is extremely happy with what we're doing. he's thanking us. he has a great relationship with mike. thanking us. i just wish the politicians would say to you what they say to us. it's a good question. do you have one? >> reporter: a question about governor cuomo. the national security front, to the extent that you can comment on this, your administration is making heavy preparations to move against the cartels in latin america right now -- >> you said latin america? >> reporter: yes. could you expand on the reasoning of why now. are their supply and logistics weak, what's the reasoning? >> good question. we've moved a tremendous number of boats and ships to the area of -- different areas of exactly where you're talking about because we're tired of drugs pouring into our country from other places and we're tired of seeing drugs pouring into

different parts of latin america, south america, and just coming into our country. now we've got them stopped at the border and they're trying to do it by sea. we stop them at the border with -- and frankly with the help of mexico, mexico right now is 27,000 soldiers on our southern border. they're doing that because i've asked them to do it. that's the only reason they're doing it. they have 27,000 soldiers. so now they're trying to bring it in by boat and ship the drug lords and the people doing drugs and trying to destroy our country from inside with drugs. and we're hitting them very, very hard. and that's why -- >> reporter: u.s. assets are targeting? >> say it? >> reporter: is it beyond narcotics? are there other activities -- >> there are the activities of human trafficking and especially with respect to women. as you know, proportionally, it's mostly women. it's a horrible thing and there's never been a time like it and it's because of the

internet. this is all over the world. for the most part, they're coming through -- in this country, they're coming through the southern border, but we're hitting them very hard. they have tremendous illegal trafficking, women and children also. but mostly in women. and it's illegal and it's horrible and it's disgraceful. i've seen things that are an absolute disgrace. we're trying to knock them out and we're knocking them hard. i want to thank the president of mexico. he has really stepped up to the plate. 27,000 soldiers, they've never had any soldiers on our border. and i did that because the democrats will not approve anything -- because they want to have open borders. they want to have all these people flowing through our border and in many cases they're sick, they have problems that you don't want to know about or they're criminal, in many cases. not in all cases. they want to have open borders and sanctuary cities.

so they protect criminals. and i don't want to have that. and joe biden doesn't want to have that because he said that during numerous debates. i want to have strong borders and i don't like protecting criminals with sanctuary cities. we're doing it for drugs, human trafficking, doing it because we have to do it. >> reporter: governor cuomo -- >> reporter: a question on antibody testing. by may we expect to have millions available. how are you going to prioritize who is going to get the antibody test and is what is that going to show you? do you think that's going to be immunity? >> i would rather have the admiral answer that. >> i know you probably answer this, the antibody test does not tell you if you have the active virus in your nose, if you're positive for the antibody, it strongly implies, it means that you have had the virus before. and to the degree that we know of medical knowledge, you will

probably, highly probably be protected against getting the virus again in the future. i want to make something clear. there's no antibody test approved, okay. approved is not a word we talk about. there's a test or two that has received emergency use authorization and many, many, many others out there that have not gone that way yet. and i want to take this opportunity to caution, there is a very consolidated effort by the fda, and iah to validate some of the tests that are on the market right now because it's very important that they actually do what they say they do. we have reason to believe that not all of them are going to perform well. i don't know the primary source. but the "financial times" just reported that the uk had 7.5 million antibody tests that they bought and none of them work. we're not going to get in that situation. we're going to be careful to make sure that when we tell you,

you're likely immune from the disease, you're really -- that test really said that. now, i will also make a statement, and there's a lot of work on here and i'm excited about it. as opposed to the test for a novel virus, the antibody type tests are very sophisticated technology, but they're old technology. this we expect to have many tens of millions of tests the first month that we're really sure that the test makes sense. so this allows for surveillance screening -- and dr. birx is one of the world experts -- to understand is 1%, 5%, 20% of americans have been infected. but it allows us to have very widespread tens and tens of millions of people screened with a finger rick on the spot. >> by may you're saying this will happen? >> science doesn't run on rails. we need to make sure that the fda, the nih, which they're actively doing right now, are

sure that the tests -- that they're testing really do perform the way they should and if things work out the way we believe they will, we will have millions on the market by may in a -- >> let's take an assessment of where we are after what has already been a long briefing. a look at the headlines, what we've learned. notably, it was from late in the briefing, but there has apparently been another perfect call. second use that we're aware of of the phrase by the president. the first, of course, was his with the president of ukraine. but apparently mike pence had a perfect call with the nation's 50 governors and apparently not a negative word was spoken about the administration's reaction thus far. and it has earned that label.

