7:00 the new application goes online. it's streamlined. there are fewer questions. and once you get to the end of that, if you successfully fill it out, it's going to say you're finished with the application process. if there's any area left blank it will say don't call us, we will call you within 72 hours. and there are a thousand people on the phone lines reaching out directly so people don't have to go through this infuriating process of calling and getting busy signals and thereby collapsing the system. hopefully today after 7:00 it will be much better streamlined, but as of governor said, it's a volume issue we never experienced. >> last night you acted to freeze the pay of state workers. can you talk about why you decided to do that? >> i will ask robert to talk

about the financial stress the state is under. a lot of these things we have never seen before. we have never seen the financial damage done to the state budget the way it's happened here. again, going back to my lifetime, 9/11 was the catastrophic event. this is more devastating to the new york economy and new york budget, which is the function of the new york economy, than 9/11 by far. but, rob, you want to speak to karen's question? and good day. i'm andrea mitchell in washington as we have watched the severe toll of the coronavirus, even more gripping nationally and new york state. more than 15,000 people in this country have died from the pandemic. the economic impact is also staggering. numbers released today show that another 6.6 million americans have filed for unemployment benefits this past week, while the three-week total rise of jobless claims nationally are

topping 16 million. you can see what andrew cuomo is saying about the impact there on unemployment in new york city as well. the crashing of the system, they're trying to fix that today. the fed chairman today in a live webcast promising to do as much as it takes until there's evidence of a recovery, even as congress today again deadlocking over a financial release of a stimulus package. more on that to come. this morning governor cuomo saying new york is flattening the curve through social distancing, but warning the virus should not be underestimated. yesterday new york lost more lives than they have to date. dr. thoanthony fauci was cautioy optimistic on an interview today. >> as you can see the deaths and numbers of deaths in the cases that we are seeing are really validating what we have been saying this is going to be a very bad week, on the one hand. but on the other hand, you can

see glimmers of hope. i believe we will see a downturn that looks more like the 60,000 than the 100,000 to 200,000. but having said that we better be careful and not say we're doing so well, we can pull back. >> and joining me to put all of this in context, the doctor and professor from the university school of medicine. dr. gupia, thank you for being with us. you heard the warning don't take your foot off the accelerator because that would be a worse-case scenario. what are your models showing? is it possible the original models, not based on data, but based on forecasting, now we have the data, we're too pessimistic? >> so my colleagues at the institute for health metrics and evaluation have been doing just phenomenal work led by chris murray. what i can say is those models confirm everything dr. fauci and

dr. birx have been trying to surface to the president, which is we are flattening the curve but every model builds an assumption. the models coming out of act now or other models are built into policy we need to recognize and embrace. let's be clear here, the model dr. murray is re-i.iterating ev day with his team, assumes we're social distancing as we are currently until the end of may. that's an assumption. so any forecast of economic or health builds in key assumptions. if we want to continue to flatten the curve, the forecasts we're relying on say let's keep doing what we're doing until the end of may. >> we also heard from the treasury secretary mnuchin today, as well as the president

in his briefings, he keeps pushing, pushing hard to reopen. we're going to talk about a new task force being set up and contemplated at the white house. the president wants to see the government reopen, that's very clear. and that's the pressure on his own medical team. as an esteemed pulmonologist, what would your message people to the people in the white house who want to reopen the government perhaps sooner than would be appropriate medically? >> thanks, andrea. i think that's a really, really important question. if we had a clearer answer to that, gosh, i would give that to you right now. what i can tell you is we all share the president's motivations. i think the president is channeling everybody's desire to normalize life safely and quickly. it's contingent on two things, the only way we can start to normalize life, it will not be one day we turn the light back on and everybody goes back to normal. it's going to be incremental. we need to expand the definition of what's an essential worker,

make sure they're tested with the right test, so some combination of antibody testing to see if they have immunity. but importantly -- and without pcr testing, we're not going to know if somebody is acutely infected or not so we don't have those capabilities. so the right testing now and some understanding most people will need to have some -- [ no audio ] >> i think we may have lost the audio. we're going to try to re-establish that. let me just play -- just che checking to see if we can get that back. we will try to have dr. gupta back soon. but right now senator durkin,

