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tv   Andrea Mitchell Reports  MSNBC  April 8, 2020 9:00am-10:00am PDT

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of our friends and neighbors have little or no savings and are desperately trying to pay their rent or mortgage or even put food on the table. this reality makes clear that congress must address this unprecedented crisis in an unprecedented way that protects the health and economic well being of the working families of our country, not just powerful special interests. as a member of the democratic leadership and the united states senate, and as a senator from the state of vermont, this is something that i intend to intensely be involved in over the next number of months, and that will require an enormous amount of work. which takes me to the state of our presidential campaign. i wish i could give you better news, but i think you know the truth. and that is we are now some 300 delegates behind vice president
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biden and the path toward victory is virtually impossible. so while we are winning the ideological battle, and while we are winning the support of so many young people and working people throughout the country, i have concluded that this battle for the democratic nomination will not be successful. so today i'm announcing the suspension of my campaign. please know that i do not make this decision lightly. in fact, it has been a very difficult and painful decision. over the past few weeks, jane and i in consultation with top staff and many of our prominent supporters, have made an honest assessment of the prospects for victory. if i believe we had a feasible path to the nomination, i would certainly continue the campaign. but it's just not there. i know there may be some in our movement who disagree with this decision. who would like us to fight on until the last valid task at the
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democratic convention. i understand that position. but as i see the crisis gripping the nation, exacerbated by a president unwilling or unable to provide any kind of credible leadership and the work that needs to be done to protect people in this most desperate hour, i could not in good conscience continue to mouth a campaign that could not win and which would interfere with the important work required by all of us in this difficult hour. let me say this very emphatically. as you all know, we have never been just a campaign. we are a grassroots, multi racial, multi generational movement which has always believed that real change never comes from the top on down, but always from the bottom on up. we have taken on wall street, the insurance companies, the drug companies, the fossil fuel industry, the military
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industrial complex, the prison industrial complex and the greed of the entire corporate elite. that struggle continues. while this campaign is coming to an end, our movement is not. dr. martin luther king jr. reminded us that, quote, "the ark of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice," end quote. the fight for justice is what our campaign has been about. the fight for justice is what our movement remains about. today i congratulate joe biden, a very decent man who i will work with to move our progressive ideas forward. on a practice call note, let me also say this, i will stay on the ballot in all remaining states and continue to gather delegates. while vice president biden will be the nominee. we must continue working to assemble as many delegates as
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possible at the democratic convention, where we will be able to exert significant influence over the party platform and other functions. then together standing united we will go forward to defeat donald trump, the most dangerous president in modern american history. and we will fight to elect strong progressives at every level of government from congress to the school board. as i hope all of you know, this race has never been about me. i ran for the presidency because i believe that as a president, i could accelerate and institutionalize the progressive changes that we are all building together. and if we keep organizing and fighting, i have no doubt that that is exactly what will happen. while the path may be slower now, we will change this nation and with like-minded friends around the globe, change the entire world.
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on a very personal note, speaking for jane, myself and our entire family, we will always carry in our hearts the memory of the extraordinary people we have met across this country. we often hear about the beauty of america, and this country is incredibly beautiful. but to me the beauty i will remember most is the faces of the people we have met from one corner of the station to the other, the compassion and love and decency i have seen and it makes me so hopeful for our future. it also makes me more determined than ever to work to create a nation that reflects those values and lifts up all of our people. please stay in this fight with me. let us go forward together, as our goal continues. thank you all very much.
