in the country or one of the first to take this so seriously that she put stay in place and stay-at-home orders immediately. but california, having a population of 40 million people, is in an urgent state of need of help from the federal government, which is why i have been in contact with the governor and mayors of california. the governor reported recently as of a week and a half in the last week and a half, 1 million californians applied for uninsurance, unemployment insurance. we are looking at a state where the federal government through the navy has thankfully sent a ship to help with the health care needs of folks who have not been affected by the coronavirus, but are still need of medical aid and help. the issue is a serious one. thankfully, we have local and state leaders who are bearing the brunt and shouldering the responsibility where there has been a failure of the federal government to do its role and its part. >> what is the federal

government not doing? we are going to see the task force and the president in a little while give a press conference, but what are they not doing? why do we keep hearing from governor newsom, governor cuomo, other governors, governor whitt mer in michigan, and it seemed like they are stable. but when we hear from the federal government, the president says things that sometime in mid-sentence he changes and we're dealing with an unstable time. people are frightened, afraid, and we need stability right now. >> you are absolutely right, rev. part of the issue is this. we can look back woord and there is a lot to be discussed with the president and his failure to take it seriously from the beginning instead of calling it a hoax. the failure of the president and his administration to take seriously the offer by the world health organization to offer tests so that we would have testing available at the earliest stages of this pandemic. but let's just fast forward to

today. it took him weeks to take seriously the defense production act and kick that in to create incentives for the private sector to manufacture and then distribute essential medical health needs like masks and ventilators. let's look at the fact that it has been mayors and governors who have had to, of their own resources, limited though they may be, figure out when they were going to put in place standards. i asked members of the administration, including dr. fauci, weeks ago, at what point will the federal government, at what threshold will the federal government kick in and create national standards? he agreed they needed to be done, but they were not done. >> we have people in hospitals, health care workers, that are told to share their masks. people are wearing garbage bags over them because there is no gowns. i mean, how are we in this shape and not seemingly being able to expedite resolving it? people are risking their lives

to save lives, the health care workers. >> you are right. let's talk about where we are. i am in washington, d.c. i believe that we should be here working on the next bill. the fourth bill to bring the support that still is needed to help workers like the people who are working in our health care professions, who are going to work every day without the resources they need to save their own lives, much less save others' lives, but they do it because they have a ethical and personal sense of responsibility to help those in need and the least of these. and so what do we need right now? i believe in a fourth bill, we have got to have a commitment to paid sick leave so people who otherwise cannot afford to stay at home sick will have the ability to stay at home sick and save the health and well being of the people they work around. right now we have 50 million workers in the united states who are low-income in terms of their salary. two-thirds of them do not have paid sick leave. so part of what we need to do

going forward, and it should start with the president and his administration, is say we must have paid sick leave. april 1st is days away. 3.3 million people filed for unemployment insurance. we need to make sure that they are not going to be evicted. i believe like states like california, there should be a national moratorium on evictions until we get through this pandemic. >> a national moratorium on evictions because what i'm hearing a lot on the ground, senator harris, is people saying they are glad that stimulus bill or relief bill, as we call it, had went through this week, but $1,200 by the time i buy groceries, i am not going to have money to pay rent. the 1st of april is this week. if it goes two or three months, what happens? and if you get $1,200, after three months how are you supposed to pay three months back rent? >> that's right. and that's why we have been arguing we need to have a system

that's about monthly payments understanding people have to pay their bills every month. here is the other thing i have been arguing before. i was attorney general of california for two terms. i fought for consumer rights. during this pandemic we also need to have a moratorium on credit card finance charges and penalties because, to your point, a lot of people out of work, those 3.3 million people are trying to buy groceries with credit cards. the other thing we need to do is put a stay on credit reporting so that people don't have permanent blemishes on their credit score. when we get through the pandemic, they will be in worse shape than when we started. there are many things we can do here and now to address the seriousness of this, starting with, to your point, the people who are working in our health care delivery system and making sure they have the resources they need. making sure we are supporting small business owners. black women are the largest number of growing small business

and entrepreneurs. part of what we did in the package is make shouure there wd be relief of $10,000. we want to make sure small business owners know it's there, but it's not enough. we need to ensure they have not only an ability to have access to loans but grants. we need to make sure that the students, who have been basically released from school from their dormitories, that we also relieve them of their student loan debt which will still accrue. there is a lot of work yet to be done that can be done. but we have to take this seriously. my final point really, rev, is let's understand that we have had many tragedies in our country, crises. we had 9/11, which was at its heart a national security issue. we had the great recession, which at its heart was an economic crisis. this is a pandemic at its core it is a public health crisis which has resulted in an economic crisis. if we want to deal with it, let's make sure that we recognize that the long standing defects in our system need to be

