the most reliable network, and more savings. plus, get $200 off when you buy an eligible phone. that's simple, easy, awesome. go to xfinitymobile.com today. hello, everyone. i'm chris jansing and you're watching msnbc. we begin this easter sunday with the latest on the pandemic that's forcing nearly all of us to celebrate the easter and passover weekend at home. away from family and friends. and the world health organization's essential envoy warns that this virus could linger until we have a vaccine. >> we're not so sure it will come in waves in the way that influenza does. we think it get going to be a virus that stalks the human race for quite a long time to come until we can all have a vaccine that will protect us.

and that there will be small outbreaks that will emerge sporadically. >> stalks the human race. and as president trump is set to name his new opening our country task force, dr. anthony fauci says he could see a rolling reentry, maybe starting as soon as next month. dr. fauci also today made the stark acknowledgment if efforts to stop it in the u.s. were made sooner, we could have saved lives. here on msnbc last hour with reverend sharpton, fauci had new information on just how early he advised the administration that a crisis was coming. >> then it became clear when you look back that it was likely in china that there was human-to-human spread. by the time we got that information and we started getting cases here, it was not as efficiently spread from human to human, but as soon as it became clear there was community

spread, that means it isn't just a travel-related case, that there is cases in the community under the radar screen, then it became clear that we were in real trouble. >> when was that? around when was that? >> that was probably towards the middle to end of january. >> yeah, and remember, it was the middle to end of january when the president was saying we got it under control. now, right now there are more than 550,000 cases of coronavirus in the united states. more than 21,700 people have died. that's more than any other country in the world. you can compare those numbers to yesterday, an increase of more than 12,400 cases, 1,300 more deaths. so that's where we stand on this easter sunday and worshippers are marking this holy day very, very differently than we ever have before. some churches like one in pennsylvania celebrating together, but still within the confines of their cars. others held mass via live

stream, like here in new york city in st. patrick's cathedral. the message of joy remains the same. >> your company, your unity and faith and prayer, believe me, adds to the incomparable joy of this easter morning. we miss you, though. we'd rather you be here physically, and i hear you miss us. >> now, the patchwork response to the coronavirus overall, the lack of a coordinated national plan was on full display today with easter services banned in some places while allowed in others. including a church in florida. let's bring in amesh adal sha. we also have ann gearan with us. good to see both of you. doctor, what do you make of this idea that we heard from dr. fauci of a rolling reentry

as soon as next month? how would we know that that would be safe? >> we would know that it's safe when we can do testing enough that we can know where this virus is, where it isn't, who's been infected in the past, who hasn't been. also we would have to couple that with learning about hospital capacity because the key thing here, the real decision driver is going to be -- we know we're going to get more cases. we want to make sure we stay below hospital capacity. so if you can in certain areas allow people to do more without compromising our hospitals' ability to take care of them, they have enough ventilators and personal protective equipment, then i think that you're going to see this type of thing happen across the country. things are going to still be off limits like mass gatherings, for example. that's going to be something that can inundate any hospital, but we will see this hopefully soon. >> but you talk about the fact that we need to have testing. you talked about testing, contact tracing for months now. are we so near that that we can make an informed decision?

>> i do think that we are getting there in many places. there are some places where they have medical students working to do contact tracing. we do have a rapid test. it's going to get more available, so i do think hopefully maybe i'm being too optimistic we can start to do this in certain parts of the country. there are places not able to do this, but you're going to see an effort to try to do this as much as we can in places where it's safe to do it. there are good guidance on how to do it in a safe manner without compromising our hospital and health care systems. >> so echoing what dr. fauci said earlier today, we also mentioned at the top of the hour this admission from dr. fauci. >> we look at it from a heuer i. but it is what it is. we are where we are right now. obviously if we had right from the very beginning shut everything down, it may have been a little bit different.