the president started off by talking about boris johnson and marshaling the efforts of four u.s. pharma companies with officers in london to get the latest technology, therapies and treatment to the prime minister. he said he appreciated governor cuomo's nice statements today along with governor murphy of new jersey. again, about this call with the governors, there wasn't a negative person on the call. he has switched to calling 3m a great company. the fight between the u.s. government, between donald trump and 3m, was still something he was reeling about yesterday, but apparently all is well there. had a friendly call with joe biden today. let's dip back in to the white house briefing room for a moment.

>> i want to -- i'm going to look into it. and i also think our navy secretary is a highly respected man. sometimes that happens with people and i'll take a look at it. >> reporter: what do you mean by that? would you consider reinstating -- >> when he sends a letter out and copies all over the place, and it's not a classified letter and it was very disconcerting to the families of the people on the ship. number one, they get worried and scared. it was weak. we don't want weak. but i'm going to take a look because he's -- i think -- you know, he looks to me like he's an outstanding guy. just a little while ago, i looked at his file and people have bad days and we'll take a look at it. >> reporter: what would you consider doing for him? >> we'll take a look. i want to speak to the secretary. i also want to speak to secretary of defense, mark

esper, who is doing a fantastic job. and we'll -- maybe i can help the situation out. you guys are saying why is the president getting involved? i like to solve problems. it's a problem, you know. i don't want to see men hurt, women hurt, i don't want to see people hurt unnecessarily. maybe we can solve it easily where, you know, it's not life-changing. but he did a bad thing. sending a letter out and many, many copies as you heard. i heard 28 copies, i heard a lot. that's a lot of copies. plus the letter was five pages long. i haven't read the letter. i think it was five pages long. that's a lot of writing. he's the captain of a ship. he's a very important person of a very expensive ship, a nuclear-powered ship. he shouldn't be writing letters like that. but it happens. sometimes i'll write a letter that i say, i wish i didn't send it. not too often, but it happens.

>> reporter: mr. president -- >> go ahead. >> reporter: follow up on that, the acting navy secretary, i know you were asked about this, but i want to try one more time. he did say in remarks to soldiers that crozier was too naive or stupid to be in command if he didn't think that -- >> i don't want to comment on what he said. it's tough language, but i don't want to -- let's not get into that. it's tough language. there are some people that think, oh, wow, he says it like it is. look, he made a mistake. he should not have sent that letter or he should have gone through his chain of command which is the typical way of doing it. you know, he's in the military. he's a very important person in the military. he knows it better than anybody in this room what he should have done. i'm sure he feels he made a mistake. but i'm going to look into it and i'm going to see maybe we can do something. i'm not looking to destroy a person's life who has had an otherwise stellar career, as i understand it. i looked at his file just now.

if we can save a person's career -- i don't mind going after a person if they did something wrong. and, you know, this was a mistake. he made a mistake. i'm not justifying what he did. he made a mistake. shouldn't be sending letters. he's the captain. he's an important person in the military. you don't send letters and it leaks into a newspaper. of all newspapers, that was a beauty. it was a mistake. but i may get involved. i'll call secretary of defense and find out a little bit about it and if i can help two good people, i'm going to help them. >> reporter: sir, on the -- >> reporter: your tone has seemed to change a little bit for the captain -- >> no, it hasn't. >> reporter: did somebody speak to you on his behalf. >> the last time, i said, you shouldn't have sent the letter. i haven't changed. if it's a letter, it should go

classified and it should go to his superior and he -- >> reporter: did somebody -- >> it hasn't changed in that regard. the only thing that has played right up here with me is that i looked at his record and he's been an outstanding person. if he wasn't, i wouldn't even be talking about this. he's been an outstanding person. he's had a very good military career. he started off as a helicopter pilot. they called him chopper. he was a great helicopter pilot. and then he went to f-16s or f-18s and he was a tremendous pilot. and then he's very smart. he studied nuclear energy and it was very smart. nuclear energy is very complex, very -- it's very hard. very few people can do it. and he did it well. and then he became the captain of a nuclear ship.