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and good day. i'm andrea mitchell in washington, continuing our coverage of this breaking news. senator bernie sanders dropping out of the presidential race, addressing his supporters just now saying they're movement has won the ideological struggle, and that the future of the country is with their ideas, as joe biden now becomes the apparent democratic nominee. let's bring in nbc news political reporter shaquille brewster, who has covered bernie sanders from the beginning, mike memoli, who covered the biden campaign. to both of you, i have heard you say he's staying on the ballot, he wants to assemble delegates so he will have leverage over the party platform at the convention, which we know had been moved out of july into august, at least according to current plans. he believes he has, as we say, won the ideological struggle and, shaq, his campaign has been more than a campaign, it's been a movement. he's saying joe biden is a decent man. he congratulates him. that is something short of an
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actual endorsement but it is, for all intents and purposes, he is joining with joe biden. shaq, first to you. >> that's right. you heard senator sanders say the struggle continues. that is how he ended his comment, held a livestream he had for reporters. the interesting thing about his comments is we made a note, he will remain on the ballot and continue delegates and it's partially because he says he believes he won the ideological campaign, the ideological battle and contest for ideas. you heard him mention that and lay out those ideas, things like medicare for all, green new deal, raising the minimum wage. he believes the party has moved with him on those issues. and he wants to lock in that success, and potentially exert pressure on vice president biden to maintain that success and maintain those ideas in the movement of the party. he also acknowledges he did not have the path forward. it was notable senator sanders
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said over the past couple of weeks he and his wife had been assessing the path forward for his campaign. that's something we heard him start mentioning after he had that loss in michigan, a state he won in 2016 but lost by a large margin this time around. he said he was assessing the path forward for his campaign back then. he said for the past couple of weeks, he's been continuing that assessment and came to this conclusion. something that also affected that conclusion, he said in his remarks, the crisis we're facing right now. he said he can't continue this campaign in good conscience knowing it could impact or damage the progress we are seeing in this country. with senator sanders making note he's ending his campaign, he does not see a path forward, but making clear he wants to keep up the arguments and ideas he's fighting for. not just this campaign or 2016, but the idea he's been fighting for his entire political career. andrea? >> to mike memoli, as shaq
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pointed out, some want him to fight on. we know there's a division from my reporting and shaq's and yours as well, there's been division in the sanders' camp. longtime advisers wanted to get out sooner and others, most importantly his wife jane, wanted him to stick it out. but he is going to certainly have a lot of leverage. what the biden campaign now needs to do, as they've been doing quietly behind the scenes, is make sure he becomes part of that, that they work together, even though there are some -- medicare for all being one of them, some issues that joe biden will likely not want to embrace. >> first of all, andrea, i think we need to again underscore the fact joe biden, who has run for president twice before, fell short both times. of course, served as two terms as vice president, is the presumptive nominee of the democratic party. it's also worth noting, andrea, as you well know in the 2016 campaign and 2008 campaign, the
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democratic nominee was not able to call themselves that until well into june. in 2016 there were lingering doubts all the way through the convention, even on the part of sanders' supporters holding out hope he might win on the convention floor. what i heard from bernie sanders in articulating why he wants to stay on the ballot through the length of the process is all about the leverage he hopes to continue to hold over joe biden and democratic party, our revolution, which is the political arm of bernie sanders' campaign outside of the campaign itself. recently he articulated this skples italy by saying, continuing to get 25% or more in the subsequent states, he will have enough delegates to influence the rules and bylaws committee. that shapes the party's platform. that as a role in that debate on the convention floor if there is a convention floor. and you heard in bernie sanders' remarks, not budging one inch
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over the campaign with the coronavirus, and he believes he won but he believes with the coronavirus, he should continue to push for medicare for all. and he said biden has been accounting, like, yes, they're the nominee for some time. they had conversations, though, at the same time with the sanders campaign over issues like this. you have seen joe biden move in a more progressive oik like college affordability, embracing elizabeth warren's bankruptcy bill as well. you may continue to see movement on that score. i should mention we haven't heard from joe biden officially at this point. we were not scheduled to see joe biden in public such as it were from his home studio in delaware, where he was going to hold an economic-focused town hall meeting tonight, virtual town hall meeting. i suspect we will see from joe biden what we saw when other candidates suspended their campaign, which was a very gracious, welcoming them into part of the effort to continue to unite the party and to focus
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on defeating donald trump now in november. >> as you point out, mike memoli, it was july 12th before we finally saw bernie sanders join with hillary clinton. he waited until only days before the democratic convention in philadelphia to actually physically show up and join her, and very, shall we say, grudging rally. it was not a successful joint rally. there was a lot of tension between the two camps even then. so this is a very different tone. all along he's been closer to biden than he ever was with hillary clinton. the other big shoe to drop, of course, is what will barack obama now do that joe biden is the apparent -- we should call apparent, not presumptive, unless we see more delegates being chosen along the way, if they are. but jim massina joins us now, former deputy chief of staff to president obama. peter baker from "the new york times," michael steele from the republican national committee chairman, former lieutenant governor of maryland, and mike
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and shaq are staying with us. jim massina, what is the plan now as we expect to hear certainly on twitter, if not on some sort of a livestream, from joe biden some time in the next couple of hours? we heard from donald trump on twitter in a rather nasty comment towards the democrats. very political comment suggesting that the bernie supporters should come to him on the trade issues. but what do we expect from former president obama now that there is at least an apparent nominee? >> first on president trump, this is his worst nightmare, right. you stop everything else he's been doing for the past year and a half is trying to make sure joe biden is not his opponent, and this morning it is clear that joe biden will be his opponent, which is the best-case scenario for the democrats. this move by bernie sanders allows the two big powers in the democratic party, barack and in some ways as importantly michelle obama, to now come off the sidelines and get involved.
