there has never been to have a favorite food. with new grubhub plus you get unlimited free delivery and cashback rewards for ordering noodles, and noodles... and noodles... and noodles. grubhub plus. free delivery, cash back, and noodles. good evening and thanks for joining our special coverage. i'm ari melber. president trump shifting gears today.

he has a, quote, 15-day initiative to try to slow the spread of the coronavirus, then get everyone back to work. meanwhile, the reality not matching his plans. new cases continue to mount by the hour tonight. donald trump says he also wants to loosen federal guidelines for some parts of the american workforce. in his briefing late tonight he said we're near the end of our battle with this pandemic. >> ultimately the goal is to ease the guidelines and open things up to very large sections of our country as we near the end of our historic battle with the invisible enemy. >> that is false. not only false but false according to donald trump's own medical experts who are not saying we are near, as in within weeks, an end of all of this. there was also a virtual town hall the president did with fox news where he discussed how these policies to protect americans' lives are hurting the economy and saying the risk of a recession to people's wellbeing may be even greater than that

vir virus. he also discussed the idea of getting things back on track by easter. take a look. >> you can destroy a country this way, by closing it down. we used toed epay people to go work, not to not go to work. you're going to lose more people by putting the country into a massive recession or depression, you're going to lose people. you're going to have suicides by the thousands. i would love to have the country opened up and just raring to go by easter. >> health experts disagree. politico reporting the prospect of resuming typical business so soon mohorrifies public health leaders. here is what the president also said today about the advice of his experts. >> they came in, experts, and they said, we're going to have to close the country.

i said, we've never had to close the country before, this never happened before. i said, are you serious about this? we are going to take this country that's fully employed, where we have 160 million people working, and you're telling me we have to close it? and people are going to go out of business and they're going to go bankrupt and they're not going to have jobs? what are we talking about here? >> what are we talking about here? well, we'll show you right now and you can make up your own mind. we are talking about 682 deaths in the united states and 52,671 confirmed cases of the virus tonight. tonight's calls to reboot the economy are not in line with what many of the front line governors and other local officials are seeing and what they're doing to keep residents, they say, safe. meanwhile, new york governor andrew cuomo says these cases continue right now to multiply at an alarming rate.

>> the rate of cases, the rate of new infections, is doubling about every three days. we're not slowing it. and it is accelerating on its own. we haven't flattened the curve and the curve is actually increasing. >> it's a portrait of two different realities. a president saying we are weeks away from everything being literally done, back to work, and governors like andrew cuomo in new york, one of the hardest hit areas, saying not only is that not true but things are literally getting worse right now, we're not even over the proverbial coronavirus hump. now, meanwhile, around the world, new measures are kicking in. the governor of india ordering a lockdown of the entire population, if you're keeping track that's over a billion people. growing international pressure has led to this stunning change, the 2020 summer olympic games, obviously a huge global undertaking planned in tokyo, they've now been postponed.

i'm joined now by dr. lena nguyen, professor at george washington and emergency physician, dr. michael osterholm, and yam each alcindor, white house correspondent for the pbs news hour. dr. nguyen, your view on all of the above. >> i don't know where to begin. with president trump and the comments that he's making, i want to know where are the data, and why is there such a profound disconnect between what he's saying and the reality of what people are experiencing on the ground. we're seeing hospitals that are overcrowded already. we're seeing health care workers that don't have basic equipment. we're seeing patients dying, numbers of cases escalating. we don't even know where the peak of this epidemic is. it seems like we're talking about building houses and actually this forest fire is still raging. we don't even know what is the extent of the fire. so we really need to focus on

helping hospital capacity, and developing testing capacity too, because otherwise we have no data. how can we make decisions if we don't even know what's going on? >> yeah, and i think testing is very important. i want to focus on the new and breaking information here, and dr. osterholm, i want to bring you into this, because the president is saying things that have consequences and people need to note facts. we will endeavor to show what the president says and then bring on the medical experts to make sure we're getting the facts. dr. fauci, who had publicly fact checked the president, was absent from the briefing yesterday, he was back today. listen to what he had to say today. >> if you look at the projections of outbreaks, it's not going to be over next week or two weeks from now. i think it's going to be several weeks. >> 15 days will likely not be enough to get us all the way