of a -- replacement cost, $18 billion are the replacement costs. on a replacement cost basis, an $18 billion ship. the president gerald ford, very expensive. but they're spending money on that one like nobody has ever seen. so he made a mistake. he made a mistake. and maybe we're going to make that mistake not destroy his life. a couple of more. >> reporter: you mentioned -- >> okay, again, we're going to sum up some of what we just witnessed that gets me to one of the other points the president has decided to get involved in this u.s. navy matter, talking briefly about the captain of the nuclear carrier, f-18 pilot, the

aircraft they fly in the navy. back up, talked about his call with joe biden. has apparently convinced himself that we have so many -- as many positive cases as we do because we're doing more testing now. he thanked american citizens for doing a great job. he said stay inside. but on the topic of the eight outlying states who are not part of the stay at home recommendation, he blamed that on the constitution. he said from a moral constitutional standpoint, he didn't want to recommend such a thing. he called the states localized form of government, reminded everybody again, that in his view, the u.s. moved early by closing off china and europe which did not happen. he also defended testing.

we probably have quite a few tests he said of himself and presumably the vice president because the system of testing now is so quick and so easy. a reporter hopped on that, reminded him of the testing troubles in the country. he audibly sighed at one moment. dr. fauci got up briefly. he said in response to a question about when we're getting back to normal, he said precoronavirus back to normal may not ever happen in this country. though he was confident in our ability to solve the current curve. the president talked about the curve. he said people can't even believe how low some of these bumps are. mentioned california by name. that's what got him into social distancing. he said a lot of equipment is

being moved by aircraft. he said, again, daniel dale, the fact-checker of this administration, de facto, keeps finding fault with this. the president again today insisting testing is done when people get onto those planes and testing is done when people get off of those planes. talking about air traffic in the united states which is just not true. he, again, was troubled upon hearing reporters' questions that our testing was somehow troubled. a reminder to all watching, we have no earthly idea how many americans are walking around with this virus because we are not doing widespread testing as a percentage of the population. he went after jonathan carl, the abc news white house correspondent, author, journalist, said, you'll never

make it. went after the obama administration, said we had no ammunition, again, when he started as president. called chuck schumer a lightweight and a disgrace and relitigated the mexican border, relitigated his problem with the democratic party, said by him that checkpoints between u.s. states were fine. clearly laid out his view of mitigation as being finite, said lets get it done. and he said to the press corps, i wish the politicians would say to you what they say to us. peter, do we have that about right? >> reporter: yeah, brian, i think you do. it's a lot to digest after

hearing the president speak for more than an hour. i think the most important thing, and there were a lot of things that require fact-checking here, was the misrepresentation or how the president was most misleading about the status right now of testing. certainly, the number now more than a million, 1.6 million tests, he says, have now been completed. but as you noted, that doesn't take into account, the fact that per capita, the u.s. significantly trails many other countries. on top of that, it ignores the fact that while the testing at this point is now significantly better than it was before, before it was abomidable. it was way behind. there were concerns about it. on the issue of the inspector general, the president just on saturday said that in his conversations with hospital officials, he said that hospital officials said they were, quote, thrilled with the federal response. but as we learned today from the hhs inspector general, as it

relates to shortages, there are severe and widespread shortages, there are dessitesting delays. and the shortages apply to emergency supplies that officials need. so that is contradicted by the facts. the president's allies and advisers there today suggested that this report was done or was completed in conversations with 323 hospital officials in late march. nonetheless, as evidenced by our conversations across nbc news and msnbc, as you speak to hospital officials and health care workers, right now, they're witnessing those significant shortages. brian, you'll remember on march 13th, the president stood in the rose garden surrounded by ceos of places like cvs, walgreens. he discussed an initiative that would be setting up drive-through testing sites by the private sector in parking

lots of those different cvss or walgreens. the hhs tells us that there have been 25 state-led sites set up around the country. but by the private sector, at this point, more than three weeks later, only five private sector sites, including just four drive-through sites that presently exist. brian, i was struck by what my experience is in that briefing room, the president who views the media in a way -- he thinks they should be almost like his amplifier as it were, calling out some of the reporters in the room saying they shouldn't be asking tough questions, they should be congratulating him and telling him that he is doing a great job. it's important to acknowledge the facts here. as it related to the -- to captain crozier who is now in guam, apparently, in quarantine, reportedly, because he has coronavirus as well, the

