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but here i am. >> here again with the crisis how it's shining a bright light on how it's unacceptable that is. >> good morning and welcome to a.m. joy. as the covid-19 pandemic continue to ravage our health system, threaten vulnerable patients and cause disruption to our daily lives and as donald trump continues to mishandle the crisis daily we're met with a sobering statistic. more than 2,000 americans died on friday alone the highest single death toll since the start of the outbreak. the total u.s. death toll now 1,800,655 is so staggering that they fatalities from seismic life altering evidents, the bombing at pearl harbor all peal

in comparison to the deaths happening now and no one is being hit harder than people of color. in milwaukee county african americans account for 70% of the death while making up just 26% of the population. black americans in louisiana make up 32% of the population but 70% of the covid-19 deaths. there are similar numbers coming out of michigan and chicago and black and latino new yorkers are dying at twice the rate as their white counter parts. the underlying reasons, unequal access to health care. the continued effects of housing segregation have existed since long before donald trump was sworn in but his utter lack of preparedness in the face of a growing public health crisis is amounting to a hurricane kratria

a week. he in fact had several years notice that something like this could happen. >> there may and likely will come a time in which we have both an air born disease that is deadly. and norz fin order for us to del with that we have to put in place an infrastructure not just here at home but globally that allows us to see it and respond it to quickly. >> or this warning from a fellow republican, a full 15 years ago. >> if a virus were develop the capacity for sustained human to human transmission it could spread quickly across the globe and one day many lives could be needlessly lost because we failed to act today. >> joining me now is congressman

castro, a family physician and dr. joseph fare, a science contributor for msnbc. congressman, can you please respond to the reporting that we're now getting that the trump administration had warnings about this potential for not just an outbreak but this outbreak going all the way back at least to november? >> yeah, i mean, not only was it in the news by that point, it had started to be in the news, but you know, i'm on the intelligence committee so it's hard to speak about those classified briefings but i will say that based on everything that i've seen they should have known exactly what was going on, should have prepared better for it and should have established the infrastructure early on to deal with it. the president didn't do any of that and here we are now. people have needlessly suffered

and died because of a lack of preparation by the president of the united states and his administration and this administration unfortunately continues for the most part to bumble this response. >> yeah, and for your community, you represent san antonio, texas, a very diverse community, we know that people of color are suffering at a disproportionate rate in large part because of lack of helt care access but also because no medicaid expansion, no access to continued health care and working in a lot of front line jobs. can you talk about how this has impacted constituents like yours. >> yeah, absolutely. you're right. i live in the state of texas, that even before this had the highest percentage of people with no health care coverage at all. the governor a few years back refused to expand medicaid that meant that a million texans would not get health care coverage even though the federal government was going to pay 100%

of the tab at this point. so the conditions for a bad situation were already there and in san antonio i'll tell you, you talk about racial disparities, african americans in san antonio make up 7% of the population and so far make up 36 pn % of the deaths. >> yeah. let's go to dr. jones. the boston globe had an excellent piece. the title of it is being a person of coalready isn't a risk factor for coronavirus. to ignore the impact is to deny the impact of racism itself. this is a result of decades of living in food deserts which can lead to higher rates of diabetes and heart disease and more respiratory disease. being underemployed has made people vulnerable to this unprecedented health crisis. can you explain what is the

connection? these are conditions that were there before coronavirus was an issue. >> well, we have to first understand that black people are not more susceptible to the virus, so the reason we have the excess is because we're more exposed. we're will have talked about front line jobs, also being in jails or being unhoused. we're less protected on the front line jobs because we're not valued so those two things make us more likely to be infected and once infected we are more likely to have a sesere form of the disease we have a lot of chronic diseases in the community and those chronic diseases aren't in the community because of our genes, they're not there because we don't care about our health. they are there exactly because we're living in segregated settings that have limited opportunity, limited risk, more exposures and many white

americans aren't really aware of how segregated the society is. they have no idea how different the living situations are because we -- it's like living on opposite sides of an open/close sign so there's a system in this country that is structuring opportunity and assigning value based on race and we call that system racism so that is how we can talk about the covid-19 excess black deaths being due to racism but it's not just those. it's the infant mortality disparity, two times as many of our babies dying before their first birthday. we're now looking at it and saying racism because these deaths are piling up so fast that we can't just look away or normalize it or ignore it. >> yeah. and in addition, i apologize for mispronouncing your name even on

the ability to work from home not a lot of people have that opportunity. 37% have the ability to work from home for white americans it's 29.9% for african americans it's 19.7%. for latino es it's even lower and i want to before i come back and bring the rest of the panel back inty want to bring the doctor in because part of the only way you can end this crisis or at least bring it to a plateau is that people have to distance so what do you do whether you do have certain parts of a society that can't distance that still have to come in that are still clerks and working in stores and how does that end up working out. >> there's no easy answer to it and would say the biggest thing i've noticed in probably 20 years usually in the poorest regions of the world is that poverty is the thing that most affects what the outcome is going to be. so you know, any area of the country, new orleans being a good example but other areas as

well. in those groups it's harder to get the separation and the need to be on those front line and essential jobs, so what we tried to do immediately when we have an outbreak of this magnitude especially is get money out to those individuals, in this case it would be from the federal government so they don't have to come into work and if they are it's a limited number of people doing it that have tools to protect themselves, the personal protective equipment, if they're a custodian they'll have the wear they need and have the training they need on how to protect themselves while at work. >> wouldn't it be good, people in front line jobs shouldn't they be getting tested? >> you know i'm an advocate of everyone being able to get tested at some point in time. we're not logistically or

physically there yet to be able to do so but that being said i do think at some point in time we should -- everyone should at least have the anti body test to make sure they've had it or to know whether they're at risk or not. >> dr. jones, go ahead. >> i wanted to weigh in on this whole testing thing because yes, everybody who wants a test because they have symptoms should be able to get a test but that's still a very health care, medical care use of testing and to alter the epidemic so that we change the course, we need to test not only the symptomatic people but a sample of people who don't have symptoms. that way we understand the magnitude of the disease in our community so we can anticipate where we need to put resources if two weeks. that way we can identify the spreaders and ask about their contacts and isolate them instead. so this strategy of testing just to confirm a diagnosis, that's

all right, but it's not -- it allows us to document the epidemic but it doesn't allow us to change the course and to limit the epidemic the same way that a broad population based strategy for testing would do. >> appreciate that indeed. let's show a little bit of a food bank that -- because this is the results of all of this texas food bank distributions over 1 million pounds of goods to 10,000 families. this was in your district, congressman. how severe is the economic fallout from this so far where you represent? >> it's an incredible pounding that people have taken. you all saw the numbers, 16 million americans in the last three weeks. san antonio among major american cities was already a big town that was relatively poor compared to other places and you saw 10,000 people line up. more of these are scheduled next week and so you know, it shows

you this is exposed a lot of the warts in american society. one of those being the fact that people have maybe one, two, three weeks of savings and then that's it. they can't go on longer than that. another one is this idea relying on employer based health care for folks. well, what happens when 16 million people lose their jobs and that's all gone? so they're going to have to be i think important changes that come from this. >> yeah. absolutely. paging joe biden. he's rethinking this. he may want to rethink it a little bit more. thank you all very much. really appreciate you guys. thank you and be safe. and coming up, a closer look at why donald trump is pushing a treatment for covid-19 against the advice of his own medical experts. you wouldn't accept an incomplete job from anyone else. so why accept it from your allergy pills? flonase relieves your worst symptoms