through. we really need to lean into it now so we can bend the curve in the next 15 days. at that point we'll reassess. >> both the surgeon general who of course serves in this administration, dr. fauci, an independent expert, he was claiming that everyone agrees with a two-week easter timeline. >> have either of the doctors there with you told you that that's a realistic timeline? >> we had a very good meeting today. if you add it all up, it's probably nine days plus another 2 1/2 weeks, it's a period of time that's longer than the original two weeks. so we're going to look at it. we'll only do it if it's good and maybe we do sections of the country, we do large sections of the country, that could be too. we're very much in touch with tony and with deborah with everything we're doing. >> who suggested -- >> i just thought it was a beautiful time, a beautiful

timeline. >> dr. osterholm? >> first of all, we're approaching this like it sounds like we're getting ready for a minneapolis blizzard where we'll hunker down for a couple of days. we're in the first few weeks of a coronavirus winter. we have many weeks ahead of us. this outbreak in new york will continue to grow for some weeks ahead, i agree with governor cuomo's assessment. we'll see other places in the united states become hotspots, they may not be anywhere near as large as new york but they will still be important. i don't see us getting out of this in months, to say anything other than that is just denying reality. >> yamiche? >> i think we see a president eager to get the economy on track because he sees it as wedded to his chances of being reelected and being able to serve a second term. the president even today starred the press conference by saying we're in the historic end of this and there's light at the end of the tunnel. what we're hearing from health experts, including the ones on

this show right now, is that things will likely get worse and we don't know whether or not we're at the peak of this and we don't know when the peak is going to be. you have the president really making a political message when health officials including the ones in his own administration are saying that's just wrong. >> i've got great experts here so all of you hang with me. i'm going to turn one on one with donna shalala of florida. here is speaker pelosi today addressing the issues around dr. fauci. >> would you be concerned if dr. fauci is pushed down after having served since the reagan years or not listened to? >> yes, of course. dr. fauci has been on a pedestal for many years for many of us who have worked with him. when i started over 30 years ago on hiv and aids, he was our champion. george herbert walker bush at that time called him a hero, his hero, when they asked him who his hero was. >> congresswoman, your view and

your response to the briefing that so many americans saw today. >> well, i think that what the president has been saying about getting back at easter time is both dangerous and immoral. let me say that i know of no -- he defies ethical standards. no american believes that we should choose the economy over human life. and that's what's at stake here. and the president is putting human life at risk because he wants the economy to get back and he simply -- it's literally immoral for him to do that. >> i understand your critique there. and as a former director of basically the nation's health care, you know a lot about how these decisions get made. i guess i'll ask you the rebuttal, his argument would be,

in the way he worded it on fox news today, was that economic health is the nation's health, that a widespread recession or worse would literally compromise people's public safety. >> congress and the fed can deal with the economy. there's no question in my mind that we're going to have a big bill. but to equate them as equal or even interrelated in a case like this where you have a pandemic is just wrong. and i think it's very important that we're straight with the american people, that this is going to take time. we'll work on the economy. we'll find ways to get people most of their salaries. we'll find ways to prop up the economy. we have the resources to do that. but the health care issues, life and death, is far more important to all of us. >> and i gave the best

presentation of their defense. a lesser version of it came very unvarnished in a statement, i'm sure you heard about it, it got quite a bit of controversy today, again, i'll play it, viewers can make up their own mind. this is texas lieutenant governor dan patrick with tucker carlson, basically saying let's do the trade-off. take a look. >> no one reached out to me and said, as a senior citizen, are you willing to take a chance on your survival in exchange for keeping the america that all america loves for your children and grandchildren. and if that's the exchange, i'm all in. i want to, you know, live smart and see through this. but i don't want the whole country to be sacrificed. >> your response? >> it's unethical and immoral. even to have that debate.