president is trying to swoop in and say he's going to save the day, he's going to re-examine this situation because he's learned this is a pretty good guy. earlier today we learned from our friend at "the washington post" that just one day before crozier was fired by the acting navy secretary, according to "the washington post," it was said by that same acting navy secretary, breaking news, trump wants him fired. so it was the president who initially wanted him fired. the action took place. and now the president saying, you know, i'm going to look into this and see what we can do to fix the situation. >> peter alexander, thank you. let's bring in the doctor, infectious diseases physician, medical director of the special pathogens unit up at boston medical center. also a professor of epidemiology at the ucla fielding hospital. she runs the ucla center for

global and immigrant health where she specializes in emerging infectious diseases. first of all, there's a rewriting of physics that we're witnessing here, the role of the states in a pandemic. i'm reminded that when the vaccine was developed, it wasn't a state matter, it was a federal matter getting it to the u.s. population, especially children. also a rewriting of medicine. the question about testing. the president said that now they're so quick and easy. still, am i not incorrect that testing depends on where you live and socioeconomics, how much money you have? >> yeah, i think, brian, thanks for having me. the reality is -- just to answer your question first, of course the level of access to testing is completely dependent on where

you are in this country. as was mentioned, we're still not testing as many people as we should to -- if we want to get to a reality where we start lifting the restrictions, we are nowhere near the level of testing that we need to get and not only that, but now we have a whole number of people who might have gotten sick and that's why this testing, the testing for antibodies becomes important. the thing that struck me throughout this briefing was outbreaks are not like earthquakes. when there's an earthquake, there's an epicenter. you set up your operations and you sort of set up everything that needs to get done. here with outbreaks, epicenters move, there's a shifting ground reality. it's not a problem that you up front and sit back. you need to have continuous adjustments of resources. this is where the federal stockpiles to state-level strategies is important because not only does it give you, you know, insight about what the problems that are coming up front, but it allows you to learn from experiences that you can apply to another state. good example of this is, you

cannot in this time, you know, blame or refuse to listen to people from your ground, from your front lines. ann and i have both been in front lines of outbreaks in the past. you have to listen to people when they say something is not working, not take it personally. take it as a sign of, okay, what exactly in the system is failing that we can improve, that we can improve outcomes and access and be sure the pandemic doesn't become bigger than it is right now. whether it's the navy captain, governors, doctors and nurses, listen to your frontline staff because they're giving you a clue of where the -- you know, the breaks in the armor are. >> ann, two points, number one, it was no one's fault that the u.s. economy has been trashed along the way. we're in kind of a national power save mode. number two, we often look to our presidents to cheer usays

about mitigation, he continues to say another short period of time, let's get it done. the virus doesn't respect a back to work date on the calendar, does it? >> no, it does not, brian. that is exactly correct. as dr. fauci said early on, it's the virus that dictates the timeline. we have no ability to do so. and i think that we've seen this with ebola. we have both been on the front lines and we've both seen what happens. and i think that it's very, very clear that unless we have national strategy that is coordinated and that that strategy is flexible and responsive to the real issues on the ground, we are not going to get ahead of this. and so it's useless to start thinking about dates of when we can open back up when what we

need right now is to be doubling down and getting down to business and making sure that we are flattening this curve and getting the states and the cities and the individuals what they need to be able to combat this virus. we know that testing, which is a benchmark of disease surveillance and of disease control, is not yet widespread available right now. and as you mentioned, it is only available to people who can really afford it or who have the ability to go and actively seek it out and beg for it and even in those scenarios, people are not successful. so we only have a tip of the iceberg here. we have no idea where we stand right now. and so it's critical that we start really understanding what is going on in this country, how many cases there are and wrapping our brains around what it's going to take to really get past this mitigation phase.

