hi, everyone. we're so happy to see you on a saturday night. we're going to spend the next hour reporting and listening to the sounds of a nation on pause, an entire country holding its collective breath as we wonder if we'll ever gather again to worship, to celebrate, to grieve, to eat together, to learn, to work, to take in a movie or play or to cheer on our favorite sports teams. right now thousands of americans are grieving the loss of loved ones, and millions are worried about lost jobs or lost savings. families separated, children not in school, and for many americans it's the great unknown about when or whether a return to normal is around the corner that causes of the most anxiety. but this evening there's reasons for cautious optimism. the number of deaths which

surged through much of the week are now leveling off and overall new hospitalizations and intubations have decreased. governor andrew cuomo said today there are indications the state has finally hit the apex. in other words, we've got a long way to go, but the hope is that this is as bad as it might get for us in new york. that silver lining, though, running up against the facts today. every state in the country now under a major disaster declaration, the first time that's happened in our history. the number of cases in the u.s. is past half a million. and as of this afternoon the united states now leads the world in the number of confirmed covid-19 deaths. it's impossible to hear all that and not dwell on the enormous debt of gratitude we all owe to the heroes of this moment, the first responders, the doctors and the nurses, the firefighters and police, bus drivers, grocery workers, delivery men and women, pharmacists and caregivers. we'll spend some time covering the harrowics of the front line

heroes in this battle. another thick we keep hearing, americans miss the things we used to do together. among them, sports, cheering for our favorite teams. and on a weekend that in ordinary times would have seen millions of americans at baseball stadiums around the country taking in a game we'll get to talk to baseball legend alex rodriguez about whether the 2020 season will be played at all. and we're not just missing baseball. today should be day three of the masters, the nba playoffs were scheduled to start next week, but who knows if they'll ever happen. the olympics have been canceled, little league is on hold, and there are worries about the start of the nfl season still 5 months out. over the next hour we'll talk to reporters, doctors, athletes, historians and a former vice president about the impact the experience of a nation on pause. in just a few minutes we'll be joined by three time mlb mvp and 14 time all-star alex rodriguez. later we'll talk to ken burns

and former vice president joe biden. joining me for the entire hour my colleague and friend. mike, this started from a conversation you and i had last week, and you told me how your days start. tell everybody how your days start. >> well, most days i get up quite early obviously because i'm used to getting up early. and i get in my car and i go through the city of boston, drive around various neighborhoods, make several stops. i do it all safely. i have my gloves on, i have my mask on. and i talk to people who i know, some people who i don't know. i go through neighborhoods that were once familiar, and you find out a lot about just talking to ordinary people during the course of the day, in this particular period of time that we're all going through, nicolle. and one of the things you find out is like arn assembling of the wounded and the weary.

and they all have a concern, they have common concerns, though. and the concerns are am i going to die, are my children going to be healthy, is my family going to be okay, can i pay the rent or the mortgage? can i iford to buy groceries, how long is this going to last, when will it end, all things like that. but you drive through a city like boston like most cities like baltimore or new york city where you are new, and it's like driving through a dream because it's springtime and you can feel spring coming. you can hear the birds, but there are no people. >> yeah. >> and people ask you, you know, when will it be safe, what happens to me if i go to the drugstore, to the super market, all things like this. >> it's on everybody's mind, and we're going to talk about all this, we're going to listen to all this. we're first joined by the ceo of robin hood and also by doctors

ste stephen flores. let me start with you. where is the hope coming from? are the hospitals seeing fewer patients, or are the patients now sort of at the tale end of their battles against coronavirus? can you take us through the medical reality where we find ourselves tonight? >> yeah, so essentially -- thank you for having me. as governor cuomo has stated we are seeing some hopeful statistics being presented specifically admissions, discharges to the hospital, and even intubations may be down, but people again are dying and will continue to die. and the mortality rates that we're seeing have been increasing. but i can tell you antidotally and working yesterday i believe we are entering a plateau phase and i was the first day i truly felt that the volume was down. again, there were still sick patients whereby those who were critically ill who needed oxygen