fixed like making sure everyone has access to affordable health care regardless of how much money they have in their back pocket. let's make sure we fix paid sick leave so that people have paid sick leave. there is a way to address what is causing harm in addition to the disease itself, and to look at how we can change the structure in the system going forward because this is also highlighting long standing disparities in our system, and this is an opportunity to fix those disparities. >> i am out of time. let me ask you this. you endorsed former vice president joe biden. >> i did. >> how do you think he would handle this differently and should we be hearing more from him during this confusion of how the federal government is handling this pandemic? >> i think there is so many ways he would handle this differently. we have seen evidence of that when he has been speaking. one, he has an ability to understand that -- how people suffer and to understand and feel that in a way that he wants to relieve them of that suffering. he has been the vice president

of the united states during crises. he was instrumental in helping us reform the health care system in america. this is a health care issue. he has the experience to do that. he is a lifelong public servevant. he understands that this is the moment for government to act. government has three essential functions and one of them is public health. so, instead of sitting in his chair as president, he would actually take seriously the need of talking with folks and then acting on their needs. that's what he would do as president. i'm going to do everything i can to make sure he gets elected. >> let me ask you this before i let you go. you committed vice president biden he is going to run a woman with him for vice president. has he discussed that with you? and if it was offered, would you accept to run on the ticket? >> let me tell you right now, i am full-time focused on the coronavirus and covid-19. this is what is at hands today. people are losing their jobs today. people are trying to figure out how they are going to feed their

babies today. that's my focus. >> and they want to know today where we're going as a country, and i tried to get you to tell us the possibilities, but i tried. california -- >> paid sick leave. >> kamala harris. we will keep working and we are going to work to get people tested, the homeless as well as the incarcerated. thank you for being with us. >> thank you. >> amid the spread of virus, there is also a serious risk that the public anxiety could lead to the spread of racism, scapegoating and blaming minorities for this public health crisis. joining me jonathan greenblatt, ceo of the anti-defamation league. mr. greenblatt, i was reading an article that you recorded in "the new york times" that even if all of this anxiety, there are those that are using this to scapegoat people based on race, to say some of the ugliest

things, and i thought that this is something we need to really put out front so people understand that this is not an asian or chinese disease or this is not something to use against any group of people, but that we are all in this together and we need to denounce those that would come with this ugliness, and you have taken an action in this regard. tell us about it. >> that's right, rev. i am glad you raised this issue because it is indeed a real problem. we have been fighting hate for over 100 years, and often we see minorities stereotyped and scapegoated in the event of big sort of problems or system failures, and indeed covid-19 is a system failure like we've never seen. as you pointed out, we have seen asian americans, people who are perceptibly chinese or whether they are chinese americans, chinese travelers, people wearing masks getting harassed in public places, actually being

assaulted. the stories are shocking. we have seen many of them from coast to coast, from the interior of the country. we have also seen jews being blamed as if we somehow were responsible for the virus, perhaps because some of the hot spots took place in communities with large jewish populations. the bottom line is this. covid-19 is not a product or a problem limited to one ethnic or religious group. we have seen this pandemic has spread with terrifying consequences to all communities. we need our leaders to refer to this disease, this virus, by its scientific name and not stoke up the hate when they talk about it, and ultimately we all need to take this on together because we will only defeat coronavirus if we can act in collaboration hand in hand, arm in arm, all people together. >> we saw one report where a lady actually walked over to a lady that appeared to be asian and actually fractured her jaw,

hitting her saying, where's your mask? to we saw other situations with other people. and we have public officials, including the president, identifying this by nationality. none of this is not only not helpful, it's despicable because we are seeing this virus all over the world, every continent of the country. this is not owned by any particular nationality or race or religion at this point, and we all have to come together and fight it together. >> i couldn't agree more. so it may be true that the early reports of the disease came out of the wuhan province of china. the fact of the matter is, as you said, this is everyone's problem. in the face of americans being assaulted because they are chinese, our leaders to refer to it in a way which reinforces the misperception that this is a chinese problem, that is destructive, rev.

