what are the rules? how does this work? that's when i came up with matilda's law. i said i named it for my mother, and it was very clear about people who are older and what they should be exposed to. my brother -- that was two weeks ago. if my brother still had my mother at his house, again out of love and comfort, and my mother wanted to be at the house anyway, by the way. she didn't want to be sitting at home in an apartment. so she would have been doing what she wanted to do. he would have been doing what he wanted to do. it would have seemed great and harmless, but now we'd have a much different situation, because if he was exposed, chances are she may have very well been exposed, and then we would be looking at a different situation than just my brother sitting in his basement for two

weeks. so think about that, right? my brother is smart. he was acting out of love. luckily we caught it early enough. but it's my family, it's your family, it's all of our families. and this virus is that insidious, and we have to keep that in mind. keep in mind matilda's law. remember who is vulnerable here. and protect them. you want to go out and act stupid for yourself, that's one thing. but your stupid actions don't just affect you. you come home, you can infect someone else, and you can cause a serious illness or even death for them by your actions. and people have to really get this and internalize it. because it can happen to anyone.

two weeks with my mother and christopher, today is a very different situation. last point, there was nothing i have said different since i started these briefings. and there's nothing that we have learned that is different since i have started these briefings. you know what to do. we just have to do it. it is individual discipline to stay at home. that's what it is. it's discipline. no social distancing. it's discipline. well, i'm bored. i know. i'm bored. it's discipline. making this health care system work, that's government skill, that's government performance. that's saying to that health care system, i don't care how it worked yesterday, i don't care whose turf this is, i don't care whose ego was involved, i'm sorry. we have to find a way to work a better way.

so time to say to that federal government and to fema and hhs, you have to learn how to do your job and you have to learn how to do it quickly because time is not our friend. it's about a social stamina. this is not one week, two weeks, three weeks, four weeks, five weeks, six weeks. okay. this is not going to be an easter surprise. understand that and have the stamina to deal with it. and it's unity. let's help one another. new york needs help now. yesterday i asked for health care workers from across the country to come here because we need help. we will pay you and, more importantly, we will return the favor. this is going to be a rolling wave across the country. new york, then it will be detroit, then it will be new orleans, then it will be

california. if we were smart as a nation, come help us in new york, get the equipment, get the training, get the experience, and then let's all go help the next place and the next place and the next place and the next place. that would be a smart national way of doing this, and showing that unity. and unity meaning we're not -- i know this is a political year and everybody, everything is a political backdrop, and democrats want to criticize republicans, and republicans want to criticize the democrats. not now. not now. there are no red states. there are new blue states. the virus doesn't attack and kill red americans or blue americans. it attacks all americans. and keep that in mind because there is -- there is a unifying wisdom in that.

any questions? let's do on topic questions first. if anyone has any questions on local issues, we'll do that afterwards. >> how many health care workers are on the ground right now? are all of the newark workers on the ground? we hear there are some people trying to apply are in new york and they're not getting any responses about when that will happen? >> yeah, let's remember what we said. we have now -- a few days ago we put out -- the question is are all health care workers working? the problem is health care workers are working too much. they're overstressed. they're working too many shifts. they're afraid to go home. they may bring the virus home. they're under immense physical and emotional stress. we put out a request a couple of days ago to retirees to come

forward. we have now about 78,000 people that said that they would help. god bless the state of new york, and god bless humanity. we now are working with the hospitals, and we did this in the meeting yesterday also, sorting those 78,000 people by region and by expertise across the state, and we have a portal that jim or however can explain, because we then have to link them up to the hospital, right. we have the pool of 78,000. you then have to coordinate that with the hospital in that region with those skills. and that's what we're doing now. jim, you want to -- >> so today the portal will be launched and live. the 78,000 or so, we have to do some prechecking so we check for licenses, discipline and those people who didn't have a license or had disciplinary issues were taken out so hospitals more easily accessed the workforce. as the governor said, they're

broken down by region, by discipline, and then go in. what we're trying to do is prioritize the availability to the hospitals that need it the most right now, that need some extra help in the field. but we're working very closely with the entire system, like the governor said, to make sure we're linking up those new health care workers to those facilities. so it will be live today. >> is that connected with the out-of-state workers? >> it's everyone, everyone. we're trying to prioritize the in-state worker which we have by region, so we know the potential health care workers in every region of the state, where they are and what their status is. we want to get them here first. we want to prioritize the new york downstate regional employees because we know they're closer to their facilities in need now and we need to upstate employees potentially later and we have out of state potential employees. so looking at the folks from new jersey, from connecticut and other places, that way they don't have to travel from long