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people forget michelle obama is the most popular political figure in america by far. having barack and michelle obama on the trail talking to both the base and the swing voters, especially the swing women voters who abandoned the democrats in 2016, came back big time in 2018 to give nancy pelosi the house of representatives. having the two of them out there in a full-throated manner is a very, very big deal. joe biden will do what joe biden's always done in these moments. he will sit back, he will be very classy, he will congratulate people and he will unite the base. i think bernie's language was really important today when he said united we stand, together to defeat donald trump. there will be no replay of 2016 as you pointed out, which is kind of a happen hearted endorsement. he and joe biden are personal friends. the base will be united to beat donald trump, who is in most assessments of our nation the most serious threat of our lifetime. >> in fact, i thought it was interesting joe biden and bernie sanders had a conversation in
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recent days talking about the vice presidential pick. so i think that there's a lot that joe biden is probably going to run by bernie sanders in trying to bring people together. peter baker, the president's response was classic trump on twitter just now as well. and as jim messina just pointed out, this is the worst-case scenario for president trump. but president trump has a megaphone and platform here with the daily briefings, which no matter how badly the administration is being criticized, as much as they've been criticized for the way they led into this pandemic and did not properly heed the intelligence and all of the other calls, peter, he's still gaining a lot of traction and shutting out -- assumedly shutting out joe biden and his campaign efforts since super tuesday. >> i think that's right. look, he dominates the stage right now. we're in a national crisis and
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people during a national crisis tend to what to see their president and hear what they're saying and that does make it harder for a challenger at that point to get traction. particularly at a moment when a challenger can't get out on the road, can't sponsor campaign rallies, can't build the kind of momentum. i don't know how much it matters in longer run. that may just be a short-term thing by fall. we may see the resumption of a more normal kind of politics. it depends on where the pandemic is and whether the shutdown situation is. i think what you saw the president do today though is very much in keeping what jim alluded to and mike memoli previously alluded to is he wants to stir the pot. he wants to get democrats divided as he possibly can to reproduce the circumstances that helped him win in 2016 where bernie sanders did stick around in the race until the bitter end. in fact, there was a lot of resentment on the part of his supporters towards hillary clinton by the release of those stolen emails the russians put out. i think the president has got to
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try to reproduce that saying, look, how badly they treated you sanders' supporters, they somehow jimmied the system unfair to you and wants to create a division of the democratic party. and to see whether that works and biden can pull it together. he the advantage over hillary clinton in that i think he has a better relationship with bernie sanders than hillary clinton did. and bernie sanders getting out early probably works to the vice president's benefit but we will see where the party goes from here. >> joe biden's state has now been released and it's quite a lengthy one. he in fact echoed in his written statement some of the language bernie sanders himself used. he said he doesn't just run a political campaign, he's created a movement. make no mistake about it, this is from biden, i believe it's a movement that is as powerful today as it was yesterday. that's a good thing for our nation and our future. senator sanders changed the dialogue, issues of giving a
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little of attention or hope for passing are at the center of our debate, income equality, climate change, college leading students with a crushing debt of loans. season while bernie and i might not agree how we will get there, we agee on tree on these issues many more. trying to embrace bernie sanders and embrace his young supporters, who obviously did not flock to joe biden's campaign. michael steele, what does this foretell for republicans coming up to have this amount of this unity this early in the campaign process? >> please permit me, andrea, to put my former party chair hat on. we had a presidential race. we're now in the throes of a general election campaign in the midst of a national and worldwide health pandemic.