it's despicable, and frankly, it's unamerican. so i think we should ask our leaders to do better and i think all of us need to dig deeper because this is a moment where we need to realize, again we will only defeat covid-19 if we can work in collaboration hand in hand, arm in arm together. >> all right. jonathan greenblatt, thank you for being with us. now let's bring in my panel. chris louis, a former white house cabinet secretary in the obama administration and rick tyler is a republican strategist and a political analyst for msnbc. rick, what does the president need to say tonight? he is scheduled to come out soon and do a press briefing, and usually we hear him touting things that later they have to change or alter. he put out there about the possible quarantine in the tri-state area of new york, connecticut, and new jersey. then he came and did the moon walk and walked it back seven

hours later after getting a lot of people shaken up, even some people, according to governor cuomo, saying they were getting out of new york before the quarantine. i mean, what does the president need to say and how do we have this president trying to represent some kind of stability when you have such justified anxiety among most americans tonight? >> that's the key point, is stability. this president demonstrated over and over again he is a destabilizing force. i have said that the president should step aside. he should say lallow the health care professionals to maguimana pandemic and give people accurate information they need to have to stay healthy or worse survive this pandemic. given that the president is not going to step aside, it's going to continue to do this, he needs to give accurate information,

get out of the way and let the health care professionals talk in a way that helps people get things done. but the other thing is that he really needs to be a reassuring force that things are really happening. i said from the beginning, he needs to deliver metrics and be accountable and responsible so as the numbers go up, we are all informed about that and understand that. as the numbers come down, we could all take hope in that. but mostly what he has been saying, rev, is sort of ambiguous promises. for instance, he said that gm was going to make ventilator machines and then we find out, well, no, they weren't going to make them in a timely way, so he had to do what he was resisting doing, which was force them to do it. and now we will see -- but from the beginning, rev, this president has not given us accurate information. he told us to go into a 15 days to slow the virus down and within a couple days he is talking about opening by easter. he has been so inconsistent that

people are just confused. they don't have the right information. so, the governors are doing a good job and i would -- you know, i have never been a democrat, but governor cuomo gave an inspiring, informed speech the other day. >> you mean andrew cuomo? mario was his father. >> i meant his son. >> i have had to deal with two cuomos in my lifetime. you worked in the obama administration. you were there as the obama administration dealt with the ebola epidemic/crisis, and you worked with the whole recovery. when we look at the stimulus bill, the relief bill i call it, that was passed this week, you were deputy secretary of labor. does it really answer all that we need? maybe a good start, we may need

immediate relief, but will this really match the moment that we're in in terms of the economic instability of people by the millions that can't work, businessmen, small businessmen and large that can't operate and open. what is it that we are looking at, and does this help and do we need more? >> rev, it's important to say that it's a start, but it's likely not going to be enough. on thursday we saw these staggering numbers about 3.3 milli 3.3 million additional people applying for unemployment. nose are numbers we have never seen. it's four times larger than any previous number that we have ever recorded, and i suspect every thursday from here on out we will see numbers like that. this friday we are going to get the first sense of the monthly jobs numbers when they come out. but what's important to understand, rev, is that $1,200 check will help. the unemployed, unemployment

benefits will help as well. it's only going to tie people over for a certain amount of time. what we need to focus on is this public health crisis. that should be the basis of any decisions to open up the country or the counties or any states. and the problem that the president is doing is he is focusing on the economy right now. he is focusing on the stock market, not what's in the interest of the american people. and so the best thing we can do for public health right now is to give some level of financial stability, not just to american workers, but to also small businesses, which are really struggling right now, and have a tiny profit margin, so they can stay closed, so we can flatten this curve and get past this. the problem with the president is not just his inconsistent messaging, his threatening a quarantine and pulling it back 12 hours later, but this focus on the economy is shortsighted. if he tries to open up parts of this country, all that's going to mean is that this outbreak will continue to spread. it's important to understand that while we see the outbreak

right now clustered in certain states and certain metropolitan areas, make no mistake. the public health experts say it's going to be in every major area in the country. it's going to go it rural areas and oftentimes they are the least equipped from a hospital perspective to deal with this. so get the public health crisis figured out and then focus on the kpli. >> did he wait too long to start using the authority to make production happen and to force the fact that we needed these masks, we needed these ventilators, we needed things that the health care workers needed to have to protect themselves and to save lives? >> you know, rev, five or six weeks behind from the outset. the first case, i think it was february 3rd that we saw the case developing in china. we know that we are a worldwide economy with people who travel all over the world. we should have seen this coming.

we did see it coming, but the warnings were ignored. and finally the president came around and he has been treating it seriously, i will say, but he didn't at first and we lost time. some people might look towards south korea for hope. as i watch the south korean numbers, they seem to be flattening out. japan has done a good job. we can't count on those numbers for ourselves because our trajectory looks more like italy than it does for south korea and japan. so i think we are going to be in this much, much longer than those two countries, south korea and japan, and we are just going to have to plan ahead. in terms of economic reoverry, we are going to need leadership on that like nobody's business when we get out of this, and we will get out of this. >> and we need to come out of it together. i mean, as i said last week, i called the president about testing the homeless and the incarcerated, and he did return my call, and most people know we are not exactly fans of each other. but we've got to reach across -- we have to reach outside our

comfort zone and really demonstrate we are in this together and we've got to do things. we have got to challenge the irresponsibility that some are demonstrating during this time. chris and rick, thank you for being with me. just a few minutes, we are expecting an update from the white house coronavirus task force in the rose garden. once it does get started, we'll bring it to you live. coming up, houses of worship are normally packed on the weekends, but times have changed given the coronavirus outbreak. how americans of faith are coping in this new era. more "politics nation" after this. wayfair has way more ways to renovate your home, from inspiration to installation. like way more vanities perfect for you. nice. way more unique fixtures and tiles. pairing. ♪ nice.