who is with the dpic leaders on blocking the republicans' attempt to block another $250 million relief package. senator, thank you very much. i want to give you a chance to explain why the senate democrats and also speaker pelosi said this should not pass by unanimous consent? >> well, i can tell you we believe the additional funds for small business programs. they are very important, very popular and we want to make sure they're adequately funded. there's no mystery there. but senator mcconnell announced he will call this today and announce it to the press before he told the leaders in congress about it. we wish he wouldn't because we want to add things that are critically important. first, more money for hospitals and health care providers, $100 billion more. the amount we appropriated so far is just not adequate. secondly, the $250 billion for the small businesses for sure. but let's make sure that we also

have lenders and banks and financial institutions that reach out beyond the traditional clients of many of these banks. third, we want to increase the amount of money for the s.n.a.p. benefits. there are people who are struggling to get by having lost their jobs. i hope at some point we could include cobra too. think 3.5 million people lost their jobs and also their health insurance. premiums are doubling and they can't afford them. these are things to talk about on a bipartisan basis. we have done it that way so far and we want to continue to. >> senator, i get you have a lot of priorities and that they should be negotiated between the two parties. but on a day when 6.6 million more people filed for unemployment, it's now more than 16 million people over the past three weeks, do they have a political advantage here and a platform at the white house? you're going to hear a lot more from the president on this already online with mitch

mcconnell pushing for a quick unanimous vote and you guys saying no. >> andrea, it's the same thing that happened two weeks ago. senator mcconnell, here's the bipartisan bill what i want to call it, take it or leave it. i said we can do better and we did. the next four days we put together a bill and passed 96-0 in the united states senate. senator mcconnell took credit for it. i don't care who takes credit for it, let's get the job done. but we're saying to senator mcconnell and republicans we have proven we can work with you. don't just announce a take-it-or-leave-it announcement on the floor. we can do this together. >> what are the next steps? are there any talks under way between republicans and democrats? >> i think there are and there should be. it should have started there instead of in the floor action today and widely reported. the conversation will continue, as it should. we have an obligation to the american people. i can't tell you how many have said to me we like the fact

you're doing this on a bipartisan basis. let's continue to do it that way. >> i want to ask you about the really disturbing news, the statistics out of illinois, especially chicago, the rare disparity where so many african-americans are suffering disproportionately terribly from this disease. mayor lightfoot has been emphatic about the urgeness of this. she was on with rachel maddow and i wanted to play a part of that. >> we have a sense of why it is. we've been talking for some years now and more recently since i have been mayor talking about the income, health care, life expectancy disparities, for example, rate of diabetes, heart disease, upper respiratory illnesses. all of those things are exponentially magnified throughout black and brown communities. >> senator, what can you do, as a senator from illinois, what

can you do as a national leader, about what is happening to our african-american citizens? >> first, i can tell you i had a conversation with mayor lightfoot on this very subject. one of the reasons it's being reported out of chicago is we're collecting the statistics which sadly is the case. we're asking all across the united states for other health care providers to do exactly the same. wi we're going to find, of course, the underlying medical conditions the mayor referred to are more prevalent in african-american populations, particularly low-income families, and we need to address that public health issue far beyond this public health crisis. and secondly i mentioned at the senate democratic caucus that we had yesterday by conference call, we need to make this a major priority. so at the end of the day we not oe only address the problem that currently challenges but in the 21st century it's unacceptable to have these health disparities, particularly against people who are

african-americans, low income categories or hispanics. we need to end this disparity, more health care professionals, put them in the right places, invest in public health efforts that include mental health counseling, i might add. we need to have that as a common goal across this nation. >> the numbers are climbing as we speak. it's exceeded 15,000, the americans we lost to this disease. i want to also ask you about the political impact. wisconsin neighboring to your state, we saw i think the worst election the other day. tuesday was just a disaster. the mess, people risking their lives, standing in line because of the politics that were played there, partisan politics and what can you do now that the democratic party has an apparent nominee to ensure there's actually an election that can take place in november that people will have confidence in?