and i want to be no part of it. and i think most americans would agree with me. >> finally, congresswoman, larry kudlow speaking today in that briefing said there's basically going to be a $6 trillion level package if you count all the lending authority plus give or take two "t" if you will in all the assistance, big, big numbers for a big, big challenge. can you give us any insight into that package, and is it close enough to what speaker pelosi and your team wanted? >> well, they're all talking about being in the red zone. but we don't really know. i expect them to finish it in the next 24 hours. they really would like to vote on it tomorrow. we would all like it vote on it tomorrow. and -- but i do believe we're going to get a deal on this. but it is -- this is the third package. there will be a fourth package

and a fifth package and a sixth package, because we will make corrections in this one. but more importantly, we will do everything that's necessary, the congress, in a bipartisan manner, to save our economy, but more than anything else, to save human life. >> congresswoman, i know this is near and dear to you, as mentioned, you have a wealth of experience. i appreciate you taking time tonight. yamiche alcindor is back along with us, along with the rest of the panel. yamiche, i'm curious what you thought of how starkly the congresswoman puts it. and the economic side of it, the markets rallying today, who knows why, many have said it's at least partly pricing in what they think will be this infusion. >> i think the congresswoman is really expressing what a lot of people across the country feel when they hear people saying

that maybe we should sacrifice seniors in order to give millenials and gen z a good economy. that seems like something most persons wouldn't want, to sacrifice your grandmother to save your granddaughter. i think the president is saying more clearly is that he's saying there are people that are going to kill themselves and that are going to die because of the economic slowdown. that might be even more than the people who die of the virus. but there's actually no medical data, there's no health data to back up what the president is saying. that's his argument. he says he'll move on data but he also has these instincts that gave him the date of easter sunday out of thin air. he didn't say i got this date because dr. fauci or someone else gave it to me. he said clearly, i liked the idea of easter sunday. you hear the president making political decisions about medical issues. >> dr. osterholm, we just heard,

through the clips i played and through the congresswoman, the back and forth that is really stark. i mean, if this were a movie, and you had talking heads on tv and politicians, in this kind of conversation, you would kind of say, that's not very realistic, i mean, i'm curious, from a medical health perspective, doctor, what you think, hearing literally politicians say, yeah, i'm ready to die to save the economy, or vice-versa, if you want to call it that. >> first of all, glove a plan in this country right now. we don't know what we're doing. are we going to try to sequester all the cases from occurring for the next 18 months? are we just going to let everything happen as it is? if we had a plan, we could surely begin to finesse, both keeping our lives as we know them and also making sure people don't get infected. but one of the things that's been missing in all this discussion, and i find it very difficult when i hear people talk about, maybe if you're

older, it's time to kind of move on. okay, if you want to agree with that. i don't. what nobody is talking about is in italy, 5,000 health care workers, many of them young people, have been infected with this and a number of them have given their lives, being on the front line trying to provide care. because we're so unprotected in this country, many of the health care workers will become infected and a number of them will die. wouldn't we want to protect them? what we're talking about is not just protecting the general public but protecting one of the most valuable resources we have today, our health care workers. >> dr. wen? >> i completely agree. and i also think we have been to keep in mind that we have a chance to make a difference here. i mean, it's not too late. it's not like if we just do nothing, or if we do something, we're going to have the same outcome. actually we have a very narrow window of opportunity. now is that window to continue our social distancing measures, to continue shoring up our health care system, to continue

protecting our health care workers. we can actually save a lot of lives in this country. and it just seems unconscionable and immoral, as the congresswoman said, for us not to do everything we can. at the end of the day, what kind of society will we have if there are tens of thousands of people who died as a result of our deliberate inaction? >> dr. wen, dr. osterholm, yamiche alcindor, my thanks to each of you. a lot more in our broadcast tonight. what about america's governors do if donald trump starts ordering people back to work? we'll have one of them with us. and what you need to know about checks that could be coming to your home, when we come back. [ singing indistinctly ]

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as the reason. meanwhile many of the nation's governors are actually increasing the restrictions. seven announcing new measures this week alone. more than 100 million americans, one in three, are subject to stay-at-home orders. you may be one of them. there are states with restrictions like colorado which now has 900 cases. governor jared polis has not issued a strict statewide order. president trump compares the virus to the flu. take a look. >> we've had flus before. we've had viruses before. so this is something new. and this is why i say we have to -- i gave it to weeks. and, you know, i guess by monday or tuesday it's about two weeks. and we'll assess at that time. and we'll give it some more time if we need a little more time. but we have to open this country. i said, this has never been done before, what are you talking about? but we understand it, you have

hotspots. but we've had hotspots before, we've had horrible flus. >> colorado governor jared polis joins me now. in holding back on a statewide restriction, some could argue that you and the president are in line. your view? >> i think there's a few states that have those. we want to maximize people staying in their home in colorado. we've issued statewide guidance last week. people over age 65, people with respiratory conditions, should not leave their homes at all except for health care needs or medical attention. we've asked their neighbors to stay up and bring them groceries. we have closed down our bars, our restaurants. and today for the first time the order ready a few days ago takes effect. so a majority of workers in our state and noncritical industries are telecommuting or working locally. we're trying to have isolation as much as possible during this emergency. >> from a policy standpoint, why haven't you gone further?