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so when the president says what do you have to lose, you've got coronavirus, you're in the hospital, what do you have to lose, what do you say? you could lose your life and certainly there are some limited studies as dr. fauci said but at this point we just don't have the data to suggest that we should be using this medication for covid-19. >> the president of the american medical association is just one of many experts warning against donald trump's recommendation of the anti malaria drug hydroxychloroquine to treat covid-19. the american heart association is alringing the alarm about using the drug and the antibiotic in covid-19 patients with heart disease. the aha sent out a cautionary note warning of serious side effects including irregular heart beats but facts and trained experts be damned, at

sunday's briefing president trump silenced anthony fauci when a reporter asked him about the medical advice. >> what do you think about hydroxychloroquine and -- >> can i answer that question? >> it's for the doctor. >> 15 times. you don't have to ask it. >> he's your medical expert, correct? snee he is answered that 15 times. >> joining me now is tim o-brien senior columnist for bloomberg opinion and white house bureau chief for the "washington post" and the author of "a very stable genius." we will not silence dr. fauci. let's play him on fox news and this is back on april 3rd. >> we don't operate on how you feel. we operate on what evidence is and data is. i think we've got to be careful

that we don't make that majestic leap to assume that this is a knockout drug. we still need to do the kinds of studies that definitively prove whether any intervention, not just this one, any intervention is truly safe and effective. >> tim, you know, only in the tru trump era would he move this guy aside and he's so determined to make people try this drug cocktail. his supporters believe in it. what is happening here? >> well, i think that we have a lot of history with donald trump positioning himself as the final authority around a number of issues whether it's, you know, foreign trade, civil rights, managing the government, managing the economy and now managing a pandemic. because he gets great traction with his base around that, i think that's the core thing, one

of the core things to focus in on on his attachment to hydroxychloroquine. there's obviously been a lot of speculation whether he's got a financial stake in this. that to me seems to be a real reach. he owns a bit of a french drug maker that produces a related drug. i don't think he stands to benefit much financial friday that. i think what he's trying to do is to position a magical cruor outside of the process that other people won't buy into because they have an agenda against him and i think one of the lingering truths is this war on objective reality and as long as he keeps casting doubts about whether or not there is advice outside of him that can be believed, it empowers him. >> that sounds like one of the

teleadvantage lis evangelists that's doing that. >> both you and phil have written books on this phenomenon and i think the title of phil's book right now is very apt. there is an evangelical quality to trump's base and to his followers both literally and figuratively and he knows how to play that. trump rallies are about revivals. they're not about being enlightened. >> let ne go to an article that you cowrote in the "washington post." a little bit of it, he hears about the anti malarial drug on the phone including from his personal attorney, rudy giuliani. he hears about it on television from physicians on fox news panels. so he hears dr. oz talk about it

on fox and he wants to make everyone take it. is it that simple? >> you know, in a way it is, joy. it's a bit of on echochamber and he doesn't just hear about this on fox news by the way, we reported that he was paid a visit in the oel office by a fox host, laura ingram who's a supporter and friend of the president and she brought along with her two doctors who are part of her on-air television medicine cabinet and they had a meeting with the president last friday in the oval office where they pitched him on this drug and talked to him about how effective they think it is and how so many people in new york have started to experiment with it and take it and made the president believe that it saves lives and it's one of many voices in the president's ear these last couple of weeks that are sort of feeding this belief that he has that this is the magical cure all. >> but the challenge is though, phillip, he has dr. nfauci.

>> dr. fauci ux one of the nation's renowned infectious disease expert. he's in his ear, he's in the meetings with the president but the president as we've seen for the last three years taking advice from out side the government and he seems to equate what fox news people say on the air waves that he watches with what the experts in the government are saying. it's the reason why he doesn't always believe what the intelligence people are telling him. >> he should have a -- anyway, we will note my producer just said in my ear that he also called the virus genius which is an interesting sort of all tick of donald trump, calling things that are bad guys -- bad things genius. i wished i had more time to discuss. weir out of time. thank you guys very much. and next, the risk that some

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as we've said many time it is state of florida is not going to through government coercion to close a place of worship, but we have advocated that folks worship in a way that's consistent with social distancing guidelines and i know that most establishments are doing that and i know there's different ways to do it. >> uh-huh. tomorrow is one of the holiest days in the christian calendar but in defiance of guidance from the cdc and stay home orders from some governors, some churches are still planning on opening their doors. as if there is no global pandemic at all or worse, in defiance of that reality. joining me now is reverend warnock who's also running for

the u.s. senate in georgia. good morning, sir. >> good morning. good to be here with you, joy. >> thank you so much. let me start by playing donald trump and this was his -- he was asked about his original, you know, sort of prognostication that he wanted to have the country opened up by easter. he was asked about that at one of his daily press conference reality show editions. here we go. >> i had a date and i thought it was a very aspirational date. it's turning out to be very interesting because a lot of good things are happening by easter but i had a very aspirational date. i didn't think we could make it. i didn't say we could do it by easter but i said wouldn't that be great to shoot for easter, a very important day to a lot of people like me and like some of you in the room. maybe all of you in the room, fran

frankly. >> if that even makes sense to you that's all well and good except that a lot of people are listening and a lot of people that are conservative are listening to donald trump and taking their queues from him. house and senate leaders in the state of kansas meeting as a body called the legislative coordinating council voted along party lines to throw out the directive by their governor to close the state and include churches. it became as a number of cases climbed more than 1,000 and the death count ticked up to 38. church gatherings have accounted for some of these. what do you say to christian communities. >> you're the head of a church, that are insistent on meeting on sunday. >> >> the church is not the building. the church is the people and so let every home be a sanctuary and let every soul be safe.

the fact of the matter is faith leaders really ought to be lead the way. after all this is holy week. holy week is a story within a story about how to survive a pandemic. ironically the story of passover which jesus goes into jerusalem to celebrate along with other jews at the beginning of this week is a story about a people overcoming oppression and injustice and in the midst of that struggle, a pandemic, a plague emerges and there comes a divine directive to shelter in place until the passover -- until the pandemic passes. and so our spiritual ancestors have taught us how to survive a pandemic. we ought not worship the building. we need people to be safe. we ought to always be taking this seriously so that when the time comes we can gather and celebrate our faith and the god who gives us the promise that death and sickness will never

have the last word. that after all is the message of easter. >> and you know, there is a sense and amen to that and thank you for that lesson for those who are unfamiliar with the story. part of this does feel like it's also not so much worshipping the building but worshipping a political ideology because you have some pastors out there that are having meetings of a church being an act of defiance against the libs, that this is some sort of liberal plot against donald trump personally and so that the pandemic isn't real. it's just a plot against donald trump so meeting is showing a frailty to him. that strikes me as quite dangerous. your thoughts on that. >> it strikes me as a form of idolatry and this is what we get now for decades we've had this movement against government and the idea that government doesn't have a role and when you give

people that kind of dogma and doctrine year after year, it has implications. it has in this case a tragic consequences. we need people to be safe. we need people to take this seriously. this is why my church has found ways to worship creatively in this space. a week ago i sat in this same place right here in my home and i conducted a funeral for one of my parishioners and the entire service was conducted on a zoom virtual platform. if you had told me a few years ago that i'd be conducting an entire funeral on a virtual platform i would not have understood. but this is where we are, a funeral should not produce other funerals. we should not lose lives trying to celebrate a life. churches tomorrow will be empty, but so is the grave. that's what our faith teaches us and we have to fight the good fight. we need government in this moment to do its job.