>> when it comes to health by democracy, this is literally a life-or-death challenge. we put in $400 million in the c.a.r.e.s. act to deal with the needs for elections across america during the time of a pandemic. it's not even near the amount that is necessary to make sure people don't have to put on their masks and stand in line for hours and risk their health to exercise their rights as americans when it comes to the upcoming elections. but we need a bipartisan approach to this. sadly, we have a party that doesn't share our feeling, that this is a matter of great national emergency politically. i think we need dramatic increases in the amount of money for states so that's there more opportunity for early voting, mail-in ballots. certainly i want to make sure everything is done to maintain the legitimacy of the voters and legitimacy of the election. but we have to look beyond the polling places. we know the problems we will have trying to bring out judges, trying to make sure we have polling places in the right locations. it's time to step beyond that.

in the year 2020 with the crisis we face, the ultimate goal is to engage and make certain that the most substantial number of orders possible are participating. >> dick durbin, thank you very much, democratic whip from the senate. thank you, sir. up next, reopening for business? the white house is looking to get the economy up and running by may and is announcing a new task force to lead it. stay with us. more on that coming up. you're watching "andrea mitchell reports" only on msnbc. g put on. at carvana, we understand that, for some, getting a car just can't wait. to help, we're giving our customers up to 90 days to make their first payment. shop online from the comfort of your couch, and get your car with touchless delivery to keep you safe. and for even greater peace of mind, all carvana cars come with a seven-day return policy. so if you need to keep moving, we're here for you. at carvana-- the safer way to buy a car. alice loves the scent of gain so much,

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president trump is planning to unveil a second, smaller coronavirus task force. this one will focus on the administration's economic response and its way to reopen businesses going back to a full economy, they hope, according to "the washington post" report confirmed by nbc news. at the same time the president is dismantling oversight over the billions that have been incorporated to overcome the downturn. who is correspondent ashley parker first broke the story and joins me now. also joining us nbc and white house correspondent and co-host of "saturday today," kristen welker. good to see you. let's talk about the need for another task force. are we creating too much bureaucracy when we don't have a clear signal of who's in charge? or is this a good idea? what are people saying? >> it's a great question because you have the main task force, you have the smaller economic

task force, which will have some overlap with the main task force. for example, larry kudlow, steve mnuchin who are on the smaller task force are on the new task force likely led by the chief staff mark meadows. and of course, there's jared kushner, who's taking on an increased role, increased responsibility, and ha his own working group that people call somewhat dismissively a shadow task force. so the administration believes in this or they wouldn't have created it. so they can focus on the economics. but some people expressed concerns with all of these splinter groups, it just creates another layer of bureaucracy, as you said, and confusion when the white house is struggling to get some of these basic tasks accomplished. >> of course, the president's

been pushing for people to go back to work sooner than some of the medical experts would like. we got a very strong signal today, unusual live webcast from jay powell, chair of the fed, that they're ready to do whatever it takes. take a look. >> we need to have a plan nationally for reopening the economy. while we all want it to happen as quickly as possible, we all want to avoid a false start, where it reopens and that results in a spike of coronavirus cases and we have to go back to go, to square one. we all want to avoid that. >> what jay powell is saying, kristen welker, is the worse case would be go back too soon and have another spike and shut everybody down again and have a false start. >> that's right. and you have those competing desires essentially within the administration. you have president trump, who

tweeted that the cure shouldn't be worse than the virus, that people are actually fighting. so that's where the tension is, andrea. and i think it underscores why the president feels there's a need for this second task force. our understanding is actually first reported they will not be meeting every day. it's not going to be as official as that main task force. but the president does feel as though this needs to be just as big of a focus inside his administration and inside the response to this broader coronavirus. but, of course, andrea, the question becomes when might they start to really try to reopen the economy? of course, it's going to depend on what the medical officials say. i just want to highlight something that ashley noted, which is this chain of command. is there not a concern about the fact you're going to have a number of different layers to this response? will that in any way confuse the response? of course, this all comes against the backdrop of a

president who is fighting for re-election. he's in a re-election year. and the economy, of course, was one of his big talking points and now there's a lot of concern insi inside the president's inner circle how this will impact the broader argument who president trump will make for re-election. of course, now he knows who he will be competing against, former vice president joe biden, andrea. and at the same time the president is dismantling the oversight, friering inspectors general, including the inspector general who was supposed to be in charge of the pentagon piece of this big relief package. ashley, we know from senator grassley now there is a bipartisan group of senators who are very concerned about the the inspectors general. we saw mike at atkinson from the intelligence community now as well some of the others hhs, criticism of the hhs inspector general. these are the watchdogs who report directly to congress and he's still resisting, in fact, appointing the inspector general