and needed to be intubaited. but nowhere near the levels we were seeing last week. so it's all good signs. as the weather starts to get nice here in new york city and around the country and with easter upon us we really cannot get lax and we need to continue social distancing, washing our hands and all the other measures we've been talking about. >> dr. flores, can you answer questions from the people he sees. i mean, are we safe going to the grocery store? are we safe going out for that one hour of fresh air or exercise? what should we be doing to protect ourselves and our neighbors and our vulnerable people in our circles? >> i think at this point we still need to be doing all these things we mentioned. i'm not telling everyone to essentially stay locked up forever, but people to go out and get groceries, a breath of fresh air. there are obviously secondary negative effects associated with social distancing and staying at home. but again that still means we can wear a mask in public, we

can wash our hands, we can maintain that appropriate distancing we've been doing for quite some time. there's a 2-week lag period between what we're seeing from when patients get infected to when they actually present to the hospital and they had a positive covid test. so again i think we're starting to see the benefits of those social distancing measures we've implemented from weeks prior, but it still needs to carry on for weeks to come. >> westmoore there's a disproportionate impact on this virus on african-americans. the mayor of chicago called it shocking. the numbers are 60 pers and 70% of the dead in cities with 25% and 30% african-american populations. it is disproportionately fatal among african-americans. talk about what needs to be done to surge extra protection, extra resources to communities that are being hardest hit. >> sorry, that was for west, doctor. we'll come back to you.

>> that's right, thanks. i think the numbers are heart breaking but frankly they're not shocking. and the reason they're not shocking is because in many cases the same type of focus, the same type of -- the fact that this -- the danger of this virus is that it is remarkable in a way it targets the most vulnerable. and what i mean by that is when you have communities that are already dealing with histories and legacies of things like diabetes and hypertension and heart disease, it makes it that much more difficult for people to be able to combat this virus as it comes onboard. you know, mike brought up such an important beautiful story about talking to people about what it means to return to normalcy. the challenge is for many people in the african-american community and latinx community norm malsy means double the asthma rate as their white counter parts. normalcy is having hypertension rates, having higher obesity rates.

and so when we're talking about what we need to do, we need to put a greater focus on testing and direct and targeted testing. we need to put a greater focus on education in communities but wallace we've got to make sure we're addressing the underlying facts and risks that's making communities so vulnerable in the first place. >> let me give you one more question in this vein. it would seem all this debate about when to bring the country back is centered around the economy. it seems it should be centered around these most vulnerable communities, no? >> many of the people involved right now frankly a lot of our front line workers, a lot of our low wage workers, these are people who don't have the luxury to work from home anyway. these are people who are going out like mike said the ones who are doing the food delivery. the ones who it's not a life or death question for them. in many ways it's a death or death question. i can either not work or i can go out and expose myself to a deadly virus.

so we have communities that are in a no win situation at this point. how we talk about the reentry of our economy, how we talk about what it means to build our economy, we have to understand that to build our economy we have to put a core focus on creating a stable and a supportive environment for all of those people who are truly helping to make our economy go in the first place. >> mike barnicle, death, death is that what you're hearing from some of the people -- >> i'm sorry, what, nicolle? >> he talked about it's not life or death but death and death. you go out to your job and risk your life or don't work and risk your life. >> nicolle, absolutely. look, inequity has always been part of the dna of the united states of america. it can't be denied. but now it jumps off the sidewalk at you. when you look at the people carrying the load for this

virus, the paramedics, the emts, if you're a firefighter you go down the street and see the blaze, if you're a police officer you know who the felon is. you don't see this disease. you can go through neighborhoods, poor neighborhoods and see a variety of stores, hair salons and you know they're not coming back. they're not coming back from not a whole lot, but they're not coming back from that. yesterday oddly enough i was at a local hospital here in boston. i brought a person in for infusion treatments. while the person was undergoing the infusion treatment i was taking a walk around the facility and i bumped into a nurse who i've known for quite some time. she's had -- she has ptsd. you can tem she has ptsd, and she told me a story about the night before watching a man die, 74, 75 years of age she thought, the father of a family. the family was watching him as