distances. >> what is the timeline for getting those people on? are there any concerns about individuals who are over -- who are elderly helping? >> we're looking the age and going through a background, we have about 175 people doing background on every person who comes into the portal. and the hospitals we're working with as well will also do their own checks to make sure the person is up to it. they may not be up to one job, but they may be up to another job. we are looking at cross coordination there as well. and some of these folks could be in potential hospitals needed by thursday. >> do you have any more information on when it hits new york state and the whole? >> when does the apex hit? that is the $64,000 question. we have literally five models that we look at. it's true to say almost no two are the same. the range on the apex is

somewhere between -- let's say 7 to 21 days. if you look at all five, it's 7 to 21 days from now. and look, jesse, i say this does me no good. what is it, 7 to 21, the range is too broad. do i have seven or three weeks? there are all sorts of variables they're looking at. on one hand you could tell because you have the china model and south korea, et cetera. but you have variables here, how effective is the social distancing? how many people are actually staying home? how does the density relate? so there are variables. but it goes from the apex estimate, 7 to 21. that's not the only estimate that varies. they then vary on how many beds you would need, right? we have 53,000 beds statewide, if we operated as a state.

we mandated 50% more beds. now we're up to 75,000 beds. all of them say you need more than the 75,000, and the highest is 140,000. the ventilator estimate among those projections goes from 10,000 to 40,000. are those right, jim? howard? >> roughly 20,000 to 40,000 on most average projected. in addition to what we have. >> the hospitals coordinating them. one of the executive orders that you signed will let you put a receiver into some hospitals if they don't meet that 50% threshold or go above that, do you foresee the potential to do that? >> the hospitals have been cooperative. the question is we have the ability to point the receiver if the hospital isn't being

cooperative. hospitals are being cooperative. we put out the rule you have to have 50% capacity, they all added 50% capacity. they all responded. we're sending out a rule today that says i want to know your stock, what you have in stock, what your stockpile is, what your inventory is because we really need to share. nobody has enough. like everybody put everything into the middle in a pot and then we'll distribute it. we're doing that. it's not, joe, going to be as much they're not listening. it's going to be their capacity level. you have -- let's take downstate new york, you have about 170 hospitals. if we sat here two months ago, we could have graded almost all 170 hospitals. and you would have had some stronger and some weaker.

as a general rule, the public hospitals would have been on the weaker spectrum. less financing, et cetera. history of being more troubled. you now put weight on all 170. even if you put the equal amount of weight on all 170, you're going to see a different reaction in the hospital depending on the underlying strength of that hospital. you put a differentiated weight, but you happen to be in brooklyn and there happens to be more density in brooklyn and that hospital gets more weight, you get a different variable. but in general what you're going to see is the hospitals that were stressed can't take the stress. it's not even a medical concept. works with personalities too. the personalities that are having trouble dealing with stress are having more trouble

dealing with this stress. so the health and hospital corp. nations, what i said to the public hospitals, i said to the private hospitals, you have to help them. and we have to watch. when they get up near capacity, transfer patients. elmhurst got up to capacity, you had other public hospitals that had open beds. we have to get better and faster at transferring patients to other facilities, right. a perfect system, everybody is at 51%. everybody is at 60%. everybody is at 80%. not some people are at 40% and some people are at 110%. that's not the way the system is organized right now. they all talk, you know. they all have -- but they're

different systems. and that you almost have to shock the system into actually saying, okay, we're really going to operate as one. >> if you have a week and you don't see that making shifts give you the weight to go in and basically demand it? >> yes. but, look, no hospital is going to say i want to be over capacity. it's just they didn't have the cooperation or the system to call someone up and say, you know, i'm drowning. i need to have somebody else accept 150 patients. and that's going to have to be managed into the system. this is something we've never did before. we have never been here, you know. normally, you have beds at hospitals fighting for patients, because patients are revenue, right?