who was supposed to oversea this enormous, $2 trillion. there's a quote from grassley bipartisan letter of senators to the president, congressional intent is clear that an expression of lost confidence without further explanation is not sufficient to fulfill the requirements of the statute. it's our responsibility to determine there are clear, substantial reasons for the removal, the removal of atkinson. ashley? >> well, the president is absolutely resisting oversight. it's not necessarily new. he's perhaps more brazen now in the middle with the cover of the coronavirus in a certain way than he has before. that's why you're seeing the rare bipartisan alarm on capitol hill. i would point out it's especially stark during this pandemic. it's not just the oversight of the inspectors general. he resents governors who he doesn't believe are sufficiently appreciative.

as kristen experienced in the briefing room and a number of other reporters, he also resents tough questions by the media. i'm not saying just tough questions or criticism, no president like that, but he's publicly said the media should be congratulating him. they should be covering the fumbles and missteps by the administration. it's basically across the board world view that this president does not believe in oversight, he does not handle criticism well and he believes everyone in his orbit, even independent watchdogs who are supposed to do that role of oversight, he would preferm them to be fawning supplements and the attorney general is the latest starking example. >> and that will be continued because i think we will hear a lot more about that. ashley, thank you very much and kristen welker. as kristen was just mentioning, senator bernie sanders took himself out of the race, pretty much. although he is still resisting a full-throated endorsement of joe

biden. last night he went on late-night tv, his first interview with colbert since ending his presidential run. sanders and colbert both speaking from their homes, stopping short of the full endorsement but also sanders expressing hope that he can still have some impact on the race. >> you know, it's no way a secret that joe biden's applications are different than mine. but i have known joe since i came to the senate in 2006, worked with him when he was vice president in the obama administration. and i would say to me is joe is a very decent human being. i know his wife jill, who is a wonderful person. and that i hope to be able to work with joe to move him in a more progressive election. i think joe is a good politician. and he understands in order to defeat the president, in order to defeat trump, he's going to

have to bring new people into his political world, and he's going to have to listen to their needs, young people, working people. and maybe start moving in a different direction to some degree than he has in the past. >> now, i listened to your announcement today online. was -- i know that you said the same thing about vice president biden essentially today. is that an endorsement? is that a full-throated endorsement of joe biden? >> we will be talking to joe and we're talking to his team of advisers. [sfx: car passing by, kids laughing,]

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as covid-19 cases top 14,000 today in virginia, it is especially hard on nursing homes. much nbc's katey beck is outside a nursing home that already lost 35 residents. it's hard to imagine that kind of a loss there. what are they doing? how are they coping? >> the governor, andrea, and several of the top state health officials are focused and very concerned about the severe outbreak that is happening in this facility behind me. you mentioned the number 35, which is alarming and devastating in terms of fatalities happening in one location, but it's even more so when you consider the state as a whole. we learned today 109 reported fatalities of covid-19 here in the state of virginia, 35 of

them happened right there in the facility behind me in one location. that outbreak is ongoing. we know that more than 90 of the people who live there have tested positive for covid-19 and another 25 of their staff and health care workers as well. so this is an ongoing problem that has kind of spiraled out of control badly in the past week and is now getting the attention of the state. but the medical director here at this facility said they may not even be through the worst of it. there will be a update later today and it could increase here. and this is what we are seeing nationally, hot spots and nursing homes in concentrated area, lack of soeshcial distanc, many having lack of access to ppes and these targeting hot spots that grow so quickly out of control. andrea? >> catie beck on a gusty day down there in richmond.