>> thank you. and thank you for your patience this afternoon into this evening. your breaking news coverage continues now with ari melber. good evening. >> good evening, thank you very much, brian. our coverage continues. we have also been following the latest news both from the white house task force briefing and other facts from around the nation. we heard about the big surge of cases coming in next week. the death toll in new york has been rising. they're expecting that to apex as soon as wednesday. donald trump saying that he asked leading companies to contact officials in london about therapeutics that might help the british prime minister, boris johnson. he was transferred to intensive care. the president also lashing out at i want facts, including those surfaced by the inspector general of the department of health and human services for that report that found u.s. hospitals have not only widespread shortages but the federal government under the

trump administration has been providing inadequate and sometimes completely out of date materials. i'm joined by the rhode island island governor. governor, your response to what we heard today? >> good evening. well, here in rhode island we had a very big day today. overnight, we doubled the number of tests that we can perform. today we -- i announced a partnership with cvs. at least in my state, we have a big company that is stepping up and they're providing rapid results within 15 minutes, free for anybody, and it's a drive-through. so that will bring us up to very high levels of per capita testing. but that isn't the experience everywhere and i would say as a nation, we certainly have a lot more to do. >> we've been seeing many governors take a different tack than this president, both with how they deal with the science as well as how you address your own constituents.

it's a difficult time obviously. i want to play something from dr. fauci and i wonder where you come down on the point he makes here which is that while there is eventually going to be improvements, and there may even be a workable vaccine, he cautioned people against the idea that there will ever be a return to precoronavirus normality. take a listen. >> when we say getting back to normal, we mean something very different from what we're going through right now. right now we're in a very intense mitigation. if you want to get to precoronavirus, you know, that might not ever happen in the sense that the threat is there. i believe with the therapies that will be coming online and over a period of time we will get a good vaccine, that we will never have to get back to where we are right now. if that means getting back to normal, we'll get back to normal. >> would you tell your constituents, that there's no going back to normal. >> i think it's a little early

to say. but i think it's a smart expectation to set. i spend a lot of time thinking about what the new normal is and i'm very anxious to get into the business of releasing some of the restrictions so we can get rhode islanders back to work. but we know that the key piece of that puzzle, or one key piece of the puzzle is wider availability of rapid, accurate testing. which is why i say we're moving aggressively down that path in rhode island. what i also know is, there's no concept of flipping the switch with the economy. it's not like on some magic date we're going to be back to work like we were. it's going to be a slow process with new rules, regulation, screening, and probably a gradual process. and we're going to be living that new normal for many, many months or as dr. fauci says maybe forever. i know where we are now is

unsustainable and we have to be very focused on getting to that new normal as quickly as is safely possible. >> governor, thank you very much. our coverage continues. we turn to dr. aaron carol, professor at the indiana school of medicine. what did you think of dr. fauci's comments? >> i think there's a real chance we won't be going back to normal. i think he's exactly correct. when we come out of this, we're going to have to be able to do significant testing. being able to test every single person who has symptoms. we're going to have to have a public health system which can do contact tracing of every single person, put all of them into isolation, to do testing on them. that's an amazingly complex system that's going to have to go on until we have a vaccine. and if any location starts to get an outbreak, like this again, they will have to close

things down along these lines. our goal is hopefully not having to have the whole country do i.d. it at once. if it does rage out of control in the fall, we may have to do something like this again as well. we're not going to feel totally safe until a significant percentage of the population has either had it, which we would like to avoid, or has had a vaccine. >> what would be a medical precedent for that? >> we haven't seen anything like this before. if you look at singapore, for instance, right now, they have done some of the really good contact tracing in isolation and managed to keep everything open. but things have just started to get out of control and they closed everything down for the next month. they've been doing a good job along the lines we can't do yet. in order to reopen, we're going to have to have at least 14 days of everything looking better day after day. we're going to have to be comfortable that the hospitals and the health care system can manage this. we're also going to have to have

so many quick tests on the in order of 750,000 to a million a week, across the country, to have the capacity to test everyone who has symptoms and then have that public health system which can track everyone down and keep -- at least the people who are infected isolated, otherwise, all of us have to be isolated. >> yamiche, watching this press conference today, i have to pose the question to you, would it be more constructive if the president weren't there? >> obviously, that's in some ways a question i can't answer. what i can say is that the president seemed very frustrated when he was being pressed on things that are of dire consequence, including this ig report from the health and human services ig who is saying that there are dire shortages at the hospitals, who is saying there might be health care workers who are at risk and they might not be able to treat covid patients in the way they should because