but there was a lot of pushback about shutting things down back then. >> and how is that likely to sit with the president who has said repeatedly that he was ahead of the curve? >> well, i think what dr. fauci is doing there is saying a little bit of the quiet part out loud. he is having to walk a fine line advising the president who keeps doing what the country is doing, that is what dr. fauci says is working. balancing that with the president's clear desire to begin showing signs of progress, opening up the country in a sense, in his words. the president talked obviously about that being done easter sunday. that isn't happening. now he's talking about may 1st or early may. we've been not trying to be veristic and, but he wants something opening up in the next two weeks. and dr. fauci is trying to figure out where and when that

could possibly be done to really give the president good guidance on how to do that. and i think you heard him voicing that today. >> so your paper points out today, ann, that the white house has plenty of task forces, it's about to add another. but where is the real coordinated, thoughtout factor to plan to end the crisis? >> well, that story makes a very good claim that there isn't a coherent or bottom-up kind of strategy or decision stream. in other white houses, that would largely be done through nsd, which is an active player here, but isn't the only one. there are at least three different task forces or groups that are advising the president

and collecting information from other parts of the government and processing it through the white house. and then you have a wild card that is absolutely unique in this administration, which is you have a president who makes decisions without any advice at all or overriding all the advice he's getting from all those different organizations much more frequently than any other president has. >> yeah. and he has talked about the fact that he has this big decision to make, but, in fact, so much of the decisions so far have been left to the governors. arkansas governor hutchinson from a state that does not have a stay-at-home order told cnn this morning it's a good idea just to leave it up to the individual statesful here it is. >> i applaud new jersey and new york. they've had to really lock down. they have a high-density population, but we have a less

dense population in arkansas and we can take this targeted approach, which is proven to be effective. >> so on one side you have folks who say, look, that was a good way to do it, it will continue to be the smart way to do it, you look at where people are already seeing their curve and already starting to flatten. then people like new york's governor cuomo argue you can't do that, we're too mobile a society. you start letting one group of people in new york have free movement, they go to new jersey, they go to connecticut, they go to pennsylvania and suddenly you have that problem again. how do you see this rollout working when you have different states making different decisions, doctor? >> ideally the federal government will give guidance on what regions can things be lifted because we know visor don't respect county or state lines, but there may be some regionalization to decide the outbreak response. it's clear, for example, the new

york city metro area that has to be coordinated with new jersey or connecticut. but there may be other areas where they are able to do it. i do think this is going to be a hard decision. it's going to be a lot of gray and something that may evolve and change and we need to do this from a data-driven perspective. the longer this economic shutdown goes, the more consequences we're going to have. we have to balance that with not allowing this virus to run rampant and not overwhelming our hospital systems. this is something that's going to hard to do and there's nothing in anybody's playbook and we have to deal on the fly with this one. the first wave of those hotly anticipated stimulus checks from the $2 trillion economic stimulus bill are now being deposited into taxpayers' bank accounts. confirming the news in a tweet the irs says they are work as

fast as they can to get money into the pockets of americans. congress is divided over the next stimulus bill and divided over how quickly it should be put together. joining me now to talk about this is congressman raja krishnamoorthi, democratic representative from illinois. there's disagreement in congress. on one side there's a group that says let's get this done quickly, just look at the jobless numbers. on the other side you hear let's wait a few weeks, let's see where we are, where the first impact of the first three packages are. where do you stand on that? >> i think there is no time for partisanship. we have to get something done right away. i think mitch mcconnell just a few weeks ago unfortunately began with a very partisan proposal. but after taking input from a lot of different corners of congress, we came up with a very good bipartisan bill, the c.a.r.e.s. act, which basically