thank you. of course, another community so badly affected by all of this are latinos in new york city. the latino community seeing people are dyeing at higher rates than other races from covid-19. there's a picture emerging out west in california, where preliminary numbers show latinos account for almost 30% of covid-19 deaths. nbc's gadi schwartz is with us. the impact of l.a. and around the state and around the country. gadi? >> yes, andrea, those numbers are high right now and that's because at this point even with all of the testing that we have, even with all of the recordkeeping with the deaths, the state of california doesn't seem to know the results of 60% of the deaths here in california. they don't know the ethnic background of 60% of those who have died. so that is particularly alarming when people of color here on the west coast look to see what's happening in places like new york. i just want to show you the

numbers depend we're seeing out of new york right now. take a look. the breakdown is 34% of people who died in new york city are hispanic but they only make up 28%, 29% of the city's population. the african-american community make up about 28% of deaths, even though they're about 21%, 22% of the population. we heard city leaders in new york stressing that's really because of two different reasons. one is that so many in those communities are the frontline workers who are essentially keeping the economy still moving. they are the people, agriculture workers here in california. they are janitors, they are bus drivers, so they're exposed to that virus a lot higher. the other reason is because of a long-standing lack of health care. here in california the question remains how many people who are hispanic have died? right now the number is indicating about 30%, but there is still that 60% question mark that remains.

andrea? >> gadi schwartz out in l.a., thank you. and coming up next -- whatever it takes. the congresswoman who worked with an unlikely source to try to get those crucial n95 masks for her district. now she wants congress to protect the medical supply chain across the country. that story coming up. you're watching "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc. who takes care of yourself. so when it comes to screening for colon cancer, don't wait. because when caught early, it's more treatable. i'm cologuard. i'm noninvasive and detect altered dna in your stool to find 92% of colon cancers... ...even in early stages. tell me more. it's for people 45 plus at average risk for colon cancer, not high risk. false positive and negative results may occur. ask your prescriber if cologuard is right for you. i'm on it. that's a step in the right direction. ♪ ♪

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resourcefulness of michigan congresswoman elissa slotkin. she was frantically searching for n95 masks for hospital workers in her district. she contacted the governor and business leaders and as reported by "the washington post," it was the owner of a michigan-based sex toy company who knew a guy who knew a guy who was pretty sure they could get several hundred thousands food and drug administration certified masks. his connection was standing in a line somewhere in shandong province, china. it all worked. joining me now congresswoman elissa slotkin, who is announcing new information to protect our medical supply line. congresswoman, i knew you were resourceful but i didn't know how resourceful you were about getting n95 for your district. >> well, this is the crisis we're in and every leader i know, not just me, is scrambling to try to find these supplies for their hospitals, first respondeders. that is our responsibility and duty. so we're all just using every connection and idea we have to

get these things out of, frankly, mostly china. and i think it's been my experience in the past couple of weeks that's really led me to think, you know what, our national medical supply chain has national security implications. and i can't believe that on a daily basis my nurses and my doctors and my first responders have to depend on whether the one five factories in china decides to sell to the guy we know in line. i don't want that ever to happen again. so we went ahead and crafted legislation to make it in america that makes these supplies in the united states. we can't be dependent on someone else when we have a time of need. >> i know that a number of -- the chairman of the armed services, you serve on armed services. you were a former pentagon official for the cia analyst, several sub chitty chairs have written to the president asking there be a unified supply line of medical equipment.

>> yes, what we're seeing is a real change over time. originally four, five weeks ago the president was very vocal and he said states should go out and purchase their own equipment. we will support from behind. states really heeded that. our governor has been fantastic about really sort of turning over every rock to go ahead and set up a procurement team, move out and purchase this equipment. but what it's done is created this sort of "star wars" bar of folks who might have a lead in china, who might have a line in to get the things we need and all of a sudden the states are competing against each other. where we got guys in line who will say florida's behind me and california is in front of me and now fema is trying to get in the game. and i was really happy to see an admiral from the joint staff was moved over to hhs to try to get their arms around this. but to enter this process, they're also becoming a competitor. we started to hear real reports

of michigan supplies, other supplies being diverted or delayed as fema and hhs come into this marketplace. it is screaming out for some centralized order, a unified site picture as we say at the pentagon. i personally called for a national emergency medical supply czar, you know, someone who would sit there and coordinate across the fema line, the hhs line and also all of our retooled manufacturers. they have a whole new line on equipment now. so we're really screaming out for unified plans. but in addition to that we really need to think about do we ever want to be in this situation in the future? covid-19 is a big pandemic but we have to be learning the lessons now from what's going on and making sure we're never in this situation again. that's why we're happy to put forward a series of pieces of legislation to try and prevent this from happening again.