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♪ welcome back to "politics nation" n a few minutes we are expecting an update from the white house coronavirus task force in the briefing room.

once it gets started, we'll take you straight there and bring it to you live. while we wait, let me bring in the mayor of new york city, bill de blasio. mr. mayor, thank you for being with us. let me start by asking about when the president of the united states floated the idea of a quarantine of new york, connecticut, and new jersey. something that is even legally questionable whether he could do it, but what was your reaction? because you were out way ahead of everyone saying we need to do a shelter in place, which eventually is about what has happened. but how did you respond to the president trying to go one step further? i assume it would be further, with a quarantine that he has withdrawn and we don't even know if he had the legal basis of doing it in the first place. >> yeah, rev, i think it was misguided, obviously, because, let's face it, the coronavirus is now in all 50 states, and in fact quarantine is not the way to fight it.

shelter in place is the way to fight it and we need every state to recognize, even if they haven't felt the brunt yet, they will eventually. and the more they shelter in place, the more they can do the preparations we have had to do, they get to do them now. that's the way to go forward. also the point that families should not be separated. we need to give families a chance to get home, wherever home is. so it's really ill advised. i spoke to the president this morning, rev, and i told him i didn't want to talk about that quarantine issue or travel advisory or anything. i just want to talk about ventilators and medical personnel because in new york city right now we need 400 ventilators by wednesday just to ensure we are going to get through the week, and we need a whole lot by sunday to make sure we will get through next week. venls, doctors, nurses. i talked to the defense secretary. i talked to the chairman. joint chiefs of staff about military medical personnel that could be freed up.

we're at a point now, we have to understand, for new york, that this is a growing crisis, that we have days to prepare for. anything but saving lives and right now getting help to new york city to me is not the topic that should be discussed. >> what did the president say when you laid out the need for these items? did he give a timetable if he committed to helping expediting getting them to new york? >> i heard what you said in the previous segment. we were in the same situation. we have had long historic disagreements with donald trump. in this moment we have to do our best to work together. >> the fact that he would return both of our calls shows the seriousness of the time. >> it's definitely a new reality. the fact is i judge the president now on whether he answers the call of new york city. this is his homeland. this is his hometown and we are in desperate need. he did, his team did work on the issue of ventilators in the last

week. we have seen much more progress on ventilators for new york city and new york state. that's progress. but i have been very, very clear with him about what we are going to need going forward, including just to get to sunday and for sunday april 5th to be this d-day, what we have to get prepared for everything thereafter. i have gone into detail with hip and his team on the number of medical personnel we need to get in. i won't go into the private conversation. he has been responsive and i have you givgiven him numbers, timelines. they want to help and they understand the specific needs. we'll judge by the results. but my hope is that the sense of urgency in the white house is finally growing because if we don't have this stuff in place, i want to be clear, rev, if we don't have the ventilators when we need them, people will die who didn't need to die. if we don't have enough doctors and nurses, our current team of doctors and nurses and hospital workers, the hospital workers, health care workers, you know

this community very well, rev, they are stretched to the limit. they need relief. it's got to come in from other parts of the country in large measure. so i want to see the president produce and protect people just the way we're all trying to do it. >> and if he does, we will deal with that. i think that we are beyond taking shots at each other when we are seeing people literally losing their lives and health workers working under very risky conditions, and i think that we should judge all of us, whatever public platform we are in, by whether or not we can handle this in a responsible way or whether we are just going to do to take shots at each other. let me ask you, you renounced new steps this afternoon. can you share that with our national audience? >> yeah. in your previous point, i want to amen it. we have to work with each other regardless of politics, party, anything at this point. this is about saving lives. what we announced today, we are going to do a series of

measures, additional enforcement measures all over the city to keep this social distancing working. we have the 311 system here. i am telling all new yorkers, if you see an instance of a crowded pharmacy or gross store or a line not spaced six feet apart, call 311. we will get police to break that up. we announced fines that could be applied if people are not social distancing in our parks, for example. you know, constantly we are working on trying to get more help in for new york city. i spoke to secretary mnuchin this morning about maximizing and speeding the help from the recent stimulus, but also about the next stimulus, because we will need a for the stimulous, direct support for cities and states that have hemorrhaged billions of dollars like new york city and new york state. this time it can't be a generic stimulous where everybody gets a little bit. it has to be targeted to the