we need much more testing than we're seeing going on in our country, and we need to make sure that our health care workers and our essential workers, people who are on the front lines of providing service and a service economy have the protections that they need at a time like this. >> yeah, amen to all of that. i want to wish you in advance a happy easter. thank you so much. good luck in your campaign as well. thank you so much for being here. >> thank you. coming up, the fight to bring voting up to date and to safeguard the 2020 election. around here, nobody ever does it. i didn't do it. so when i heard they added ultra oxi

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this is so wrong. this election should have been called offensively. they're telling us to stay in the house and you know, stand six feet from each other but then one of the most important times, they're forcing us to come out here in a group. stop playing politics with our lives. >> wisconsin voters this week were made to risk their very lives to exercise their right to vote. voters stood in long lines in close quarters despite the need to social distance in the rain for hours. it was an astonishing sight captured by this. the results of tuesday's vote including the democratic

presidential primary and an election on the supreme court won't be released until monday. >> bernie sanders meanwhile has taken himself out of the running for president clearing the way for former vice president joe biden to talk the democratic nomination. joining me now is our senior reporter at mother jones and author of "give us the ballot" and also lee verna taylor. >> it seems unconscionable that the republicans in your state did what they did. what was the explanation they gave for voter to stand out in close quarters to vote. >> the republicans refused to take us into session. we actually will be going into session next week and so they did not take us into session before the election date and it's very sad to see that our milwaukee election commission chose to have five locations

instead of the 180 that we had under the pretense that we did not have enough poll workers but we have many individuals who e-mailed, called and ern went on the internet to say that they wanted to be able to help. so this is definitely something that we should not have had to be in with this election based on what our republican legislator did but i wish that how it was orchestrated would have been different by the city. >> yeah, just a couple of headlines here. in person voting was like athe si saster for wisconsin's effort to flatten the coronavirus curve meaning they literally put people's lives at risk and will probably see results in the coronavirus count. you also had senator bald win and johnson, both senators calling for an investigation into wisconsin's missing absentee ballots. a lit bit more on that story as wisconsin scrambled to expand

voting by mail. many say their ballots went undelivered. this just adds to it so you had health risk but also missing absentee or nullified ballots. what's going on here sf. >> joy, as someone who's covered voting rights for a decade this is one of the worst elections i've ever seen. this is one of the worst elections in modern american history. you had so many problems. you had voters forced to choose between their health and their ballot. you had the wisconsin supreme court refusing to postpone the election even though ten other states moved to all mail elections. you had the u.s. supreme court refusing to give people an extra week to mail back their ballots even though thousands of voters did not receive the absentee ballots they should have received so we are looking at mass disenfranchisement in this election and they put on all the stops to suppress the vote for a

state supreme court election. so if they're willing to go this far to win a state supreme court seat, imagine what they'll try to do in november. >> that does seem to be the point. they want this seat to be preserved. i guess a far right supreme court member has. that's what this was about or was it about, i don't know, punishing democrats who are still voting in the primary? is it about that supreme court seat? >> well, i'll tell you i think it is about the supreme court seat but i believe locally our local mayor and election commission could have done very different. there are issues that happen around the state just has been articulated but it was just outrageous in milwaukee. people were waiting for multiple hours. people waited for multiple hours that did not get a chance to even get to vote after waiting three hours. people were sent to the wrong place. we even had the chief of a site wearing a princess cruise line

robe. it was just too much going on across the board and people should not have been put in that situation. >> and when you're back in session, is there a consideration to get mail-in ballot to allow people to vote by mail-in ballot for november? >> well, you know, i think that will be something that's discussed but there are several individuals who are are not registered who had an opportunity to vote and as a defender of the rights act i want to make sure that every person has that right so we're going the have to figure out what are we going to do for individuals who are not able to register online and thus would have been denied. there are several individuals in that situation and although the supreme court race is important, i want to just be extremely clear that we had only five polling locations. that was a choice of the local government in milwaukee.

we had 66, they said in madison. >> yeah. >> and so it's just not acceptable and i just don't want the wrong message to be out there. >> absolutely. former attorney general eric holder said people waiting in milwaukee to vote in the middle of a pandemic, the supreme court has done, this is what endangered the lives of people who simply want to vote. i'm going to gifz you the last word on this because this is a thing in wisconsin now at this point. it does seem that there is an intense effort here to prevent people to being able to vote safely if at all. >> there's been a decade long effort to prevent people from voting. republicans are going to try to have 50 wisconsins on election night because they believe voter suppression benefits them. this is why we need to send

ballots to every registered voter. it needs to be a priority in the next stimulus package past passed by congress and democrats, particularly joe biden needs to elevate voting rights as one of the top issues going forward. >> that needs to be in the next bill. that has to be in the next bill for all of the states because as you said 50 wisconsins, that's what you're looking at if we don't do it. thank you. you could also see ari featured in "slay the dragon." it's available to watch on video on demand vod as well as digital platform. up next we separate coronavirus fact from fiction for the young ones and we have some famous help stay right there. there will be parties again soon,

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for instantly brighter skin. i am totally blind. and non-24 can throw my days and nights out of sync, keeping me from the things i love to do. talk to your doctor, and call 844-214-2424. when it came to the coronavirus, it seemed like for once black people were catching a break.

>> a lot of these viruses we're immune to because our skin is radiant and our skin comes from the sun. that is our super power. melanin. >> minorities can't catch coronavirus. why do you believe that 1234. >> i don't know, but -- >> name one. >> conspiracy theories about covid-19 are spreading as fast as the virus itself. one of the ones proven untrue is that black people were some how immune. joining me now, two guests who worked debunk that theory. dr. davis, author of "living and dying in brick city." and also rapper asap. you did a q and a for people who are fans of asap and wanted to get real talk about coronavirus. tell us how it went and what kind of questions were you guys

getting? i'll start but, dr. davis. >> yeah, me and asap came together, we thought it was important, we connected through my cousin who brought us together. and he had a lot of questions and thoughts about the coronavirus, a lot of the misinformation out there. and he wanted to take a stance and address it. and with this platform, it was a great combination to short of share the message and get the right information out there to our communities that are suffering. >> and just a bit of the data that is out there, hundreds of young people killed by coronavirus and e.r. doctors say just because they are young doesn't mean that they are not vulnerable. and what got you to want to do this? of course my good friend of melba we're talking about here, but what got you to want to do this? >> i never seen anything that is so impactful to the world on