briefly, i want to just ask you about your reaction, speaking of lessons learned, to the fact, first uncovered by "the washington post" and confirmed by us at nbc news, that the acting navy secretary spent $243,000 for that round trip, the 8,000-mile round trip to the guam, to give excruciating and, you know, really awful speech to the crew, which led to his firing. that kind of money being spent for that round trip? >> to be honest, when i first heard the audio from that speech, i turned to my husband who's 30 years in the army, and i said did he fly to guam to give that speech? is that in person? or is he on some sort of screen? i was just surprised from a health perspective he flew out there and in an era of social distancing to go ahead and make that speech in person. obviously, no one likes to see

bills that large that certainly went in the wrong direction. i think the navy is hopefully trying to clean up and move on. i think that's important. i think in time of crisis if you have an admiral, you know, captain who is feeling soming strongly and is defending the health and safety of his crew, you need to heed that and understand that. and i think the navy is trying to regroup right now. >> congresswoman elissa slotkin from michigan, thank you so much for being with us. coming up next -- we go to new york city, the mayor bill de blasio with the reality there on the ground. you're watching "andrea mitchell reports." (soft music)

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welcome back. this morning mayor bill de blasio saluted new york city residents for staying home and social distancing to help slow the spread of the coronavirus. but he also warned there is still a long way to go. the mayor said the city still needs greater testing capacity as the next critical step.

mayor de blasio joins me now. mr. mayor, thank you very much. i know how busy you are -- i can only imagine how busy you are. thank you for taking this time with us. what are you seeing now in terms of progress? we're talking about the flattening of the curve, hospitalizations are down. do you worry people are so eager to get back out that they may cause this to reignite and slow down the progress that's been made? >> yeah, andrea, that's exactly the concern. what i'm telling new yorkers is they actually should be very proud in this incredibly painful crisis the number of people we lost, the lives we lost, far surpassing what we lost on 9/11. the worst day in our history. it's been horrible. and people have had to go through so much painful change and our lives feel so different just compared to weeks ago, but new yorkers, andrea, i wanted to say from the bottom of my heart people have worked at it and

struggled and they've done the social distancing and they've done the shelter in place. there's been remarkable compliance with the rules that are in place. i talked to my police commissioner dermot shea and he said everyone is on the street following the rules and anyone deviating are being warned and they start complying quickly. it's not perfect but it's helped a lot. that's helped us see progress lately. i don't want to overstate it, andrea. we've seen improvement on hospitalizations but i wouldn't really call it a drop. we have just seen less increases in hospitalizations, with fewer ventilators than what we expected to need are being used. these are good signs but early signs. you're exactly right. i'm trying to say to people let's be moved by the fact people really worked hard be is proving those strategies, shelter in place, that they work. but you cannot let's up on the

gas, you can not for a moment get ahead of things or sort of count your chickens before they're hatched or this disease could have a resurgence and we could be worse off. >> when you see the economic hardship that's flow from this and medical realities, the disparity in terms of the racial and ethnic disproportionate impact on people of color, this certainly emphasizes that we need to do more long-term, continuing to help people who have chronic health care issues and lack of insurance coverage. but what can you do in this crisis to help those communities from getting the disease because they then die at a higher proportion than the rest of the population? >> that's right, andrea. look, when it's all over, we're going to have to really take stock and recognize this country was not prepared. and that the absence of universal health care was particularly damning in this crisis and if we're really going to address the disparities and

really be prepared for the future, we have to have universal health care. that's abundantly clear now. what do we do now? what i announced yesterday was a four-point plan to address the disparities in health care right now. focusing on our public hospitals where so many people who are lower income go for their care. strengthening them further. we spent billions to preserve our public hospital system when it was on the verge of collapse a few years ago. thank god we did because now it's been the backbone of saving lives, particularly in the communities most afflicted. so it's the public hospitals. it's going out in the communities with a huge traditional advertising campaign and digital to explain all the new things we're learning about the best ways for families to handle this disease and protect themselves in many, many languages. it's going door to door. again, this goes against what we've been thinking in a time of social distancing, but if we can find enough health care workers