they have these shortages. he was saying that the ig is someone who is an obama holdover -- >> either way, to even -- i'll jump in for viewers. we had on our air and people saw it. it doesn't matter whether she was new or old. the inspectors general provide facts. to fact-check the president on when she got into the job is to accept potentially the legitimacy of that. when in fact what jumped out to me in this reporting, and i want to read it to you, what the ig found about the trump administration. the hospitals have these severe shortages that i mentioned of medical gear, inconsistent guidance from the government. hospitals facing shortages of medical equipment amid this outbreak. all of that from the government watchdog and this comes of course on the heels of the story

viewers may have heard about, but it's gotten less attention because of the crisis, the friday night news dump of the president removing a different ig also from facts he didn't like, in that case about ukraine. >> that's right. and what you hear from the president is disdain for the idea of an inspector general. what you have is someone like michael atkinson, he was fired on friday by the president, this intel community inspector general saying, look, i was just doing my duty. this is a nonpartisan role that i'm playing. when people see problems and abuse, they should have the legal right to come forward even if those don't bear out. what the president is doing is questioning the idea of whether or not government agencies should have anyone looking over them and whether or not there should be any sort of watchdog in our society. >> yeah. all well put. we have been juggling these stories. i have to turn to one more

expert. thank you both. i turn to thomas freedman, the well-known author from the "new york times" joining us. i don't make light of anything these days. but joining us, as i always imagined you in a book-lined room. happy to see you okay there. there's so much to get into. i want to play a brief moment from the press conference that we haven't aired yet. it's something so rare these days. but just the president mentioning that at least for a moment, he claims, that he and joe biden were able to put politics aside, to have a conversation today. that's news. take a listen. >> vice president -- former vice president biden who called and we had a really wonderful, warm conversation. it was a nice conversation. we talked about pretty much this, this is what we talked about. this is what everyone is talking about. this is what they want to talk

about. and he gave me his point of view and we had a friendly conversation. it lasted probably 15 minutes and it was really good. it was really good. really nice. i think it was very much. i appreciate his calling. >> tom, your reaction to that particular moment and big picture, what is on your mind tonight as we go through this as a nation? >> a couple things, one, i have a column coming out tomorrow about why we're going to need a national unity government to wrestle with this crisis. and the reason is, the stresses and strains that are going to come from this crisis, first of all, economically, people who have lost their job, lost their business, lost their savings, are going to need to be bailed out. the stresses and strains over who gets bailed out and who doesn't after this are going to be profound. they could rip this country apart if we deal with them on a

partisan basis. secondly, some of your guests have alluded to, there's going to be required a massive amount of not only intrusive testing to track where the virus is and who's got it, who can be released into the workforce and who can't. a lot of licensing and badging. through technological means, just as after 9/11 you wanted to know that the person sitting next to you on an airplane wasn't carrying a bomb. today you want to know they're not carrying the virus. it's going to raise a lot of deep civil liberties issues and that too is going to be really wrenching. and so our ability to come together as a country around that, i think is going to be very, very important going forward. more broadly -- >> let me ask you about that before we go -- are you sort of suggesting a little bit of a somewhat orwellian way that we

may get to a point where folks want to see people's health papers, they want to see verification if they're going to be in any close quarters? >> i think that's going to be -- you're going to see things that we've already seen in south korea, ari, and different countries already where restaurants are taking the temperature of people before they come in. airlines will be doing that. if you are immune, there may be some way that you can be badged so people will want to know that. i don't know exactly where this will go. but it will raise real civil liberties. if we come at it as a partisan -- with our traditional partisan politics, it could rip the country apart. more broadly, you know, i listen to the president's briefing last night, i listened to part of it tonight. it's hard for me to watch. to me, you know, what the country deeply wants to know, what's making people anxious is do you have a plan and where are we on the course of that plan.

so what would you do if you were a normal president? to me, you would have three charts out there. the first chart is who's got the virus, what are the needs of every hospital in the country and where are we as a federal government in meeneeds both for the hospital and the health providers. that would be one chart. second is, where is the virus growing and where is actually the curve flattening. that would be the second part of the briefing. and the third part would be how can we think about as the governor of rhode island alluded to, getting people back to work. what would be required for that? what would be required is some kind of risk approach that people have talked about where we massively test everybody, we know who we've got, we know who's got the disease, who's had it and is immune, how do we phase them back into the workforce while we protect those