passed unanimously. and this time around we have to do the same thing, but we have to get to the end result quicker, and that means taking input from democrats and republicans and putting together a package. i think we have to shore up the ppp program for small businesses, which is going to be running out of money. but at the same time we got to help hospitals. they are -- a lot of them are going bankrupt because of the current situation. and we have to help state governments as they hemorrhage money dealing with the pandemic and at the same time see their revenues dry up because of a lack of economic activity. so on the one hand, we don't want to be helping small businesses and then on the other hand have states potentially threaten tax hikes or service cuts because of their gaping budget hole. so it has to be comprehensive. >> so let me ask you about small businesses because the senate majority leader mitch mcconnell vowed just yesterday to refuse

democratic demands in the gop's push for more small businesses and put it this way. republicans reject democrats' reckless threat. does that indicate, should the indicate to the american people that even if this needs to get done sooner rather than later, there's a standoff here that could really delay things. >> yeah, we got to get past this politics. i was a small business person before i came to congress and i thought in the last economic crisis a decade ago, small business people were neglected, and that's why we came up with this ppp program, and my office helped to shape it. now we have to come together, put more money into that ppp program for sure. but we also have to do those other things to make sure we end the pandemic. this economic crisis is not going to end until we end the pandemic, so, like, refusing to help hospitals that don't have enough personal protective equipment or other materials to deal with the pandemic doesn't make sense.

similarly, not helping states or local authorities who are on the front lines doesn't make sense either. let's get it all done together and let's do it asap. >> so there's an argument the democrats have leverage here, congressman. the president doesn't want to run for re-election in the middle of a full-fledged depression, and legislation could arguably help avoid that. do you believe you have leverage, and if you do, how do you use it? >> well, the fact that we basically need unanimous consent to get something passed through congress means that everybody needs to be at the table, chris. and i think that's something majority leader mcconnell needs to realize sooner rather than later because at the end of the day the american people just don't want the partisan finger-pointing from mitch mcconnell or anyone else. they just want a solution. my wife just finished a 12-hour shift at her hospital last

night. and the cases are streaming in. and we have to deal with them and we have to make sure that we end the pandemic and then we can reopen the economy. >> congressman, thanks to your wife, first of all, and thanks to you, raja krishnamoorthi, for your time. we really appreciate it. thank you. >> thank you, chris. coming up, we're going to turn our attention back to politics for a moment and the biden veep stakes. who are the front-runners. who's the dark horse. >> reporter: we're going to talk to someone who worked in the clinton campaign next. ♪ this is my body of proof. proof i can fight moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis. proof i can fight psoriatic arthritis... ...with humira. proof of less joint pain... ...and clearer skin in psa.

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we got an easter afternoon message from the apparent democratic nominee for president, joe biden, with an op-ed in "the new york times" asking what is the plan to safely reopen america, and

arguing that trump doesn't have one, writing, as we prepare to reopen america, we have to remember the administration's failure to plan to prepare, to honestly assess and communicate the threat to the nation led to catastrophic results. we cannot repeat those mistakes. and even as he makes his case for his election, there is widespread conjecture about who will be biden's running mate and when he will announce his pick. he committed to choosing a woman as vp and he is expected to announce a committee this week to vet candidates. good to see you on this easter. let's start with when because some strategists say he should unveil his pick now, give people a clear vision of what they're voting for, get some attention. strategically, where do you fall on timing? >> i think early is good. it's going to take some time to vet all of them, so i wouldn't

expect it within the month of april or anything on that kind of timetable, but when you're in this situation where a lot of events have to happen online and you can't do rallies and can't do events, i think having another voice that can be your partner, that can double your efforts is a smart thing to do. there will be a lot of -- there will be a ton of attention around -- it's around this person and to have that ability to make this kind of news is, you know, it's the only decision a candidate gets to make that's fully in their control, that's part of the presidential campaign. and i think early is good. >> so before we talk names, let's weigh criteria. assume at the top of the list is always somebody ready to be president. otherwise it could include how they won a battleground state, does age matter, ideological balance, is it important to have