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in which the contrast between these two candidates has never been more stark. even more so than between donald trump and hillary clinton. to your point then, this is a real warning shot across the bow of the republican party. joe biden can do the very thing donald trump did. donald trump in '16 took bricks out of that blue wall, wisconsin, pennsylvania and michigan, and brought it over to the republican side. joe biden can get those bricks back. he can take those back. with changes on the ground, the equation for how republicans win this election, racial has heard the analysis at this point and looking at an advantage of electoral college of some 289
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electoral votes and that's in this current climate. there's a lot of campaign ahead of us. but the warning shot is all of the braggadocios, all of the mansplaining trump wants to do saying he can handle joe. know, it's not that kind of race, mr. president. this is a very different candidate than 2016. you will not get to renew that battle because your opponent has a high degree of favorability with rank-and-file voters across the political spectrum. this is not just the hard right who don't like a hillary clinton. some of those folks actually like joe biden, and that's going to -- you're going to see that played out, andrea, in places like michigan, wisconsin and pennsylvania. >> and kristen welker is joining us from the north lawn at the white house. kristen, we both covered hillary clinton and her attempts to hold off bernie sanders and how much that affected and really hampered her campaign during the
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general also campaign as well. now you're seeing a united democratic party, or potentially united party if the young people do join and if bernie sanders puts his heart and soul into it for joe biden. the president's reaction was rather sharp and very partisan as you might expect. it's now a general election campaign, kristen. >> we're in the middle of a little bit of a tweet storm here, andrea, with the president reacting and putting his strategy out there. he's clearly aiming to try to win over some of those bernie sanders supporters, trying to divide the democratic party. let me read you some of key parts from his tweets. here's the first one, bernie sanders is out. thank you to elizabeth warren. if not for her, bernie would have won almost every state on super tuesday. this ended just like the democrats and dnc wanted, same as the crooked hillary fiasco. the bernie people should come to the republican party. just to parse that a little bit pointing the finger at elizabeth warren trying to hearken back to
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2016. but focusing on that key issue of trade, i have asked president trump about the primary and he goes back to that issue over and over again. he sees that as an opening with and sanders' supporters. he also tweeted, andrea, wow, bernie is unwilling to give up his delegates and wants more of them. what's that all about? and this notably can't see aoc plus three supporting biden. she said actually a few days aing she would in fact support joe biden. that will be the strategy here at the white house. i asked a sanders campaign official why today, and i was told after wisconsin, the final votes had not been tallied but essentially they looked at the map and it just wasn't possible. but stress the fact party unity will be key right now, andrea. >> thanks to you, kristen welker, jim messina and, of course, michael steele, peter baker and shaq brewster and mike memoli. of course, it will be mail-in
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ballots and the mess wisconsin was that will dominate the political debate going forward as well. we will be back after a brief message on the latest with the coronavirus and what's happening and racial disparity across the death rates for african-americans has been notably high. that is of great concern. and we, of course, will be hearing from andrew cuomo. all of that coming up. you're watching "andrea mitchell reports." reports. to severe rheumatoid arthritis. proof i can fight psoriatic arthritis... ...with humira. proof of less joint pain... ...and clearer skin in psa. humira targets and blocks a source of inflammation that contributes to joint pain and irreversible damage. humira can lower your ability to fight infections. serious and sometimes fatal infections, including tuberculosis, and cancers, including lymphoma, have happened, as have blood, liver, and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure. tell your doctor if you've been to areas
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wave very early. so we are really encouraging every american to continue to follow the guidelines for these 30 days. >> so let's go around the country, first to nbc's ron allen outside the medical center in brooklyn, nbc's garrett haake in brooklyn and nbc's gadi schwartz in los angeles. first to you, ron. >> there are rumors of good news here in new york. mayor bill de blasio held a briefing and he said the rate of hospitalizations continues to level off. it's still going up but not as quickly. this as new york, new jersey and connecticut all had their biggest one day death toll from this virus, crisis yet. there's that. but the mayor is also pointing out there's this disparity between racial groups and ethnic groups in terms of fatalities in terms of positive tests. black and brown communities are being hit harder and that's no
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surprise to many medical experts because there are health disparities even at times there's not a deadly virus plaguing communities. here's how one emergency room doctor in new york described the situation about how the virus is hitting different communities -- >> these communities where people come from lower socioeconomic background, who are black and brown, these migrant communities, these are the people who are disproportionately affected. they can't afford to miss a paycheck. they can't socially distance. they can't order an uber to work or take an uber to work or skype in or use a zoom meeting. probably the most communities that are most affected by all of this are the incarcerated and homeless. >> one thing the mayor suggested is, he's asking actually for the military to be deployed to the public hospital system in new york. it's about 11 hospitals, a million and a half patients. many of them, about half of
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them, are uninsured. he wants medical doctors to come to those facilities in particular to help out. this hospital behind me, a nonprofit, skrafrm, is 100% over capacity. they doubled the amount of bed to deal with the crisis. even though some levels are leveling off, there's still an intense crisis here. of course, there's been a lot of calls from everyone to keep social distancing, keep the foot on the pedal, keep the foot on the gas because the crisis is not over even though some of the numbers are leveling off. andrea? >> thanks to you, ron. garrett haake outside houston. texas was one of the slower states to respond to social distancing. how are the doctors there seeing the results of that so far? >> well, andrea, public health officials i have talked to in houston and broader harris county are also cautiously optimistic they will be able to make the outbreak here in the nation's four largest cities look more like the outbreaks in big west coast cities than east coast cities.