presumably you think there is some merit to not overdoing it. >> we want people to stay at home unless they absolutely need to go out. so some people, if they want that to be an order, they're welcome to consider it an order. if they react negatively to orders and that makes them more likely to go out, it's not an order. however you psychologically respond to maximize your likelihood of staying at home, that's how we express it to you. i know we're talking to a national audience here, across the entire country and across the world. >> we've seen governors raise alarms about the way the trump administration at the federal level is dealing with resources and tradeoffs. take a look at your counterpart in new york, governor cuomo. >> how can we be in a situation where you're going to have new yorkers possibly dying because they can't get a ventilator but a federal agency saying, i'm going to leave the ventilators in the stockpile? i mean, have we really come to

that point? fema says, we're sending 400 ventilators. really? what am i going to do with 400 ventilators when i need 30,000? you pick the 26,000 people who are going to die because you only sent 400 ventilators. >> governor, it's serious, i will note as someone who spends time in brooklyn, that governor cuomo is issuing that argument in a very new york way, i don't know about out west, you guys are a little more diplomatic. what do you think about the substance of his challenge and are you seeing those problems with the trump administration, fema, or otherwise on the ground or is that not an issue you've had a problem with in your state? >> we are a little bit nicer in colorado than your average new yorker. but we feel the same way. absolutely the federal government needs to act. by the way, i want everybody to know this. where new york is now is where the entire country is likely to be in a week. they are no different than anyone, than you or i, than in

texas, in colorado, in florida, in illinois. that's where we're going to be in a week without the extreme social distancing measures that colorado and other states have taken. >> and how do you as someone leading local efforts, state efforts, look at this coming stimulus bill? viewers just heard from members of congress as well as larry kudlow earlier that it looks like it's on the way. >> i've been in touch with our entire delegation, our congress people, our senators. we had a call today, i've talked to them every day, several times. it's absolutely critical. there is a whole in-state budget, states will have to cut medicaid and health care eligibility without it. a lot of people people are out of work, food services, wait staff, retail. there's a lot of need out there. most states like my state don't have deficit spending, we can't do that according to our state constitution. we need the federal government to step up to reduce the severity and duration of this difficult time for people both

on the health care side and on the economic side. >> it all makes sense when you say it. a lot of problems that your state is obviously tackling. governor polis, i appreciate you joining us tonight. >> thank you, ari. >> thank you. as mentioned, congress very close to reaching what could be the biggest deal of the trump era or the biggest economic deal we've seen at least since the financial crash if not longer. but does it do enough right now and what about those checks heading your way? if it passes. we have all of that coming up. d. it's about taking care of each other. it's the small parts that make a big difference. at chevy, we promise to do ours. we're offering chevy owners complimentary onstar crisis assist services and wifi data. if you need a new chevy, interest-free financing for 84 months - with deferred payments for 120 days on many of our most popular models. you may even shop online and take delivery at home. it's just our way of doing our part... with hepatitis c... ...i ...best for my family.my...

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welcome back. congress and the white house inching closer to a deal that would infuse up to $2 trillion and direct aid to businesses on the brirnk of financial ruin because of the coronavirus pandemic with trillions in loan guarantees. president trump and mitch mcconnell have played, according to public accounts, supporting roles. this has driven by treasury secretary steve mnuchin and certain members of congress, which is remarkable. mnuchin negotiating directly with democratic leader chuck schumer, for example. massive checks would cut to companies, checks that you, sooner or later, are writing, these are taxpayer funds, obviously. "the washington post" reports that mnuchin wanted to give airlines and hotels $500 billion in loan guarantees with no

restrictions on spending. president trump assured properties that as far as he's concerned, instead of oversight, which by definition means some other entity overseeing what you do, he himself would be the oversight. >> it's about the lack of oversight, the treasury secretary would have authority to dole out all this money. >> i'll be the oversight. we make good deals. >> many in congress thought that set back negotiations and the whole purpose of having somebody to watch where the money heads. now take a look, brand-new, at what donald trump told fox news about the purpose of the bill. >> it's loaded to save corporations. we'll have an unemployment rate the likes of which nobody has ever seen before. we have to save these companies. >> the markets, meanwhile, have been snapping back from lows on this economic rescue package. meanwhile, today bill gates, who knows his way around the country, offering a stark warning for people who want to