a voice in the fight against coronavirus. you know joe biden. what do you think he's going to prioritize here? >> what's interesting about biden is he was somebody's pick, right? he's been through this process. he's had the job. >> right. >> what he has said that i find very telling, he said he wants somebody he is simpatico with when it comes to governing and he wants somebody that's ready on day one. that suggests to me somebody with a great deal of experience. that suggests to me someone who's more of a centrist than a progressive, biden is more on the center than the left. it could be -- i think it's another -- it's a likely choice, but i know having watched hillary go through this is -- the one-on-one chemistry matters a lot, and biden may in his mind now think he's going to say pick somebody, but the interview process is a real process. depending on how well a person performances, they probably have

tryouts, we'll see them online doing events for him, with him, to see what the chemistry is like. i wouldn't assume that the decision is made. i think that the vetting process and the interview process really matters. and biden could change his mind at any point. >> you know, i was looking at one survey that they talked to a lot of democratic strategists and the front-runner was amy klobuchar. the other close contenders were kamala harris, tammy duckworth. further down where people like stacy abrams and elizabeth warren. i haven't checked the bookmakers in london. maybe there are betting odds on this, who knows at this point. but do you have a sense when you talk to people who's in the lead do you think at least among the chattering class? is there a dark horse in this race like i think you could argue tim kaine was back was back then for hillary clinton in 2016 >> right. kaine is a good example of the

process actually mattering, the campaigning with tim kaine was probably better than hillary expected. their chemistry was good, she felt he was a good partner. biden will be looking for a good partner and a good governing partner. i do believe he really likes amy klobuchar. i think that -- some people think she's not an obvious choice like kamala harris an african-american might be a more obvious way to balance out the ticket. but i think he really does like amy quite a bit. having had that job, i think he really does want a partner. i think another dark horse would be stacy abrams who is just so talented, probably doesn't have federal experience, doesn't have state-wide experience, but that's the case of somebody who could really strike a chord personally with biden, that he could really like.

she's just so talented. when people are in her presence, they're pretty wowed by her. so that's someone that i would also keep an eye on. >> i'm being given the big wrap. two names on the crazy wish list in the democratic twitterverse, and those are hillary clinton, who you worked for, and michelle obama, who you know well. >> okay. >> woould you put the chances above zero? >> for michelle obama, no. there's no way michelle obama would do it. she is not a politician. hillary is an interesting thing. she would be great. i doubt -- i don't know, you know. i don't think anything is impossible. i don't think it's impossible that he would think of her. i don't think it would be impossible that she would say no. it's wide open. there are a lot of great candidates which, you know, a lot of good choices for him to pick from. >> well, that's the other thing.

i don't think there's a dearth of choices. much appreciated. up next, tip your server. one being donations turned into a whole movement to help restaurant workers in utah. "modern family's" ty burrell tells me about a cause that's close to his heart. at it's... lavender. yes it is, it's for men but i like the smell of it laughs ♪ (burke) atthat can happen to your wehome...or car.t everything and we covered it all. ah, memory lane sure has a lot of accidents. we know a thing or two about bundling and saving. so get a quote today. ♪ we are farmers. bum-pa-dum, bum-bum-bum-bum ♪

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. welcome back. no industry is immune to the coronavirus pandemic, but u.s. restaurants have been hit particularly hard. emmy award winning actor and part-time utah resident ty burrell, the star of "modern family," also owns two bars in salt lake city with his wife. after seeing thousands of hospitality workers sidelined by the shutdown in his local community, the actor decided he wanted to do something to help. ty burrell joins me now along with salt lake's mayor, erin mendenhall. you and your wife donated a tip

of $100,000. what motivated you? >> well, a couple of things. one, she and i were both servers as young actors. was a famously bad waiter. two, having small businesses in utah, a couple bars there, you grow close to your employees and there's a real sense in that community about how tightly knit everyone is, especially in a smaller city like salt lake city, there's always been a sense between bars and restaurants that are rising tide lifts all boats. my brother and richard noelle who run our bars have always set that tone. one bar runs out of ice, it's a competitor, but, you know, people kind of have always worked in that spirit. and so i think holly and i and