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in har they moved aggressively on the social distancing part of this early in the outbreak here in texas. the problem is they're missing data, they're missing testing. texas is the lowest per capita rate of anyone in the country. testing operations like this one behind me, there are four of these in the greater houston area. all together they can only process about 1,000 tests per day. even with the tests being done in private labs and hospitals here in the city, there's still a big gap public health officials believe between the number of tests that have come back positive and number of positive cases that are actually suspected here in houston. here's how one doctor who runs a network of clinics around the city of houston explain what she's seeing on the ground here. take a listen. >> the numbers that are being reported are far and away lower than what's actually happening. i have absolutely no doubt in my mind. if i just look at the number of people that in my own health system that we have presumptively diagnosed with
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covid but we don't have a positive test, you would recognize we're probably reporting 25% of what's happening when you look at what's going on in the city. >> likewise, andrea, i talked to the ceo of methodist hospital, the largest hospital system here in houston. he told me they're seeing essentially too many very sick people for the number of people who are testing positive, which suggests to him they're really only getting the testing samples from those who are quite sick. the number of people likely positive in this community are much larger than the numbers suggest. in texas, the houston hospital capacity, believes they can handle a surge if one comes here. andrea? >> thanks to you, garrett haake. and gadi schwartz in california. california is at the forefront because of the governor and mayor of l.a., mayors in san francisco and elsewhere having people shelter at home and also bringing testing to their people as much as they could. what are they saying there now?
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>> yes, andrea, we are seeing a lot of good news and bad news happening all at the same time. yesterday we saw the largest number of deaths in a single day. above 60 deaths. but the good news is as grim as that sounds, that's still a fraction of what we are seeing in new york city. just to put things in perspective, here in california we've seen about 450 deaths total. in new york where you are, we're seeing upwards of 600, 700 deaths every single day. so there's some projections mondayliand modelling coming out of the university of southern california, they may not pop over 100 deaths a day, so we may avoid what we're seeing on the east coast. however, they're cautioning we still don't have enough testing. as garrett was talking about in texas, here the big unknown is how many people actually have covid-19? the numbers are much higher than what the tests are showing because not enough tests are
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going out. we're looking at 100,000 to 200,000 people tested here in the state of california. there are 39 million people in the state of california. the governor is trying to get those tests out to everybody. but even though the projections are showing there may not be as many deaths here in california, they are continuing to keep their pedal on the gas. in fact, they're doubling down. instead of saying people need to stay home, they're now saying if you do go outside, you've got to wear a mask. this is becoming kind of part of the dress code out here on the west coast. so when people come in to the grocery stores or when people come within six feet, 10 feet of each other, they're basically putting their masks up. not to prevent them catching the disease, but there's a fear so many people are asymptomatic carriers and to try to keep the disease from spreading from individuals outwards. so yesterday we heard from the governor of california that 150 million n95 masks were coming
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in. here's what he said to say -- >> we're sober about this moment in time and it's incredibly important i emphasize to the 40 million californians, millions that are watching, to continue our stay-at-home orders, continue to practice social distancing. let's not run the 90-yard dash. we still have an enormous amount of work ahead of us. >> and speaking to rachel maddow, and thanks to all of our correspondents, gadi schwartz. and right now andrew cuomo has come in. let's listen to the top of his briefing as well. >> so i will just present the facts and we'll go from there. there is good news in what we're seeing, that what we have done and what we are doing is actually we're making a difference. we have taken dramatic action in this state, programs to close down schools, businesses, social distancing and it's working.