who are the most immunocompromised or the elderly most likely to get the disease. you have three charts. every night you come out and say, here's where we are, here's where we're falling behind, here's where we're making progress. instead you have the president coming out saying everything is wonderful. and everything that is wrong is president obama's fault. as a viewer, it makes me -- it really makes me anxious. this is not helping. >> right. as a viewer and i think as implied, as a citizen, the last thing i want to ask you about briefly while you're here, we've had these conversations in the past. a lot of these come back to the paradigm, what is the way you're looking at the world. are you looking at it with self-interest, in terms of sacrifice which leaders call on us to do. we have a lot of nurses and doctors sacrificing right now. and so much time has been spent thinking about the political developments in the world and you've written books about it when you talk about post cold

war and military strategy, you talk about inner dependence. i wonder whether in your view, is it too early to say whether this pandemic-level existential threat to so many people in the world, to so many economies of the world means that those of us need to try on a new paradigm when we think about world issues because it seems now to be as big as so many of the other things that used to consume years of strategy and planning? >> it's a good question. if i could put on my hat for a second and tell you the worst mistakes i've made as a journalist is to begin a column or a story with the phrase the world will never be the same again. >> right. >> and so so much depends. if we get a vaccine early, if question get therapeutics early, if we have a different president who is able to rally the world together, right now globalization is fracturing. maybe we'll find that because of this, we need to work together in totally different ways.

i just -- i just hope we don't go back to a world of hyper partisanship and the kind of tribal politics breaking out all over the world because that will not be healthy. it wasn't healthy before. it really will be unhealthy now because there's a lot of countries going forward. they're not going -- they're going to face real problems in the developing world in particular. so much happens. i know one thing, historically america was counted on to do three things in a crisis, lead, provide information and provide help to people around the world. and we're not doing any of those right now. >> i feel you on all of that. that's why we're benefitting greatly to have that bigger perspective. before i let you go, i'm running over on time. do you have time, though, for a bad passover joke? >> not only do i have time, i really need that. >> when you let elijah in on wednesday, make sure you stay 6

feet away from him. >> absolutely. god bless you. >> you and my mom may be the only people who enjoy that. a little humor to get us through the hard times. thank you as always. we're going to fit in a quick break. when we come back, president trump taking on the intelligence community inspector general who actually spawned the factual report that proved true and led to impeachment. it's a whole other important story when we return. gar. a majority of adults who took ozempic® reached an a1c under 7 and maintained it. here's your a1c. oh! my a1c is under 7! (announcer) and you may lose weight. adults who took ozempic® lost on average up to 12 pounds. i lost almost 12 pounds! oh! (announcer) for those also with known heart disease, ozempic® lowers the risk of major cardiovascular events such as heart attack, stroke, or death. it lowers the risk. oh! and i only have to take it once a week. oh! ♪ oh, oh, oh, ozempic®! ♪

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welcome back. the country has been, of course, focused on the ongoing battle with the coronavirus. the president has at times called it an invisible enemy. donald trump hasn't missed battling his other enemies. late friday night sent this letter to congress informing them that he was taking the unusual step of firing the inspector general for the intelligence community michael atkinson. he says he needs the fullest confidence of the appointee serving in that role. why this? well, he is the one who followed the law that is, did exactly as he was supposed to do by providing congress with the whistle-blower complaint about donald trump's attempt to push ukraine to investigate the bidens. that complaint, as you probably know, it proved to be true. it led to donald trump's impeachment. and there has now been outrage against this move in the middle of this coronavirus pandemic.

consider the reaction as the news was breaking. >> now the president is retaliating in the middle of a pandemic. it's just reprehensible and dangerous. it sends a message throughout the federal government and to other inspector generals that if they do their job as this professional did, and michael atkinson was a complete professional, they too may be fired by a vindictive president. >> on saturday, though, this president doubled down and defended this very unusual firing. >> i thought he did a terrible job. absolutely terrible. he took a whistle-blower report, which turned out to be a fake report, it was fake, it was totally wrong, it was about my conversation with the president of ukraine, he took a fake report and he brought it to congress with an emergency, okay? not a big trump fan, that i can tell you. that man is a disgrace to igs.