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welcome back. senators are still hashing out the final sticking points of a massive $2 trillion stimulus package to address the unfolding pandemic. it faces its next vote as early as tonight. it will include salary benefits for workers. then there is the much-debated issue of overseeing all this. microsoft founder bill gates is urging everyone to basically ignore trump's advice and keep businesses closed. here is the exact quote, it's very tough to say to people keep going to restaurants, buy a new

house, ignore the pile of bodies in the corner. we want you to keep spending because there's some politician who thinks gdp growth is what counts. a start statement from someone who knows his way around the economy. i'm joined by jared bernstein, former chief economist to vice president joe biden who is of course the leading contender to be the democratic nominee. and stephanie ruhle, our senior nbc business correspondent and msnbc anchor. there is a light audio delay which could further compromise any bad jokes i tell you later in the segment. good to see you both. >> thank you. >> stephanie, let's begin -- there it is, and this is the delay. stephanie, let's begin with your view of what mr. kudlow argued today, of what is in this package, and when you get to it, the rather stark warning from mr. gates.

>> so i would start with, what's been really interesting in the last 24 hours, we know that lots of ceos were calling president trump because by the hour, they're laying off more people, they have no visibility going forward, they're desperate for this stimulus package to get signed. but what the president has done, and now what larry kudlow has done, instead of taking it -- they've gone a full 180, right? so now the president is saying, i want the whole world to be opened up by easter. and think about what bill gates just said. due that too early and you're going to be ignoring all the bodies in the corner. they won't just be in the corner. if you open up all business and resume commerce, we haven't hit the peak in any american city yet. and if you do it too early, you're going to have a more disastrous situation economically. now, what many people have asked for, small business and big

business leaders alike, is more visibility, more continuity, because the messaging we get from the president or anthony fauci don't seem to be in line. so there are some who argue, unless hard-hit areas, maybe in a couple of weeks, you could open up some things. think about some retail businesses, even if they went to 30% capacity, that would help those businesses pay their rent and make payroll. but if you open it up come easter, anyone who truly understands this and speaks to medical experts, knows what risk that puts us in. >> you lay it all out very clearly. since we came on the air, there's indications they're still negotiating, jared, thus the vote is not suspended tonight. but everyone is still expecting it soon. for folks who may not have seen it, just briefly, the president and economic adviser larry kudlow today, and the notes they

were striking that so many have said just don't seem reality-based. take a look. >> ultimately the goal is to ease the guidelines and open things up. i hope we can do this by easter. i think that would be a great thing for our country. and we're all working very hard to make that a reality. >> we're headed for a rough period but it's only going to be weeks, we think, weeks or months, it's not going to be years, that's for sure. >> only going to be weeks, jared? >> well, i think i heard larry say weeks and months. weeks is wrong. months is correct. and this is one of the reasons why the president's pivot, this idea that you'll somehow pivot away from the health care containment efforts to focus on markets and gdp, is so misguided, because we're already in a recession. we don't have quite all the indicators we need to confirm that but we certainly know that's the case.

if we look at the spike in unemployment insurance claims, if you look at forecasts for this week's claims coming on thursday, people are talking about claims going up about 3 million. now, if that happens, i can tell you, because i was there in the white house at the time, in the first quarter of 2009, in the heat of the great recession, we lost 2 million jobs in one quarter, meaning over three months. now we're talking about 3 million jobs in a week. and that is the direct outcome of putting an economy in deep freeze, which is the essential response to the exigencies of the health care crisis. so basically we're in a situation where to deal with this existential health threat, we have to temporarily put the economy on hold. and that's why this fiscal package is so crucially important. the federal reserve can help at the margins. but when it comes to actually getting relief to families and businesses, it has to come through the fiscal authorities, through the bill that's being debated right now. they're already behind the curve,tive g they have to get t