he faded into death. they were watching him on an ipad. so this is dying alone in america, and sadly i think one of the epitaphs for this particular period of time we're going through is that a lot of people now think that this is no longer the country we once thought it was. it's sad. >> dr. flores, i want to give you the last word. is ptsd something that you are thinking about? is it on your mind, is it something you know to watch for in yourself? >> i think many of us as physicians on the front lines are experiencing exactly what barnicle actually mentioned before. so all of us are experiencing the emotional, psychological and physical stress every day when we go into work. i mean, i go to sleep and i'm obviously struggling sleeping, and i can say many of my counter parts are struggling as well considering what we're facing.

i mean like i said to sit on the front lines and have to tell people that they're dying over either an ipad or over the phone, i mean these are things that i don't plan for, and it's not how i want to take care of patient. that sense of empathy is lost, and it's heart wrenching. >> it comes through loud and clear from you here. dr. flores, thanks have spending some time with us. westmoore, thank you, my friend. mike and i are now joined by a basketball hall of famer, a three time olympic gold medalist and the coach of the number one ranked college team in the nation, dawn staly. dawn is the head coach of the university of south carolina womens team. on her watch the south carolina game clocks have been one of the top programs in the country. in 11 years they've earned 5 sec regular championships, two final fours and the schools first womens basketball national championship. this year dawn was on her way quite possibly to another.

dawn, i want to ask you what it's like to cut the season short, but i just want to give you a chance to weigh in on the last conversation we were having, the incredible national tragedy and the disproportionate impact it's having on communities of color from coast to coast. >> well, it's staggering to see how much it's attacking the black community. you know, i think we as a people we are -- you know, we are one that likes to be amongst each other. and i don't think we always take it seriously. like we think we're -- we're not vulnerable to something like that. and even i take precautions when i go out -- if i go to the grocery store i'm fully masked, i've got my rubber gloves on. and although sometimes when you're in sports, too, you think

you're -- you know, you're not prone to anything, you're invincible. so for us i think it's surreal. i mean it's real in all of our communities. it's real when you watch the news and you see how many people impacted. if you just look and see what's happening in new york, and, you know, this thing doesn't discriminate, but surely it's impacting our communities, and we must adhere to what everyone is saying. if you can't stay at home, then you need to fully put on your garb as far as your mask, long sleeved shirts, fully clothed, rubber gloves just so you're not one of the stus tistics that's impacting not just us but globally. >> you're following it hard and fast and those words will go a long way but talk about your season and plays. what is it like to have it cut

short? >> it's horrific. you really don't have the words to give to young people besides that you're sorry, and luckily we have a team full of players and young people who are -- they're resilient. you know, they feel it one minute but then they look forward to the next minute. and to have something taken away as quickly as it was, and of course it was the right decision. but, you know, sports is a part of our culture. we identify it as it's a unifier. it's a conversational piece. and we lose some of that. but certainly this thing is real. covid-19 is real, and it's replaced some of that culture we had, but it does allow us to put things in perspective, to think about family, think about health, think about praying a lot more and have some meaning behind that. >> coach, how do you lead your

players not in a season? you thought you'd be leading them in a championship i'm sure. are you skyping with them, do you zoom? do you ask them to stay fit? how are you leading them now because i'm sure you've not cut any of your ties to your players. >> each and every week we have -- you know, we have a meeting, a zoom meeting with our entire program. and there we have a theme for those meetings. the first one we put closure to our 2019, 2020 season, and we let them -- we gave them a place to get it all out. the next meeting we talked about how we move forward. you know, we gave them three questions. what are you worried about, what are you working on, what do you see in our future? and we're talking about things that can help us hopefully when we get back to the normalcy because you don't really want to harp on it. we live through covid-19 every single day, every single moment. before that 40 minutes or that hour and 20 minutes that we're

