>> dr. fauci, should americans be prepared that there will be 100,000 americans who die from this virus? >> the answer is yes. as sobering a number as that is, we should be prepared for it. is it going to be that much? i hope not and i think the more we push on the mitigation, the less likelihood it would be that number. but, as being realistic, we need to prepare ourselves that that is a possibility that that's what we will see. >> a very short period of time for that to happen, account country hand that will in such a short period of time, within a couple of months? 50,000 a month? >> it will be difficult. no one is denying the fact that we're going through a very, very difficult time right now. we see what's happening in new york, that is really, really tough. if you extrapolate that to the nation, that will be tough. but that's what it is. >> the coming weeks are going to be very, very hard on america.

good morning and welcome to "morning joe." it is wednesday, april 1st. along with joe, willie and me we have former white house adviser for health policy professor and advice proboast, doctor ezekiel emanuel. and cofounder and ceo of axios, jim vandehei joins us as well. joe, that press briefing yesterday was dark. there was some hard truths that came forward in one big dose for the united states of america. >> that is a press briefing that health care providers and doctors and scientists begged, begged the white house to give two weeks ago. to tell americans the truth. that is actually the briefing the intel community begged donald trump to give in january

and february. they saw this coming even several weeks ago, doctors i know very well, scientists, health care professionals were saying, mr. president, 100,000, 200,000, 500,000 people could die from this virus if you don't start moving. the president didn't want to hear it. this is, after all, a president who talked about one person dying and one person from china, but we've got it taken care of, it will be zero. and then soon after that in february he was talking about, oh, we have 14, 15 people who were infected but we've done such a good job it's going to go down to zero. then, of course, he said the media was overblowing it, that their coverage was a hoax of the pandemic, that it was going to go away. and then he said that it would go away in april, the sun would come out, it would magically go away.

and, willie, yesterday we found out because the scientists and the doctors told the truth and the president finally let them tell the truth to the american people. and, again, what they said yesterday is what the president was urged to tell the american people two weeks ago. but now we go from the president blindly predict this was going to go away in april when the sun came out, the flowers would bloom and everybody would be fine, to us finally being told the truth, that april is, as elliot said, april is the cruellest month and we can expect 100 to 250,000 deaths in this country over the next two, three weeks. >> good scenario. >> if, if we do everything right now. since our response to this has been so delayed and so pathetic

up until last week. >> yeah, i know we're going to talk a lot about what the president said a couple months ago, what he said a couple weeks ago, what he said just last week. it was last week he was talking about opening the economy again by easter for some parts of the country. he talked yesterday about, hey, this is not the flu. a lot of people have been saying it's the flu. the president said it was the flu a couple of weeks ago. we'll get into all of that. but just the numbers alone, i've heard the word sobering used a lot. i would say staggering when they're showing these numbers that even with current social distancing guidelines in place, 100,000 to 240,000 potential deaths. and if the measures don't stay in place, that death toll could be higher. the next few weeks we're told will be the worst. >> i want everyone american to be prepared for the hard days that lie ahead. we're going to go through a very

tough two weeks. and then hopefully, as the experts are predicting, as i think a lot of us are predicting after having studied it so hard, you're going to start seeing some real light at the end of the tunnel. but this is going to be a very painful, very, very painful two weeks. >> in the next several days to a week or so we're going to continue to see things go up. we cannot be discouraged by that because the mitigation is actually working and will work. >> there's no magic bullet. there's no magic vaccine or therapy. it's just behaviors. each of our behaviors translating into something that changes the course of this viral pandemic over the next 30 days. >> the next couple of weeks we're going to be seeing some serious things that the american public unfortunately is going to have to get used to seeing. what we're doing with the mitigation is to try and blunt that, but no matter what we do,

even with the, i believe, positive effects that we're seeing with the mitigation, it's going to be a tough couple of weeks coming up. >> now, we've heard, zeke emmanuel, that nobody could have seen this coming. the fact is everybody saw this coming. everybody saw this coming in early january. so i know you, like me, have wanted the president to give this sobering press conference for weeks. and what happened in a strange way yesterday was a bit of relief because it was the first time that actually the president allowed his scientists and doctors to say the sort of things that you've been saying all along. as grim as yesterday's press conference was, as grim as the news was, it actually was a step in the right direction because it tells the truth about the hell we're about to go through, but also says how we can avoid

it in the future. what was your takeaway from yesterday? >> that the president had a conversion experience. he, you know, confronted the numbers and could not wiggle out of the numbers. and i notice, you know, you and willie emphasizing the 100,000 to 250,000, 240,000 people who might die in this country if everything goes right and everyone begins to adhere to these physical distancing measures and we can actually get the mitigation that dr. fauci's been talking about in place. but the fact is, we haven't been doing it right for a long time. and the other graph that they showed was even grimmer, which was 1.5 million to 2 million people dying if we don't get these measures in place. and that translates to 150 million to 200 million americans actually infected with this virus. and i've been saying that for

several weeks have been pillerried on the right wing media because i've been saying if we don't do something in the next seven to 14 days, we're going to have more than 100 million people infected. and, you know, three, i think you've been a little generous and willie's been a little generous. two weeks ago we needed this. that's certainly true. we needed it two weeks ago. but people have been warning about this for three or four weeks, since the start of march, that we need to get on this and do this. so i think there's been i real conversion experience. i think the real question is, how long does it last in the white house? we have had one or two grim press conferences before right after the imperial college of london's estimate came out about two weeks ago the president gave a sort of sober press conference and then was right back to championing chloroquine and we only needed 15 days. this is going to be a long haul. i think dr. fauch schi right fa

and we have about another seven days to get this in place. we're behind the eight ball. go ahead, joe, sorry. >> you go. you go. >> i would take a moment of optimism, you know. i'm generally a very optimistic guy. and i have been talking to my colleagues in the medical schools in seattle and san francisco in particular, places that were hit hard, hit early, and that, you know, seattle especially where they had the first case of this. and they did this physical distancing and mitigation measures pretty early because they were shocked. and they do seem to be working. so that comment that dr. fauci made that white deaths will be going up, this social distancing and mitigation, wearing the masks will make a difference and we won't see it for a while because it's what we call a lagging indicator in the health field, that does seem to be

happening and there are some glimmers that you really can make a difference and the data aren't just from china or other places, they're from actually places in the united states, places that jumped on it. you're going to need a president who can lead that the moment that things are getting worse but we're able to see around the corner and it's really going to be better in weeks. and i think, you know, this idea of 30 days does bother me a little bit because it's too short. >> yeah. you know -- >> it's not honest, yeah. >> you are right about washington state, there's some positive glimmers of hope coming out of washington state. even italy who's been through a month of hell, you're starting to see a slight bending of the curve in italy. those believing that things are getting better. but i do want to underline the recklessness of talk show radio hosts and people online and trumpists, these trump hacks,

jim vandehei, who push and who have been mocking people like zeke emanuel who warned about this day coming and so they, of course, are attacked online. i was attacked online by an idiot about quoting the imperial college study. and then, of course, the president is now quoting those same numbers. so, of course, i'm sure they'll fall in line and talk about how brilliant donald trump was. these miracle cures, i've seen quacks and demagogs and people getting on and talking about hydrochloroquine, how it's a miracle drug and how everybody who ever took it recovered and it's a miracle drug. even donald trump yesterday backing off of that saying we still have a ways to go after the press conference. but you have that and, jim, i will really -- i'm almost at a loss for words about what's happening in the state of

florida with ron desantis who refused to cancel spring break, who refused to get people off of sand bars where 100 boats would crowd around and people would have drinking parties all weekend next to each other, who is still refusing to close restaurants, who is still refusing to do what every health care expert in the world is begging leaders like him to do. and he's not doing it in the state that has -- has millions of senior citizens. and they are dying. they are beginning to die. and yet he's still not moving, jim. and i -- i must say, i don't get it. >> yeah, i mean, i think the deniers are going to have to live with the stain of this for a lifetime. there's no way -- like now you look dla usingaelusional if you

listening to what is now a consensus. it took donald trump a long time to get there, as you talked about for months, but now we're there. there's a national consensus, republicans, scientists, doctors, anybody who's looked at the data, who's looked at the science now agrees that there's a real chance that 100,000 to 250,000 die, if we don't take quick action it could be higher than that. that the effect will mean there's going to be quarantine for almost everybody, probably not just april, definitely may, potentially into june, that you needed that economic package just to be able to keep the economy afloat for the next two months. you're probably going to need another two, three, four trillion dollars just in stimulus to be able to get the economy back up and running. so anybody who's out there, whether you're on fox or whether you're a governor and you're still saying, well, i don't know, did we have to take swift action, it's nonsensical. look at china, look at italy, look at spain, new york, new orleans, detroit, this isn't

rocket science. it's not a political debate. the consensus is there. so the big question is, and even i read dr. emanuel's piece, there's a way to get people back by june, if people make smart decisions. if people in florida are paritying and infecting elderly people who are at such high risk, shame on them. that's going to require additional presidential pressure. there hasn't been a national mandate that everybody quarantine. the next step is he's going to have to get out there and force people to do the things that they have to do even if there's bad economic consequences in the short-term. >> mika, bill gates wrote an op-ed where he said you have to make this shutdown national because -- >> right. >> -- americans travel from state to state. you can't shut down one state and let people go to restaurants in other states because we still travel. we still go across state lines.

florida can't stop people from coming in to its state and other states can't stop floridians from going to their state. so unless it's a national shutdown, florida will continue with its policies killing senior citizens and exporting death to senior citizens in other states unless florida and every other state shuts down and begins to take this seriously. >> and that's all responding to it. i mean, zeke, this is here to stay. we're being held hostage to this until there's mass uniform testing or a vaccine. and yesterday we got a lot of information on how many people were going to die and the fact that we need ventilators and we get a sense that the states are still in a situation where they're competing with practically everybody, even the federal government, for supplies to help respond to this. but what about being able to map forward? i mean, under what scenario

would you advise the president to relax the physical distancing standards if there's no mass uniform testing, including antibody testing? >> i think you're absolutely right, mika, which is you can only begin to relax these standards once we see several things in the data. you have to see that the total number of new places has plateaued, that the actual percentage of patients infected is going down. and that requires the data. and as, you point out, a kind of infrastructure for public health. you need testing and, you know, we probably need more than a million a day in the united states, not 100,000 a day. you need contact tracing. so if someone tests positive, you can actually contact their people, connections to the tech companies that know how people move, who they interact with so we can do it rapidly, and you do need this well -- big important

change in behavior that has become habitual. i go out, i put a mask on. i come in i wash my hands. i wash my hands 20, 30 times a day. and i don't spew out droplets outside. those are big changes for americans. and if we don't see that rapidly and we're only going to be able to see that rapidly if we have leadership. leadership from the president, leadership from all the other elected officials and celebrities and everyone else. behavior change is really hard. we know that. and yet we have to do it rapidly if we're going to get a hold of this. but i think you're also right, no magic cures. we've got to be done with that that it's going to be chloroquine. it might be chloroquine, but we need the trials and we need the data. the important element here is no opening up without solid evidence that we've actually turned the corner and gotten it down to zero and can have the infrastructure to squash it wherever it pops up. >> i did think it was interesting yesterday the president's been spouting

chloroquine as a miracle drug. >> he pulled back a little. >> he has no idea whether it is or not, nobody knows whether it is or not because the studies have to be done. dr. fauci, dr. birx, and serious doctors understand that, that they're not going to give false hope because it's very dangerous. but know, willie, they had a list yefd all tsterday of all ts we were told about being wrong about this pandemic, and i guess a lot of that is natural if it's not done in bad faith by the federal government, the leader of the federal government of the executive branch at least, but one thing that's up in the air right now has to do with masks, has to do with whether this is transmitted via aerosol. and many people are starting to believe that it is. it doesn't mean if you -- i read this morning it doesn't mean that if you jog past somebody you're going to get it or if you're walking past somebody five feet away you're going to get it. it means if you're in the room with somebody, share the same