thing out as quickly as possible. >> let me just say this, ari, as far as getting this thing out as quickly as possible, they're going to have a huge framework issue. how do you get all that have money out so quickly? when jared was talking about all these unemployment insurance claims, thousands of people can't even make that happen, because the websites across the states are crashing. if you're going to get those direct payments to people, how do you think that's going to happen? when t.a.r.p. happened, the government had to pay just over 700 companies. and just doing that was a logistics disaster. people are sitting on their couches right now who are worried they cannot provide for their families, they cannot go back to work. we want them to be safe and stay at home. and they're in a complete panic. so while congress doesn't have this thing ironed out yet, and the president's now saying, we're going to open this thing back up, people are paralyzed and scared. and the more scared they get, the more anxiety goes up, that hurts us.

>> i definitely agree with what stephanie is saying. the thing to recognize here is that the most -- the quickest way to get water to the fire, that is, income to people who are actively missing paychecks right now, even if they have a job, they're furloughed from work, fwhthey don't have a paycheck, is through direct payments, $1,200 for adults, $500 for kids, which this bill has, and through the unemployment system. no question that system will be under great pressure. it's also the case that unless congress significantly injects revenue into that system, and that is in this plan, $250 billion, people aren't going to get enough unemployment for a long enough period. so there's a lot we have to do. if i may make one quick public service announcement here, it is my understanding that in the senate bill, people who don't pay federal taxes are still

eligible for these checks, and they're the ones who need it the most, so this is crucially important. but for them to get those checks they'll have to file an income tax return. they can do that by going on the irs.gov, there is a free file component there that they'll have to apply to. but it's really important that people understand, even if you didn't file a federal tax form yourself, you're eligible for this check, but you will have to file one and do so as quickly as possible. >> meaning if you're in a situation where because of your status you wouldn't normally have to do it, you now have a reason to do it, jared? >> correct. it's not so much your status, it's that if your income is low enough, and the vast majority of the people we're talking about, they're income is below 25,000, and we're talking about at least 7 million plus households, it's because they don't have a federal tax liability. now, they've paid state taxes and payroll taxes and things

like that. but because they haven't filed and because the checks are going out based on 2018 and 2019 filings, they're going to have to file a return. and they can do that, even if they don't have a liability. >> that's an important point for people who obviously do need the help like so many. with the limited time we have left on the tape delay, jared, do you have a favorite economist joke? >> yeah, you know the rapper 50 cent, right? his brother is actually an economist. his name is 50 basis points. >> wow. stephanie, that was incredible. >> okay. can i say one thing? i'm going to say, it's not funny when we're talking about money, and i just -- let me just give you this perspective. larry kudlow two weeks ago said this thing is airtight. this thing is airtight, people should buy the dip, right?

we now have thousands and thousands of people who have the coronavirus. and now he's saying it's not going to be months, it's going to be weeks? put this in perspective. today, the jacob javits center, a 1.8 million square foot, the biggest commercial space in new york city, is now being converted that we emergency medical facility for people who have coronavirus, okay? that's what's actually happening. so you can take the predictions from the storytelling that's happening inside the white house because they love to see the stock market go up, or you can look at the reality that this thing is now in 50 states and you've got the jacob javits center with national guard there waiting to take care of patients. who are you going to believe? >> historically i think both of you make important points. stephanie laying out the fact that these forward-looking statements that are designed to hype or juice things are not necessarily accurate or helpful and we all have to keep our eye on the facts. and then jared bernstein,

spitting hot fire with a hip-hop basis points joke i believe off the top of the dome, so thank you for that, jared. >> you're welcome. next time i'll try to come up with -- >> i appreciate both of you. we can all take a moment of levity within these hard times. we'll fit in a quick break. when we come back we have a top chef to talk about what's happening to so many people working at restaurants, people who go to restaurants. you're looking at the pictures. he'll tell us the road ahead when we come back.