talking with our team, we're using it as an escape to think about something other than the impact that covid-19 is having, but also we want to move forward, and hopefully our lives will get back to some normalcy. but until then we're going to work on some championship behaviors, and some things we can work on individually and collectively to make sure once we're able to get back together that we didn't miss a beat from a mental standpoint. obviously physically they can't go to the gym all the time, they have to do things in their homes. but i think if your mentals are strong -- four times as strongs as your physicals, you know, once we physically get back to things we'll be in a good place. >> you're an inspiration. thanks for spending some time with us. sports and baseball in particular have played a very important role in boosting the nation's psyche in times of crisis. 10 days after september 11th baseball returned to new york

city and gave mets fans and new yorkers something to celebrate. and october 30th of that year george w. bush walked onto the mounld mound at yankee stadium and delivered a perfect strike and with it a much needed moment of collective cheering. but now even with talks of playing the season in florida or arizona, it remains an open question when we'll hear crowds cheer again the way they did on those fall nights in new york. mike and i are now joined by three time mlb, 14-time all-star baseball legend alex rodriguez. thank you so much for spending some time with us. good to see you both, thank you for having me. >> mike barnicle with the baseball question first. >> alex, it's great to -- it's great to have you here. thank you for your time tonight. as you know better than most baseball is the background music of this country, and it's played every day. and the other day bruce

springstein actually said on the radio and sirius xm radio he really missed baseball and he could not wait to take his wife patty to a game when it starts up again. so my question to you is the 2020 season going to happen, yes or no? >> i'm certainly hopeful. obviously, mike, as you know we have to make sure that health comes first and there is such a fluid virus that it will dictate to us when we play. baseball will not dictate to a virus the situation and we play. and we have to make sure, too, while testing is important for baseball players i don't think it's a good look baseball players get tested while the rest of americans suffer with a lot of uncertainty. i think there's still a lot of fluid issues that have to be covered. i do believe, though, if we come back and we play in arizona whether you have fans or not in the stands there'll be millions

and tens of millions of people watching at home that need medicine. and mean for some of the audience that are not sports fans, think about a world without music. it's mute, it's sad, it's lonely. that's how sports fans and many baseball fans like myself feel right now with the great pastime game. >> yeah, i couldn't agree with you more about seeing baseball and feeling baseball, the stais of baseball, baseball in the newspapers and on tv. but the florida-arizona. let's talk about that. the florida-arizona supposed league mlb wants to start that up. we're talking 30 teams, that's 780 players. it would be two different states living in quarantine conditions, many of them without their families for a long period of time. have you spoken to any players about this potential league starting up? >> mike, i have. i've spoken to players, coaches,

managers, owners. i've been in constant communication with everybody that has something to do with the game. and look, i think overall everybody's concern is health first. and once you've got the health covered everybody is anxious to get back to playing baseball, and it's such an important part of their lives. and look, it's funny because people will say baseball is too long. i guarantee you there's a lot of fans out there that would love to watch a 3 1/2 or 4 hour game. and mike and nicolle, the one caution about playing in arizona because i've played there for many years. if you're going to do it you have to think about starting 9:00 in the morning or 9:00 p.m. because it's a lot to ask players, coaches and umpires to be out there in the middle of the day in july and august when it's 115. now you open up another can of worms and other health risks. >> so for people who haven't read up on it or are not interested enough to look at the

mechanic of the proposed leagues in florida and arizona, it would be a mixed league. it wouldn't be the american league and the national league as baseball players know it. it would be the red sox and the braves as part of the series, a national league team versus an american league team in florida. the dh rule, this is the nuts and bolts question for baseball fans who may be watching. the dh rule, what happens to that? >> well, i don't know. and i've been reading, mike, as much as you have, having conversations with central baseball. i think it's fluid, i think it's open minded. i don't think there's any bad ideas right now, but i will say this. i think covid-19 has an opportunity to be an enormous opportunity for baseball. and while the nba and nfl has lapsed a couple of times i think baseball can put the collective bargaining agreement in the bull pen and say let's serve the fans, let's open up the flood

gates and let's watch what happens in the batting cages and that is the best way we can get the next generation to fall in love with the game and let's story tell because we really have the best set of young players i believe in the history of the game bought not enough people have them. we knew every line-up from every team first name and last name, we even knew their hobbies. and we need to get back to some of that. >> so, alex, last year mike convinced me to take my 8-year-old son to spring training, and i was taking him back for a second year. we were supposed to leave on march 14th which was right when everything shutdown. it was the weekend before spring training shutdown, and it's not just fans of professional baseball that are missing baseball, it's moms and dads of little leaguers. what is -- i think it's a sport that it doesn't know an age boundary, that doesn't really know socioeconomic boundaries.