air, if you talk to them for a while, then, yes, people are starting to believe it's not just the droplets, as zeke said, it's also the aerosol that you could get this from. so now suddenly wearing masks seems to make sense. >> yeah, and the cdc is, in fact, considering, as we speak, making a formal recommendation that people not just people who have been infected, not just people who feel sick, but anyone who goes outdoors wear a mask if there's any chance you're going to be in contact with somebody. that's, by the way, something doctors have been telling me privately all the time. if you guys go outside, wear a mask. that's been going on for weeks and weeks and weeks. i wanted to make one other point you were talking about governor desantis. he said yesterday he's waiting for guidance from the federal government. he's waiting for guidance on the task force. as we talk about florida, one of the coming hot spots in this pandemic, well, president trump has a close relationship with governor desantis. if governor desantis isn't perceptive enough to see where

this is head and what it could do to his state, we should implore the president to make that phone call to governor desantis if he's waiting for donald trump to tell him what do. please, mr. president, call the governor and tell him what do because it's coming to florida and it's coming fast. dr. emanuel, i wanted to ask you a question that was posed at the news conference yesterday which is this. if the federal government had put in place mitigation efforts earlier, if the federal government had taken this more seriously a month ago, two months ago, would we not be looking that the staggering curve that shows the potential for 100,000 to 240,000 deaths, as you point out, in a best case scenario? so i'll ask you that question. if we had take then seriously as a federal government, much earlier, what would that number look like compared to what it is today? >> well, i mean, again, the 100,000 to 250 is a best-case scenario. i'm not a modeler and i'm not privileged to the modeling at

the moment. but it certainly, again, remember, part of it is how high that curve is, how many people die. part of it is how much it's spread out so you don't have the maihem you have in new york city hospitals at the moment. it's certainly the case two months ago if we had done the social distancing measures and this physical distancing mitigation measures we would have probably been able to keep that peak much lower and spread it out so we wouldn't have chaos, the fighting for ventilators, the lack of ppe, and all the other things that have come with it. the exact peak, willie, i can't tell you what it would have been. but it probably would have been 50 to 100,000 out there. and it would have been spread out. we wouldn't have had this surge, which i think, again, we have to remember that's just as important. and we wouldn't have a worst case scenario of being 2 million, which i think again people are not talking about. but that's a real admission by the president and the white house that if this -- if we don't actually act, we could

have -- basically double the number of americans who die in a year. and i think that, if there's anything that should be sobering and really make people fearful, it's that number that this is what happens if florida is the norm and we don't adopt what has happened in seattle or san francisco as the norm. and i think that's -- you know, that's the choice we have. >> well, if ron desantis, mr. president, is too much of a coward to shut down the state of florida on his own, you need to give him a call today and tell him to shut down the state of florida. are there goior there are going be a lot of dead senior citizens that are going to have to be buried over the next couple months because of this virus. that's science. that's not politics, it's republicans as well as democrats that are going to die. people in the greatest

generation ar a l generation, a lot of them born in world war ii or born during the great depression and grew up and were around during world war ii and help build the american century. those are the people who are being betrayed and abandoned right now because the governor of the state of florida won't shut down beaches and sand bars. and i tell you, last weekend, i saw pictures from last weekend the sand bars were still packed. by the way, mr. president, a lot of trump flags on the boats at the sand bars with people acting like total jackasses infecting each other, taking those viruses home and infecting their grandparents and sending them to hospitals. >> that's not branding, i don't know what gets through to him. >> that's happening every weekend in florida. the recklessness is just unbelievable. please call ron desantis since he doesn't have a backbone,

apparently. since he still can't see everything that's been happening over the past couple of months and still won't do what is required to save senior citizens from -- from this hellish end to their life. dying alone. >> right. >> dying alone. give him a call today, mr. president, and tell him to do the right thing and shut down florida. this impacts you too. if you don't want to do it for the right reason, do it for the political reason. so jim vandehei, we all know what a mess florida is. it's a state i certainly know an awful lot about. you know an awful lot about the state of wisconsin. i recehaven't heard a whole lot coming out of wisconsin as far as reckless behavior. a lot of floridians still don't get it because of the president and because of ron desantis. what about in wisconsin?

how, for the most part, what are you hearing out of your home state? >> it's not been hit as hard as others. they're certainly having a very similar directives from the governor there. michigan's getting hit a lot harder right now than the state of wisconsin is. but any state, whether it's desantis or anyone else, you got your directive last night. name the last time the president of the united states stood in front of the american people and warned with specificity the number of people that are going to die and then followed it up with the precise steps that you have to take to be able to avoid it? he doesn't need a call? who needs a call from the president in the president is basically endorsed what's going on in new york. this isn't -- again, it's not science, it's not rocket science. you know now exactly what you have to be able to do. and history won't forget yesterday. it was an astonishing press conference where you have the president of the united states telling us grimly, darkly in a somber tone we've never seen before from him that death is coming and it's coming fast.

and then individuals, this is rare, like how many times can he individually do something to decrease the chances of someone else dying? you actually have that opportunity. and now everybody has to do it. or, as dr. emanuel said, 250 might have been wishful thinking. those decisions could be made today. you should be picking what happened the last two months. for people to say stop harping on the past, the reason you have to harp on the past, is that this will happen again. there are steps that you could write down in a book. they were written down in a book, by the way, of what you have to do if a pandemic is coming. how do you have to mobilize your industry? how do you have to move into lockdown? how do you have to mobilize the federal government in the stuff is known and now it's even more known and hopefully people now put this into practice going forward. >> and, yeah, we do have to continue keeping the pressure on. you know, i've been calling for -- i'll just say it, i've been calling friends in the white house for a couple weeks now begging them to do two weeks

ago what they did yesterday. begging them to be more serious. as you know, when i came on this show i irritated a lot of people by encouraging the president, agreeing that we're all on the same team when he held press conferences where he seemed to understand the gravity of this, we talked about that in the positive sense. but while there was gravity yesterday, what happens today? what happens tomorrow? is he going to continue behaving that way like a president who is facing one of the grimmest months in the history of our republic? let us hope so, because, willie, here's what we know. according to the president, and according to dr. birx and according to dr. fauci, this is what we know. we know more americans are going to die in april than died on 9/11. we know more americans are going to die in april than died in the revolutionary war, the war of

1812, world war i most likely, vietnam. go back to the korean war. our decade in afghanistan. in fact, you can add up most of those wars, other than world war i, and more people are going to die in the month of april from this pandemic that the president and his allies dismissed as the flu, that rush limbaugh dismissed as the flu, that everybody that sucked up to donald trump dismissed as an exaggerated hoax, this is -- this is what we are facing in this coming month. and it's the most sobering part of it. look at this, more people are going to die this month than died on september 11th, the afghanistan war, the iraq war, and the vietnam war just from this. and, mika, it actually -- this is the best case scenario.

>> right. >> if we do everything right. if florida shuts down, and if everybody shuts down, 100 to 240,000 is the best case scenario. it could be worse. >> the president says he closed the borders. he knew about it. every time he talks about closing the borders, he lets us know he chose not to ramp up on testing. he chose not to put together a team, perhaps refill the pandemic office that he emptied out. he chose not to stock up on masks and supplies. he is telling us that he knew about this and did nothing every time he talks about the one thing he did. >> but hold on. willie, he didn't even close the borders the correct way with china. i know there are a lot of people that say democrats, how dare you close -- close the borders for god sake! i mean, that's -- that's -- that's just not hard to figure out. close the borders from china. and yet. >> it was piecemeal. >> and yet it was piecemeal, like, you know, he sat there

talking about the wall and all this other stuff when he should have been talking about testing. i said time and time again, just shut the damn borders and get us tests. just shut the damn borders and separate us. just shut the damn borders and do your job. and, willie, again, those numbers, those aren't the worst case scenarios. those are the best case scenarios if we do everything right from here on out. >> it's an incredible context that those numbers put it in. the best case scenario that we've laid out, you're into world war ii american casualties. if it keeps going the way dr. emanuel is zriepindescribin you're talking about world war ii numbers which is more astounding. but i would say all the lost time has cost lives. we've known donald trump for a long time. i think the way to tell him this is, your word is so powerful, 60 million people voted for you, all those people flying your flags defiantly on the sand bars

and saying we're going to stay out and party in the middle of this, they listen to you. they follow you to the ends of the earth. so whatever you say we wish you'd said a bunch of different things over the last three months but you haven't. you have to tell the people who listen to every word you're saying how serious this is right now and how important it is not just to their health, but to their family's health, to their neighbor's health that they stay inside, that they listen to these rules. the president's word is very powerful whether or not you agree with his words, he needs to speak out clearly like he did yesterday and continue to speak out clearly and not be distracted by fights with the media or conspiracy theories about hospitals stealing masks, any of that stuff. stay focused, stay on message. the people who love you, the people who follow you, the people who voted for you, they will listen. >> they depend on you. >> amen. they need to hear from you today, mr. president, like they heard from you yesterday. you need to speak directly to them and you need to speak to

ron desantis directly. your sword gold wiword is gold you can save lives that have already been put in jeopardy by what's happening in the past. but you can stop this from getting worse by calling ron desantis today and telling him to stop his reckless behavior and shut down the state of florida. >> jim vandehei, dr. zeke emanuel, thank you both. still ahead on "morning joe," two key voices from the u.s. senate minority whip dick durbin and connecticut's chris murphy. but first, we have live reports from the uk and italy. what cities like detroit and l.a. can learn from london and rome. and as we go to break, a heartwarming photo of help on the way for new york city hospitals. southwest airlines posted this picture on instagram on monday showing a group of health care workers from atlanta heading to new york to help fight the virus. the airline thanked them in the

post writing this. their selfless sacrifice is a beak d beacon of light during this dark time in our world and no amount of praise would be enough because of our courage, family, friends, coworkers and neighbors and more have a fighting chance. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. crisis comes to every presidency.

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and platelet donations and asks all healthy donors to schedule an appointment to give. now, with the corona virus outbreak, it is important to maintain a sufficient blood supply. your blood donation is critical and can help save lives. please schedule an appointment today. download the blood donor app. visit redcrossblood.org or call 1 800 red cross today. you can make a difference. welcome back to "morning joe." let's check in with two key cities in the world in this fight against coronavirus. in london, nbc news senior international correspondent keir simmons and in rome, nbc news foreign correspondent matt bradley. good morning to you both. keir, i'll start with you in london with new numbers that came in overnight in terms of

casualties from coronavirus. one of them a 13-year-old boy. what more can you tell us? >> reporter: yeah, that 13-year-old lad lived here in london. he's just -- they just announced that he had died. it's not clear whether he had underlying conditions. his family say that he was healthy. i mean, let me just paint a picture of where i'm standing which i think says everything about the situation in the uk despite small glimmers of hope in the numbers, behind me the mother of parliaments that you love on the show silenced. up on westminster bridge there, it's like that scene from the movie 28 days later. all you can hear pretty much echoing around this great city are the sirens. and, willie, i think around the world we are days away from there being a million cases. and i think in time those numbers may look small because we know that the cases double every three days.

that's what the scientists tell us. and then here in london there is the unsettling image of chinese help arriving. and that's happening in many, many countries. and, you know, there are many on the geopolitical side who are talking about china taking advantage of the situation while america is bleeding. i mean, there are many other questions about china, the numbers may not be accurate, the officials there themselves admitting that they aren't including the numbers of people who haven't been in the hospitals. there are questions for china about the supply side and the fact that the world relies so much on medical supplies from china. so i don't want to write history before history is written. but there are deeply concerning developments around the world even while america is rightly focused on the tragedy unfolding there. >> keir, obviously when prime

minister johnson announced he was positive with coronavirus, that was a pivot point in the uk in terms of people accepting the gravity of it. what more can you tell us about his condition this morning, how he's doing? >> reporter: well, he continues to attempt to lead the country, as we have said, while giving briefings from his -- from his cell phone. there are -- you never know, really, someone has to come out of isolation first, right? let me just tell you about another world leader, willie, and, again, it goes to this question of how this will play out, how historians will view this. president putin of russia, his chief medical officer has contracted coronavirus and there's a picture of president putin shaking hands with that medical officer. in russia, they're talking about not hearing from president putin as regularly as you might expect. he's certainly not leading from the front.