places that are hit the most, replacing lost revenues, giving us money to make up for the vast expenses we have had, keeping everything going. police, fire, hospitals, everything is at full bore. it costs a huge amount of money. we will all have massive deficits unless that stimulous comes into play really strong in april. those are a number of the things that we're working on here, and just trying to help our health care workers, trying to support them. >> absolutely. mayor bill de blasio, thank you for being with us. >> thank you. >> meanwhile, for millions around the world, faith keeps us grounded and connected in times of crisis. but when that crisis demands that we keep ourselves physically distant from one another, churches, mosques and synagogues must come up with creative solutions. hundreds of congregations have moved services entirely online to keep their worshippers spiritually connected but socially distant. some churches have drive-in

style services where parishoners gather together but stay inside their vehicles to pro vent the spread of coronavirus. joining me are two faith leaders grappling with this pandemic. reverend dr. franklin richardson, pastor of the grace baptist church in new york. mount vernon, new york. and sharon cloin baum, senior rabbi of a local jewish congregation in manhattan. dr. richardson. >> yes? >> we are going to have to break in and come back because we have the two-minute warning of the white house getting ready to start with their briefing. hopefully, we will get back to you and the rabbi. let me hand this over to ali velshi as we prepare for the white house corona task force briefing. >> and rev, you know, these briefings can be very informative. they can also be very troublesome. so what we've done here at msnbc

is assembled a team of some of our best journalists from different departments who are going to listen along with me, do what the -- to what the president is saying. there is a component that is the president. he is often accompanied by people around him. he is holding this outside. you can see the reporters are spaced out. they are going to be there. i see kelly o'donnell. they are going to be there to be asking the president some questions. sometimes the president takes liberties to say the least. so our team is going to be here with me to be able to run down some of the things the president has said that we are not sure about, and either confirm them or let you know otherwise. we will be doing that through the course of this. in some instances, what we are going to do is let the information come out because there are -- the president often has the vice president there who has details about things that are happening that are not politicized. he often has dr. anthony fauci or dr. deborah birx with him with medical information and

other times he will have the surgeon general or other experts who are actually delivering information. >> it looks like the white house coronavirus briefing is getting started. let us listen in to the briefing as it begins. ali velshi is having technical issues. so, as we are watching, this is a live scene in the rose garden. they have moved the briefing out of the briefing room and they're doing it in the rose garden. we are told unofficially that one of the reasons is there is more room in the rose garden in terms of keeping social distancing, trying to abide by it as they have done in the briefing room, but it's a more clustered room from my visits to the white house, i can attest to that. and it's good weather today in washington, d.c. they are doing it in the rose

garden. we have gotten the two-minute warning. so we were waiting for them to come back. i think we straightened out the technical problems with ali velshi. >> well, that's a sign of our times, rev. we are doing this from homes. we have staff. we are trying to reduce our staff to an absolute minimum. they are in different places. once in a while a gremlin creeps into the system. but as you said, they are spacing it out a little bit more. they are trying to hold these things out. the number of reporters who are admitted is much smaller to maintain the space, and you will notice that the reporters, unlike the typical fashion, get several more questions because they are now a smaller group of them who are asking the president a number of questions. you will notice they have just put out a series of chairs in front of the first row of reporters where you can see -- you can always see kelly

o'donnell on the red side with her red hair. we do not know what news the president has. usually, it's an update on either cases or equipment and supplies that the president has had a chance to procure on behalf of states. he will often talk about conversations he has had or, in yesterday's case, conversations that he prefused to have with some state governors. he made a point of saying that he told mike pence, who is ostensibly in charge. federal government's response to coronavirus, not to call the governors of washington and michigan. he then referred to the governor of michigan as gretchen half-wit mer and he referred to governor jay inslee as a snake in the past. he said he didn't think they were appreciating the government's response. if they are not appreciative, he is not going to call them. this created a response nationwide because the president is the president of all americans, not those whose governors he likes or doesn't

like. the other thing that came out of yesterday's update was that the president said he was considering quarantining the tri-state area, new york, new jersey, and connecticut. that created a response because he hadn't spoken to the governors of those states. governor cuomo of new york had said he definitely hadn't spoken to the president about it. didn't know what that meant and thought that that would be akin to an act of war, sending the military into sovereign states. the president then came out and said he is not considering doing that, but instead asked the centers for disease control to impose travel restrictions on people around the tri-state area. now, the law provides for the centers for disease control to be able to quarantine people who are believed to have an infectious disease. it does not apply to an entire population or people defined by a geographic area. you have to believe that individuals are carriers of an