you've got boys clubs of america and girls clubs that play baseball. what is the sort of collective loss of losing this whole season from the professionals to the little leaguers? >> that's such a great question, nicolle. and if you think about it we have over 2 million boys and girls playing baseball and softball and little league. and it's such an important part of the childhood. i remember how in those formative years baseball, little leagues, the boys and girls club was such a part of my life, such a teacher, part of the development process, learning how to be a good teammate and share the ball and work in a collaborative way. if you think about this there's a thousand young men that will not be drafted because of this covid-19. now, are they going to get back and have one more year of eligibility and you have all these freshman coming to college and there's a lot of disruption coming on. >> and you also think about where baseball's played. there's a lot of people -- just

in florida they work during the season and with those stadium workers are you aware what the league is doing to protect them? >> look, i think there's some things they can do. look, when there's no revenue, when you go from hundreds of millions to zero, something's going to have to give. and unemployment numbers you can see it as more of a tmicrocosm what's going on in the u.s. but baseball is a sport, you play every home. when you have a little boy and girl they're 10 years old and they reach over with their favorite blanket or toy, americans, our comfort fan is baseball. every night at 7:00 you can watch a yankee game, a red sox game, a mets game and it's soothing. mike, you know watching baseball like you have for so many years, there's something about it that makes you happy and is predictable and comfortable. >> okay, alex.

were you here for the baseball -- go ahead, mike. >> i just wanted to ask you quickly, alex, i know you've been very active with youth leagues and helping kids train and learn baseball. but i was thinking the other day with all the high school seniors and college seniors out there part of a team which is a great experience for them. they're not going to go onto proball. the high school kids most of them are not going to go onto college ball. talk about the impact of the loss of the team feeling for these seniors in high school and college? >> it is heart breaking because i can tell you in my entire career my best year of my life when it came to sports and development with my junior year in high school at westminster christian in miami. and these young men i played with all still lifelong friends. we won a world championship in high school or a u.s. championship. and these experiences go on forever. and those years we have players that went to stanford from high

school, florida state, notre dame and they became real successful. and they attribute their junior and senior years, the competition, the virtues learned to those years. mike, there's going to be a huge loss and you hope they either get to replay it or go play in junior college and have those great experiences. >> alex, we're going to ask you to stay with us for a break. because when we come back i know you came for baseball but i'm dying to ask you how and jennifer are social distancing together from the rest of the world and what's going on. and mike and i get to talk to vice president joe biden where we find faith during the darkest of times. don't go anywhere. we'll be right back. allstate has been helping customers overcome catastrophes for 89 years. we move quickly and put people first.

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showing just because we're all inside to protect our community doesn't mean we can't have a little fun. ♪ >> his family have been providing followers with some much needed entertainment and motivation to get out and exercise while social distancing. okay, alex, so here's what i'm dying to know. is jennifer wearing sweat pants and eating peanut butter out of the jar like the rest of us? >> yes, yes. she's been her sweats for an entire month. >> i feel so much better. ? we're having a lot of fun. look, this is a really special

opportunity for us we're always so fluid and traveling so much, for us to be with the four kids, she's cooking, we're doing things we really don't do a lot of, whether it's playing board games, chess checkers, we're playing wiffle ball. there you go. we're trying to play a little catch there with emmy and gen, with the throwing, so we're having lot of fun. at the end of the day i think we lead the league in this category for sure, netflix. "tiger king," and tonight we're watching the last episode of "ozark." >> i can't wait. >> you're also doing a lot of business. are you going to buy a baseball team? >> oh, boy, high strike. i thought that would come from the red sox. listen, i love baseball obviously. you can tell the passion when i speak about it. i think every kid that grows up they have dreams of playing in the major leagues. fortunately i played for them