mayor mendenhall and the downtown alliance kind of felt like, you know, this was an opportunity to try to support what is a particularly vulnerable part of the population. >> yeah. mayor mendenhall, can we talk about what this has meant, how about bars and restaurants in the salt lake city area are part of the initiate? how does it work? talk about it. >> yeah. we're grateful for ty and holly's incredible donation that gave life to this idea that ty had to support people with grants, straight-up grants. they are not loans to be returned. and so their first $100,000 has now led to about $250,000 in hand. they have about $500,000 of committed donations from utahns, and we're grateful. we're going in $1,000 batches. it's 40 restaurants per $1,000 batch and we ask restaurants to give us the names of their fife

most impacted employees. and at this point as the fund has been growing, we've been issuing $500 grants. we want to get that up to $2,000 per employee as we go, and as the fund grows, we'll be able to do that. we supported about 400 employees at this point. we do have 15,000 food and beverage employees in salt lake city proper, so it's a great start and the momentum is growing. it's quite exciting to be able to put cash in the hands of families and individuals who are still waiting for the federal dollars that will be coming eventually. >> yeah. it is incredible. ty, you said you were famously bad at waiting, but honestly, can we just talk for a second? i was a waitress in high school and college. i often said it was the hardest job i ever had. it is hard work and you're not getting rich. most waiters and wait tress and staff are not getting rich.

they're supporting their families and it just goes away, it's just gone. >> yeah. the reasoning -- the reasons, plural, for why it's such a vulnerable community is in part the unemployment for servers in particular has always been challenging regardless of this crisis because your hourly is so low, you're making your money on tips, when that's gone, it's all gone. often there are part-time employees that are without benefits. and then a big part of this is that they were among the first to be laid off. and i think looking at it, you know, realistically, they're probably going to be some of the last to be rehired. so i know mayor mendenhall and i and downtown alliance are concerned about trying to keep this from being a housing, you know, issue. though this amount is not a fix,

we're hopeful that this is a stopgap to maybe keep people afloat, even psychologically to get from here to unemployment or stimulus money or things like that. >> you know, if everybody -- even just the people, mayor, who have ever been a waiter or weight waitress would reach out, whether to you or to a group in their local community, it would be incredible. the last number i saw was that the program has raised more than $261,000. mayor, if people want to help you folks, how can they get in touch? how can they do it? >> tip your server, if you want to google tip your server slc, the downtown alliance has a website. i believe it's tip your server.com. ty, correct me if i'm wrong there. >> it's downtown slc.org/tip

your server. >> thanks for having my back. and i think everyone should have to be a waiter or server or a barista at some point in their lives to know what it's like to live off tips. i, too, was no good at it, ty. but everyone should be chiming in. as much as we ask our restaurants to eat out and order curbside, it's not enough to keep these 15,000 individuals employed at this point, and as ty mentioned, they were the first to be laid off or furloughed and they'll probably be some of the last to come back. so whatever people can give to the food and beverage industry employees directly is having a massive impact on supporting our communities in the long run. >> so important that they may be among the last to come back. mayor erin mendenhall, big fan of your city. thank you so much for what

you're doing for these folks. thank you for coming on. ty, thanks to you and your wife for this. we have never really needed warmth and laughter than we do now so thank you and the cast of "modern family" for 11 great years of television. if you ever want to come back to broadway in new york, we will welcome you with open arms. let us know when you're coming, okay? >> thank you so much. >> thanks to both of you. >> thanks for having us on. coming up, as the coronavirus pandemic has turned life upside down, we dive into new reporting about president trump's handling of the crisis and the early warning signs that were missed. i'm your mother in law.