so you never had a situation where they said, i'm going to send you patients. they wanted the patients. they wanted the revenues. this is a much different situation. >> the new york city area patients transferred to upstate hospitals yet? >> no, no. first, we have levels of sort of triage. first, we will try to bring upstate staff down to new york state hospitals. that's one of the requests we will make today. you have upstate hospitals that are nowhere near capacity. send your staff down to new york city hospitals. worse step, you're overcapacity in all new york city hospital. you redistributed the load. you're still overcapacity. then send people to the upstate hospitals. is that right, howard? >> that's correct. >> what will it cost for those type of transfers? and how does the staffing work with fema issues?

who's paying for that when it comes to make the decisions about -- >> it would all be voluntary. >> all be voluntary. who will pay the costs? >> it we're all paying the costs, right? the hospitals are paying the cost. the state is paying the cost. i said to them look, frankly, we'll figure out the costs. ment because this is about saving lives. and i'm not going to -- who pays the bill should not determine whether or not people live or die. so i said, do whatever we have to do to save lives, and then we'll figure out the bill afterwards. >> you said the state has 3,000 icu beds. how much has that grown at this point? you have 2,700 people in the icu and 3,000 beds. >> i said i needed 30,000 beds. >> how many do you have now? >> well, that's an interesting question. we have ordered 17,000 from china.

that we would pay for. roughly $25,000 each. by the way, anyone who says maybe you don't need that ventilator, you're saying 30,000 ventilator, you don't need that many. you don't believe you need that many. you know how well i really, really believe that number? because we're paying $25,000 per ventilator and we are broke, and the last thing i want to do is buy a single ventilator that i don't need. the complexity with ventilators is we ordered 17,000 from china. so did california, so did illinois, so did the federal government, so did italy. and what's happening is china, the orders into china are very slow in coming out. exactly how and why, we're not sure. it's just they have such a tremendous demand.

of the 17,000, we only have a firm expectation on 2,500. is that right, cara? yes. only a firm expectation on 2,500. >> when are they supposed to come in? >> supposed to come in the next two weeks. >> so that will bring icu capacity to 2500? >> no, the ventilator capacity increases 2,500 and icu bed is essentially a bed with oxygen and ventilator. but you can't have an icu bed without a ventilator. >> will that address the surge in two weeks? >> depends if it's six weeks or 21 days, right? that's what we're dealing with. and you can't accelerate the orders any more from china. when you go back into a retro

speculativ retro speculative, and i don't want to do it now, but every state does its own purchasing. new york is purchasing, california is purchasing, we're all trying to buy literally the same exact item. so you have 50 states competing to buy the same item.other and h other, where you now literally will have a company call you up and say california just outbid you. it's like being on ebay with 50 other states bidding on a ventilator. and you see the bid go up because california bid. illinois bid. florida bid. new york bids. california rebids. that's literally what we're doing. i mean, how inefficient? and then fema gets involved and

fema starts bidding. and now fema is bidding on top of the 50. so fema is driving up the price. what sense does this make? the federal government, fema, should have been the purchasing agent, buy everything and then allocate it by need to the states. why would you create a situation where 50 states are competing with each other and then themes rest of it? >> governor, how do non-coronavirus emergencies factor into these plans to better coordinate the health care system, presumably with first responders getting overwhelmed, heart attacks. >> exactly. we're learning lessons. necessity is the mother of intervention. we're learning things here that -- it's not that we're learning things here.

anyone could have told you a lot of these things, right? the situation i just explained with purchasing, did you really have to learn that 50 states shouldn't compete against 50 states? and fema shouldn't come in late and then compete with 50 states? it's not like you had to go to the harvard school to learn this. should you really have a hospital system in new york state where you have private hospitals, where you have struggling public hospitals. there's two separate systems. the upstate is separate, long island is separate. shouldn't you have planned a comprehensive system? yes, but the commercial barriers to that, the political barriers to that, were so intense that if you didn't have a disaster, an

emergency, you couldn't break through. the conversation i had with these hospital leaders yesterday in that room, if it was not for the coronavirus, i would have never made it out of that room. i mean, what i was saying was so anti-get cal to the foundation of the business of health care in this state -- which by the way is a multi, multibillion dollar business. it's ripe with common sense but sometimes you need the emergency to force change that would be very, very difficult otherwise. >> again, are there specific efforts to shore up the capacity of the health care system to handle non-coronavirus related emergencies? >> yes, the health care system is working on all of those other areas as well and regularly, pretty much every day i have spoken to doctors and nurses who

