeks now the window is closing for the united states to take decisive action. i fear we're running out of time very quickly. richard haass, when all of this is done and we look back on this pandemic, you can already tell by looking at the johns hopkins numbers that are put out in graph form every day. the financial times, that asian countries like south korea, japan, singapore, hong kong and, yes, even china were far more successful at flattening the curve than western countries have been. we failed miserably in italy. we failed miserably in spain. and now i fear we may make the

same mistakes in the united states. why such an extreme difference between asia's response and the west's response? >> it seems to me the lesson here is democracies can do well. the asian democracies have done well and south korea foremost. but they were willing to act early and decisively. essentially they said take your pain early in order to avoid even greater pain later. and you had leadership that demanded it. another metaphor that comes to mind here but also italy and spain is the uncertain trumpet. rather than having a consistent, strong note, well, we've been vacillating all over the place in the various phases of this crisis. and i think we often say speed kills, joe. here it's just the opposite. the absence of speed kills. this doesn't get better with time. either we get ahead of this or it gets ahead of us and on top of us.

and i think that's the lesson. the authoritarians, like china, that's not our model. but i think what south korea and japan show usingapore, it's a mixed country, in the sense that open societies can mobilize. we can do things but what you have to do is signal and then act on that signal. >> and, michael, and yet at this time of crisis, we have a white house vacillating and a congress in gridlock. >> which just makes people more frustrated because they wonder where the leadership is coming from. and another part of this, looking at great war leaders in american history, you have to see empathy in a president. abraham lincoln during the civil war. so many union soldiers were getting killed but they went to the president and said we need to build a new cemetery brp do you want it? lincoln said build it right near my summer cottage because i want to see, you know, the results of the terrible decisions that i am

making day after day. i want people to know that i understand what they're going through. >> all right. and as we close, eugene robinson writes in "the washington post" that the nation is suffering through a terrible crisis day by day, tweet by tweet, unhinged briefing by unhinged briefing. president trump is making it worse. and as we close, you know, if anyone can get it to him, we want to know about testing. we want to know about masks and protective equipment. we want to know about hospitals. eugene robinson, richard haass, michael beschloss, thank you. that does it for us this morning. stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage after a short break. and delivery servicing. we'll pick up your vehicle and leave you with a lincoln loaner. that's the power of sanctuary.

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and delivery servicing. we'll pick up your vehicle and leave you with a lincoln loaner. that's the power of sanctuary. hi there. i'm stephanie ruhle. it's tuesday, march 24th. we start with breaking news. we just learned that the olympic committee has officially postponed the 2020 games until next year. back in this country, the surgeon general warned that in terms of coronavirus infections, this week was going to be bad, and he was right. this morning, we can confirm nearly 45,000 cases across the united states. that is 10,000 more than yesterday. and as of this morning, 550 people have died. that's an increase of roughly 100 deaths in just the past 24 hours. in the last day, the governors of michigan,