th this level. and seeing all of my friends hanging out and wanting to shoot videos and stilt being beingsti wanted to make sure that they had the right info moving forward. because even myself, i wasn't really taking it serious until like i seen one of my friends actually get the virus. dj web star. and he was shooting a video and not coming out of car and i'm like what happened. and then like thank god he didn't because he had the virus. he didn't want to spread it along. so i just want to -- yeah, i want people to take more precaution towards this virus. like i said, like a lot of the black community, they wasn't really hip to what was going on and misinformed on a lot of the information. so i just wanted to spread it through my fan base and like all my followers and just let them

know like what i know. >> i appreciate you using your platform for that. and the data is actually scare cannery. younger people also have the idea that only older people can get it. but it affects boomers, not affecting young people. but we have the w.h.o. warning some children develop severe or critical disease from coronavirus. and then let me put up here the social distancing by age. of the percentage of people who are avoiding people as much as possible. and this is from norc. older adults over 60 years old, 92% are doing it. younger adults only 78%. are we at a point where we're risking having this go from being a disease that we're seeing affect older people to really starting to affect younger folks? >> i mean, no one is immune. and i think that is the most important message to spread. young and old alike can catch or

contract the coronavirus, you can sufrn symptimpl suffer symp. and the message that i was speaking about is that we see people when you drive through the community gathering still on the block or outside the stores. i saw one guy with a pair of gloves on with no mask walk up to another young man and shook hands and they walked down the street together. so you got to understand even though you may be young and may not impact you as much, you are taking that virus home to your mother, to your father, to your grandparents who other people -- other people within your apartment. and a lot of our community, we're tight nicknit community. and so when you talk about social distancing which is important, it is really about the physical spread. we need to have that physical distance and quarantine ourselves. if we don't do it now, we'll look at a longer period of

isolation which will affect us mentally, physically, it will cause issues beyond -- >> and financially as well. and a lot -- just real quick, even when we wear our masks and our gloves, a lot of the times the germs is on the outside of the mask. and me and doctor talked about this too, people take the mask and put it under their neck and they are not properly -- if they put it under the neck, the germ on the outside of the mask is going everywhere on your clothes and everything like that. so be mindful of that as well. like your phone, you touch your phone all day and not wiping your phone down. and like putting your hand in the pocket, a lot of germs are there too. so be mindful of that as well. >> and thank you for saying that. we'll do a demo on that tomorrow because that is an important point. people get a false sense of security with the gloves and

masks on and they take more risks. is that correct, dr. davis, they take more risks because they think that they are fully protected? >> yeah, that is the case because you do have a sense, this artificial sense of extra force field around you, which is not true. that mask that you are wearing, yes, on the inside it is not contaminated rktsz but tbut the. so when you put it under your chin or on your forehead, you run the risk of breathing in the germg. and here at our hospital, it is a learning curve and we have to catch up with the virus. but we have currently 15 nurses out and two of their husbands unfortunately lost their lives. >> sorry to hear that. and so what are some of the things that you are doing? because a lot of people are having cabin fever issues where it is difficult to stay away from other people and be home a lot. so what are some of the things

that you are doing? >> i'm just like chilling. me and my uncle. you know, i read a lot. i paint. i just get more into like creative mode. this is a time actually i'm just using to catch up on a lot of things that i put on to the side that i wasn't able to do. like just do the traveling and touring. so now i'm able to like really sort through thing, sit with things and literally like be able to ground myself. and i find it like peace flg becau because we're just so rhee used to reacting, reacting. but we're never really like sitting and indulging in ourselves and what we want to do and asking ourselves questions and now living with things. so now i get the opportunity to do that. >> amen. >> and i want to also mention as

well, we're going to continue this conversation today at 2:00 p.m. on his instagram live page. we'll have a conversation with the country and please join us and be a part of that today. >> perfect. we just put up the promo. >> and i also want to add that we're also helping hospitals. i've paid for 200 meals for harlem hospital workers. i want to encourage like all of my fellow hip hop guys whether you are an entertainer, do what you can for the hospitals around you. these hospitals are really -- they are going through it right now and people like dr. davis is putting their lives on the front line. so they are the real super heros out there doing crazy work and

putting their life on the line. so we want to help them out as much as possible. >> thank you both for what you are doing. appreciate it and we'll check you out at 2:00 on instagram. thank you. shop with wayfair, you spend less and get way more. so you can bring your vision to life and save in more ways than one. for small prices, you can build big dreams, spend less, get way more. shop everything home at wayfair.com dad! not cool.o, son. you know what's not uncool? old spice after hours... and jazz. dad, i prefer ultra smooth, it handles sweat without all that...jazz. you're right son.

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bill that is currently at risk of running out of money. so i was surprised to see this simple proposal met uneasily by the democratic leadership. >> i'm afraid that this consent is basically a political stunt because it will not address the immediate need of small businesses in the legislation that we have passed. >> welcome back to "a.m. joy." we're awaiting a press conference by governor andrew cuomo, but we begin with the economic toll of the coronavirus and the debate over how to address it. on thursday, senate democrats blocked the republican majority leader mitch mcconnell from pushing through an additional $250 billion for a loan program for small businesses impacted by the pandemic by a voice vote. democrats say mcconnell's move was a political stunt which failed to address necessary fixes to the program such as more funding for hospitals and

state and local governments. but when democrats proposed adding that additional funding, republicans swiftly blocked it. new york one of the hardest hit states and the epicenter for now would have particularly benefitted from that additional money. new york has more cases than not just any other city, but also any country in the world aside from the united states as a whole with over 173,000 cases statewide, and 92,384,000 in new york city alone. and mayor de blasio announced school will be closed for the remainder of the school year. and despite that, governor cuomo said the rate of hospitalizations have gone down, signaling new york could be plateauing. but this week new york still experienced one of its deadliest weeks yesterday after a sharp rise in fatalities which brought the overall total to more than 7800 deaths statewide. and joining me now is

congressman hakeem jeffries of new york, congressman gregory meeks, and also michael steele, dr. badelia, and also emergency room dr. davis is rejoining us. and leader jeffrjeffries, i wan start with you. there were two steps of the bill. the senate leader trying to push through $250 billion which sounds good on its face, but democrats said that more money is needed. can you explain kind of what it is that democrats wanted in addition that republicans rejected? >> thank you for the question and it is great to be on with you and your distinguished panel of guests. first of all, there are 100 members of the senate, 53 are republicans, 47 democrats. you also have a house and majority of course is the

democratic party over in the house led by speaker pelosi. and what mitch mcconnell attempted to do is just a political stunt and was ludicrous on its face. one person in the midst of the entirety of the united states congress is going to determine what is best for the nation? he attempted do it by unanimous consent and it was rejected. our rue view yes, $250 billion necessary, but at least $125 billion of that should be directed at farmers, family owned businesses, women owned businesses, minority owned businesses and veterans owned businesses which are particularly in distress and don't have the same level of relationships with these major financial institutions that might otherwise exist. and so we want to direct the resource at the need. >> and so one of the -- we know that there are house and senate negotiations going on over what this next bill, the fourth bill,