infection in which ways the cdc does have the authority to quarantine. but that doesn't extend to the federal government more broadly. so what they can't do is impose a quarantine on a region. remember if you need to impose a quarantine and you needed to enforce it, you would need some sort of a force. and generally speaking, that would be the national guard. in america, the national guard is controlled by a governor in a given state. hence, the president doesn't typically have the authority to go in there and send the national guard in to do certain things. we have had certain instances of this right now in the united states. for instance, in rhode island, the governor has imposed a restriction saying anybody arriving in rhode island by any mode of there was after visiting any other state for non-work purposes is going to be asked to self-quarantine and to enforce that he has placed members of the national guard at the airports, train stations, bus stops, and terminals.

but that is a governor of a state asking the new york -- asking the national guard to contain people, to quarantine people. in texas we have heard that they are looking for people coming in from louisiana on the east, which has a lot of cases. new orleans has a mortality rate from coronavirus that's actually higher than new york state's is at the moment. the other thing i am going to ask my control room for is we've got a map that shows you where the cases of coronavirus are. while we are waiting for the president to come out, i want to show you this map because while new york is the epidemic center this, and we have a lot of cases in seattle, but, yeah, i'd like to put up that map to show our viewers that this is spreading across the country. it's a different map i have got. it's got circles of cities. if my control room can put that up. these are the states that have confirmed cases. we know that 100% of u.s. states have confirmed cases. but what we're able to see on this other map is hot spots in

cities. by far the hottest hotspot is new york state, connecticut, new jersey, and to some extent rhode island. florida is a hotspot. you see hot spots in detroit, in chicago. seattle we know about. los angeles is showing some heat and new orleans. those are the areas. i'll ask my control room to bring me that map when we have a chance. it's a different map. it's a white map with red dots on it. the story here is it is spreading. and what the president seems to be concerned about is coronavirus spreading particularly to florida where the governor there, desantis, decided to delay implementation of certain techniques that were meant to prevent the spread of coronavirus largely because there were a lot of people in florida for spring break. he didn't close the beaches. that has happened. then a lot of people left new york to go to florida. it seems that the president was

hearing those concerns and got particularly concerned. you can see the president there. we see dr. deborah birx walking out as well. we've got the rear admiral there who is handling some of this. dr. fauci is present for this meeting. just trying to make out who some of the others are. the president is not there yet. we have others taking their seats, which means the president is going to be out there momentarily. so, again, the requests that the president has in the last 24 hours, he was talking about a quarantine of the tri-state area. that's not happening. but he has asked the cdc to impose travel restrictions, which means non-essential travel between new york, new jersey, pennsylvania, and other states around them is restricted to people the department of homeland security has declared to be essential workers. there is a whole list of people that are said to be essential to infrastructure. that's number one. number two, the president has tweeted out a little while ago that hospitals should stop

hoarding ventilators. we don't have detail on what he is talking about or what hospitals, but the vice president, mike pence, has sent a letter out to hospitals just a couple of hours ago asking them to start submitting details to the federal government about testing, about positives, about things like that. so it seems like we are moving into a slightly more data driven phase of this whole episode. remember, it was one month ago when the president said that, in fact, this is going to go away. we do think that the president is going to come out momentarily and speak. again, there he is, he has changed his approach. he doesn't have everybody standing around him. they have all stood up while the president approaches the podium. we will wait for the president to speak and then, as i told you, we have our team of journalists at msnbc prepared to analyze what the president is saying. >> appreciate everybody being here.

beautiful day in the rose garden. tremendous distance between chairs. social distancing. you practice it very well. we appreciate it. that's great. i want to start today by highlighting several critical developments on both the testing and treatment that will help us win our war against the coronavirus. on friday, the fda authorized a new test developed by abbott labs that dollars lightning fast results in as little as five minutes. that's a whole new ball game. i want to thank abbott labs for the incredible work they have done. they have been working around the clock. normally, this approval process from the fda would take ten months and even longer, but we did it in four weeks. abbott has stated that they will begin delivering 50,000 tests each day starting this week, and as you know even before this development we have been doing more tests than any other country anywhere in the world.