are working on the front lines. and all of those other patients, the person with the heart attack, person with the stroke, the system is continuing to move forward. it is stressed, as the governor said, the system is stressed but the patients are cared for. those other emergencies are getting cared for as well. just put a strain on the system. >> let me give you an analogy. if i said to you, look, i know normally you write for your outlet and then there are other outlets. but we have a situation. and you're going to write and you have to give it to all of the other outlets. what you right is no longer just for your publication. you have to give it to all of the other outlets. because we don't have ten people who can come. you have to write for everybody else. if i sent that memo across to businesses, forget it. if it was an emergency and you were the only reporter there,

then you would do it. and that's true in so many different situations. you're violating basic commercial rules here and business rules and practices, and i'm a local government, and i'm in charge. to override all of that garbage, you really need extraordinary times. >> is there an order from the white house or state fund for ventilators to get sent to new york and then other hot spots? the illinois governor talking about it this weekend saying there are questions about when the hot spot will get the ventilators. >> j.b. pritzker, governor pritzker, he's a good man. he's a good friend of mine. he does a beautiful job. he's right. you'll have curves, right? you have a new york curve. you'll have an illinois curve.

you'll have a new orleans curve. how do you know the new york curve is going to end before the illinois curve peaks? you don't. you don't for sure. you know basically there's going to be a spacial sequential factor. but you don't know that we're going to be effectively done before illinois ramps up. so we can't be literally new yorkers all of the equipment, illinois has none and then we run to illinois with the equipment. it can't be that literal. but essentially, it would work. and the alternative is also true. not everybody should have to buy everything. once we get through this, and we have whatever we wind up with, 15,000 ventilators and 15,000

ventilators splitters and 1,100 by-paps, if we can help somebody else, we'll help somebody else. >> governor, 800 police officers called in sick this morning. are you worried about law enforcement staffing in new york >> oh, i'm worried about staffing. am i worried? yes. you're going to see it with health care workers. you're going to see it with all first responders. back to my brother chris, if you're out there, your chance of getting infected is very high. yes. and we will do whatever we need to backfill. >> you talked about forming a consortium with states. is that still possible? >> what's happening, nick, is it is almost impossible to buy a

ventilator. to the extent anyone is successful in buying ventilators, fema basically came in and is now capturing the market. because the ventilators are coming out of china and fema basically big-footed the states in china. so to the extent anyone is buying it it, it's fema. and that's why the federal distribution is going to be so important, because they are the only ones. i can't buy a ventilator. i can't buy a ventilator. whatever we're willing to pay, i can't buy a ventilator. so it really comes down to how the federal government distributes it. and that's why it's so important. let's do someone who hasn't asked a question. >> governor, what happens when the state runs out of

ventilators? >> when the state runs out of ventilators, where do i decide to get some? >> how do you decide who gets ventilators when you run out? >> first, i don't even want to think about that consequence. i'm going to do everything i can to have as many ventilators as we need. [ inaudible ] 7 to 21 days, there's no protocol. we're working to get as many ventilators. and we have now a number of options. looking at all of the ventilators all across the state, we are then redeploying anesthesia machines as ventilators by changing a vent. we're then doing this ventilator splitting, which effectively turns one ventilator into two, by literally running two tubes. we're using northwell developed an idea to use a bypap machine.

we ordered 7,000 of those. so we're still in it. we're creative and we're working and figuring it out. and i still am hopeful at the end of the day we have what you need. >> governor, i don't know if you said this on topic, many people think it is, do you plan on signing extension bills so state employees will get paid on time? >> i plan on signing a budget. rob, can the state employees -- when we pass a budget -- we pass a budget on time, state employees get paid, right? >> the controller has the legal authority to make payments now. the payments that are due tomorrow and today, those are actually for payroll from two weeks ago. so the controller presently has the authority. they have a technical issue with their computer system they need to deal with, but they have the authority to make those payments. today has nothing to do with when the budget is passed. the budget is always passed on

the 31st or 1st of each year so that is about a controller's office issue. >> so the pay period begins in the next fiscal year? >> yes, that's right. they have sufficient appropriation authority to make those payments presently. >> it's going to be late though because the way the pay period fell this year, right? >> no, it has nothing to do with how the pay period fell. they presently have the authority to do it and present legal authority and appropriations to make the payments. >> we never not play the state employees. everyone in the budget was late. >> so what's the update to the budget at this point? >> no update. see how easy that is? it's either coming or not coming. we are where we are. the numbers are what the numbers are. the numbers don't lie. the numbers leave you fuel alternatives. federal government says they will provide funding.