will look like. and you make a very good point because there are unbanked people that i know we talked about, who is getting and who didn't get enough out of the c.a.r.e.s act. there are businesses who don't have access, did not even before this have access to the lending that they need. is that what you are talking about, that essentially this $250 billion that republicans proposed, was that for people who already had access to banking services? co do you understand from the house side what it was that they were trying to push through and who would have gotten that money? >> yeah, part of the challenge that we've confronted is that coming out of c.a.r.e.s one, which did a tremendous amount of good, we also have to learn from some of the areas that need improvement and one of the things that was clear, when you set aside resources as we did, $349 billion for businesses of 500 employees or less, but there is no additional criteria, many of the existing banks have basically said if you've got an existing loan with us or

pre-existing relationship, it is first come first serve in that regard. and everybody else has to wait at the back of the line. we said that is problematic particularly as it relates to women owned businesses, farmer, family owned businesses, minority owned businesses and the underbanked often located in rural parts of america or innercity. and we want to change that in terms of the additional small business allocation. >> let me play -- let me read to you part of the statement from mitch mcconnell and from kevin mccare any. republicans reject democrats' reckless threat to continue blocking job saving funding unless we renegotiate unrelated programs which are not in similar peril. this will not be congress' last word on covid-19 but this crucial program needs funding now, american workers cannot be used as political hostages. and let me now play what speaker

pelosi had to say on these additional provisions and this was actually on thursday and this is via cnbc. >> that we bring the program to $600 billion and we're saying that 10% of that to go for community development, financial institutions. institutions that are there to meet the needs of those who do not have banking relationships but nonetheless are viable small businesses. we all have a common purpose, we just don't want to have to trickle down, we want some of to be directly for these small businesses. >> so congressman meeks, i throw this to you. mitch mcconnell says that what just heard the speaker talk about are unrelated. are those things unrelated? >> they are absolutely related. my colleague and fleriend hakee jeffries said, this is trying to put the resources where they are

desperately needed. and as we have seen with reference to the health disparities and the dangers that have been lawyer paeeen particu and black and brown communities where there are more deaths there, more individuals proportion natalie that have been affected by the coronavirus. so too have the small businessen affected by the coronavirus. so too have the small businesses in those same communities. and we saw from the coronavirus 3 that those areas were not -- those small businesses in those areas were not receiving any of those funds. so it is directly related to improving the economy and creating the jobs in those communities for those people. so those small businesses that we are talking about, they hire a lot of individuals. and so we're talking about restoring and keeping people afloat. the money has to go into those

communities via the small businesses that are there. otherwise they will not be able to survive. >> and can i ask, because i know that the small business piece is critical. we all know people that are struggling. but the question i think a lot of us have, there are other issues that are front of mind. is the next bill, the 40s bifou bill, do democrats want to see it include the voting provision such as mail-in voting to make sure that people are able to exercise their right to vote? will it include things like speeding up the payments which we're now learning some people may not get, the $1200 plus the $500 per child until may, and if they didn't file, it could be very late by the time they get the money, are those things in the next bill? i'll give that to congressman meeks and have hakeem jeffries weigh in. >> all of the above. you know, voting is the key to

this democracy. and we know that individuals should not have to put their life on the line to vote. we have done that. people have died for the right to vote. i don't want seniors to have to die to go to vote. so there should be provisions put in place so that if individuals can mail their ballots in, their vote will count. otherwise you could have a process that basically says frn could not vote. so we have to make sure right now that included in the bill is the dollars necessary to provide and help the states so that there could be hail-koo could b where seniors and others locked in and can't get out have that ability to go to the polls and not have as the president had said, you know, give giving everybody the right to vote, he said if you did that republicans would never win.

this should not be something partisan in that way. we want he have american to hev the opportunity to vote. and that is what we need to do to save our democracy. >> and leader jeffries, is that going to be in the next bill? >> it certainly is our hope to make sure that we make additional progress in terms of what was done in c.a.r.e.s one where we included $3400 million. they wanted to include zero to help states expand voting opportunities including through mail-in votes. the foundational principle of this country or one of them at the heart and soul of this country is that everyone is entitled to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. on the one hand, your life is at risk because of the dangerous necessary of the coronavirus pandemic. on the other hand, central to liberty in this country is one person, one vote, and self-determination, self government through part pay thing in our democracy. and so the two things are directly related. and given the nature of this

pandemic, we should not be jammed into crowded polling sites as part of some voter suppression effort by some of my friends on the other side of the i'aisle because they think they can't win elects if the majority of people actually turning out and vote. that is shameful. >> and michael steele, you led the other party for a time. can you take us inside this opposition to allowing broadly americans to vote the way -- i mean, a lot of republicans vote absentee. it is a common way that republicans vote. why the opposition is to letting everyone vote? >> because trump is against it. that is just the thumb nail of it. the president has gotten out in front of this on the message of on this. and it has put republicans in a

very awkward position. because you're right, when you look at states around the country where you have significant republican participation at the poll, you have republican leadership in the election process, they have been supportive of this effort. yes, in some states like alabama, mississippi, there is a slightly different take on this. but by and large, certainly in western states and here along the eastern seaboard, it is a very different attitude. but the president is trying to dwinlg th define this narrative around voting because he is threatened by what could happen in november. and it has been shown by smart institutes out there that vote by mail, absentee ballot, when that is allowed to happen, voter participation increases by 10%. so there is a lot at stake here

in terms of voter turnout that is driving the messaging right now that is i think unfortunately boxing republicans in a corner. >> let's talk about the economics of it really quickly, because donald trump is concerned with the sagging economy. he has floated trying to reopen much of the country before the end of this month. trump regularly looks at unemployment and stock market numbers complaining they are hurting his presidencyprospects. not a lot of concern about the people who have lost their lives. but anyway, this small business provision that was blocked by republicans because they don't want to include some of these rural smaller business minority businesses, et cetera, this is the way that the prp party trird to attract new voters, trying to get small business owners thinking about the republican party. what is the logic of not being

open to allowing minit minority businesses an rural businesses to get additional funding? does that make sense to you? >> it really doesn't because it is counter to the narrative that the party has articulated going back to the days of jack kemp. in this type of environment, jack kemp's philosophy would be leading the way in terms of opening the pathways very much to the points that my friends in congress were talking about. that would open until opportunity for people to actually participate more fully at a time when it is difficult for them to do so. so a little unsettling that such a narrow sort of wall street view of this recovery, not recognizing that the full recovery is going to happen on main street, it has to be where smaller minority businesses are the ones who are driving getting

people back to work. it is the restaurant whoerowner had to fire their employees, this is where it has to turn around to get them the capital they need to bring their people back to work and can move forward beyond this virus. >> and the whole point to getting the country back to some semblance of normal is that you have to be able to delineate who has been exposed to the virus, who hasn't. who has had it and recovered and who is stiis still at risk. i don't understand how you can do that if you are not mass testing people. donald trump is determined to get the country back going again. doesn't seem possible to me to do that if we're not mass testing. am i wrong? >> you are exactly right. and the interesting thing, there is a narrative that somehow