it's one of the reasons that we have more cases than other countries because we have been testing. it's also one of the reasons that we are just about the lowest in terms of mortality rate because we've been doing more testing. so we have bigger numbers to look at. i want to also thank general sem night of the army corps of engineers. what the army corps of engineers did along with fema in new york was incredible. they built 2900 beds worth of hospital. incredible hospital in the javet center, which i know well. i want to say that was unreal. they did it in less than four days. people have never seen anything like that, and it's an incredible complex

top-of-the-line hospital. everyone is trying to figure out how they did it, including me. i was a good builder, but they did it very quickly, mike. so we're very happy. i want to thank the army corps of engineers, fema, the incredible job they have done. they are moving to other locations throughout the country where they already have people building hospitals, louisiana, new jersey, many other places. but these are incredible men and women, and they worked around the clock. the people of new york are very happy. governor cuomo expressed his thanks, which we appreciate, but these are, i mean, nobody could have done a job like that. most people have never seen anything like it. the deployment of rapid testing will vastly accelerate our ability to monitor, track, contain, and ultimately defeat the virus. we will defeat the virus. it will also allow us to test doctors, nurses and other health

care workers immediately and enable us to act quickly and aggressively to shut down the spread of the virus. so important. in critical facilities like honts and nursing homes. we will ensure that we can give cities and states the best information to guide local decision makers and making. i want to point out that the hydroxycolor quinn is being administered to 1,100 patients, people in new york along with the z pack, which is zblit azbl sin. it it started two days ago. but we will see what happens. i want to thank steven hahn, who is a great doctor. left one of the best jobs in our country running an incredible hospital in texas. and he is the head of the fda. steven got approval for that so

fast. let's see how it works. it may. it may not. but we may have some incredible results. we are going to know soon. so it's being tested on 1,100 people in new york. the fda is also allowing the emergency use of a blood related therapy called convalescent plasma for seriously ill patients. this involves taking blood plasma from patients who have already recovered from the virus. they have recovered, they are strong. something was good in them that worked, and so we take the plasma from those people that have recovered so well, meaning their plasma is rich in antibodies against the virus and trans fusing it into sick patients. very, very powerful. so sick patients will be trans fused with the blood taken to boost their immune system. we'll see what happens.

and we're having some early results that are good, but we will see. and that's going, i think, very rapidly. again we got approvals in a really quick time. we are also looking at an approval for the sterilization of masks. i kept saying to myself i see some of the masks are very complex. we are delivering millions, by the way. millions. i kept saying why aren't they able to use that mask a second, third, fourth time? and mike dewine, the great governor of ohio, called me. they have a company that is in the final process of getting approval for the sterilization of masks, and in some cases depending on the mask some of these masks are very, very strong. very powerful. very strong material. they are able to sterilize the mask up to 20 times. so i guess that's like getting 20 masks. and so we worked object that as soon as i heard from mike today. i got involved.

and the fda is now involved and we are trying to get a fast approval for the sterilization of masks. that would be a tremendous difference. it would be really helpful. while much of the research has to be done, we have a lot of research left to do, lot of research left to do. obviously, this treatment on plasma has shown promising results in other countries. we are in communication with other countries, and very strong communications, and they are very reliant on us in just about all cases. we have the greatest people in the world. they are very, very anxious to find out how we are doing on our different things, whether it is a cure or whether it is really anything having to do with getting people better. we have some interesting things will be announced i think over the next few weeks. but we will see what happens. they are being tested right now.

the vaccines are moving along very rappedly. the vaccines are an answer. but i would like to see if we could do something therapeutically so we can take care of the people that are already sick. and we are working on that at a level that people would be am e amaz amazed. they don't stop. this method has also been used more than a century. that's the blood-related therapy. more than an century to fight off infectious diseases. so it is not unusual, our level of complexity is changed but it is a concept that has been used for a long time, including during the spanish flu epidemic. that was really a pandemic of proportions like frankly nobody has seen until what we are facing now. that was in 1918. you know what the result of that was, probably, from 75 to 100 million people were killed.

and also, other viruses like the one in this outbreak -- this is a very tough one. this is a tough one because it spreads so quickly, like nothing we have seen. it spreads so easily, so quickly. we are unleashing every tool in our nation's vast arsenal, economic, medical, and scientific, military, homeland security is working very, very hard with all of them in order to vanquish the virus. as you know, every level of government, state, local, and federal is, working non-stop to obtain more personal protective protective equipment for front line workers. we are delivering vast orders of this material. i am going to ask a couple of the people here to join me that both make it and deliver it, joining us today are the leaders of america's largest

distributors of medical equipment, including mckesson, medline, fedex, and ups. we just concluded a very productive meeting about ways to keep our supply chains and delivery systems moving at top speed. and maybe i would like to just ask for a couple of minutes for mike kaufman to come up and, maybe ed caseca. mike is with cardinal. and ed is owen and minor. i appreciate -- and if anybody else has anything to please come up. mike, come up and if you could say what you told me before we had the meeting. thank you. >> thank you, mr. president. thanks for your leadership on this. because of that leadership, we have really seen the government agencies working with industry like no time before. we have seen hhs, fema, the cdc work incredibly effectively with all of the distributors and all of the distributors working together for the good of the