almost 25 years and i think one day it would be an incredible dream come true if i was able to own a team. i think at this point right now what we're really working on is doing a lot of videos, trying to raise some money. jennifer and i donated a million meals through wheels up helping those people in need and on the front lines that are truly heroes and trying to give back and spread a little good energy because people need it right now. >> and i guess the question is in the vein of if baseball needs to be brought back, we've talked about all the other people that suffer if the season, heaven forbid is lost. if baseball needs to be brought back and the opportunity presented itself, you would be interested? i didn't hear a no. >> look, are you talking about to own a team or are you talking about to go back to work? >> well, i expect to be back at work at espn and in your capacity as a commentator, but if there's an opportunity at the end of this crisis to have a bigger role with the team, would you consider it?

>> nicolle, i'll tell you like we do with any opportunity to make an acquisition, we just made an acquisition. we bought prlte beer and did that in partnership and if there's a partnership opportunity we'll look it like everything else, but obviously it would be a dream come true to own a team of what i think is the greatest sport in the world. >> so my last story this weekend a year ago i took my son to a yankees game. he went to mets spring training and he went to the yankees game this weekend last year. we saw you and jennifer there. it's a big deal for new york fans to have you guys there as fans and i'm sure would welcome you in a bigger role. mike? >> hey, alex, i can recall your first trip through the city of boston as a member of the new york yankees you sought out, called and spoke with the late

jack welsh about business opportunities and business philosophy. and i know you've been very successful in business. so what are your businesses like now, what are your employees like and how are you doing treating them? >> that's a great question and thanks for asking. in my port foal quo we own about 25 different company and i think it's broken up in three tiers. we have a some struggling in apartment units, unfortunately a lot of them cannot pay the rent, the middle are floating through and the others are striving and striving like they never have before. but one of the things jennifer and i both wanted to do is we reached out and we kind of sent everybody home probably about a week and a half early. and one of things we did we sent an e-mail out to our core group management team, and everybody's paid full. we wanted to make sure we have a platform to show that comfort

and that support in really trying times, and we're proud and happy that we're able to do that for the hundreds that we employ. >> alex, it's so nice to talk to you. thank you so much for spending some time with us tonight. we hope we can keep this conversation going as a lot of people worry about the 2020 baseball season. >> yes, and stay strong. this too shall pass and we'll be back bigger and better than ever. >> from your lips, i hope so. here's hoping. thank you. perhaps no figure in american politics has a deeper understanding of keeping the faith during the most difficult times than our next guest. joining me and mike by phone is the likely democratic nominee joe biden. mr. vice president, how are you doing this weekend? >> hey, nicolle. how are you? we're doing fine. jill and i are together, and our kids, both children they live only about a half a mile as the crow flies and we sit on the porch and talk, and we're going

to do an easter egg tomorrow. just finished coloring the eggs. and my other children are scattered around the country, my grandchildren. but everyone, frank god, seems good. >> what is the role of faith you've been so public about how your faith has helped you through tragedies and you've grieved in public. but thousands of people have lost loved ones to covid since its gripped our country. thousanded of people are scared, scared of getting sick and scared of losing their jobs and scared of what's ahead. what can we do? how has faith helped you? what advice do you have? >> well, i've always -- i know it sounds strange and mike knows this if you're a little self-conscience talking about faith, but terrible things have happened to me and things have happen today people and worse but in my case it's been public. so it's harder i find it at least more difficult to grieve

in public. but i found, you know, there's that great phase from a philosopher who said faith sees best in the dark. and for me it has been my solace and my security. when my wife and daughter were killed and when i first got to the u.s. senate and my two boys were badly injured i kind of lost my faith for a while. but the boys -- my boys sort of brought it back. and what i found was that i found solace in knowledge and belief -- and i'm not pr profatizing here but it was a place i could go, a private place i'd go to mass and i'd sit in the pew and it was like i was all by myself even though the church would be crowded. it was a place, just a comfort zone. i was raised in a catholic