people and doctors want to keep the economy closed down out of some nefarious reasons. everybody wants the same goal, which is opening up society again. but you can't get there without actually putting the investment in and doing the hard work so that when you open it up again, you are not faced with the same public health disaster that we're currently seeing or potentially something worse. so a couple pieces that we need to look at. when we start to open up our economy, when we start to ease our sort of quarantine states, we need to see as you said how many people can be tested, we need a strategy oftracing and f people who are sick and put manpower behind it. and that takes resources and a national strategy. many states are reviewing that. so you require both testing and then you need an ability to test how many people have actually already gotten the infection and potentially might be immune to it. so the other side of testing is testing for serologies or

immunity. and that will help us get a sense of how many people could potentially be -- [ inaudible ] and last thing, having hospitals ready to actually deal with the increased number of patients that might appear over a longer period of time and we're not there yet on any of those instances. >> right. and dr. davis, the answer for donald trump both his politics and if he cared, you know, about the national health and the people, the human beings involved in this, would be to, a, mass test, make sure who has it, who is immune, but also getting the resources, a marshal plan to make sure that all the resources that they needed, new york city's mayor just announced schools are closed for the rest of the yeert. that just happened. they will close schools. and new york is the critical part. why not send as many resources to new york as possible, make sure that you flatten the curve there and then move the

resources on? this as of just an outsider looking in seems like the answer and i don't understand why trump isn't doing it. >> yeah, i don't get it either. it makes sense to sort of fill the need where the greatest is. and new york and new jersey, chicago, detroit, these are being becoming the hot pocket areas as new york now is starting to sort of flatten off befo . the greatest need is here in new york and new jersey. and as mentioned, we have to do mass testing. we're not doing it now. i'm in the emergency department and we don't have the tests, we don't have the man power. and we need to develop some sort of antibody which they mentioned now to test to see if you have had the virus. so there has to be some congref and there could be more to be done to address the need right

now. >> congressman meeks, do you have an explanation -- dr. davis just mentioned a lot of big cities. states that did not have to vote for donald trump. are we going to have to wait to see if it slams red states before donald trump will getting a difference? >> yeah, i think that you will see and he will see soon that this virus is going to spread and it will -- no one will escape from it. and it is clear that without testing, you know, when i look at the city of new york, one of the things that we're push being rig -- pushing right now and we need targeted base testing because certain communities have been disproportionately hit. and there is a big fight right now, i know that we need to go across america and test, test, test and in those states right now that there is not a high

concentration. they should be testing right now to try to get ahead of it. one of the reasons why we are where we are right no is the delay in testing that the president had that could have kept us a little bit in front of this. >> absolutely. and congressman jeffries, we know that you have to leave. i appreciate you being here. before we let you go, what should we be looking for next week, what will happen from the congress allege siional side as forward? >> i agree secertainly with wha greg meeks laid out about targeting our resources. that is the smart thing to do. next week you will see continued gosh be yags negotiations on the emergency bill and we want to set aside another $100 billion for state and local stabilization. we know states like new york and

michigan and new jersey and california and are others have been hit incredibly hard by this pandemic, their budgets are taking a hit. that means left behind are the most vulnerable and they will be hurt by the services that get cut back. we've already seen that as an explanation for why many black and brown communities are disproportionately impacted. if we allow the city and state budgets to continue to be decimated, that problem will grow worse. and so we want to make progress in that area as well next week. >> indeed. congressman, thank you so much for being here. appreciate your time. happy easter. and michael steele, i want to come back to you. this is not going to remain only in states like new york and blue states. you're seeing swing states like michigan get hit. florida is setting itself up, let's be blunt. the governor there has had an

odd response where he seems reluctant to do what you need to do. so i wonder what it looks like when it does start to hit in states, hit hard, which it is already starting in alabama, in louisiana, in red states. this is coming. what do syou see happening? >> i think that there will be a level of sort of revisionist history and, again, sort of saying that all the appropriate efforts were made to get in front of the virus and this was to be expected that, you know, this wave would come as we saw it come across the country from washington state. so i think that the rhetoric obviously won't meet up with the facts, it won't meet up with the real reality. and i think the rest of us have to be prepared to deal with that part of this and move forward. we cannot be stuck on stupid, we

have to be in a space where we protect even those who aren't applying all rationale, rational thought to this, and this would include states like florida where the governor is saying we won't stop you from gathering for easter sunday services if you want to. it is just ridiculous at this point. >> yeah, it absolutely is temperature doctor, if some of these governors of the red states or legislature in kansas and people who are ideologically opposed to following the scientific advice, what should states be codoing now who have t peaked yet? >> everybody ca >> everybody asks what if we had used masks and social distancing in these cities, would we see a

difference. and here is a chance. you are in that opportunity where you could deploy the public health measures early. but the other part of this as was mentioned before, pandemics fracture society at known fault lines. as someone who spent? of my time in rural medicine, i was the only doctor some nights for hundreds of miles, there is no redundancy in rural health care system. they have to look at the public health and governors and mayors of the cities need look at how they can shore up that capacity. because it will take very little for about those hospitals to be overwhelmed. and then the other thing is to find those areas particularly within those rural areas that there might be increased vulnerable and mash begrginaliz communities and invest in ensuring that they have the capacity to respond to this. >> yeah, and dr. davis, it might be helpful if some of the states maybe would expand medicaid.

it is available via obamacare. you had a lot of states where there was already a deficit in hospitals that search the poor, in hospitals that serve the people of color. they decided that they didn't want to expand medicaid. so a lot of underinsured people that are in the path of this thing. >> you know, i agree with that. and that is the issue at hand. you are talking about more or less you look at the social determinants of health, who has access, do i have the funds to pay for health care. and within a lot of these communities in the inner cities, you have the trust issue with the health system and understanding the health system. and so many little pieces. you talk about other medical problem, asthma, obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, all of that com pounds the situation. so right now the greatest needs need the greatest help.

is this this is a great time to learn because it will hit every home. no one is immune to this. and if we don't tackle this aggressively, if we don't remain distant from each other, if we don't wear our masks in close quarters with other, we'll keep spreading this and we'll be in a situation where isolation is going to keep growing and growing and growing. and the way we know life is going to change. >> and i want to remind our viewers that we are waiting for governor cuomo, he is going to do one of his daily press briefings where he updates the country. these are become the national press briefing because they are actually informative and the information that you are seeing coming out of the state of new york, if you are not in new york, if you don't live in new york state, this is coming your way. and so it is important to see how this state that is the epicenter of this pandemic, how

they are handling it, how they are trying to break this thing, how they are trying to get themselves to a plateau where they are not seeing increasing and increasing numbers of deaths. and so, you know, watch what happens because this is going to happen to every single state. and so i think a lot of us are really grateful that the governor does these every day because we can get the science and the data and the information and congressman meeks, there are a lot of democrats in new york who have been highly critical of this governor. he is not exactly a liberal governor. there are issues like medicaid expansion in which he has not been great. but in this moment, he has shown sleerp a leadership and i think that is helpful to the rest of the country. i'd like to give you a word on that. >> i think what the country had been longing for is honest leadership. and governor cuomo is telling you the facts as they are and not trying to wave the magic wand saying this will go away