if they provide the funding, then the next few months we should have some additional money. but am i going to say to the people of the state i believe the federal government will deliver money to the state government? heard it before, and it didn't happen. so i'm not going to count on money that we don't have. >> right. >> especially when the political process is the process that's supposed to deliver the money. >> and it doesn't look like there's going to be a new relief bill any time soon, at least by tomorrow. so what options are left now for the state? what spending is ultimately going to be cut in the budget? >> well, it's all -- it's interesting because it's all basically contingent. we have the budget. we do a budget on the projections we now have. if we get more funding, we increase the allocations. if we don't get more funding, we reduce the allocations. that's basically what the budget

says, right? it's essentially honest and transparent in a way. i'm starting the year, i'm earning $15,000 a year. i don't know what i can pay you, because i don't know what i will be earning as we go through the year. the boss tells me he's going to give me a raise. i don't know if i should believe him or not. some people say there's going to be a cut. i don't really know. so here's the budget. i'm making $15,000. if i get a raise, i will give you the raise quarterly as i get it. if i get cut, i will give you less quarterly as i get cut. that's all you can do. >> the legislature -- and good day.

i'm mitch mcconnell in washington. we've been listening to governor cuomo the past hour as the death toll he announced from the coronavirus here in the united states is now more than 3,000. higher than the total from 9/11 and more than 40% of the confirmed cases are indeed in new york, where the governor just announced his state has more than 75,000 positive cases of covid-19. and 1,550 deaths. that's up more than 300 since just yesterday. the governor telling new yorkers to continue to stay at home, to stop the spread of the virus, warning that the hospital capacity in new york could be exceeded by two times. he said that officials had underestimated the magnitude of the virus. he predicted the apex of the virus will occur in the next 7 to 21 days. this as his brother, cnn anchor chris cuomo announced this morning on twitter he has tested positive and is experiencing symptoms of coronavirus. there are full or partial

state@home orders in 40 states as a national push. dr. anthony fauci said it may indeed come back and strike next fall. >> in fact, i would anticipate that would actually happen because of the degree of transmissibility. however, if you come back in the fall, it will be a totally different ball game. our ability to go out and test, identify, isolate and contact trace will be orders of magnitude better. what we're going through now is going to be more than just lessons learned. it's going to be things we have available to us that we did not have before. >> dr. fauci has also said the key to beating this as it spreads from urban to rule areas across the country is testing and contact tracing. but the president told governors just yesterday he's not aware of a problem with the test kits. more on that in a moment. first to new york city be and nbc's rob allen, who's in central park where the army corps of engineers set up a field office for covid-19 as a

relief valve for city hospitals already overwhelmed, and indeed preparing for a surge from the pandemic. ron, the situation there? >> andrea, this is samaritans christian charity setting up this field out here. they're expecting to get their first patient some time later today and working with area hospitals, mt. sinai in particular, to try to coordinate who comes here. this is going to be a completely covid-19 patient facility out here in the middle of central park. just an unbelievable scene when you think of what central park is and how significant it is to new york. to some extent that's also symbolic. this is a relatively small place, small facility. it's about oh, 70 patients that bring their own medical team as well. but around the city where you heard the governor say hospital capacity is a huge issue. the mayor said he wants to increase 20,000 beds here

three-fold. we know the navy shift "comfort" arrived to help out. we know they opened up a several thousand bed facility at the jacob javits convention center. so it's a real race against time to increase the capacity for doing what they can here and we expect to see some patients coming some time later today, in the next few hours. andrea? >> thanks so much to ron allen. now i'm joined by dr. vita patel, internal medical physician from the health directorship of the obama administration and dr. riley, executive director of new york. welcome both. dr. riley, the situation in new york, how dire is that now, the hospitals you're seeing and physicians you're aware of? >> andrea, delighted to be with you. the situation in new york is escalating. the governor is right. we're stressed. the hospitals all over the new york city metropolitan area are