and so, look, the point is that there's just a long way to go. and we've said again and again that this virus is going to shake the world. and i think we don't know how in many senses. >> keir sims month, thank you so much. >> this was by video conference. keir, thanks so much. joe. >> i'm sorry. what were your saying, willie? >> he was talking about vladimir putin, we just learned that vladimir putin's going to give an address or at least hold a meeting by video conference to show himself, as keir said, russians have been wondering where he's been and he did have contact just recently a couple days ago, handshake contact with someone who has tested positive for coronavirus. >> well, and it wouldn't be a surprise if there were a problem there with their government. we've seen great britain, of course, it's not only boris johnson, but also his top adviser as well as health care official. so it's a possibility. let's go from london now to rome and talk to matt bradley.

matt, it's -- it's hard to find silver linings in italy over this last grim month, but some health officials there and across the world are suggesting that italy may, may be turning a corner. tell us about it. >> reporter: yeah, that's right. every morning i come up here and i'm the bearer of bad news. we heard there are 800 deaths, more than 4,000 infections. you could be forgiven for thinking that doesn't sound like good news. but scientists are not celebrating this, i don't want to go that far, but they did say it looks like it's plat towinea these are sky high numbers compared to what we see in a lot of other countries, but they're welcomed because they're similar to the numbers from the day before and the day before that. and that's why we heard from the head of the institute of health here saying that it looks as though there's a plateau here. this is kind of the beginning of the end.

this is what you start to see when we flatten the curve and you start to see the numbers then going down. so now instead of one person transferring this disease to two or three people, you're starting to see one person transferring the disease to maybe one other person. and that's progress. that's those low bars that we're setting here with progress is that the disease is being transferred to fewer and fewer people. that's vindication for the very strict measures that have been put in place here. we're now entering into the fourth week of this nationwide lockdown. it's very strict, but it's one of the reasons why the u.s. will want to look at italy once again to examine how these measures are working and when you get to see these strict measures actually show up in the data. we're finally seeing that here in italy. guys. >> it certainly is a message for americans. really quickly, matt, how are the italian people holding up under four weeks of strict quarantine? have they, for the most part, stayed inside and followed the

government's orders? >> reporter: yeah, when we walk arou around rome, everybody seems to be inside. there's not that many people on the street, they've been obliging by this because they get the seriousness of it. they understand it because they all have relatives in the north. they understand just how bad it is. i was telling you yesterday what's going on in the south. there are rumblings because people are upset because there isn't a lot of cases further south but there's a lot of poverty and people are going to be carrying a heavy load when they're not facing the disease in the some extent that the wealthy north is. but at the same time they do understand and there hasn't been -- there's been a lot of reports around about some sort of insurrection in the south against the government, the people are so upset that they're raiding grocery stores. we've spoken so some sources down in sicily and southern further south, there isn't that kind of unrest from the is anger, there is impatience with what's been going on, but people for the most part, italians understand the gravity of the situation. they see that this country is bleeding and they're obliging by the rules.

guys. >> all right. nbc's matt bradley. thank you so much for that reporting. mika, that gives us, again, may give us a roadmap, four weeks, it's been a strict quarantine over the past four weeks after the italians, like america, did everything wrong before that. but after four weeks those deaths sky high, still sky high, but they're plateauing. and if you look at what's happened in singapore and south korea and other countries, you see this plateau is soon followed by a pretty -- pretty steady drop. coming up, two things that don't go together, social distance and spring break. we're going to get an update from a medical director of emergency services at a south florida hospital on the aftermath of those big crowds at the beach. and where exactly the state stands when it comes to testing for the virus. "morning joe" is back in a moment. having a little trouble, you're concerned that it's going to cost you money. (ben) to this day, i only paid what i had to pay for the device.

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all right. joining us now, "morning joe" dave campbell is with us. those pictures of the health care workers are so moving and, you know, thank you doesn't even feel like enough of a word. they are right now pulling everybody through. and this is on them. >> this is -- >> completely. >> they are on the front lines.

they have, unfortunately the government has been ill prepared and, dr. dave, while we talk about governments, let's talk about a state you know an awful lot about, the state of florida. where we're talking this morning everybody's still talking about the recklessness of florida's governor ron desantis, whether it's on spring break, the continued accumulation of hundreds of boats on sand bars and parties, weekend long parties with hundreds of people jammed together, restaurants still opened in parts of the state. what -- what is the impact? what is the impact over the next several weeks to months of the governor refusing to act responsibly in this crisis? >> joe, i think, first, let's look at the slide that i'm looking at right now that says no new cases today. that's not going to be the case when they finally tabulate it. it's going to go up. thousands and thousands and thousands per day.

and, in fact, the number will become rather irrelevant. i think that we should look at this trend, because the trend will be for the next two weeks every single day we will see more cases and more deaths. and, in particular, we're going to be paying the price for the spring breakers over the last two to four weeks that have come to the state of florida, spread out over the florida, and have really spewed the virus all around. so we are in for a very, very rough ride in florida. and all of the experts agree with that. the experts from harvard, the experts from the major public health agencies, they're looking at florida like it will be new york but in two to four to five weeks from now. it's horrifying. >> oh my god. >> and, dr. dave, what's so ironic is you have ron desantis that had that bs call to stop

all people from new york coming to florida, you had that, that would be great if you could build a wall objen the georgia line. there's no way that's enforceable, it's just a pr move. but how ironic it's actually those spring breakers who scattered back across mainly east of the mississippi, scattered across the country after infecting each other during spring break, some of them got infected themselves. and they're the ones that, as you said, spewed, who carried, who exported the disease to states all up and down the east coast, again, because the governor refused to shut down the party. >> joe, i -- from my perspective as a physician treating literally thousands of patients right now, i want my patients and my family members to know right now to take today and move

forward. it is here. this hurricane is here. and it's going to be over us for a couple weeks or a couple couple weeks. especially young people. to do their best to help others, to socially distance. that includes in the house. there are a lot of homes that have young people and old people. even within the house, in my opinion, it's important to protect the household. so if you have a house and you have an old person and a young person, do some extra distancing. wipe down the tables, recognize that that young person may be asymptomatic, minimally symptomatic and infectious or contagious, protect the old people. if there are neighbors that need help, using socially distanced protocols, help them. there are a lot of things that people can do moving forward. but we have missed the boat, joe. this is going to hit us and it's going to hit us very hard.

>> and everything that dr. dave just said is worsened by the fact that we don't have testing. and we don't have a timeline. >> right. >> on when there's going to be consistent overall uniform masks. quick testing as well as antibody testing. we don't have any of that. there are no answers. >> obviously if we had that you would know who needed to be distanced inside of house. just a reminder to everybody, most people believe that it takes five to 14 days for the symptoms to start showing up. usually it's around five, six, seven days. but you could have, of course, with somebody who's a teenager who went out to a sand bar to party, or who went to spring break. >> right. >> -- someone who remains asymptomatic who could come back into the household and could infect their parents or their grandparents. >> it's a mess. doctor, hold that thought. >> we need testing. >> let's bring in the doctor of emergency services of hollywood california, dr. randy katz. i know that dr. katz covid

strategies have been put many place, triage tents, an attempt to separate people. are you guys ready? what more do you need? >> well, i'm very fortunate to work in a large public health care system that had some foresight and prepared. and i can't say that is true for all of the health care systems in my community. i have colleagues who are, you know, without ppe in my health care system, that has not been the case. and i'm proud to say i have not lost one physician or nurse as of today. and i'm not naive, i can't say that's going to be the case for the foreseeable future. but personal protective equipment following strict prot poe colonel, trying to cohort patients, we've been doing that for a number of weeks and segtd up tents outside as you mentioned. we did that three weeks ago. and not every health care system has had the foresight and the planning in place as we have. i agree with the physician that spoke earlier, we're in the very

early endings of thi early innings of this. we're probably in the second inning and down here in south florida we have a lot of nursing homes, very large elderly population and i think we've got to do everything we can with social distancing. we have to take this seriously. i can tell you that it does not discriminate based on age. i took care of a 28-year-old young man yesterday who came back after four days, you know, and was very sick. so those young people out there who are not taking it seriously, take it seriously, it can affect you and everything that you do, every action you take saves lives. >> so the youngest person in florida to die was also announced yesterday, also 28 years old, sarasota county man. so, dr. katz, for the spring breakers and people who are still going to beaches and gathering, what can you say from your vantage point about what they are doing right now, the choices they are making? >> the choices that you're making, these naive choices going to, you know, the beach, going to the sand bar,

congregating together, it's killing people. i see it in front of me. there's nothing worse than seeing a patient in front of you and there's nothing that you can do for them while they gasp for air. if they can only come and stand next to me and see what i go through every day, i think they would think differently about what they're doing. >> willie. >> it's important for people to hear that, dr. katz. thank you for saying it. willie geist here. we saw some breathtaking numbers from the white house nationally, projections of deaths in this country and a best case scenario. let's take that down to the state level in florida. you say you're prepared, you say you're ready. what are you expecting in terms of numbers? are you expecting scenes like we're seeing in new york city hospitals right now? how are you looking at this? >> well, willie, if you're talking to me, i'll speak for dr. katz. >> take it, dr. campbell. >> i'm sorry, go ahead. >> all of -- >> all of the facilities are

increasing -- >> go, dr. dave. go, dr. dave. >> down here in florida. >> go ahead. everybody listen to me really quickly. i'm going to be traffic cop here. dr. katz, you go first and then we'll have dr. dave respond. what are you expecting, dr. katz? >> again, i think we're in the very early innings down here in south florida. we've taken some measures down here, the governor has put some things in place in south florida that, as you mentioned, he's not done in the rest of the state. but i think we have a long way to go. i think we're in the very early innings and we're seeing the beginning of what we have to come. >> and do you think it's going to look anything like new york, dr. katz? >> you know, that's a good question. i can tell you that i trained in new york city. i trained in the south bronx, and there are some things in new york city that don't exist down here, population density, mass transit system that very easily spreads virus. you know, the weather is different down here.

i think it's very hard to predict what we're going to see down here and try to extrapolate with what's going on in new york city and try and, you know, extrapolate that information and say the same thing's going to happen here. i think you have to prepare for the worst. i think we have to expect that's going to happen and we're all praying that it doesn't happen. >> and, dr. campbell, you also went to -- you went to columbia, undergrad. you spent a lot of time up in new york city. so do you agree with dr. katz that because of the density, because of the subway systems, the buses, the mass transit that, in fact, new york stay may be a unique example unto itself? that while things still may get very bad in florida and other states, that, perhaps, new york, because of the crowding, because of the mass transit may actually be a worst case scenario for the united states? >> joe, i agree with that with 1

exception, florida is distinctly different in our elderly population. so the nursing homes spread all across the state of florida are housing individuals who are at particular risk of having severe outcome from this disease. and a lot of them have come from new york. so while dr. katz is correct in terms of density, the density and the potential for clusters of the disease within skilled nursing facilities and nursing homes should be frightening. and this particular virus tends to like to spread in little outbreaks and clusters. we've already seen that, how it started in the united states in the state of washington. so, in my view, the way i explain this to my patients and my family, droplets, vapor, masks, those are important things to consider. but it's really the virus, it's this particular virus that is in

the droplet or is in the vapor or is on the surface that we have to recognize is what -- once it gets into your body -- triggers the infection. so at its basic level, joe and mika, it's the virus. it's the virus floating around like dust. >> right. all right. and, doctor katz, just finally i want to go back to you because this is fascinating. you are right, we don't have the density that they have in new york city and you look around the world and density is a great predictor of how this virus spreads. but also, dr. katz, of course we look at northern italy, one of the oldest regions in the world and i would guess that would cause you concern too, as you've said, because of the senior citizens in florida and why we have to be extra careful in the state of florida. >> yes, i agree. i can tell you that i work in south florida, as you mentioned,

and we have, in my city alone, 16 nursing homes. and i've already identified clusters very early in some of the local nursing homes. we are a health care system unlike most, have the ability to test in-house. i can guest test results within 24 hours. that's allowed me to identify nursing homes very early in the phase of the cluster. and we've sent strike teams from the hospital out there and we've actually tested sometimes up to 20, 30 staff members to identify, you know, who has the virus and who doesn't and we've found two or three that, asymptomatic working in the nursing homes. so i think the nursing home population is clearly at risk. an area that we need to focus on. and every health care system, you know, really needs to pay attention to what's going on in their community. >> and dr. randy katz, thank you so much for being with us. we really appreciate it. and, mika, he is -- what he just said actually talks about why we need more testing.