and he has been consistent and persistent. so on one side, washington, d.c., if you roll back the videotape of the value statements he's made, he has changed from time to time again and it is never based upon the scientists and the data. what governor cuomo has been doing in his briefings, he is making sure that his comments are based upon doctors, scientists and the data. and then trying to address those sthis a issues and confronting though issues. and saying to the rest of america also that, look, this is going to come to you. you can learn from us. and the ventilators and the ppe that we need, now when it is your turn, once we get over the hump and start going dounlg, we can then make sure that we want to help you. that is real leadership. the not just some pie in the sky

kind of talk that is coming out of washington, d.c. people want to hear the truth. they understand the truth and they want to know the data and they want to know how you address it at that level. >> yeah. and speaking of governor cuomo. i thank you all. hang on if you can. we'll listen to the governor now. let's go through where we are right now. the good news is the curve of the increase is continuing to flatten. the numbering number of hospit appears to have hit an apex and it appears to be a plateau which is what many of the models predicted that it wasn't going to be a straight up and straight down, it would be a straight up, you hit the top number and then you plateau for a period of time and that looks like what we are doing. the hospitalization rate is down. a that is important. we have more people getting

infected still. we have more people going to the hospitals, but a lower number. that is all this is saying is fewer people are going to the hospitals, still net positive. the three day average which is what we look at because day to day can be somewhat deceiving especially when you get towards the weekend because the weekend reporting gets a little different, but all the numbers are on the downward slope. still, people getting infected, still people going into the hospital. but again, a lower rate of increase. the number of icu admissions is down. the three day average on icu admissions is down . this is a little deceptive because at wong tione time hosp had discreet icu bed. effectively now in hospital all the beds are icu beds.

it is like the entire hospital has turned into an ic uchlu fac. so this distinction is actually -- i don't know how enlightening this is. this however is still a discreet category. the increase in the number of intubations. intubations are a bad sign from a dyiiagnostic perspective. and while icu beds may not mean anything anymore in the hospital system, intubations are still intubations. and this is a good singn that intubations are down. we were worried about with the spread. if you look at the bar chart,

you can see almost a wave where it did start to move. we have been working very hard in nassau, suffolk, wednesday chester, rock land, the surrounding suburbs to new york city. and so farwednesdaychester, roce surrounding suburbs to new york city. and so far we've had hot spots but attacked them aggressively and we believe that we have stabilized the situation up state and in the suburbs which is what you see in that chart. terrible news is the number of lives lost. 783 yesterday. that is not an all-time high. and you can see that the number is somewhat stage lbilizing, bu stabilizing at an horrific rate. 783 people, 777, 799. these are just incredible

numbers depicturin piblgpictu d loss and pain that we really especially this week, all 783 individuals and their families are in our thoughts and prayers. total number of lives lost, 8 7 8627. people ask, well, when is it over, when is it over, when is it over. my children ask that every day. i'm sure everyone is living with the same question. every time you wake up, you say when does this nightmare end. and everybody wants to hear that it ends in two weeks or three weeks or four weeks or here is a date that i can tell you that it is over, just give me some certainty, some closure, some control of my life back. but i also said from day one and

when i raised my hand to take the oath originally, i would never tell you anything but the truth even if the truth is inconvenient or painful. winston churchill, a hero of mine, his granddaughter sent me a portrait, a tribute to winston churchill. and i thank her for that. but winston churchill said now this is not the end, it is not even the beginning of the end. but it is perhaps the end of the beginning. just a great churchill quote. it is precise and how he uses language. i think that that is a fair statement of where we are now. this is the beginning that we are in, this was the beginning phase. we're all trying to figure it out, all trying to adjust. but it is the end of that beginning phase. what do we do now? we stay

i've been in the federal government. i know what it's like to make a decision and he has respond to new york's need. so keep politics out of it. focus on on policy. and keep politics out of it. it is very hard especially at this time. you start to hear this dialogue

on reopening and you start to hear people with political theories on whether we should reopen fast or whether we should reopen sooner, why are people against reopening, why are people in favor of reopening. that is corrosive and destructive and if we don't stop it, it will feed on itself. and there are no political conspiracies here. all the projection models have basically said the same thing. everyone has basically said the same thing. which is, first of all, no one has been here before. second of all, everyone, all the experts, i didn't have an opinion because i'm not an expert, but all the experts had higher projection numbers than we actually experienced. and they all said, caveat,

government action could flatten the curve but we don't know what governments will do and we don't know if people will even listen to what governments will do. but almost all the experts when you go back and look at it had the same basic heightened fears. from the new york state production point of view, columbia university, highly credible organization, 136,000 new york city only, mckenzie, a great organization. 110,000 statewide. 55,000 on a moderate level. gates, 73,000. gates funded ihme, 73,000 statewide. the gates funded model i think is the one that the white house most relies on now currently. all of those models were projections, they all said

depending on what people do. not even government, what people wind up doing. but it wasn't just these academic private organizations. the white house task force was talking about 1.5 million to 2.2 million deaths without mitigation. with mitigation, 100,000 to 240,000 deaths as the best case scenario. this is the white house task force. the actual has now been adjusted down, but they are still at 60,000 deaths that they are projecting. the peter navarro white house help know was talking about loss of life, 1 million to 2 million

so souls. in-fenktsing fecting as many asn americans. cdc was talking about 160 million to 214 million people infected. the whole population is only 328 million. so the cdc was projecting that more than half the population would be infected. they were talking about 2.4 million to 21 million people being hospitalized. we only have 925,000 beds in the united states of america. how would you hospitalize 21 million people? and that was the cdc. so there was no political conspiracy theory. there is no political conspiracy theory. it is uncharted waters for all of us. so let's focus on the facts,

let's focus on the data, and let's make decisions that way. and also, if someone says, well, cdc was wrong and the white house task force is wrong and columbia a wrong and cornell is wrong and the gates funded ihme, they were all wrong. if i'm representing them, i say it is too soon to tell. it is too soon for monday quarterbacking because the game isn't even over yet. what do you think we're in? sixth inning for baseball? you think we're halftime if it is a football game? you don't know yet what the actual issue is going to be. and you don't know yet how this turns out because many decisions have to be made. you have to reopen, you have to decide how to reopen, you have to decide when to reopen.

and that is going to be impac h impactf impactful. we don't know if there will be a second wave or not. all of these things are yet to come. so anyone who wants to say, well, here is the score at halftime and i'm going to now claim that -- try to collect my bet because it is halftime, it doesn't work that way. the game has to be over. and this game is not over. what do we do now? well, we need to do more testing and more advanced testing and we have to do it faster. that is both diagnostic testing, the antibody testing. but we have to get better at both and we have to be able to create a higher volume faster. we have to be more prepared. we should never go through what we went through on this preparation drill. the federal stimulus bill will

be key. and that legislation in my opinion has to be better than the past legislation. it has to be less political, less pork barrel and more targeted to the actual purpose. you want to help the places that were impacted, i'll tell you what the federal legislation should do, it should repeal "salt." and you think that you will reare opre reopen the economy without new york? you're kiddinging yourself. you want to help the places that are affected, then repeal the "salt" provision which was a gratuitous offensive illegal in my opinion action to begin with. but which literally targeted new york and some of these places, michigan, detroit, california. repeal that if you really want the to help places that are

affected. and to my delegation, they know this issue very well. that is what you want to do if you actually want to help people. in the meantime, here you will have many people who are struggling, many businesses are struggling. we have government programs, but trying to access a government program is like trying to break into a bank sometimes, right? it is not that easy. the new york state court system and our chief judge are is goin organize lawyers statewide to do pro bono legal assistance to help people with issues that they may have. housing issues, access to government program issue, et cetera. and many legal issues will stem from this and many places where people need help. so lawyers who have time on their hands who are not working, they are looking for volunteers.