seeing increasing number of patients show up with symptoms. some may be the worried well but many do require hospitalizations. even in our own hospital, 65% of the folks that we test, test positive for coronavirus. about 22% of them require icu care. so, again, the governor is so right that the situation is pretty similar all over new york city. if you put it in a national context, andrea, it was only a mere 63 days ago on january 20th when we had the first reported case in the united states, and here we are today, 175,000 cases. >> it's extraordinary. i wanted to bring in dr. patel as well on the whole question of masks. to use them, not to use them, let me play a little of what dr. zeke emanuel had to say on lawrence odom's "last word" last

night. >> it's been theople who aren't either sick with covid-19 or caring for someone sick with covid-19 should not be wearing them. i think that's probably wrong or at least overly restrictive and here's how i have been thinking about it. i have to say to people that my mind has changed over the last five days to think about this. there are no randomized controls, scientific trials confirming the value of these masks. but that doesn't mean they're not helpful. they could be helpful and, besides, there's no real negative consequence to wearing them. >> dr. riley, what is your take on that? >> well, one of the potential negatives -- >> no problem. both of us could answer, andrea. thanks. and here's probably the best way to think about it, the masks --

there are two different types of masks. the machsks a lot of us in heal care need are the n95 masks that protect you when you're doing procedures and have a lot more exposure. what zeke and others are talking about are what you see in countries like singapore and china, what people do normally, wear the masks with the little loops around their ears. many of us in the health community are also starting to change our minds and say it's not a bad idea to consider the public wear them. my concern about it, andrea, is we still don't have enough of these masks for health care personnel. we are starting to have enough but it seems like it's a little bit too soon to tell the entire public anything other than stay at home and maybe to consider wearing masks as we try to resume a little more normal activity. >> and dr. riley, let me ask you about the changing direction

from the president and his medical advisers after they almost argued with him about extending the stay at home, which is now in more than 40 states. where do you see that, according to the modeling that you're looking at, they're looking importantly at the university of washington out in washington state at their modeling. >> absolutely the right thing to do from a public and medical health point of view. and i'm glad dr. anthony fauci and dr. birx prevailed the president to do that. dr. fauci is a national treasure and i know kveta worked with him as well. he's a voice of reason and scientific and medical expertise this nation really needs to pay attention to at this time. so i fully endorse the extension of the 30-day period. again, that may be subject to change as well. as the governor said, this is

the beginning of the apex. we're just about to hit that apex period in new york city. it may happen in chicago. really worried about my beloved hometown of new orleans. so, no, this is the right thing to do nationally. >> thanks so much dr. patel, wayne riley as well. and joining us test kits fo covid-19 was still an issue yesterday when montana's governor steve bullock campaigned about it on a govern and as well dr. fauci. >> do you have any system in place that you feel would dramatically identify cases and isolate them and contact trace them, or the capabilities and resources that that's not something you can do given with what you have? >> dr. fauci, we are trying to contact trace. but literally we are one day away if we don't get test kits

from the cdc, we wouldn't be able to successfully do that. >> tell me in contention if you want but i have not heard about low test kits. >> and joining me now phil rucker, white house bureau chief and ashley parker, white house national reporter, both msnbc political analysts. phil, first to you, you heard the president interrupting or joining that conversation, i guess, and telling steve bullock from montana, the governor who's now running for the senate, i should point out, a democratic governor, he hasn't heard anything about the tests. one would ask where has he been? >> yeah, andrea, the testing showed a chronic problem for weeks, if not months now, in this country. i'm sure the white house has done some work in partnership with private industry to speed up the testing, make it more available from around the country. but it's still not solved the problem and we hear again and

again from governors out in the country they don't have access to enough tests. once the tests are completed, it has taken too long to get the results. so we're not able to get the depth and level of data that they need to be doing their own mitigation effort in their states. and it's a problem they raised with the white house. why the president is unaware of it, i can't say. but he should be aware of it. he certainly has been briefed on it. >> ashley, you and your colleagues in "the washington post" wrote today about what influenced the president to back down? clearly listening to dr. birx and listening to dr. fauci, but also as his position on this whole crisis evolved, political considerations from his economic team and well as his son-in-law changed their opinions. >> that's exactly right. and i don't want to say it was only political considerations because it wasn't. it was him listening to the scientists, having a very good and warm chemistry with especially dr. birx. it was as he said publicly