we had the tragedy of course in massachusetts at the va facility up in massachusetts. it can spread so quickly. dr. dave campbell, thank you as well. and, dr. katz, i want to get in right, medical director of emergency services memorial regional hospital, hollywood. and, dr. dave, again, "morning joe's" chief medical correspondent. thank you guys. >> we're just past the top of the hour now. along with joe, willie and me we have former u.s. senator, now an nbc news and msnbc political analyst clair mccaskill. chief white house correspondent "the new york times," peter baker. and msnbc contributor mike barnicle joins us. on a day where the u.s. once again recorded its highest number of confirmed cases and deaths from coronavirus, the white house yesterday laid out in stark terms what lies ahead. the nation's top scientists predict that even with the current social distancing guidelines in place, the u.s.

could see up to 240,000 deaths. and that's if the measures don't stay in place, the death toll could actually be higher. the next few weeks we are told will be the very worst. >> i want every american to be prepared for the hard days that lie ahead. we're going to go through a very tough two weeks. and then hopefully, as the experts are predicting, as i think a lot of us are predicting after having studied it so hard, you're going to start seeing some real light at the end of the tunnel. but this is going to be a very painful, very, very painful two weeks. >> in the next several days to a week or so we're going to continue to see things go up. we cannot be discouraged by that. because the mitigation is actually working and will work. >> there's no magic bullet. there's no magic vaccine or therapy, it's just behaviors. each of our behaviors

translating into something that changes the course of this viral pandemic over the next 30 days. >> the next couple of weeks we're going to be seeing some serious things that the american public, unfortunately, is going to have to get used to seeing. what we're doing with the mitigation is to try and blunt that. but no matter what we do, even with the i believe positive effects that we're seeing with the mitigation, it's going to be a tough couple of weeks coming up. >> mika, it have again, bad news, i understand, in the short-term. but it is such a relief to hear dr. fauci and dr. birx basically be allowed to go out and tell americans the truth, which is we're going to have a rough two, three weeks. very rough. but, as dr. fauci says, and we have to keep this in mind, the sacrifices that millions and millions of americans are making is going to pay off. when we get to the other side of

this, these mitigation efforts are going to make a difference. >> well, the president's change in tone is perhaps best illustrated by this. in late february, president trump began downplaying the coronavirus by likening the illness to the seasonal flu. a comparison he repeated multiple times, even as recently as just last week. but yesterday the president clearly conceded that covid-19 is far more severe. here he is back in february and then this yesterday. >> you treat this like the flu. we were -- in fact, i might ask one of the dors come ctors to c and explain it. you want to wash your hands a lot. if you're not feeling well, if you feel you have the flu, stay inside. sort of quarantine yourself, don't go outside. but there are certain steps that you can take that we won't even be necessary. you know, in many case when's you catch this it's very light. you don't even know there's a problem.

sometimes they just get the sniffles. sometimes they just get something where they're not feeling quite right. and sometimes they feel really bad. but that's a little bit like the flu. it's a little like the regular flu. i've had many friends, business people, people with great actually common sense, they said, what are we ride it out? a lot of people have thought about it, ride it out, don't do anything, just ride it out and think of it as the flu. but it's not the flu. it's vicious. >> peter baker, of course, you could also get clips of the president talking about flu numbers. rush limbaugh saying it's like the flu. the president's defenders saying, look at the number of people who die from the flu every year, it's just like the flu. when you've been hearing that irresponsible rhetoric, that deadly rhetoric over the past money or so, that changed yesterday. can you tell us what happened? what moved the president to

really turn his briefing over to his medical advisers and let them tell the american people the hard truth? >> yeah, that's a great question, joe. i've been covering briefings at the white house going back to 1996 wand a f 1996 and with a few exceptions i can remember any hardly as grim as yesterday and daunting. what the president was confronted with there he finally seemed to be accepting in a more fulsome way, he's going to be president as well many people die from coronavirus as died from the entire korean and vietnam wars combined. i think that that has -- you know, seems to be finally getting through to him in a way that we had not heard as consistently before. and dr. birx and dr. fauci presented these numbers to him over the weekend and it seemed to finally be registering with him in a way it hadn't been before. it may be because he's seeing these scenes from the hospital

near where he grew up in queens. may be because a friend as he said is now in a coma or at least suffering greatly from this infection. it may be told that he was told from his political advisers that the american public wants to kill this virus and get rid of this virus before returning to work, is not eager to let up on these social restrictions with the pandemic still raging. but for whatever reason, you know, there was a lot less of a president denying what seems to be a very, very grim reality ahead of us yesterday. >> mike barnicle, you've covered a lot of presidents, you've covered politics for a very long time. i'm wondering what your thoughts were as you watched the president and those doctors stand up there in very cold terms present data and present charts that say in a best case scenario 100,000 to 240,000 of our relatives, of our friends, of our neighbors, of our fellow americans will die from this. and also to think about the

tragedy of the slow action that took place from the top down. >> willie, it was a stunning moment accompanied by absolutely shattering figures. those estimates that were given out. the thing that struck me is you look to history when things like this occur. and in cases of emergency, national crises, war from you will, and we've termed this a war against the virus, it always defines the people who are leading us or trying to lead us. and the definition of leadership, i think, has now changed in this country, especially when it comes to who is the government? who represents us? who leads us? if you go around even now, keep a safe distance from people as you go to observe certain places and hospitals and things like that, you find out that the government is not donald trump. the government is dr. fauci.

the government of the er nurses and the doctors and hospitals, the government are the emts who knowing the danger, the police officers, knowing the danger, the potentially lethal danger go at the virus to help people, to help us american citizens. and you just go to history and, you know, i was thinking about this yesterday as well when speaker pelosi was on. and she used the phrase, we need an afteraction report on all of this. when the danger subsides. and the afteraction report many people think, and it's actually true, has its origins in military conflicts. they have an afteraction report after battles. and they're pretty simple. they basically encompass a few points. the planning of the operation. the purpose of the operation. the behavior of the combatants in the operation. and the aftereffects, what happened. maybe you want to call it an

autopsy. but that afteraction report is going to be nearly as shocking to the american public as those numbers are. >> it is. and, you know, mike was talking about, mika, the tragedies that this country has faced and how it defines presidencies, how it defines our government's response to it. and i thought about katrina. >> yeah. >> and that's something that shook this country to its core for months. and, yet, more people have already died of this -- this pandemic than katrina. the same with 9/11. we've spent 20 years to actually with disastrous results respond to that terrorist attack in 2001. we're still trying to respond right. and that's torn the country apart. you can look -- you can look at afghanistan, look at the vietnam war, mike knows very well the vietnam war. it raged on for a decade.

again, ripped this country apart at its seams. it still poisons our politics. so much of the poisoning of america's politics began in the vietnam war and stays with us. and, yet, you look at all of those national disasters, september 11th, the afghanistan war that's been going on for two decades, the iraq war that was so devastating to america's national psyche, the vietnam war, and then, yes, world war i. if dr. fauci is correct, there's a very real possibility that if we do everything right, the number of deaths from this pandemic will actually be more than the deaths of all of those american tragedies. that's why it is so critical actually that we continue to do what we've been doing on social distancing and that we actually

double down on that. and that for god sake the federal government puts testing -- >> oh my god. >> -- puts testing at the forefront of all of their efforts. so if this goes away in the summer and comes back in the fall, we will be ready to isolate those who have it and allow others to go on with their work. to go back to school. to go back to work. to go back to living again. but we can't because of the -- the extraordinary failure of this federal government to get testing out as quickly as, say, south korea did. and you look at it per capita, you look at it per person, you look at it per patient, and we are doing a horrific job, despite the fact that america spends more money per patient than any country in the world. and, yet, when called upon in a time of our greatest health care

crisis in over a century, we have failed miserably on the issue that could actually not only save us when it comes to this health care crisis and pandemic, but also help us economically. >> well, it could save lives and it could allow the country to open up -- remember, the president's idea which was way too early and way too soon because he still wasn't taking it as seriously as he was last night to open the country up county by county in the is all -- these are all impossibilities. there's no reopening the country until we have mass testing, until we can test in every way. and every night, every night there are questions to this president and his team about testing. and the answers are, well there are company's doing that and this company's going to have this. there's never an answer as to when. and if that -- that question can't be answered, then you can't answer the question as to when the countries can be

reopened, not even close. it's not 30 days, it's not 15 days, it's months, it's possibly until there's a vaccine. >> clair mccaskill, i saw an article talking about the costs of our failure when it comes to testing. and -- and you could make the argument, and i know economists will when this is over, that our failure to be able to test is going to cost us trillions of doctors by the time this crisis is over. you look at the trillions lost, you look at the trillions in all of these relief packages we're having to put out there all because we didn't do what south korea did and immediately take this seriously. south korea had their first infection the same day we had our first infection. a week later they had a test ready to go. >> good god. >> we continue to fumble along because the president has refused to take testing as

seriously as he should. and the costs to our economy, the costs to americans' health, it's going to be almost incalculable. >> it's staggering. >> yeah, delay is deadly in a crisis like this. it's just -- delay is deadly. and this president was in charge and was part of a government that delayed a response, particularly as it related to testing. and as a result, we are going to see thousands and thousands of more people die. you know, you look at preventible death and you look at the crisis this has caused. think of all the energy that was expended on benghazi. and all the accusations that were made that, well, it was preventible and there should have been people in the state department should have known there was a security breach. we have got a ship full of our active military calling and

saying, please help us, we have over 200 people infected on this ship with active military in uniform serving our country in theater over across the ocean and this commander and chief knows it. and if we do not take steps to immediately help those people on that ship, what does that say about his ability to lead this country? it is frightening, to me, that we have this kind of crisis and that there appears to -- nobody is rising to the occasion saying, okay, here's what we're going to do with the teddy roosevelt. we're going to take it to guam. we've got doctors ready. we're going to take care of our sailors. it is unbelievable. and, joe, let me just say about florida and these governors. you know, this president loves power. what he's got the power today. you know what he can do today? these governors are afraid of him and they're afraid to lead. all he has to do in his

weekly -- his daily show is to say, i'm pleading with all the governors to enter statewide orders to stop schools, to shut down down essentinonessential b that's all the president has to do. the governor in florida, my state, the governor in texas would finally quit delaying what we need to do to mitigate the loss of life. and the president has that power. and i pray and i plead that he will use the power that he loves so much and tell these governors to do the right thing. that's all they're waiting for is his signal. they're waiting for his saying n signal. >> is there a logical argument for the president, peter baker, not using the full force of the defense production act when it comes to streamlining getting ventilators and other supplies

to where they need to go which leaves our country in the dark and our economy shut down until we have that? >> yeah, that's a great question. and that will be part of mike barnicle's afteraction report is what the defense production act could have accomplished had it been invoked earlier. the president invoked it early, said he has invoked it now for a while, but he's only put it in place or used it in a handful of occasions or even smaller than that. you know, it could also be used basically to forced or compel companies to do otherwise what they might be resisting doing without needing to use. but the president seems very reluctant. he seems to think that's an interference in the private sector and that it's better to secure volunteer cooperation. the problem for a lot of these states, they're all competing for the same small supply sets on the medical equipment, on the personal protective equipment and so forth and trying to outbid each other. and what experts tell you you need is a central look at this

that tries to determine where is the need the greatest? how can we get the production up to meet that need? and then how can we, you know, distribute it correctly? and that's what people are asking about right now. >> as peter points out, there is a battle between governors across the country and the trump administration over the need for testing supplies and ventilators. and that continued yesterday as new york governor andrew cuomo said the country's patchwork approach to the pandemic has made it difficult for governors like him. >> so you have 50 states competing to buy the same item. we all wind up bidding up each other and competing against each other. it's like being on ebay with 50 other states bidding on a ventilator. 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 new york times" reports that maryland governor larry hogan, former chair of the republican governor's association, said yesterday his state is flying blind in the fight against the coronavirus disease because officials did not have enough tests. and that the president's comments suggesting that a lack of test kits was no longer a problem are just not true. in connecticut, governor ned lamont yesterday described news of a national stockpile of medical supplies running empty as disturbing adding, quote, we are on our own. so, mike barnicle, i'm sure you're hearing the same thing up in massachusetts. these governors for weeks have been screaming from the mountaintops about what they need. they're getting some of it, but they're process has been