and most of all, i think these are all big decisions. reopening -- reopening is both a public health question and an economic question. and i'm unwilling to divorce the two. there is no economic answer that does not attend to public health in my opinion. you can't ask the people of this state or this country to choose between lives lost and dollars gained. no one is going to make that quid pro quo. i understand the need to bring back the economy as quickly as possible. i understand people need to work. i also know that we need to save lives and we have. and one cannot be at the 1k3eexe of the other. as we look forward, i'm still

troubled by what we just went through. if no one sounded the alarm in january and february, how do th now? there are stories and there is information that says some of these places that re-opened too quickly are now seeing a growth in the number of cases. they've seen a growth in the infection rate again or they're seeing the second wave. so there's troubling signs on the horizon. and i want to make sure that we know this time that we've learned from the other experiences, and we're going to be putting together in new york a team of the best minds that look at what happened in wuhan,

look at what happened in italy on the re-opening and making sure that what we're doing is based on all the science available. internationally. and what is the probability? what is the possibility of a second wave happening? what is the possibility of people re-experiencing the virus. there's some reports from south korea. let's understand because it's fool me once, it's one thing to make a mistake once, but this nation should not go through it again and before we make these decisions, let them be informed by the experiences we're seeing all across the globe. but there's no doubt that what we're doing now is as impactful and as important as anything that has been done. this is a time where our actions

literally will determine life and death. i've been in government most of my adult life on many levels through many circumstances. this is no doubt the most important period for government in my lifetime. there is no doubt about that. the decisions we make now, also the potential for the decisions we make now, these are big questions and we should think about them, both in the short term, in the long term. how do we re-open. what do we rebuild when we open? how do we do it? did we learn the lessons from the past? did we learn the lessons from what we just went through, and are we the better for it and do we take this moment and make it a moment of positive growth?

it's transformational, yes, but are we fully experiencing the reality of what we went through learning from it and actually going to be the better for it and are we doing that as a society and are we doing that as individuals? i know the pain. i know the pressure, i know everybody wants to get out of the house and they want to get out of the house tomorrow, and they want me to say we're going to be re-opening the economy in two weeks and we beat the beast. the worst thing that can happen is we make a misstep and we let our emotions get ahead of our logic and fact and we go through this again in any manner, shape or form. so that's what we have to do. to all my friends, enjoy this

holy week. i know it's different. i'm a former altar boy, and this was the hectic busy week when you were an altar boy. you had good friday, holy saturday. tomorrow is easter for christians, catholics, it's a very high time of the holy year, passover week to our jewish brothers and sisters and it's to say different, everything has been different, but not going to church, not celebrating palm sunday was last night, not celebrating, good friday, holy saturday, easter sunday is different and hard, but, you know, it is the same message, right? whether you do it from home, whether you do it over a television or through a computer screen, it's the same message, and if anything, that message is more profound during this

situation than it normally is. new york paused. we paused. we slowed down. the activity level slowed down. you reflect more. you think more. and i think that's important during this holy week. in the meantime, we stay new york tough which is smart, which is united. which is disciplined, which is loving, and we're going to get through this. questions? >> governor, mayor de blasio canceled school for the rest of the year. could we get a reaction and could that be a precursor for canceling them statewide, do you think? >> yeah, i understand the mayor's position, which is he thinks schools should be canceled for the rest of the year. when we made the decision to close the schools, we made it for the entire metropolitan region, suffolk, nassau, new york city, westchester,

rockland. you can't make the decision just within new york city without coordinating that decision with the whole metropolitan region, because it all works together, so when we decided to close the schools, i spoke to nassau, i spoke to suffolk, i spoke to new york city, i spoke to westchester and closed all the schools at once. any decision to re-open them will also be a coordinated decision. the mayor has an opinion on new york city. the county executive of nassau will have erin opinion on nassau. george lahti mer in westchester but want to coordinate all those opinions and re-open them at the same time. i'd also like to ideally coordinate that with connecticut and new jersey, so whatever we do, we do all at the same time.

so i understand the mayor's position, which is he wants to close them until june. and we may do that. but we're going to do it in a coordinated sense with the other localities. it makes no sense for one locality to take an action that's not coordinated with the others. >> is that action invalid? >> that's his opinion, but he didn't close them and he can't open them. it happened on a metropolitanwide basis, and we're going to either -- we'll act on a metropolitan basis, coordinated with nassau, suffolk, westchester and ideally i'd like to coordinate with new jersey and connecticut if we can. the new jersey and connecticut coordination is not a legal matter. it's a mutual basis of interest. legally i want the metropolitan area coordinated. i don't want suffolk doing something that nassau doesn't do

that new york city doesn't do that westchester doesn't do. >> just to clarify for parents in the new york city metropolitan region who have kids in public schools, should they anticipate them going back to school or is school off -- >> there has been no decision. that's the mayor's opinion. i value it. i value laura and steve's opinion and george's opinion but the decision will be coordinated among all of them. >> governor, could you please speak to any more specifics about the outreach effort from -- >> so there has been no decision, jesse, on the schools. i understand the mayor's position is also businesses will probably open in may. i respect his opinion on opening businesses in may. again, no decision has been made on whether or not businesses will open. and we're not going to open any businesses in new york city without coordinating it same as the schools, nassau,

westchester, suffolk and, again, hopefully with new jersey and connecticut so there's been no decision on businesses, the mayor's position is they might open in may. i get it. laura kern has a position, steve has a position. and on schools, the same thing. no decision on schools. >> could you please provide any more specifics on the court's outreach efforts to pro bono lawyer, you know, what services you wanting them to connect with and when do you think those services could -- >> you're going to have a host of legal issues that people need help on. you're going to have housing issues. we talk about these government programs, sba has loans available. yeah, look at an sba loan application and tell me how easy it is to fill out. all these federal programs that have been set up, yeah, but you have to figure out how to access each one.

just accessing like the simple programs like the snap food stamp program, you're dealing with bureaucracies and applications, so there's a host of need on the legal front. we're hearing about it all across the board. the court system with chief judge janet defury working with the new york state bar association are just asking for volunteers, lawyers who are volunteers to help with the myriad of issues. they'll coordinate it. they need to have legal volunteers first so they're asking for the lawyers to come forward and then they'll put them together with the clients who come forward. anyone have anything more on that? no? >> governor, was the extra 600 a one-time thing for those on unemployment and also the 200 million you had announced for low income households and food. how is that being distributed and what can they expect? >> who wants to answer that? rob? >> the