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it is flattening the curve, and we see that again today. so far, meaning what? meaning that curve is flattening because we are flattening the curve by what we are doing. if we stop what we are doing, you will see that curve change. that curve is purely a function of what we do day in and day out. but right now it's flattening. the number of patients hospitalized is down, and, again, we don't just look at day-to-day data but the three-day trend. that number is down. the three-day average trend is also down. anecdotally, individuals in hospitals of larger systems are reporting that some of them are actually releasing more people that are coming in.
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so they're down. we see the quote/unquote flattening of the curve. we have more capacity in the hospital system than ever before. so we had more capacity in that system to absorb more people. the sharing of equipment, which has been really one of the beautiful and cooperative, generous acts among different partners in the health care systems work. if the hospitalization rate keeps decreasing the way it is now, then the system should stabilize over these next couple of weeks, which will minimize the need for overflow on the system that we have built in at javits and at the "usns
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comfort." that's all good news. but there's a big caution sign, that's if we continue doing what we're doing. if we continue doing what we're doing. we're flattening the curve because we are rigorous about social distancing, et cetera. so if we continue doing what we're doing, then we believe the curve will continue to flatten. but it's not time to get complacent. it's not a time to do anything different than what we've been doing. remember what happened in italy when the entire health care system became overrun, so we have to remain diligent. we have to remain disciplined going forward. but there's no doubt that we are now bending the curve and there's no doubt that we can't stop doing what we're doing. that's the good news. the bad news isn't just bad, the bad news is actually terrible. highest single day death toll yet, 779 people. when you look at the numbers on the death toll, it is going
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steadily up, and it reached a new height yesterday. the number of deaths, as a matter of fact, the number of deaths will continue to rise as those hospitalized for a longer period of time pass away. the longer you are on a ventilator, the less likely you will come off the ventilator. dr. fauci spoke to me about this and he was 100% right. the quote/unquote lagging indicator between hospitalizations and deaths, hospitalizations could start to drop, and the deaths actually increase because the people who had been in the hospital for 11 days, 14 days, 17 days pass away. that's what we are seeing, hospitalizations drop and the
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death toll rises. i understand the science of it. i understand the facts and the logic of it, but it is still incredibly difficult to deal with. every face, every number is a face, right? and that's painfully obvious to me every day. but we have lost people, many of them frontline workers, many of them health care workers, many of them people who are doing the essential functions that we all needed for society to go on and they were putting themselves at risk. and they knew they were. many of them vulnerable people who this vicious predator of a virus targeted from day one.
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this virus attacked the vulnerable, and attacked the weak. and it's our job as a society to protect those vulnerable, and that is what this has always been about from day one and it still is about. be responsible, not just for yourself, but to protect the vulnerable. be responsible because the life you risk may not be your own. those people who walk into an emergency room every day and put themselves in peril. don't make their situation worse. don't infect yourself or someone else or their situation becomes more dangerous. to put a perspective on this, 9/11, which many of us lived through in this state and in
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this nation, 2,753 lost. in this crisis we lost 2,268 new yorkers. i will direct all flags to be flown at half-mast in honor of those we have lost to this virus. big question from everybody, my daughters, i'm sure around most people's dinner table, when will things go back to the way they were? i don't think it's about going back. i don't think it's ever about going back. i think the question is always about going forward. and that's what we have to deal with here. it's about learning from what we've experienced and it's about growing and it's about moving forward. when are we going to return to normal? i don't think we return to normal. i don't think we return to yesterday, where we were. i think if we're smart, we
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achieve a new normal, the way we are understanding the new normal when it comes to the economy, a new normal km it comes to the environment, now we understand the new normal when it comes to health and public health. we have to learn just how we have been learning about the new normal in the aspect of society. we have to learn what it means about global pandemic. how small the world has actually gotten. somebody sneezes in asia today, you catch a cold tomorrow. whatever happens in any country on this globe can get on an airplane and be here literally overnight. and understanding this phenomenon and having a new appreciation for it. how our public health system has to be prepared and the scale to which we need a public health
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system. look at the way we're scrambling right now to make this work. we have to learn from that. i think we have also learned positive lessons. we found ways to use technology that we never explored before. you have a new york state court system that, thank you chief judges, basically developing a virtual online court system which has all sorts of positive benefits going forward. using technology for health care, using technology work from home, using technology for education. i think these are all positives that we can learn. testing capacity, which we still have to develop, that is going to be the bridge from where we are today to the new economy in my opinion. it's going to be a testing-informed transition to the new economy, where people who have the antibodies, people
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who are negative, people who have been exposed and now are better, those are the people who go to work and you know who they are because you can do testing. but in fact we all developed a sense of scale in the past few weeks in dealing with this. there's also lessons to be learned, why are more african-americans and latinos affected? we are seeing this around the country. the numbers in new york are not as bad as the disparities we see in other places across the country. but there still are apparently disparities. why? call it morbidity, i understand that. but i think there's something more to it. it always seems the poorest people pay the highest price. why is that? why is that?