seeing the images out of elmhurst hospital in queens in the shadow where he grew up. but there was a political undercurrent as well. the president, as we understand, was told by campaign advisers and allies basically that he would pay more of a political price. of course, it's a virus spiraled out of -- further out of control and there were more deaths than he would for an economic shutdown. there's a belief that was communicated to him that as of now, he doesn't own any of the downside of the economy. it's a global pandemic, and he will own all of the upside if and when the economy rebounds, but a number of allies and advisers told him, you will own these deaths. you will owe what happens with the coronavirus and that and the models and numbers he was shown, these very grim forecasts, helped get him to abruptly the turnaround we saw in the rose garden sunday and extend the

social distancing until the end of april. >> so our friends in "the new york times" also writing an article, pointing out as you and ashley have certainly noted, so many of the president's personal attacks are against women, whether it's governor whitmer from michigan, amisha cinder, obviously nancy pelosi. but when they really get personal, they seem to be women. has he figured that out? >> and also, andrea, the ceo of general motors who the president lamb blasted last week. this was something that existed even before he became president. he always had a difficulty leading with women leaders, strong leaders, competent leaders. we saw the way he treated his opponent in 2016, hillary clinton. and he did it with especially the michigan governor, he had a hard time figuring out how to deal with them in the limelight and performing their jobs well.

>> phil rucker and ashley parker from "the washington post," thank you both. and coming up -- as governments around the world fight the coronavirus, emergency decrees are giving leaders more and more power. what happens when the emergency is over? former national security adviser and u.n. ambassador susan rice joining me next. stay with us. you're watching andrea mitchell reports. itchell reports. did you know prilosec otc can stop frequent heartburn

before it begins? heartburn happens when stomach acid refluxes into the esophagus. prilosec otc uses a unique delayed-release formula that helps it pass through the tough stomach acid. it then works to turn down acid production, blocking heartburn at the source. with just one pill a day, you get 24-hour heartburn protection. prilosec otc. one pill a day, 24 hours, zero heartburn. in so many ways. which cage free eggs taste fresher and more delicious? only eggland's best. which organic eggs have more vitamins and less saturated fat? only eggland's best. better taste, better nutrition, better eggs.

as the covid-19 pandemic spreads, leaders around the world are invoking executive powers, passing emergency decrees and legislation expanding their permits. they are using the crisis to grab more power. joining us, susan rice, former u.s. ambassador to the united nations. her "new york times" best-selling book is "tough love my story of the things worth fighting for." thank you for joining us. let's talk about the parliament passing a controversial bill giving their leader in hungary rights that others are defending and others around are modeling. >> it's really quite extraordinary. we've had a problem obviously in hungary for white a while where victor orban has repeatedly demonstrated his autocratic tendencies but this power grab is near complete.

he's taken all the reins indefinitely, and there's nothing to check him. we now have a member of the european union that is essentially an outright dictator champion. and given the values, given the institutions of the european parliament can be tolerated. we've seen it elsewhere as you point out from the philippines, of course, where you wouldn't be surprised to see it, to israel, where you might be surprised to see it. where prime minister netanyahu has also used this opportunity to consolidate power under him and eliminate a number of freedoms that israelis have become accustomed to. so this is a trend, and it's a worrying trend and one we have to guard against and stand up very clearly in opposition to. >> secretary pompeo has seemingly backed down a little bit from what he has been referring to as the wuhan virus. we've seen this after a call

between president trump and president xi in china, but it did -- the wuhan virus meme that came from pompeo did break up a g7 foreign ministers call last week where they couldn't reach agreement on steps forward because of the insistence by the american secretary of state that this be blamed on china. >> andrea, it's shameful. for the united states to be race ba baiting and to be -- a virus which never has a flag, can't have a flag as being the providence of one country is designed to be decisive. it's designed to stigmatize people of asian descent and it's not the way the leadership of the united states, the secretary of state and the president of the united states ought to be behaving, in the best of times, but certainly not in a crisis.