difficult. there's got to be a better way to streamline the supply chain to get the things into the hospitals that are saving lives. >> yeah, willie, thank god for some of these governors, charlie baker in massachusetts, andrew cuomo in new york, the governors of california, governor whitmer in michigan, governor hogan in maryland, thank god for them because they have their hands on the tools of government every single day. they know how government operates and they know how to get things done using the state governments. part of our problem in this country, and it's really come full circle right now, we have a 35-year history in this country in the politics of this country of trying to diminish the role of government at the federal level. it began with the, you know, government is the problem and tends with steve bannon just a few years ago saying the principal objective of the trump administration is going to be to deconstruct the existing apparatus of government? so what happens when you

deconstruct the apparatuses of government? you get things that was just described by andrew cuomo. you have different federal agencies bidding up different personal protect protectiion eq that the states need. you have chaos in government. i have to tell you my bias is for government. i come from a family of school teachers, nurses, cops, fbi agents, firefighters, that's my background. that's my family's background. and i resent the attack on government, because government is what comes down the street to put the fire out in your house. government comes down the street to provide testing if testing is available. it's all one thing, all one thing encompassed in the word called government. and we don't have enough of it at the federal level. >> yeah, you know, clair mccaskill, mike's exactly right. steve bannon talked about

deconstructing the apparatus of government. this is what happens when you deconstruct the apparatus of government. i think it was grover norquist that said something like wanting to drown the baby of the federal government in the bathtub, gutting the -- i don't know the exact word, but it was something really harsh like that. and if he didn't say it exactly that way, i'll get the exact quote. but i will tell you, i'm a small government conservative. and mika can attest to the fact that i've been going around for the past decade warning republicans that they can't just gut the 12% of the budget which is discretionary domestic spending. now, when i say that, of course, people's eyes have glazed over. thank you. but, all of their cuts, all of their cuts while they were ramping up defense spending came from gutting the nih, came from

gutting the pandemic task force, came from gutting education, came from gutting the ten, 11, 12%, what we americans consider to be government. you know, of course you've had social security, medicare, medicaid, defense spending and interest on the debt that takes up the overwhelming majority of the rest of the budget. but republicans for the past decade have just been gutting the parts of government that help the american people live. and it's not gotten them any closer to balancing the budget. it's just left us ill prepared and shattered at a nation at this time of unparalleled crisis. >> it's really interesting to me if you look at the way government should be functioning now, we should have a president who is turning to two agencies, the department of homeland security and hhs, look at those

two agencies and what has happened there. at hhs you have the head of the agency fighting with another high-ranking official in the agency to see who can get closer to the president by the podium. they're arguing about their power and they're arguing about their image and they're both doing everything they cannot focused as much as they should be on their responsibility but rather focussed on pleasing the leader. and then you have the department of homeland security where we have had such a turnover and we're all of the levers of power in that agency have been turned toward one issue, and that is the political issue of immigration. as opposed to all of the other responsibilities of the department of homeland security. a normal presidency with a different culture would have immediately figured out how do we first of all use the power to get what the health care industry needs to protect themselves and therefore to protect the public, and how do

we get enough tests and how do we make sure that there's not prof profiteering going on. it should be rooted out, pulled up and absolutely gone after with a two by four. and the profiteering these governors are describing on trying to buy ventilators and masks and ppe uniforms, this is unbelievable that the president isn't saying, okay, stop, everyone. we're going to get in stuff, we're going to distribute it based on need and be very transparent about it. the country would agree the collective sigh of relief over that kind of federal power being used right now. they wouldn't in any way be critical of it. >> well, and that's exactly why people have been begging the president for weeks to implement the defense production act, because what the governors

warned the president about weeks ago, that they were having to compete against each other and compete against the federal government has happened. it's driving up the price for everything. the president can stop that tomorrow. and i've heard the president say several times that he was not going to compete with states. the federal government wouldn't compete with states because that would just drive up the price. they're still doing it and it's still driving up the price. mike barnicle, i just wanted to follow up, alex sent me the quote from grover norquist. he said i don't want to abolish government, i simply want to reduce it to the size where i can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub. well, that's exactly what's happened with nih. that's exactly what's happened with the pandemic task force. that's exactly what's happened, again, with that 12% of the federal government, the domestic discretionary spending part, small part of that pie that republicans have only had the

political will to cut. of course, kpanexpanding the dee budget at record rates, passing record tax cuts, being fiscally reckless, and then gutting the small part of the federal budget that actually would be saving lives right now, mike. >> well, grover, who grew up about 15 miles from where i'm sitting here right now this morning, should be pleased with his efforts because they have been quite successful. and i can know that -- you know that they're quite successful when you talk to emergency room nurses or doctors or people in hospitals who don't have enough protection equipment, who don't have the kind of gloves, the kind of masks that they've needed now for months because government has been so inefficient in delivering these things. and i might remind grover to go around to a hospital and talk to these people at the appropriate distance, of course, and then ask yourself, is this really the

united states of america? are you telling me in the united states of america, in the year 2020, that we cannot provide nurses and doctors with personal protection equipment needed to combat this virus without putting their lives on the line every day, which they do? but this is the united states of america 2020, thanks to the efforts of people like grover norquist, newt gingrich who began this whole thing, in my estimation, in the mid 1980s, and this is where we are today, joe. >> yeah. i'll tell you, mika, i am a small government conservative. i've been fighting for small ballots my entire life, i'm still a small government conservative. but you've got to keep the part of the budget that actually helps the american people. and, again, it's something i've been warning about for a decade now. it's something that other conservatives have been -- small government conservatives have been warning about for a decade now. you can't jack up defense

spending to record levels. you can't jack up tax cuts that end up not helping the economy in the long run. you can't do all that while gutting the nih, while gutting, again, a pandemic task force, abolishing them. you can't deconstruct the government the way steve bannon said he wanted to deconstruct the government without having this sort of impact. i don't want a big huge massive runaway government, even though that's what donald trump has given us. i want an efficient government. i want a smart government. i want a government that pays attention to that 12% and grows out the parts, makes the investments that actually protects americans and protects us moving forward as well. that's not been done. and we're paying the price. >> clair mccaskill, peter baker, mike barnicle, thank you all. still ahead on "morning joe," as if health care workers

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welcome back to "morning joe." with the growing number of coronavirus patients flooding hospitals across the country, more and more health care workers are now facing off with administrators over lack of protective gear. as "the new york times" points out, many hospitals do not allow doctors and staff members to wear masks in public areas, and now some health care workers are being disciplined for pushing back. the times spoke to a doctor from el paso, texas, for example, who is removed from his hospital schedule effectively suspending him without pay after he wore a mask in the hallways. the new york daily news interviewed nurses and doctors at the jacoby medical center in the bronx who say they feel like

they're on a suicide mission due to a lack of personal protective equipment. one health care worker telling the paper, quote, we just had a nurse who passed away over the weekend from this. we are starting to see our own fall sick. who is going to replace us? and now some hospitals reportedly are threatening to fire health care workers who speak out about a lack of protective gear. for instance, bloomberg reports that nyu langone health system has warned employees they could lose their jobs if they speak to the media without authorization. joining us now, president of the american medical association dr. patrice harris. dr. harris, thank you for being with us. i'll start at the end of that bit of news for you, what would you say to a hospital who has told its doctors, its nurses that they should not speak out publicly about what's happening inside these icus and ers. >> good morning, willie. every moment, every hour, every day, physicians and nurses and

other health professionals are risking their lives on front lines. and for weeks we've all heard the stories that they don't have the ppe, that personal protective equipment, that they need. and now we hear these stories actually i just spoke with a colleague last night of physicians being fired for wearing masks in the hallway or even using their own equipment. that is unconscionable and the ama has clearly stated that physicians should not be disciplined for either speaking to the media or wearing their own equipment. listen, we all know that there could be reasonable policies to coordinate media. but physicians are just telling us what we already know in the public. and so that behavior in firing physicians is unconscionable. and we know about the lack of personal protective equipment in large part because we are hearing from doctors publicly. a lot of us are hearing from them privately and were able to convey their stories to the

public so that the government knows what's needed here. so let's go to personal protective equipment. we know the need is there. i've been hearing from some doctors in new york and governor cuomo made this point a couple days ago that the situation is getting better, that they're getting some of that ppe that they need, but that it's inconsistent. one day it seems like it's been stabilized, the next day they're out again and they're waiting. so how is it from where you sit on the national level looking at all these hospitals and listening to your doctors and nurses, how is the supply chain working and is that situation getting better with personal protective equipment? well, in some areas it's better and in other areas it's not. that's that variability that really we really need to do something about. as you may know, the ama calls on the president to have a tracking system for the testing, for equipment so that there could be data and evidence to show areas of the country that

need the ppe, need the ventilators, need the tests, and prioritize those areas. so we really need to have a manhattan effort-type project to bring everyone in the room and make sure there's tracking of these supplies. the area that needs it today or doesn't need it todd may may ne it tomorrow. but if we figure out that tomorrow, it's already too late. so we really, again, need the dpa to be in full effect so we can make sure tests and supplies are manufactured and distributed in a manner that makes sense. and that's where a national tracking system at a federally coordinated effort comes into play. >> dr. harris, i know massachusetts was graduating fourth-year medical students early to try to help sort of infuse the hospital population

with doctors. what are you hearing about doctors falling ill and are we looking at a potential shortage of medical workers? >> well, mika, you already know that we were at baseline precovid-19 operating with some issues around workforce shortages. and, of course, now we are seeing an even greater demand. and, of course, folks are allowing -- medical schools are allowing their students to graduate a little early, of course granted that they've met certain criterias. retired physicians are coming back into the workforce to help. so certainly there is increased demand, which is all the more reason to make sure that the current workforce stays safe and stays healthy. and a part of that is making sure we have the tools that we need. the ppe. and so, again, an all hands on deck effort is needed to make

sure physicians and nurses don't fall ill. if we do, who will be there to take care of this nation? >> all right, dr. patrice harris, thank you very much. what was the national response in the early days of the outbreak? according to our next guest, there was none. senator chris murphy introduced a senate bill that would end the bidding war between states and put the federal government in charge of the medical supply chain. and senator murphy joins us now. senator, you're giving an alarming account of the first days of the response. it appears we're still in those first days. i mean, we don't have testing and we've got an onslaught of surges hitting hospitals around the country. it appears we are flat footed without an ability to see what's coming. >> what is shocking to me today is that there is nothing different than what was

happening in early february when the administration was refusing to take this crisis seriously. there was no national response in early february and there is no national response today, other than the three pieces of legislation passed by the congress. and the most egregious lack of federal response comes on this issue of personal protective equipment, ventilators and tests. it is lord of the flies out there right now as governor cuomo said yesterday, it's like ebay for states and hospitals. they all go online every single day to try to bid on a ventilator and they run up the price and the ventilator ends up going to who can pay the most, not where it is needed the most. and so we've put in legislation that i hope congress will take up soon that will require the president to federalize the manufacture and the distribution of medical equipment. because right now, the equipment isn't being made and even when it's being made it's not ending up in the places that need it. this is a core responsibility of

the federal government during a crisis like this. and for from what we understand, the only reason the president isn't doing this is because industry loves the fact that they are able to profiteer, they are able to make tons of money off of governor cuomo and govern far lamont and others who are bidding up the prices on these scarce supplies. >> is that what's driving the president's decision-making processes? what would argue that he's not? is this about money? is this -- why wouldn't he just start using his power to streamline the entire process of getting supplies and getting testing in place? >> so, there's been reporting and i believe it, that the chamber of commerce, the national chamber of commerce and industry groups have been lobbying the president heavily to not take control of the manufacturing and supply chain. and the have clear, because right now they're in a cat bird's position. they are able to make a lot of

money when all these hospitals and states are bidding against each other. now, there's also the matter of an ideological resistance in this administration to any federal intersection in t federal intervention in the marketplace. early on, the trump administration doesn't think it was their responsibility to manage a crisis like this. they didn't believe in the legitimacy of the federal government. i don't think anything's change. second azar goes on tv and says it's not the federal government's job to help states get personal protective equipment, that's states' jobs, hospitals' jobs. no it isn't. you have to have a national response and there continues to be no federal strategy from this administration to confront this crisis. >> hey, senator murphy, it's willie geist. good to see you this morning. you've been metaphorically waving your arms about the coronavirus crisis for at least a couple months now. in particular you came out of a briefing with the administration about coronavirus on february the 5th, one you called