family, not that it would be any different in any other family and went through catholic grade school and the church became a foundational place for me. this was a place of security. it was like, you know, it was like for some people meditating. so i found a lot of faith, and the belief that they're all still part of me, they're inside of me. beau's my soul and he's still there, so i found it that it gave me purpose. and i think for most people they find in different ways when they go through something very difficult, it's very hard to find a sense of purpose in your life, and for me i found it through my faith. i wore a lot of rosaries, but i -- >> i cry every day when i go running, so my little boy doesn't see me. can you understand people that don't have faith right now, can't find an explanation.

what do you say to us? >> look, don't -- i don't think you have to have faith visa vi religion. i think you have to have faith in terms of what you're part of. you know, as you run and cry the thing i just remind you of and you will be reminded of is that beautiful son you have, that little boy. whatever -- look, i remember when, you know, everybody used to say and mike talked to me about this one time that after my children were injured in that accident where they lost their mother and their sister, i started commuting every day from d.c. because i didn't plan on staying. and i'd made over 2 million miles of round trips on amtrak. everyone thought, well, isn't he a nice guy to see his kids every night. i needed my kids. they're the ones who got me

through it. i'd go home and lie on bed with them, scratch their back no matter what time it was and go to sleep and they'd tell me about their day. it wasn't so much faith. it was a connection. and i'm not making it more spiritual than it is, just a connection. and they're the ones that got me through. and what i feel terribly, terribly badly for is those people who have gone through a lot more than i have and don't have anybody. they're real heroes. every day they get up and put one foot in front of the other and go out. for the longest time i didn't -- i just lost my faith. i didn't think how could a benevolent do something like that kind of thing. i'm sitting at my desk here and i have a -- i've told mike this before. there's a cartoon i have that was from my dad, i guess i was feeling badly about myself one day long after my kids and my

wife had died, and it's a cartoon by a guy and he went up a hallmark shop and bought it and it has two friends in this glass brass frame and it's a picture of hagar the horrible, a cartoon character. and you can see his ship has crashed into the rocks and he's standing on top of the rocks and his ship is aflame, and he's yelling up to god and he yells why me, god, and a voice from heaven comes down and says why not. why not? what makes you so special that it was not going to happen to you? but i just think, you know, finding purpose is what got me engaged in a whole lot of things that i do. but i think it's just -- but it doesn't even have to be.

i'm going to get into a lot of trouble with religious folks out there but it's something that gives you the publt to go inside yourself and find some peace. >> mike barnicle. >> mr. vice president tomorrow is easter sunday, many churches and temples have been closed, but to your point about faith and purpose you can have both faith and distinct purpose brought to you from your faith without ever entering the doors of a cathedral. you can have that by just carrying the rosaries in your pocket each and every day. but i get the sense from walking around and going around as you know i don't do much other than walk around, this seems to be an

empathy drought in america today, what do we do about that? >> well, mike, i know maybe i'm characterized that i'm a john genital optimist but i think we're going to come out of this and i think people are going to have a much greater appreciation and a sense of what everybody else is going through. i don't think there's a lot of people in some of the neighborhoods i live in now or that you all are in that really ever, you know, walked out and that guy or that woman who kept the drain and the sewer from clogging sore your basement didn't flood, i don't think anybody thought much about the guy stacking the oranges in produce, in the fruit counter at the super market. i don't think people thought a lot about the most incredible people in the world, the nurses,

the men and women who are nurses. and i think all of a sudden there's a dawning on people there's no way they could make it without these quiet, silent heroes. i mean, i'm reeally proud -- i know this sounds corny but i'm really proud to be an american. i talked about i thought we had to restore the soul of america. we're seeing the soul of america now. we're seeing so many incredibly decent honorable people doing things in many cases i never thought they were going to do, just stepping up. and we're the only country i'm aware of whether we created or inherited a great crisis it's always come out stronger than when we were in it. i think this is one of those moments, i think it's one of these moments where people are going i didn't realize that. that person does all that and gets paid 9 dlds an hour, or $7 an hour, you mean that person