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. welcome back. to curb the spread of the coronavirus many states closing bars and strauprestaurants for type of dine-in service. as a result we have millions of workers laid off until restaurants can reopen. the crisis can continue for weeks as the president put it or months as experts put it. what will happen to so many restaurants around the country? restaurant owner chef tom colicchio is warning that it could loss in the majority of american restaurants, up to 75%. mr. colicchio joins us now. thank you for making the time. what are you warning about and what should be done? >> well, what we're warning about is that around 7 million people have already been laid off. the independent restaurants in this country employ about 13

million people and each one of them are at risk of losing their jobs. so what we're asking for is direct income replacement for our restaurants, providing that we rehire everyone who was laid off, we pay our suppliers, we pay our rent, we pay our utilities. i think we're uniquely positioned because we employ more people than any other entity exempt for the federal government, and we were forced to shut down and we didn't complain about it because we had to do our part to make sure we stopped this virus. we need help and we need it now. >> you lay it out starkly. you remind us that restaurants are a key part of the american economy, and obviously a part of our life and culture. what has made them in your view so susceptible, so vulnerable to this crisis? >> well, sure, it is a place where people gather. it is a place where people, you know, celebrate birthdays and wedding anniversaries and deal closings. and so, you know, we are a place where people come together and a lot of people come together, and

right now that's dangerous. so closing down is, again, we're not complaining about it. we're not asking for a handout from the government. we're asking for the government to put us back to work. what is really important is that because so many people -- that their insurance, their health insurance is tied to their job, they need to stay in their job. so it is great that the government is writing checks for people and families, but they need to actually a paycheck and they need the money to come through. again, because we're already set up to do that, we can flow that money right through to people who need it. you know, that will also give us additional cushion for when we get the restaurants open, that we have actually some capital left to actually get the restaurants open and survive because we know when we open up it is not going to be as busy as it could be. so we need additional capital as well. >> the president was speaking about some of the potentially affected industries. obviously this has all happened fast and the relief packages

have been spun together very quickly, but i'm sure given what you are discussing you will notice an omission in the specific industries he names. take a look. >> treasury proposed $150 billion today for those industries, but their proposal doesn't detail which industries would get that money and how much. so aside from the airlines, which you just mentioned, what about the cruise industry, the hotels? how much of that money do you see each getting? >> we are talking about all of it. haven't detailed it yet. certainly hotel industry, the cruise ship industry, the airlines, those are all prime candidates absolutely. >> tom. >> i'm expecting that's an oversight. we -- again, because we employ more people than any other entity except the federal government, we are hurting the most. again, we are talking between 5 million and 7 million people out of work. restaurants actually account for 4% of the gdp in this country. so, again, we're just asking

that we have a seat at the table here, making sure that we can take care of our employees so they can take care of their families. also, really important right now is we don't want people who are laid off out there trying to find jobs in the gig economy right now. we need people to stay at home, especially people who have children, whose schools have been closed right now. they don't have daycare, and so keeping those people attached to their job is really important, making sure they stay at home is really important. but, again, we need the stimulus package right now. we also need it not to go through the small business administration. it should go actually flow right through to our banks because the red tape get through the sba will take months and months and we don't have that time to wait. >> understood. tom colicchio, a lot of people know you for your passion and your work in this area. it clearly extends to the well-being of a lot of people in this industry that is such a part of the fabric of american life. we have talked a lot about other

parts of this in washington, but we did want to get this in and i'm really glad to have you be a part of it. tom colicchio, thank you, sir. >> thank you, ari. what we're going to do here is fit in a break and have an update at the top of the hour as well as, of course, chris hayes coming up soon. we will be right back. we made usaa insurance for members like martin. an air force veteran made of doing what's right, not what's easy. so when a hailstorm hit, usaa reached out before he could even inspect the damage. that's how you do it right. usaa insurance is made just the way martin's family needs it -

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thanks for watching our msnbc special coverage. stay informed, stay safe. stay clean if you can. i am ari melber. i am signing off.

i will be back tomorrow though at 6:00 p.m. eastern on the beat. if you want to tune in you can find me online @arimelber on any social media platform. don't go anywhere because ""all in with chris hayes" is up next. ♪ good evening from new york. i'm chris hayes. new york is now a cautionary tale for the rest of the world. there are nearly 15,000 cases in the city alone, around 30% of all of the cases in the entire country. at this point there is no sign they are slowing down. the city is desperately trying to brace for impact as hospitals groan under the strain. today the governor of new york state, andrew cuomo, sent out an sos signal begging the federal government to send the thousands of ventilators the state will need. new york is becoming a terrible warning other people around the world are looking to the same way we in the u.s. looked at