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whatever the situation is, natural disaster, hurricane katrina. the people standing on those rooftops were not rich white people. why? why is it that the poorest people always pay the highest price? but let's figure it out. let's do the work. let's do the research. let's learn from this movement and let's lurn these lessons and let's do it now. we're going to do more testing in minority communities but not just testing for the virus. let's actually get research and data that can inform us as to why we are having more people in minority communities, more people in certain neighborhoods, why do they have higher rates of infection? i get the comorbidity, i get the underlying illness issue. but what else is at play?
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are more public workers, latino and african-american, who don't have a choice, frankly, but to go out there every day and drive the bus and drive the train and show up for work and wind up subjecting themselves to, in this case the virus, whereas many other people who had the option just absented themselves. they live in more dense communities, more urban environments. but what is it? and let's learn from that, and let's do it now. i'm going to ask our suny albany chief, dr. havidan rodriguez who will head the effort to do it right now. we will do more testing in urban communities now, with more data research done now. let's learn now. the department of health will be
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doing it along with northwell. but let's learn these lessons now. we're also going to make an additional $600 payment to all unemployed new yorkers. the federal government says they will reimburse us for it. people need money now in their pocket. so new york will be doing that immediately. we're also extending the period covered by unemployment benefits for an additional 13 weeks. so the 26 weeks to 39 weeks. that should be a relief. i'm voting, along the same lines of people on television voting in other states -- this is totally nonsensical, god bless them for having such diligence for their civic duty that they would go stand on a line to
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vote, but people shouldn't have to make that choice. and we're by executive order, all new yorkers can vote absentee june 23rd primaries coming up. i want to say thank you to many places and people who are working with the state of new york, mercury medical donated 2,400 bipap machines. bipap machines are technically not ventilators but they can be modified to effectively ventilator even though they're not ventilators. they were brought up from florida. thank you very much, jetblue for doing that. i also want to thank oregon and washington state and california for freeing up ventilators. i want to thank the direct care workers who are doing a fantastic job, and they're doing it every day. i want to thank the state workers who are showing up and doing a great job every day,
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every first responder. this has been a long battle, and it's going to go on but i want them to know how thankful we all are of them for what they're doing. i want people to remember that we're flattening that curve and if anything, we double down now on our diligence. we're going to start a social media campaign, who are you staying home for? it's not about staying home for yourself. stay home for others. stay home for the vulnerable people who if they get this virus are in a real bad place in life. stay home for the health care worker who is in the emergency room because you don't want to infect anybody else and that puts another greater load on our health care system. so who are you staying home for? i'm staying home for my mother.
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but everyone -- it's not about just you, it's about all of us. so who are you staying home for? and let's start a social media campaign that does that. but thank you for all they've d. and we still have more to do. we are by no means out of the woods. and do not misread what you're seeing in that data and on those charts. that is a pure product of our actions and behavior. if we behave differently, you will see those numbers change. i just doubled the fine on disobeying the social distancing rules. why? because if anything, we have to get more diligent, not less diligent. we have more to do. that's new york tough. but tough is more than just tough.