we can spare and give them the ppes, we need to get people out into communities that are lower income, immigrant communities, having a direct conversation with people that need to hear from someone really right there in the community, trusted community members especially. and lastly, a very aggressive telemedicine campaign. we think a lot of people if they could just talk to a doctor or nurse more frequently and have the assurance they could reach someone they could navigate this. say there's one sick person in the home, know how to isolate and support them properly. a lot of people need coaching. a nurse or doctor to talk to. we're going to make that much more widely available. >> dr. fauci was talking today to savannah guthrie about testing for antibodies for those who have already suffered and been infected and recovered. do you see this as being widespread in a city as dense and highly populated as new york city? >> yeah, andrea, you know, right now -- i mean, i've already said

our health care leadership believes we're going to have over 50% of the people in the city ultimately will be infected by this disease. the vast majority, thank god, will have a mild experience. but so many, of course, will not. and will struggle with it. we're talking about millions of people. what testing would do -- we never had testing in the beginning when it could have affected the whole trajectory of this crisis. we could have used the testing. we pleaded with the federal government. it wasn't there. we're still pleading for it. it's not here. if we can get testing on a bigger scale, we can use that strategically to create a containment strategy as we move this disease back, as we push it back. to create the containment strategy that we wanted in the beginning where you keep pushing it down and you're able to trace individual cases, isolate people. if you need to give them hotel rooms or quarantines with lots of support, lots of communication. that's where we need to go. but it's going to take a lot more testing, and the federal government has to step up.

that's been one of their biggest achilles heels. the antibody testing is helpful, i think, particularly in terms of our public servants. it will, i think, help a lot of frontline health care workers and first responders if they know they have it already. it will give them the confidence to keep doing the heroic work they're doing. but it doesn't take the place of the core coronavirus testing. we need that, that basic testing, on a much bigger level if we're going to really turn a corner for the long term. >> do you now have the ppe that you need for all the hospitals, including some of the hospitals who are so stressed in the boroughs? >> the answer is for this week only, yes. and that doesn't include surgical gowns which is still an area we're struggle with and trying to use some backup items for that, but this week we can get through with ventilators and ppes. next week, i'm hopeful, but we don't have everything we need

yet. and this is after we've gotten a little bit of relief. we expected to be almost day-to-day just seeing if we could get enough to get through a day. it reminds us we need a lot more and a lot of other parts of america will need a lot more. we still did not see the white house using the defense production act as fully as they could. we still don't see the mobilization of the military to help get supplies out. i have talked to president trump. look, i've tried to work with him, but i have not seen from the white house the fuller mobilization we need to truly address this. it could be with us for months and months. in a lot of parts of the country, it's only just beginning. so our country is still not in the state of mobilization for the actual war we're fighting right now. >> well, let's take our hats off to all of you in new york, to the health care workers, the police, the fire, the first responders, the emts. it's been an extraordinary -- it's not 7:00 at night, but we'll do our own clapping.

>> thank you andrea. >> thank you, mr. mayor. >> i appreciate that very much. thank you. and that does it for us for this edition of "andrea mitchell reports." thank you all for being with us. take care of your loved ones. remember, follow us online on facebook for updates, on twitter @mitchellreports and chuck todd picks up our coverage after a brief break. (announcer) carvana's had a lot of firsts. 100% online car buying. car vending machines. and now, putting you in control of your financing. at carvana, get personalized terms, browse for cars that fit your budget,

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good afternoon. i'm chuck todd. the number of dead in new york state, the epicenter of the coronavirus crisis is yet at another new high. governor andrew cuomo says 799 people have died in the last 24 hours from the virus bringing the total to more than 7,000 deaths just in new york state alone. the governor said he's bringing in an additional funeral directors to handle the remains. across the united states, more than 432,000 americans have tested positive. more than 15,000 people have died. we still haven't tested 1% of the population overall yet, by the way. and as we learn more about the devastating health impacts we're also getting new figures about the economic devastation. another staggering number of americans applied for unemployment benefits last week. another 6.6 million people filed claims adding to the 10 million who filed over the previous two weeks. this is three weeks in a row we've had an all-time high