chilling. you said the administration was not taking this seriously enough. can you shed some light about what you heard inside that room and why you found it chilling? >> yeah. so i sent out a statement on february 5th right after i had left a private briefing that all senators attended with the administration because it was so clear to me at that moment that the administration had no concept of the size of the response needed should coronavirus ravage the country in the way that it has today. at this time in early february there were only a handful of cases. but inside that room senators were begging the administration to request emergency funding from congress, and specifically for supplies. in early february we were telling the administration we don't have the supplies necessary to be able to keep people alive if coronavirus hits us like it hit china. and the answer from the administration early nebraska was we don't need anymore money, we can handle it with the resources that we have. and their response really has never changed. we passed three pieces of

legislation. we've put trillions of dollars into this fight. but all of that has been at the initiative of congress. the administration initially asked for $1 billion, that's all they thought they needed. finally after they finally came to their senses that they couldn't do it with existing resources, they have never been serious about this. they aren't serious about it today. >> and, senator murphy, as you look at let's take today, we are where we are, we can look back at the past and we have been for several months now and many people will in the weeks and months to come, but here's where we are today on april the 1st with the new legislation you're proposing, what's the best case scenario right now to get the stuff into the hands of the hospitals? because i think a lot of people watching at home go, guys, this is america, if that hospital needs a bunch of masks, get it to them today. what are we doing? how do we streamline that? how do we do this better? >> well, right now you have all of these governors and all of these hospitals essentially having to go out and create

their own supply chains. so, you know, my folks in connecticut spend an awful lot of time chasing down leads. they hear about a manufacturer that might be offering to turn their production line over to masks. they hear about some foreign stockpile of gowns that they might be able to bring in on a ship. that is wasted effort on a state by state basis. so the federal government needs to take control of all of that, and then require manufacturers to start making it. you have these workers at the ge plant walk out because they were so upset that their plant wasn't converting to ventilator production. the federal government should be requiring that. so i believe that if the trump administration says we're going to set nationwide goals for masks, for gowns, for tests, and for ventilators and then we are going to decide who gets them to make sure that the places of high need to get them first, we could probably solve this shortage problem within a matter of days or weeks. but the administration still refuses do that, reportedly because they are more interested

in guaranteeing profits for their industry friends than they are in saving lives. >> senator chris murphy, thank you very much for coming on this morning. we appreciate and up next, messages from two people about what to do in this crisis. a sobering message from bill gates and a sardonic one from larry david. d asks all healthys to schedule an appointment to give. now, with the corona virus outbreak, it is important to maintain a sufficient blood supply. your blood donation is critical and can help save lives. please schedule an appointment today. download the blood donor app. visit redcrossblood.org or call 1 800 red cross today. you can make a difference.

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in a new public service announcement, larry david offers advice to californians, not only on their state's stay-at-home order, but what to do with their newfound free time. >> hello. i'm larry david. obviously, somebody put me up to this business. generally not the kind of thing i do, but i basically want to address the idiots out there, and, you know who you are, you go out, i don't know what you're doing. you're socializing too close. it's -- it's not good. you're hurting old people like me. well, not me. i have nothing to do with it. i'll never see you, but other, let's say other old people who might be your relatives. who the hell knows? but -- the problem is, you're passing up a fantastic opportunity, a once in a lifetime opportunity to stay in the house, sit on the couch and -- and watch -- watch tv! i mean, i don't know how you're

passing that up. well, maybe, if you're not, not that bright. but, here it is. go home. watch tv. that's my advice to you. um -- you know, if you've seen my show, nothing good ever happens going out of the house. you know that. there's just trouble out there. it's not a good place to be. so stay home and -- and -- you know, don't see anyone. except maybe if there's a plumbing emergency, let the plumber in and then wipe everything down after he leaves, but that's it. okay. >> so, you know. >> oh, my god. >> willie, exactly what we're doing and i twitched when i saw larry david, because mika is actually making me rewatch all ten seasons of "curb" and she'll watch, like, at night. >> yeah. >> there will be, like, four in

a row. and she'll just -- that's like how she unwinds watching people screaming at larry david. it makes me all very nervous. >> it's an escape. >> watching suzy yell at larry works. the reason that message from larry works is because he believes every word of it. sort of his guiding philosophy. why would you ever go outside when the tv's right here at home? >> exactly. exactly. ♪ do, do-to do >> i do love it. the one escape for us. all right. that's advice from larry david. "morning joe" will be right back. there will be parties again soon, and family gatherings. there will be parades

and sporting events and concerts. to help our communities when they come back together, respond to the 2020 census now. spend a few minutes online today to impact the next 10 years of healthcare, infrastructure and education. go to 2020census.gov and respond today to make america's tomorrow brighter. it's time to shape our future. i need all the breaks, that i can get. at liberty butchumal- cut. liberty biberty- cut. we'll dub it.

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death's -- deaths always lag. so you will be seeing deaths when at a time as an epidemic we're doing really, really well, because the deaths will lag. >> dr. fauci, should americans be prepared for the likelihood

there will be 100,000 american whose die from this virus? >> the answer is, yes, as sobering a number as that is, we should be prepared for it. it going to be that much? i hope not, and i think the more we push on the mitigation, the less likely it will be that number. as being realistic, we need to prepare ourselves that that is a possibility that that's what we will see. >> a very short period of time that happens, but can the country handle that in such a short period of time, within a couple of months? 30,000 a month? >> it will be difficult. no one d.c. nighione is denying are going through a very, very different time. we're seeing what is happening in new york. that is really tough. if you extrapolate that to the nation that will be really tough, but that's what it is. >> the coming weeks are going to be very, very hard on america.

good morning, and welcome to "morning joe." it is wednesday, april 1st. along with joe, willie and me we have former white house adviser for health policy, professor and vice provost for global initiatives at the university of pennsylvania, dr. ezequiel emanuel, msnbc medical contributor and ceo of ax oakio jim vandehei joins us. that was dark. hard truths came forward in one big dose for the united states of america that suppress briefing that health care providers and doctors and scientists begged -- begged -- the white house to give two weeks ago. to tell americans the truth. that is actually the briefing, the intel community, begged donald trump to give in january and february.

they saw this coming, even several weeks ago. doctors i know very well, scientists, health care professions were saying, mr. president, 100,000, 200,000, 500,000 people could die from this virus if you don't start moving. the president didn't want to hear it. this is, after all, a president who talked about one person dieing, one person from china but we've got it taken care of. it will be zero and then soon after that, february, he was talking about, oh, we have 14, 15 people who were infected but we've done such a good job it's going to go down to zero. then, of course, he said the media was over-blowing it, their coverage a hoax of the pandemic, that is was going to go away and then he said that it would go away in april. the sun would come out and it would magically go away. and, willie, yesterday we found

out, because the scientists and the doctors told the truth, and the president finally let them tell the truth to the american people -- and, again, what they said yesterday is what the president was urged to tell the american people two weeks ago. but now we go from the president blithely predicting this was going to go away in april when the sun came out, the flowers would bloom and everybody to be fine, to us finally being told the truth, that april is, as elliott set, april is the cruelest month, and we can expect 100,000 to 250,000 deaths in this country over the next two, three weeks, if -- if -- we do everything right now, since our response to this has been so delayed and so pathetic up until

last week. >> yeah. i know we're going to talk a lot about what the president said a couple of months ago, what he said a couple of weeks ago, what he said just last week. it was last week he was talking about opening the economy again by easter for parts of the country. he talked yesterday about, hey, this is not the flu. a lot of people have been saying it's the flu. the president said it was the flu a couple of weeks ago. we'll get into all of that, but just the numbers alone. i've heard the word "sobering" used a lot. i would say "staggering" when you have dr. birx and dr. fauci with charts predicting even with current social distancing guidelines in place, 100,000 to 240,000 potential deaths, and if the measures don't stay in place, that death toll could be higher. the next few weeks, we're told, will be the worst. >> i want every american to be prepared for the hard days that lie ahead. we're going to go through a very tough two weeks.

and then hopefully as the experts are predicting, as i think a lot of us are predicting after having studied it so hard we're going to start seeing some real light at the end of the tunnel, but this is going to be a very painful, very, very painful two weeks n. the in ex-several days to a week or so we're going to continue to see things go up. we cannot be discouraged by that, because the mitigation is actually working, and will work. >> there's no magic bullet. there's no magic vaccine or therapy. it's just behaviors. each of our behaviors translating into something that changes the course of this viral pandemic over the next 30 days. >> the next couple of weeks we're going to be seeing some serious things that the american public unfortunately is going to have to, again, get used to seeing. what we're doing with the mitigation is to try and blunt that, but no matter what we do

even with the, i believe, positive effects that we're seeing with the mitigation, it's going to be a tough couple of weeks coming up. >> now, we've heard, zeke emanuel that nobody could have seen this coming. the fact is, everybody saw this coming. everybody saw this coming in early january. so i know -- i know you, like me, have wanted the president to give this sobering press conference for weeks, and what happened in a strange way yesterday was a bit of relief, because it was the first time that actually the president allowed his scientists and doctors to say the sort of things that you've been saying all along as grim as yesterday's press conference was, as grim as the news was, it actually was a step in the right direction, because it tells the truth about the hell we're about to go through, but also says how we can avoid it in the future.

what was your takeaway from yesterday? >> that the president had a conversion experience. he, you know, confronted the numbers and could not wiggle out of the numbers, and i noticed, you know, you and willie emphasizing the 100,000 to 250,000, 240,000 people who might die in this country. if everything goes right. and everyone begins to adhere to these physical distancing measures and we can actually get the mitigation that dr. fauci's been talking about in place. but the fact is, we haven't been doing it right for a long time, and the other graph that they showed was even grimmer, which was 1.5 million to 2 million people dieing if we don't get these measures in place, and that translates to 150 million to 200 million americans actually infected with this virus, and i've been saying that for several weeks and been

pilloried on the right-wing media because i've been saying if we don't do something in the next 7 to 14 days we're going to have more than 114 million people infected and you know, three -- i think you've and willie have been a little generous. two weeks ago we needed this. that's certainly true, but people have been warning about this for three and four weeks. it's the start of march that we really need to get on this and do this. i think there's been a real conversion experience. i think the real question is how long ask it last in the white house? we have had one or two grim press conferences before, right after the college of london's estimate came out about two weeks ago, the president gave a sort of sober press conference and then was right back to champagne chloroquine and the fact we only needed 15 days. this is going to be a long haul. i think dr. fauci is right, and we have, you know, we have about another seven days to really get this in place.

we're woo probably actually behind the eight ball. i would take a moment of optimism, you know. i'm generally a very optimistic guy, and i have been talking to my colleagues in the medical schools in seattle and san francisco in particular, places that were hit hard, hit early, and that, you know, seattle especially where they had the first case of, first death, and they did this physical distancing and these mitigation measures pretty early, because they were shocked. and they do seem to be working. so that comment that dr. fauci made that, you know, while the deaths will be going up, this social mitigation, social distancing and mitigation wearing the masks will make a difference and we won't see it for a while because it's what we call a lagging indicator in the health field, that does seem to be happening and there are some glimmers that you really can make a difference, and the data aren't just from china or other

places they're from actually the united states. places that jumped on it. so i think we, you know, year going to need a president who can lead at that moment, things are getting worse but we're able to see around the corner and it's really going to be better in weeks, and think idea of 30 days does bother me a little bit, because it's too short. >> yeah. you know -- you were right about washington's state. there was positive glimmers coming out of washington state even with a hell. a slight curve in italy, those believing that things are getting better, but i do want to underline the recklessness of talk show radio hosts and people online and trumpists, these trump hacks, jim and havandehei push, have been mocking people like zeke emanuel who warned

about this day coming, and so they, of course, are attacked online. i was attacked online by an idiot about quoting the imperial college study, and then, of course, the president is now quoting those same numbers. so, of course, i'm sure they're fall in line and talk about how brilliant donald trump was. these miracle cures, i've seen quacks and demagogues and profiteers getting on talking about hydro-chloroquine, how it's a miracle drug. how anybody who ever took it recovered, and it's a miracle drug, even donald trump yesterday backing off of that saying we still have a ways to go after the press conference, but, you have that and, jim, then -- and the really, i'm almost at a loss for words about what's happening in the state of florida with ron desantis who refused to cancel spring break. who refused to get people off of

sandbars will 100 boats would crowd around and people would have drinking parties all weekend, next to each other. who is still refusing to close restaurants. who is still refusing to do what every health care expert in the world is begging leaders like him to do, and he's not doing it in the state that has -- has millions of senior citizens, and they are dieing. they are beginning to die. and yet he's still not moving, jim, and i -- i must say. i don't get it! >> yeah. i mean, i think the deniers will have to live with the stain of this for a lifetime. there's no way -- now you look delusional. right? you look delusional if you're not listening to what is now a national consensus. it took donald trump a long time to get there. way too long as you guys have talked about on the show for months, but now we're there.