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tough is disciplined and unified and tough is loving. the toughest guys are tough enough to love, right? last point, our brothers and sisters in the jewish community celebrate passover tonight. we wish them all a happy passover. the jewish community has had a long and difficult year besides any of this. the number of incidents of anti-semitism across this country, the violence that they have seen, even in this state of new york that has such a large jewish uppopulation, we wish th all well on passover. the message of passover, i know, helps me today. and i offer to others to consider. passover says we remember the past, we learn from the past, we remember the lessons of the past. we teach a new generation those
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lessons. but there's also a message of hope in passover. next year in jerusalem, next year in jerusalem, next year the promised land, next year will be better. and yes, this has been a difficult month. we'll learn a lot, we'll move forward. and we'll be better for it. questions? >> mayor, in new york city, the front line workers are black and latino -- >> you've been watching andrew cuomo, the governor of new york saying there is some good news. the hospitalizations are down. a three-day trend. but the bad news is terrible news. the highest number of people died in new york state. 779 people in one day. joining me now a senior scholar at the johns hopkins center. doctor, one of the things that the governor said is let's start now in trying to figure out why african-americans are being so
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disproportionately affected in the mortality rates. let's start testing in these minority communities. this is a major problem. it's the underserved people and the people on the front lines disproportionately who are dying at very high rates. >> yes. this is something that we've seen with many infectious diseases. socioeconomic factors play a role in who gets sick and who gets -- there are higher levels of diabetes, hypertension, obesity, all risk factors for this disease. you have an intersection of the chronic epidemics with the chronic noncommunicable diseases and the coronavirus. you may have people that cannot social distance. it's easy for somebody with a high income or a job that allows them to telecommute. that's something important to understand and account for. >> doctor, what about the president's attack on the world health organization saying that he's considering taking money away, more than $400 million,
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blaming the w.h.o., a u.n. organization for the failures that many people put at the feet of the white house itself. >> i would say that in general, there have been some missteps with the w.h.o. declaring a public health emergency late and maybe giving china a pass for some of their data. i don't necessarily think that the pandemic is trying to undermine confidence in the w.h.o. more important that it be supported and changes at the w.h.o. are instituted. but i don't think it's time to defund it. >> one other point is that the president was saying that 1.8-plus million tests are the highest in the world. but actually, per capita, that's the lowest testing proportion in the world. >> that's definitely playing with data. i know as a practicing physician in infectious disease, i'm not testing everybody i want to test. i have constraints with the
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bureaucracy of ordering a test, worrying about reagent supplies, worrying about nasal swabs. we're definitely not testing enough yet. if we're going to move to the next phase, testing has to be a critical part of that. we have to know where the disease is and isn't. who we can clear and whoa we can't. testing needs to be seam less like an hiv test. >> thank you for your expertise today. as we conclude today, we have to also recognize that this is holy week for many people. already the people, the christians who are celebrating palm sunday were unable to gather in churches around the world. as well for those who are celebrating passover which begins tonight. celebrating both easter this week and passover. we talk about how this virus is keeping us from gathering together, keeping us apart. as we say palm sunday was already altered. people celebrating passover which begins tonight with a
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traditional family gathering around the seder table to ret l retell -- for those not anticipating sheltering at home, it's difficult to get the traditional food and the wine. you can bake it yourself but that's another story. the songs, the prayers timeless. no need to find deeper meaning. why is this life different from all every lives. happy passover to those celebrating tonight. chuck todd picks up our coverage after this brief break. reak making ice. but you're not because you have e*trade which isn't complicated. their tools make trading quicker and simpler so you can take on the markets with confidence. don't get mad get e*trade. 100% online car buying. carvana's had a lot of firsts. car vending machines. and now, putting you in control of your financing. at carvana, get personalized terms, browse for cars that fit your budget, then customize your down payment and monthly payment.
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good afternoon. i'm chuck todd. we're following two breaking stories this hour. obviously the coronavirus pandemic. new york governor andrew cuomo announcing an additional 779 reported deaths in his state. an incompetent crease from yesterday's death toll of 731. there's a shakeup in the 2020 presidential race. senator bernie sanders just suspended his presidential campaign. basically, another way of dropping out. vice president joe biden is the presumptive democratic nominee since there are no other candidates running with any delegates to get there. sanders thanked his volunteers, donors and supporters but acknowledging the path forward was simply not there. >> please know that i do not make this decision lightly. in fact, it has been a very