risked their life and lost their life because of that. when's the last time i stopped at a firehouse and said to the guys driving the ambulance, hey, guys, thanks? and you see it now. you see people responding to it. you've seen people respond -- >> every day. you're right. silver lining. vice president joe biden, thank you so much for getting on the phone and spending some time with me and mike. we're grateful. >> by the way, mike my dream wasn't to be president. it was to be alex rodriguez -- mike got a hell of an arm. anyway, all right. >> yeah, i believe it. when mike and i come back we will ask when we return to america will life be normal, can it ever be like it was before? ken burns and claire mccaskill

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on october 14, 1929, connie mack's athletics won the championship four games to one. two weeks later the stock market crashed. the great depression that would hit the country would hit baseball too. and for the next ten years, the nation and the national pastime would struggle to survive. >> so even major league baseball wasn't immune to the impacts of

the great depression as ken -- that's ken burns recalling in his documentary series "baseball." and that forced the league to evolve. the all-star game debuted in 1933 and now the game that so many love and are missing might be forced to innovate again. joining us is document year filmmaker and creator of "baseball" ken burns is here and life long cardinals fan, claire mccaskill. mike is still here. ken, your thoughts on this moment and you have the longer lens of history. what do you think for the future of baseball? >> well, i think in a larger american sense apart from baseball this is as big a moment as world war ii is for another generation. i don't know of anything in our lifetime that comes close to it. baseball has always been extraordinarily resilient and i find myself agreeing with alex rodriguez for the very first time, that it's going to come

through okay. so here i couldn't here but be struck by your conversation about faith with vice president biden, that we too often think that the opposite of faith is doubt. it's not. it's certainty. and i think part of these days have reminded us that our faith is actually strengthened. things will never be the same again. i don't think in a way we want them to go back to exactly the way they were. we want something to be made of this and we certainly want our national pastime to come back and in the old familiar forms and the ways it did by certain -- but what happened to us is we have sequestered ourselves and it may be possible as joe biden said that our emotions might change. that empathy might return. that we might have a great feeling and a great cleansing and so i lament for my baseball

team. and my -- mike will appreciate this. >> he sure will. >> you know, we're -- >> claire mccaskill -- >> yeah, i have -- listen, i have to jump in here. first of all, i adore ken burns' documentary and i suggest people if they have time on their hands to watch the roosevelts it will restore your faith in how well america can do if we're challenged. i thought baseball didn't give enough deference to the st. louis cardinals according to my taste, but you know, i think that only thing i worry about, you know, tomorrow is a glorious holiday for my faith and it's when we're supposed to be optimistic but i do worry about how comfortable we'll be, about being in big crowds. and ken burns has put an amazing, eloquent lens on many

times in our country where big crowds have gathered, whether it's civil rights marches or whether it's fourth of july gatherings or sports. we're going to have to overcome at some point this natural fear that we're developing over coming together. it's uniquely american and i want to make sure that we don't lose sight of that as we move through this crisis and get to the other side. >> mike has been with me all hour. you get the last word of the hour. >> well, you know, listening to all of the guests who we have had on this hour, this is our moment. this is the country's moment. this is sort of a bizarre gift that's been given to us to sort of ask us how resilient we are. because we have known and we have lived with the fact that very few -- less than 1% serve our country in the united states military. we have lived with the fact that

very, very few, a small percentage of millionaires and billionaires live very well and it's the vast middle and now coronavirus affects everyone potentially. we are all one literally. we are in this all together. and to see how resilient we end up being through all of this is going to be another ultimate definition of what america is all about. >> i needed another hour with all of you. i'm so sorry to have so little time. thank you so much. most of all, thank you for letting us into your homes during this extraordinary time. for now, my colleague joshua johnson picks up our coverage after a quick break. (vo) quickbooks salutes those who work for themselves.

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hey, there i'm joshua johnson. it we the start with some good news that will provide some relief. the irs deposited stimulus money for those with direct deboss it. america has the most covid-19 deaths in the world. also for the first time in american history the