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signs missed and steps slowed. that's the headline today in the associated press. new reporting about the mistakes that were made by the federal government in the early days of the coronavirus crisis that experts acknowledge just today cost lives. the lack of planning that governors say is still impacting them. >> we're fighting to stay ahead on bed capacity, ventilators that are constantly running thin, the medicine you need for those ventilators, the personal protective equipment, and the relief from the bullpen from our health care workers. >> i think to say that everybody's completely happy and we have everything we need is not quite accurate. >> joining me now jonathan lemire. your story, which is so interesting, begins january 22nd, davos, switzerland.

the president is talking about the coronavirus and he says, quote, we it totally under control. clearly, jonathan, we did not. >> reporter: no, we did not. at the time the president gave that interview in switzerland, there was only one patient in the united states from washington state. but already the united states government was weeks behind in terms of preparing for what was coming. and some of this, of course, is some reluctance from china to be transparent to the situation there, but it was also a hesitantsy from the white house and the oval office itself to really push china. as we report in the story, president trump did not want to alienate in counterpart in china, xi jinping. he had hoped to nail down a trade deal with china, make it a centerpiece of his re-election campaign and he didn't want to alienate them. even though there were voices

from the national security council, voices on his own senior staff, including peter navarro, really arguing for harder lines taken with china, more than that. once they recognized that things were escalating, there was an effort to make a vaccine to develop a vaccine, but it was done only through cdc as opposed to being sent out to private companies as well. and cdc's first effort failed. chris, another major setback was the budget dispute. there was a turf war between the white house with its outgoing chief of staff mulvaney who at that point was rather powerless, on his way out the door, but he still held control of the office of management and budget, was feuding with health and human services and secretary azar in terms of how much money was needed to fight this. above it all, there was the president himself distracted by impeachment, not wanting to give us it the attention it deserved. >> the impact of that delay has been profound and you summarize i had this way am i'm quoting your story. life-saving medical equipment

was not stock piled. travel largely continued ian abated. public health from china wasn't provided or deemed untrustworthy. a white house ridden with rivalries and turnover was slow to act. protecting a robust economy he a viewed central to his re-election chances. even as people were worried about, what you call the prevailing voices in the white house were worried about big steps that could broil the financial markets, right? >> that's exactly right. steve mnuchin, jared kushner and others were in line with where the president was at the time. they didn't want to take significant measures because they were afraid of how that would impact the markets and, therefore, the economy, which was the tent pole. that was the central thesis of another four years for this president. he was going to make that case to the american people public he was overseeing a robust economy.

he didn't want to endanger that. in the weeks that went by, time slipped through america's fingers. there were no mass purchases of life-saving medical supplies. it wasn't stock piled or distributed to states, even as cases started to percolate in places like washington state and california. as we outline in the piece, it was only at the end of february when the markets finally felt impact. the president was in india on a trip. i was on that trip with him, and the markets plunged while we were there. and it was on the flight back on air force one that he finally started to realize that things had to be done. although first he slammed a cdc official for talking to the press suggesting that this was much -- the virus was more dire than had been anticipated. that day he took to the podium for the first time in the white house briefing room, the first task force briefing. now it's a familiar site, he's there every day, but that was the first time remember the and he said we're ready. chris, at the time there were 15 coronavirus patients. now, of course, there are other

20,000 americans dead. >> trump's former fda commissioner acknowledged today the economic pressures as the president makes this decision about reopening, and i want to play that. >> there's a lot of pressure right now from the business community on not just the administration, but governors as well to start reopening the economy. so i think inevitably we're going to see a slowing of business activities through may with some risk, but there's always going to be risk. >> so i got a complicated question for the minute we have left. how risky is the president willing to take? >> this is now the point of tension in the white house. we have medical advisers like dr. fauci and dr. birx. voices in the presidency in the private sector and the west wing saying the country is trying to get back to work.