>> the white house may hope that all of this goes away during this pandemic. but we are devoting time to cover it and we have quite the guest for it. val demings was an impeachment manager. she's also of the house judiciary and intelligence communities and has an extensive background in law enforcement. thanks for making time for us. >> well, ari, good to be with you. the news of the firing of michael atkinson is just disgraceful. very disappointing. michael atkinson is a straight shooter and i just would ask that the american people remember that michael atkinson was fired for doing his job. he was fired for fatefully executing the duties of his office, which is totally disgraceful. and, you know, as it has been said the president is very vindictive. he should be focused on the over

300,000 americans who have been stricken with the coronavirus and over 10,000 americans who have died as a result. his response to this crisis has been substandard and for him to fire a man for simply doing his job, a man of integrity just shows the character of this president. >> you laid out starkly do you think the timing of this removal is suspicious? >> it's ex dreamily suspicious. remember, our president is the districter in chief. whenever he -- because, remember, it is all about him every movement, every issue, every tragedy. wherever he is in trouble, which he is in this response, whatever he's been rightly criticized, whenever congress is providing necessary oversight, he tries to change the subject. and so he is playing the victim

and trying to say that michael atkinson of all people was out to get him, is not a trump fan. this man is a career public servant. he's received num rerous awards. diet rector mcgwire described him as a valued and trusted employee but it doesn't seem like they are very useful to this white house. >> yeah, and i wanted to draw you out on the wider part of this. we don't pick the stories that come up. we couldn't have scripted more of an over lap that the president enters the weekend taking out this inspector general and viewers have heard the history of the facts, your perspective and played the president in fairness and people can make up their mind and that's going on over the weekend and we're in the middle of the pandemic and a different inspector general release master yell he went on the attack for just in today's press conference and what seems to be consistent

is inspector generals doing the work, providing evidence and facts about failures, misconduct and in the case of the way your house determined, potentially abuses of office by this white house and he goes on the attack, goes on the attack of the people doing fact-finding. does that concern you with regard to the health report that came out today? >> it extremely concerns me but what is more troubling is that it ought to concern everybody. insect topector generals are interested in numbers and facts. with the purpose of really trying to make our country better, more efficient, more effective and for this president to fire the inpespector general michael atkinson and the new report looking at how we can better serve our health care professionals and our hospitals

as they are all about to reach capacity, i'm extremely worried this president will try to take the numbers and do what he's done, cover them up, deny them and the people that need help the post, help may be slow coming to them. >> so what is the solution when i saw this story break, some people online said well, what are you going to do quote i impeach him again? that's not where congress is at this week with everything going on, but given that the law already does largely make these offices independent and it does require things get turned over so the president has to explain why he removed him, in your view, is this it? is this where it lands or is there some other corrective that can be done? >> you know, ari, inspector generals are supposed to be fair and impartial, non-partisan and

michael atkinson was the perfect example, a shining example of that. if we are going to effectively attack covid-19 the way we need to to save american lives because quite frankly, the president's primary responsibility is supposed to be to protect americans. then we have got to give an accurate overview of the president's initial response, america's initial response to this virus and look at what we could have done better. because you know reports are already out that we may see another case in the fall. so the road that inspector generals play are critical and we need to take this igs report and see what we can learn from it so we can be better with the sole purpose of saving american lives. >> understood. and we definitely wanted to get your voice in on this. you mentioned the president's

pension for distraction, we're staying on these stories, even the ones dropped friday night. congre congresswoman val demings, appreciate it. >> thank you. >> we will be right back. precia. >> thank you. >> we will be right back yes. it's the first word of any new discovery. but when allergies attack, the excitement fades. allegra helps you say yes with the fastest non-drowsy allergy relief and turning a half hearted yes, into an all in yes. allegra. live your life, not your allergies.

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i want to thank our guests, doctors and public officials. that does it for special coverage. if you're looking for me, follow me online on facebook, twitter and instagram and critique any

bad jokes there. if you have ideas, email me at ari @ms nbc.com. i'll fill in this hour 7:00 p.m. eastern tomorrow, as well. don't go anywhere right now. "all in" with chris hayes is next. good evening from new york. i'm chris hayes. we are about to enter what will almost certainly be the worst week we've experienced so far in terms of the human toll of this pandemic. just today, britain's prime minister boris johnson who was already hospitalized for coronavirus symptoms was moved to intensive care as his symptoms worsened. his aids report that he remains conscious and not on a ventilator. prime minister johnson asked his foreign secretary to stand in for him if necessary. here in the u.s., we have over 360,000 cases and close to 11,000