people. and all of us have been so focused on making sure that we take care of our customers because our customers are the ones that are taking care of the patients every day. we need to do everything we can to make things good for them. so it has been great to see how well all of these government agencies have been coordinating together with us. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> appreciate it. >> thank you mr. president. let me start by thanking the administration for all the support you provided to the industry. we did hear the challenge. starting in january we ramped up our production in the americas, including our facility in north carolina where we are now manufacturing an additional 40 to 50 million masks per month to get into the u.s. health care system. we talked about this in the premeeting. one of the issues we are struggling with is the demand increase. used an example of one hospital in new york that traditional leap uses roughly 10 to 20,000 mask as week are now using 200

to 300,000 mask as week. sometimes that times every hospital in the u.s. along with the hospitals outside of the u.s. the demand is much greater than even the ramped up supply. >> thank you. i bring that up because when we discussed back in the room -- we were in a conference room, very nice one, actually, it is called the cabinet room. that statement was made, that they have been delivering, for years, 10 to 20,000 masks. okay. it is a new york hospital. it is packed all the time. how do you go from 10,000 to 20,000 to 300,000? 10,000 to 20,000 maskings to 300,000. this is different. something is going on. you ought to lock into it as reporters. where are the masks going? out the back door?

how do you go from 10,000 to 300,000? and we have that in a lot of different places. somebody should look into that. because i don't see from a practical standpoint how it is possible to go from that to that. and we have that happening in numerous places. not to that extent. that was the highest number i have heard. that's the highest number you have seen, i would imagine. but this man makes them and delivers them to a lot of hospitals. he knows the system better than anybody. i think you were surprised the see that number. i hope i didn't get any of your clients in trouble. but they could be in trouble. they have the look at that in new york. fema is working to launch project air bridge to xi expedite the movement of critical supplies from other countries to the united states. the first flight arrived at jfk this morning filled with 80 tons of poernl protective equipment, including 130,000 n 95

respirators. those are the ones we were talking about before, 1.8 million face masks and gowns. 10.3 million gloves, and many other things. millions and millions of different items. fema has scheduled 19 additional flights and is adding more daily. we hope to have about 50 flights. we are going to have -- i think including the one that came in today, we are up at 51 flights with these massive planes from the different companies that were so nice to be here today. would you like to say something on behalf? please, come up. thank you. >> thank you, mr. president, for the incredible leadership. i will share with you that ups is really proud to be part of this effort. vice president pence and i had the opportunity to speak before. the way we are going to win this war is with great logistics. ups is going to be part of that evident. we have a big brown army. 495,000 upsers across the country that are ready to deliver. we are bringing in the supplies

from anywhere around the world as fast as week so that they can serve the communities that need them most. we are proud to be partnering with the states as well because we know that in partnership with those states, we can deliver what is needed everywhere. so thank you, mr. president. >> thank you very much. great job you are doing. please. thank you very much. >> thank you, mr. president. i would certainly like to echo my colleague's comments that the collaboration amongst many of the government agencies and the private market, and the distributors represented here today has been incredible, has been increasing and ramping up over the past weeks. today's first delivery of operation air bridge i think is the first evidence that it is working. the 51 flights you referenced, we are excited about. we look to build upon that. so i would echo my thanks for your leadership, and certainly to the staff's for the terrific partnership and the commitment

to protect the people we think about most often, which are the people on the front lines providing care, and maybe just a quick word of things on behalf of all the ceos here to our teams that continue thou show up in warehouses across the country, in pharmacies across the country, and do their jobs to keep the supply chain going. the supply chain is working. it is resilient. supply is a challenge. we are tackling that. >> thank you very much. great job. >> thank you, thank you, mr. president. and thanks to fema and hhs. i think great leadership is really working well. the demand has skyrocketed. and we are doing a lot of things to bring in more masks, more other protective apparel. we are involved in reprocessing masks, and we have already started at about 100,000 masks

per day. we hope to expand from there. so we are quite optimistic about night great job. yeah. >> thank you. >> fantastic. anybody else? if you want. yes, please. you are doing such a great job we have to let everybody if they want. >> we appreciate the opportunity to work with your administration on a lot of collaborative fronts. we talked about ppe products, it is a must, to all the health care providers on the front lines. that's absolutely key. second we talked about buying in america and getting resources back here and manufacturing in america. that is critical. a lesson to be learned from where we are. lastly we are proud that we introduced a test. we need to get more tests out there in a rapid form. we are excited about that we worked with your administration closely, and the fda. it is a quick rapped anti-body test that is