the reality is that viruses can arise in any corner of the globe and spread to any corner of the globe. in 2009, when we were dealing with the swine flu pandemic, that arose in north america. in mexico and then in the united states before it spread across the planet. so it doesn't serve us well. it doesn't serve the objective of squelching the virus globally. to brand it in nationalistic or xenophobic or racist terms, we all have to work together on this. we can stamp out this virus effectively, eventually in the united states. china may be able to do it on its side of the world, but if it's not stamped out everywhere, it will come back, be resurgent and be our problem yet again. so the reality of this is we have a global problem. it's worse in the united states right now. it's worse, frankly, than it needed to be given the lack of preparedness, given the lack of focus, given downplaying of the

threat. a lost two months where the administration didn't take the time that we could have utilized to put in place the mechanism so that we have the masks, we have the ventilators and the tests. and now we're playing catch-up. but it didn't need to be this bad. when the president of the united states gleefully says on sunday that we'll be -- we will have done a very good job if we can limit the deaths in the united states to 100,000 to 200,000 people. i'm not sure what circle of hell one has to be in for that to be a very good outcome. it's a tragic, terrible outcome and now ambassador deborah birx is saying that's the best case scenario. if we all do our utmost. so this is a challenge that we have, first and foremost here in the united states, but it's also a global challenge. it's going to require all of us to do our parts from social distancing to supporting our health care workers and our first responders, and it's going

to require presidential leadership of a sort we've not yet ever seen from donald trump. >> finally, we just have a few seconds left. i want to share one of your tweets. you wrote, you go girl. pathetic when insecure men can't stomach strong black women. brief comment? >> the only thing i might add to that is maybe i should have just said strong women. he has a particular problem, it seems, with black women. but as was pointed out in your earlier segment, it's a problem that applies to women with strong personalities and a willingness to stand up for themselves and their beliefs across the board. it's a sad thing. it's a reflection of one's own insecurity. it's not a reflection of the talent or the capacities of the women we're talking about. and i hope very much that we can move beyond that. it's so unbecoming in the context of a national crisis for the president to lash out at individuals, whether the

governor of michigan or the speaker of the house or a reporter who asked a very fair, tough question. so as i said, for us to get through this maximally, it's going to require each of us as citizens to dour part. thank god for the governors and mayors and those stepping up and taking this crisis as seriously as it deserves to be taken but at the end of the day, there isn't a substitution for leadership coming out of the white house. the white house needs to be stepping in, prioritizing the federal procurement of massive tests of ppe, of ventilators and distributing them on a rational basis. they can't have states competing against each other, against the federal government. it's chaos. and we don't need that kind of chaos. we need leadership. >> thank you so much, susan rice, former national security adviser. that does it for "andrea mitchell reports." and chris jansing will pick it up after the break.

join savannah guthrie and hoda kotb for our special tonight on all of our networks. l of our ne. can it one up breakfast in bed? yeah, for sure. thanks, boys. what about that? uhh, yep! it can? yeah, even that! i would very much like to see that. me too. introducing new tide power pods. one up the toughest stains with 50% more cleaning power than liquid detergent. any further questions? uh uh! nope! one up the power of liquid with new tide power pods. gimme two minutes. eligible for medicare. and i'll tell you some important things to know about medicare. first, it doesn't pay for everything. say this pizza... [mmm pizza...] is your part b medical expenses. this much - about 80 percent... medicare will pay for. what's left... this slice here... well... that's on you. and that's where an aarp medicare supplement insurance plan,

insured by unitedhealthcare insurance company comes in. this type of plan helps pay some of what medicare doesn't. and these are the only plans to carry the aarp endorsement. that's because they meet their high standards of quality and service. wanna learn more? it's easy. call unitedhealthcare insurance company now and ask... for this free decision guide. inside you'll find the range of aarp medicare supplement plans and their rates. apply any time, too. oh. speaking of time... about a little over half way and there's more to tell. like, how... with this type of plan, you'll have the freedom to choose any doctor who accepts medicare patients. great for staying with the one you know... or finding... somebody new, like a specialist. there are no networks and no referrals needed. none. and when you travel, your plan will go with you anywhere in the country. so, if you're in another state visiting the grandkids,

stay awhile... enjoy... and know that you'll still be able to see any doctor who accepts medicare patients. so call unitedhealthcare today. they are committed to being there for you. tick, tick, tick, time for a wrap up. a medicare supplement plan helps pay some of what medicare doesn't. you know, the pizza slice. it allows you to choose any doctor, who accepts medicare patients... and these are the only plans of their kind endorsed by aarp. whew! call unitedhealthcare today and ask for this free decision guide. to help you stay informed just say "coronavirus" into your xfinity voice remote to access important information and special reports from around the world. and to keep your kids learning at home, say "education" to discover learning collections for all ages from our partners at common sense media, curiosity stream, history vault, reading corner and many others. for more information on how you can stay connected, visit xfinity.com/prepare.