governors of states that have not been impacted by the virus have been pushing for it as well. the president was close to opening up at easter, which obviously would have been a catastrophic mistake considering the rise in cases we've seen this week. easter, of course, today. and instead he's now targeting about two and a half three weeks from now. at least at this moment it's slowly moving towards opening portions of the country, even perhaps against the advice of his medical officials. >> jonathan lemire, i will i know you'll be following it closely for us. coming up, how coronavirus could affect the election and the ability for people to vote in november. particularly voters in communities of color. president republicans so against voting by mail? we're talking to a top expert next. wayfair has way more ways to renovate your home, from inspiration to installation. like way more vanities perfect for you. nice. way more unique fixtures and tiles. pairing. ♪

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to exercise their constitutional right to vote. president trump rail against calls for a vote by mail option in the general election calling the process ripe for fraud and bad for republicans, even while admitting he voted absentee in florida's primary. so what is the met triric for determining who gets to cast ballots by mail and what does this mean for democracy. joining me is the president of brennan center for justice at nyu. so glad you're here. voter suppression is something the ben thrennan center knows i and out. when we saw hundreds of wisconsin voters standing in line during a pandemic to vote, what did that tell you about the state of free and fair i electio elections in the u.s.? >> it is urgent this election be free and fair and safe and secure. that was true before the pandemic bewe sa pandemic but we saw in wisconsin this could become a democracy process.

people are having to choose between health and their right to vote and there are steps that can be taken in states across the country to make it so people can vote in november but time is urgent and has to happen now. >> well, you guys put out a fascinating poll this week and obviously, everybody knows we live in a divided country, but not on this topic. take a look at these numbers. even on the right, voters want this, michael. when asked should vote by mail be an option, 57% of repub dlics say yes. 97 p 97% of democrats, 70% of independent. what is standing in the way? >> states need money. congress needs to step it. it did pass $400 million but we calculate it will cost at least $2 billion and actually probably more to make it so states can do

what they need to do to help voters. the further away you get from washington from the partisan divisions, the last partisan this really is. republicans and democrats have been using vote by mail. president trump sort of went off script and said out loud maybe what he was thinking when he went on television and said well, you'll get levels of voting that are too high and we won't be able to win. that is an illegitimate reason to make it harder for other people to vote. there is infinite risk of fraud and right now already in this country, about one out of three voters votes either using vote by mail or early voting, in other words, they vote somehow before election day. this is a trusted and tested part of how we run elections in america and we got to make it, we don't know what the virus is going to be doing. we don't know what the health situation will be like in november but we need these options or we can't have an

effective and fair and free election. >> so you have places like utah where for example, there is a republican governor where there is no republican lieutenant governor or legislature and their vote by mail. th there are plenty of examples of reflecting the will of the pe people. what needs to be done and how short is the time frame? >> there are some states that have to change their rules. 17 states right now actually don't have vote by mail or no excuse absentee balloting. you have some states where the legislature has to act and other states where governors can act. there needs to be poll workers that can be there. that's a big problem in wisconsin. wisconsin had vote by mail, it's just the system buckled under the weight of the hundreds of thousands and actually millions of people who wanted to vote so there are steps election

officials wanted to do it right. voters want to vote. the politicians should let them. >> michael waldman, thank you for joinings. we appreciate it. that will do it for this hour of msnbc. thank you for watching. happy easter to you and your family. stay safe. our coverage continues after the break with kasie d.c. she will talk to a doctor at the center of the clinical trials that could be closer to opening the country. stay with us on msnbc. we're oscar mayer deli fresh,

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welcome to "kasie dc." the country isn't back up as at least 16 million people face unemployment. we'll dig into new reporting the actions of the white house made the wait longer and the health impacts worse. plus, with signs of optimism in new york, i'm going to top to talk medical experts about the testing going on as we speak to try to get life for some back to normal. but first, president trump now hopes to see the nation's economy reopened on may 1st. after initially circling today on the calendar, easter