there's a national consensus. the scientists, democrats, republicans, doctors, anybody who's looked at the data, has looked at the science, now agrees that there's a real chance at 100,000 to 250,000 people dieing if we don't take quick action, could be higher than that. that the effect will mean quarantine for almost everybody. probably not just april. definitely may. potentially into june. that you needed that, that economic package just to be able to keep the economy afloat for the next two months. you're probably going to need another $2 trillion, $3 trillion, $4 trillion just in stimulus to get the economy back up and running. anybody out there, breath wheth fox, a governor, thinking, do we really need to take swift action? it's nonsensical. look at china, italy, spain, new york, look at seeblgseattle, de this isn't rocket science this isn't a political debate. the consensus is there. so the big question is -- and even -- i read dr. emanuel's

piece over last weekend agrees there's way to get at least some people back to work in june, but it's "if" keep the decimals below 240,000 "if" you make these changes. people infecting people at such high risk, shame on them. i think that's going to require additional presidential pressure. there isn't a mandate everybody quarantine. the next step he has to get out there and force people to do the things they have to do, even if there's bad economic consequences in the short term. still ahead on "morning joe," the driving question for journalists over the past three years. how do you cover the president when so many of his statements are lies? we'll talk to the head of the white house correspondents' association, jonathan karl just ahead on "morning joe."

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and now is the time whenever you're having an effect not to take your foot off the accelerator and on the brake but to just press it down on the accelerator and that's what i hope and i know that we can do over the next 30 days. >> zeke, this is here to stay. we're being held hostage to this until there's masks, uniform testing or a vaccine, and yesterday we got a lot of information on how many people were going to die and the fact that we need ventilators and we get a sense that the states are still in a situation where they're competing with practically everybody even the federal government for supplies to help respond to this, but what about being able to map forward? i mean, under what scenario would you advise the president to relax the physical distancing standards if there's no masks, uniform testing, including antibody testing? >> i think you're absolutely right, mika.

which is, you can only begin to relax these standards once we see several things in the data. you have to see that the total number of knew places plateaued. that the actual, enough percentage of patients infected is going down. and, you know, that requires the data and as you point out a kind of infrastructure for public health. you need testing, and we probably need more than a million a day in the united states, not 100,000 a day. you need contact tracing. so if someone tests positive you can actually contact those people, connections to the tech companies that know how people move, who they interact with to do it rapidly, and you do need this well -- big, important change of behavior that has become habitual. i go out i put a mask on. i come in, i wash my hands. i wash my hands 20, 30 times a day and i don't spew out droplets outside.

those are big changes for americans, and if we don't see that rapidly and we're only going to be able to see that rapidly if we have leadership. leadership from the president, leadership from all the other elected officials, and celebrities and everyone else. behavior change is really hard. we know that, and yet we have to do it rapidly if we're going to get ahold of this. but i think you're also right. no magic cures. we've got to be done with that stuff that it's going to be chloroquine or -- it might be chloroquine, but we need the trials and we need the data. the important element here is, no opening up without solid evidence that we've actually turned the corner, and gotten it down to zero and can have the infrastructure to squash it wherever it pops up. >> well, i did think it was interesting yesterday, the president's been spout be chloroquine as a miracle drug. >> he pulled back a little. >> he has no idea whether it is or not, nobody does, because studies have to be down. dr. fauci, dr. birx and serious

doctors understand that, that they're not going to give false hope, because it's very dangerous, but, you know, willie, jake sherm hadn't a list yesterday of all the things we were told early on, jake sherman, that ended up being wrong about this pandemic and i guess a lot is natural if not done in bad faith by the federal government and leader of the federal government, executive branch, at least, but we've, one thing that's up in the air right now has to do with masks, has to do with whether this is transmitted via aerosol, and many people are starting to believe that it is. it doesn't mean if you -- i read this morning, it doesn't mean if you jog past somebody you're going to get it, or if you're walking past somebody, five feet away year going to get it. it means in the room with somebody, share the same air. talk to them for a while then, yes. people are starting to believe it's not just the droplets as zeke said, it's also the aerosol. that you could get this from. so now suddenly wearing masks

seems to make sense. >> yeah. and the cdc is in fact, joe, considering as we speak making a formal recommendation that people not just people who have been infected or feel sick, anyone who goes outdoors wear a mask. if there's any chance you're going to be in contact with somebody. that's by the way something doctors tell me privately all the time. you go out, wear a mask. that could go on for weeks and weeks and weeks. another point you talked about governor desantis. he said again yesterday he's waiting for guidance from the federal government. he's waiting for guidance on the task force as we talk about florida, one of "the" coming hot spots in this pandemic, well, president trump has a close relationship with governor desantis. if governor desantis really isn't perspective enough to see where this is headed and what it can do to this state we implore the president to make that call to governor desantis. if he's, in fact, waiting by the phone for the president to tell him what to do, please, call him

coming to florida and coming fast. dr. emanuel, i wanted to ask a question posed at the news conference yesterday, which is this -- if we had put in place, if the federal government had put in place mitigation efforts earlier, if the federal government had taken this more seriously, a month ago, two months ago, would we not be looking at this staggering curve that shows the potential for 100,000 to 240,000 it deaths as you point out in a best case scenario? so i'll ask you that question. if we had taken this seriously as a federal government, much earlier, what would that number look like compared to what it is today? >> well, it's -- i mean, again, the 100,000 to 250,000 is a best-case scenario. >> right. >> i'm not a modeler and not privileged to the modeling at the moment, but it certainly, again, remember, part of it how many people die, part is how much it spread out so you don't have the mayhem in new york city hospitals at the moment. it's certainly the case two

months ago if we had done the social distancing measures and the mitigation measures would we would have probably been able to keep that peak much lower and spread it out so we wouldn't have chaos, fighting for ventilators, lack of ppe and all the other things that have come with it. the exact peak, willie, i can't tell you what it would have been, but probably would have been 50,000 to 100,000 out there and it would have been spread out. we wouldn't have had the surge, which i think again we have to remember. that's just as important, and we wouldn't have a worst-case scenario of being 2 million, which i think, again, people are not talking about, but that's a real admission by the president and the white house that if this, if we don't actually act we could have basically double the number of americans who die in a year. and i think that, if there's anything that should be sobering and really make people fearful it's that number, that this is

what happens if florida is the norm and we don't adopt what has happened in seattle or san francisco as the norm. and i think that's, you know, that's the choice we have. >> coming up, questions, don't get much more straightforward than this. can the white house guarantee that everyone who needs a ventilator can get a ventilator? we'll show you the president's answer to that question, and just a hint, it was not, "yes." "morning joe" is back in a moment. i just love hitting the open road and telling people

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welcome back to "morning joe." let's check in with two key cities of the world in this fight against coronavirus. in london, nbc news senior international correspondent keir simmons, and in rome, nbc news foreign correspondent matt bradley. good morning to you both. keir, start with you in london with new numbers that came in overnight in terms of casualties from coronavirus. one of them a 13-year-old boy. what more can you tell us? >> reporter: yeah. that 13-year-old lad lived here in london. just announceds he died. not clear whether or not he had underlying conditions. his family says he was healthy. paint a picture where i'm standing i think says everything about the situation in the uk, despite small glimmers of home -- hope in the numbers. behind me, the mother of parliament you love on the show, silenced. upper westminster bridge there, like that scene from the movie

"28 days" later. all you can hear pretty much echoing around this great city are the sirens, and, willie, i think around the world we are days away from there being 1 million cases. i think in time those numbers may look small, because we know that the cases double every three days. that's what the scientists tell us. and then here in london be there is the unsettling image of chinese help arriving, and that's happening in many, many countries, and, you know, there are many on the geopolitical side talking about china, taking advantage of the situation while america is bleeding. i mean, there are many other questions about china. the numbers may not be accurate. officials there themselves admitting that they aren't including the numbers of people who haven't been in the hospitals. there are questions for china about the supply side and the

fact that the world relies so much on medical supplies from china. you know, i don't want to write history before history is written, but there are deeply concerning developments around the world, even while america is rightly focused on the tragedy unfolding there. >> go from london now to rome, and talk to matt bradley. matt, it's -- it's hard to find silver linings in italy over this last, grim month, but some health officials there and across the world are suggesting that italy may -- may -- be turning a corner. tell us about it. >> hmm. >> reporter: yeah. that's right, joe. you know, every morning i come up here and am the bearer of bad news. we heard last night there are more than 800 deaths here more than 4,000 new infections so you could be forgiven to thinking that doesn't sound like good news buzz scientists here are not celebrate this. i don't want to go that for a,

but they didn't say it looks like it's plateauing. that's important. because these new numbers while grim, and they are sky-high numbers still compared to what we see in a lot of other countries, but they're welcomed, because they're similar to the numbers from the day before and the day before that. and that's why we heard from the head of the institute of health here saying that it looks as though there's a plateau here. this is kind of the beginning of the end. this is what you start to see when we flatten the curve and you start to see the numbers then going down. so now instead of one person transfers this disease to two or three people, you're starting to see one person transferring the disease to maybe one other person. and that's progress. that's, the low bar we're setting here with progress is that the disease is being transferred to fewer and fewer people and that's vindication for the very, very strict measuresut in place here, now entering into the fourth week of this nation-wide lockdown and it is very strict but one of the reasons why the u.s. is going to want to look at italy once again

to examine how these measures are working and when you get to see these it strict measures show up in data. finally seeing that here in italy. >> nbc's matt bradley and keir k simmons, thank you both. hard to believe only three weeks ago dick durbin was on "morning joe" urging the president to declare a national state of emergency. so much has spiraled out of control since then, and the illinois democrat joins us to talk about that. we'll be right back. i'm bad.

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to assure, these states, these hospitals, that everybody who needs a ventilator will get a ventilator? >> here's what i'll tell you. i think we're in really good shape. this is a pandemic, the likes of which nobody's seen before. i think we're in great shape. i think that number one we've distributed ventilators, they're a big deal. we've 0 distributed vast numbers of ventilators, and we're prepared to do vast numbers. i think we're in great shape. i hope that's the case.

i hope that we're going to have leftovers so we can help other people, other countries. >> everybody who needs one will be able to get a ventilator. >> look, don't be a cutie pie. everybody who needs one? nobody's done what even done what we've been able to do. >> an exchange at friday's briefing between president trump and an abc news white house chief correspondent jonathan karl and jonathan joins us now. he's president of the white house correspondents' association. and author of you new book entitled "front row at the trump show." great to have him on. >> we've known donald trump for quite a long time and got to say never heard him call a man a cutie pie before. that had to be one of the more bizarre moments inside a white house briefing and also doubly bizarre because the president was just bragging about having excess ventilators to send to other countries. so you simply ask. great. does that mean every american

who needs one -- suddenly he goes off. hasheder a er harder and harder to predict what triggering moments will be for this president? >> absolutely the strangest moment at a president's news conference. i've covered four presidents. known donald trump for a long time and never, ever seen something like that. at that moment, joe and mika, that was "the" fundamental question. governor cuomo would need 30,000 ventilators. the government only able to supply a few thousands. i expected him to say we're doing everything to get there, everything within our power and instead he took offense. i think the reason he took offense, the question suggested he would have some responsibility. if you remember, at the -- earlier in this crisis he had, a great quote that will probably be associated with him long

after he's gone. he said, "i am not responsible for anything." and this, the question suggested that he would, you know, be in a position of assuring, guaranteeing, and that would suggest he would be responsible. >> yeah pup no, you know, jonat interesting, again, i'm trying to figure out the triggers at the press conferences. almost like he's looking for a fight and reminded me, of course, every time yamiche asked him question, a little different. peter alexander a week ago asked what he could say to reassure americans and he went on a rant and tirade against peter alexander. do you think at this point the president is just looking for an excuse to bash the press? because he thinks that's what his people, his supporters want him to do and these are substituting for these rallies? >> yes. that's his playbook. i describe a scene in the book

in florida. i was in fort myers at the hertz arena for a trump rally i had an interview with him backstage before the rally got started. it was a pretty contentious interview but a good interview. after it was over, he brought me out, you know, still backstage, to see ron desantis, campaigning with him. to see rick scott and their wives, and he introduces me, brings me into the room and says meet the great jonathan karl, and all complementary and then he asks me, joe, three times, if i was going to go out and watch his speech. are you going to go? are you going to be out there? i got a good run. were you going to be there? of course, i'm a reporter. i'm covering what he's doing and i went out there and with three minutes of him taking the stage, he had that, the 10,000 or so people in that arena screaming and taunting me and the fellow reporters in that press pen in the middle of the floor calling

us horrible, nasty people. saying that we were contributing to the deep divide in our country. i mean, it was an amazing -- he goes back and forth. >> and people don't realize that personally donald trump remains a very charming person, even to reporters, when nobody's looking. and, of course, it happened to us repeatedly during the campaign, but also katy tur told the story how he would point her out in crowds, attack her and when he saw her away from people, he'd go, you know, he'd say, hey, i want you to meet katy tur she's a great reporter, et cetera. there is just stunning disconnect and no doubt he just bashes the press because he thinks that's what his supporters want him to do. right? >> and you know, he doesn't hide this. remember the famous quote to leslie stahl when he said i attack you so when you do something negative on me nobody

will believe it. this is a president who relishes news media coverage more than any president that i've ever witnessed. >> right. >> he is a president who, he knows all of us. he knows all of us personally in some cases, and as you said, very charming away from the camera, sometimes charming in front of the camera, but we are the villains in the trump show. and his supporters love it. >> right. >> when he goes out and makes these attacks. >> it is almost like everybody's sitting offstage before they go onstage and he's sitting smiling. then walks onstage and puts on this role, plays his character. always talk how he is playing a character every day that you see him in front of the microphone and there is a disconnect between the character in front of the microphone and when he's offstage. one final thing. of course, it's disturbing. it could cause -- it could cause grave damage that he continues

to do this, but it's also impacting other politicians who used to be respectful to political norms in this country. you -- you challenged marco rubio just this past week when the florida senator who should have other things that he should be concerned about like senior citizens dieing, because ron desantis won't close the state. but marco rubio actually suggesting in a tweet, sounding very much like donald trump that you and other members of the press were cheering when americans died of this pandemic. >> yeah. the words he used, i got them here were "glee and delight" that we were expressing or couldn't contain our glee and delight in the fact that -- that the number of coronavirus cases in the united states had now surpassed china. and you know, joe, i -- >> disgusting. >> i don't like to mix it up with, i cover -- i cover the people i cover. i don't like to get into feats with them, but this was just so

outrageous. that tweet that he put out came right after our cbs friends and colleagues found out that one of their colleagues had just died of coronavirus. of course, nbc, you had one of your colleagues die of coronavirus. >> yeah. >> we all know people who have, who are sick or who have died, and this is a crisis that affects every single human being in this country, and the idea that anybody, anybody, would be gleeful or delightful about more people getting sick is just, it's disgusting, and -- >> it is, and i mean, you know marco rubio. you're a fellow floridian. i was just, really surprised that it came from him and he hasn't clarified or apologized for it. >> no. especially, mika, since, again, florida is supposed to be the next hot spot and he's taking cheap shots instead of actually protecting people in the state. >> really disturbing. jonathan, now look at the press

briefings, and you know, we are at the point where the "washington post" i think keeps a running tally on the president's lies, and we have seen many times the president deliver incorrect information during these briefings and, also, worked to, you know, give coverage in the podium to people that he wants to amplify in a branding type of way. so how do we cover these? is the choice as stark as not to take the president's press briefings live? which i actually think would be a mistake, or is the answer to lie fact check them? >> i think two questions. one, do we carry them live and how do we actually cover them? in terms of carrying them live, there's a legitimate debate about that. i do think that the interest and the, it's off the charts because people want to know what the federal government is doing, what it isn't doing, what it shouldn't be doing. they want to know what the

nation's top experts at the federal level are telling them should be done what they should do until their own lives and that's why so many people are watching these briefings. i mean, the president was boasting about the ratings. that's -- that was a strange thing to do, but people are tuning in. they want to know what's happening. and as a reporter, you've got to cover these things. i mean, they're incredibly you know, important. it's a chance to put questions not just to the president but the vice president who's running this task force, to people like fauci and birx, and occasionally the fema director is there. the treasury secretary. you've got to -- got to cover these things. they're incredibly important, but you're right. there's been an avalanche of misstatements, exaggerations, incorrect information that has come out, and it's got to be fact checked. it's got to be fact checked in realtime i believe, and there are different kinds of misstatements here, mika. i mean, you know, if the president is -- is talking about

how great he handled things back in january and february, i mean, that's one kind of fact check. to me, that's like a little less relevant. that's like a political question that may be important going forward. people want to know what's happening now. are we going to be in a position to be crowding into churches on easter? well, no. and he backtracked from that very quickly. do we really have a cure around the corner? well, there's no evidence of that at all. that's important to point out. those are the things that need to be fact checked in realtime. >> yeah. >> john, it's willie. congratulations on the book. somebody who's known and covered donald trump like you have back to your days at the "new york post" since 1994, we've learned i think the public learned over the last couple of years to are wary of a perceived pivot or change in tone. what looks like a change in tone of one moment is a series of tweets the next moment and he's pivoted back to where he was.

what is your sense with the statistics provided by dr. birx and dr.staggers statistics where the president is on this finally after months downplaying what coronavirus was and how it would have to be handled by him and the country? >> you're right to be wary of a change via tweet, but i think the collection of the information, he's a numbers guy, you know that, whether it's ratings on the shows he on, the number of people at his rallies, the dow jones numbers, he's been paying keen attention. and i think it was a bit of a wake-up call to him. whether or not he pivots back, i will tell you there are very

senior people close to the president who think that this threat still -- who still think this threat is exaggerated and there's been an overreaction in this country. you have certainly seen it from his outside supporters. i'm saying there are people inside the white house who also think this has been an overreaction. right now the president even this morning now? >> even now, yes. but the one thing you have to give the president some escrowed or take some assurance from, at this moment he has actually listened to the experts. he may no goff and do something like he did last friday when we talked about easter being a big comeback. or back in february we'll be down to zero cases very soon, but when it comes to the actual decision points, he has been listening to the experts. there's a difference between

what he says, what he tweets, and so for what he has done, and he has been listening to the experts, at least as of late. >> jonathan, we talk about the difference between the signal and the ground noise. the ground noise are the tweets, the attacks. the signal is whether he's listening to the doctors, whether he's listening to the medical providers, whether he's letting them implement policies to save american lives going forward. it seems like right now he's doing it. >> yeah, he is. the new book is "front row at the trump show." president of the white house correspondents association jonathan karl. we thank you on many levels, and we look forward to the book. earlier joe mentioned a "the washington post" op-ed by bill gates, in which gates outlines three critical areas for the government to make up for lost time -- vaccine development, stepped up on testing, and a, quote, consistent nationwide

approach to shutting down. that's basically everything. he writing in part, despite urging from public health experts, when states and counties haven't shut down completely. in some states beaches are still open. in others restaurants still serve sit-down meals. this is a recipe for disaster, because people with travel freely across state lines. so can the virus. the country's leaders need to be clear shutdown anywhere means shutdown everywhere, until the case numbers start to go down, which could take ten weeks or more, no one can continue business as usual. any confusion will only extend the economic pain, raise the odds that the virus will return and cause more deaths. bottom line, though, with no testing, joe, which we still have no answers on, this is going to continue indefinitely. >> bill gates also talks about

testing, and how extraordinarily important testing is, to make sure that we can know who is infected, we can test them, we can treat them, we can isolate them, and hopefully with antibody testing, we can let people go back in the workforce. let's talk about this with the second-ranking member in the united states senate, democrat, member of the judiciary committee. let's bring in dick durbin from illinois. thank you so much, senator, for being with us. let's just start by getting your reaction from what you've seen in the past 24 hours in the president's press conference, and where we go from here. >> joe, i can tell you, there was a different press conference yesterday, as we all know. the president, who had been talking about easter and we'll get through this in a hurry, had a different song yesterday. he obviously had been prevailed upon by the public health experts, the numbers are incredible and heartbreaking. to think we could lose 100,000

americans to this virus and the number may go up dramatically from there. i'm in springfield, illinois, my backyard. this home. this has about 110,000 people in it. that's the kind of magnitude we are talking about with deaths from this virus. >> good afternoon, senator. governor pritzker said yesterday he and your state have only received about 10% of the equipment it's requested from the federal government. what's your analysis of how ready the state of illinois is, and specifically how ready the big-city hospitals are. >> we're holding a breath. 6,000 cases, roughly, reported overnight. today the number is likely to grow. the governor felt like a shipping clerk, he said. he was calling the major airlines he knew the ceos to be

available, asking them, begging them to help illinois secure gets from china. they couldn't get cargo flights out. you know, i have a very talented government here. he's dealt with big business, to think this is his responsibility to airlift what should have been in the national stockpile is incredible at this moment. yes, we're worried about the numbers could go to 6,000 to three, four times that amount next week. we're worried about what it will do for our hochts, downstayed and particularly in the city of it chicago. we're doing everything we can to tell people to stay home, sit down, take it easy, let's get through this together. >> senator, what's the reason, do you think, that the president is not using the full force of the defense production act in every way possible? some way that the profiteering then wouldn't be happening and

perhaps he's got a financial interest. what else would be the reason. >> my friend chris murphy put it on there earlier. i think there's ideologues that says, wait a minute, if the president steps into the marketplace, that's not what the republicans are about, but if there ever was a moment for a president for mobilize his nation to make sure we have what we need to get through this thing, this is the moment. the president has finally leaned toward general motors a bit. that's it. there's so many other areas where all of us, as members of the senate and house, working with our governors, trying to find source foss this protective equipment. i wasn't elect to do do that. i'll do what it takes to help my state, but that needs leadership. >> you're exactly right, senator. any of these conspiracy theories that people are throwing on the about the president, no credibility there. also no credibility that the

president's conspiracy theories that doctors and nurses and hospitals are stealing somehow these masks and reselling them on the black market. talk about how chaotic it's been where all the governors have been competing against each other and having to negotiate even against donald trump's only administration driving those prices up. >> our governor was talking about a producer in our state who has this equipment, who is playing hard to get when it comes to making it available. he's looking for a better price in another state. let's be honest about it. that to me is outrageous. this as bad as any profiteering during a war, and the president, as fdr did in world war ii, should be speaking out. on profits be damned, the american people need to survive. i want to say another thing while we're at it. when i watched the president's

press conference, when he starts practicing medicine as a license, i tense up, thinking about the americans listening to the problems he's making about drugs, whose names he can barely pronounce. for goodness sake, turn this over to dr. fauci. he is the expert, the president is not. he is not a doctor. >> and of course talk show hosts that support the president, that promote this even doctors that come on, they're demagogues and quacks and dangerous until these drugs are approved. senator, thank you for joining us. we would love to have you come back and talk about the economic impact on americans and where we go next. >> thank you. >> all we need to do is set up a studio in the backyard and i'm

ready. >> willie, final thoughts. >> i just wanted to say, we were talking about governor desantis, and won'tering why he won't close down the state. savannah guthrie a few moments ago played for the attorney general the sound bite from governor desantis. the surgeon general held of the guidelines and said my advice to america is these guidelines are a national stay-at-home order, saying to governor desantis and others, issue that order. >> thank you. >> the federal government, the trump administration has spoken, take care of your people, following the guidelines -- >> do your job. >> -- shut down the state. that does it for us this morning. stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now. hi there. i'm stephanie