constrained timetable, that's where we are. but jim? >> after we received that question yesterday, we reached out to the hospitals in new york city. there was one, the medassist network that would like new swabs. we are sending them 200 test kits today, so they'll have that, but they're not out. they just wanted some in the future. and to the governor's point, i was on the phone with about a dozen of the hospital systems today, and just what he said, people get a little nervous about running out of masks and things like that, but often they have like a 30-day supply or 25-day supply, and we monitor that on a day-to-day basis with them. so as they need it, we will send it to them. >> can you say anything about why frontline health care workers are saying they're being asked to ration ppe? is that sort of along with the first caveat? >> yes. i mean, and i think melissa spoke to that yesterday on the various protocols, and we're working very closely with the hospitals as well as the frontline workers to get them the needed supplies. >> governor, governor -- >> i'm sorry, bernadette --

>> as you're talking about reopening the economy but also specific to schools, what would have to happen first for schools to open, specifically in new york city, in regards to this plan that you're -- >> they have to work together, bernadette. i don't believe you have -- you can't open one system. it's the gears, which is an analogy and a metaphor that doesn't work for anyone except for me, but that's okay, because it works for me. you have three big gears, okay? you have a transportation, you have economic, you have schools. let's take just those three. you want to start turning one gear. they all intermesh. you have to turn the other two gears. you can't tell me to go back to work. i live in nassau county. let's say i lived in westchester county, because i did. you can't tell me to go back to work in new york city if you don't have the transit system operating. i take the train from westchester to new york city. i can't go back to work until, unless you have a train, unless you want everyone to drive, which will be pandemonium in four minutes.

you want me to go back to work. who's going to watch my children if the schools are closed? right? for many working people in new york, the education system is who watches their children during the day. that was one of the problems with closing the schools in the first place, where people were very critical of -- very critical -- everybody is a critic. but people didn't want to close the schools because they said then the hospital workers won't be able to show up because the children will be at home. and if hospital workers don't show up, then you have a real problem because our major fear was the collapse of the hospital system. so, all of these things have to be coordinated, and they have to be coordinated on a statewide basis. now look, when i closed all the schools in the downstate area, there were many school districts that disagreed.

we have like 700 school districts in the state. right now all the school districts basically make their own decisions. i know. but in a situation like this, you can't allow 700 school districts to make their own decisions. you can consult, you can try to cooperate, et cetera. but we have to have one plan at the end of the day, because then we have to take new york and try to coordinate it with new jersey and connecticut and delaware and pennsylvania and rhode island to the best that we can. and this virus doesn't understand school district boundaries. and these systems we're talking about don't work on any of these boundaries. schools, transportation, jobs, they don't work on a county basis. it doesn't work that way. suffolk county, that's a nice delineation for a hot of issues, but none of the issues that we're talking about. so, the entire downstate area is one area, metropolitan area.

then you have upstate. you could argue there should be a differentiation based on numbers or could be a differentiation. and that's going to be the conversation when we bring connecticut, new jersey, pennsylvania. they'll say, look, we have rural parts of the state, which are one situation. we have metropolitan areas. that's all going to have to be talked through and reconciled. >> governor -- >> de blasio about this -- >> also pulling massachusetts and vermont? it sounds like you're focused on -- >> yeah, we're talking to a number of states. and again, we want to coordinate as much as possible. but focusing primarily on our tri-state area. they talk about a tri-state area. the more we can. but you also have to balance the complexity and the unwieldiness with coming up with a plan relatively quickly that we can agree on. so, that's what we're going back

and forth on. we're going to try to work with everyone. but again, you have different states in different situations and you have to prioritize where you really need coordination. we need coordination from new jersey and connecticut first and foremost, because that's where our workforce comes from. you have a total interconnection among those states. people who live in connecticut, they drive to new york city, they live in new york city, they drive to new jersey. there is a total interconnection among them. and that's the primary place for coordination. nick? >> in erie county -- >> i'm sorry? >> are you ready to announce a plan later today or are you just having conversations? >> well, come later today to find out the announcement. if i tell you the announcement today, why would you come here at 2:00? except for my great sense of humor. oh, nick had a question. >> governor, should the city of buffalo and erie county be considered kind of a hotspot in upstate new york, considering that they've got the highest number of infections i think outside of the metro area?

>> well, you can have a hotspot. depends how you want to define hotspot. hotspot within one mile? hotspot within five miles? hotspot within ten miles? hotspot within 100 miles? >> hotspot amongst upstate new york state. >> how big is a hotspot? >> well, i'm not a public health expert -- >> yeah, but it depends how you define hotspot. is it two blocks? is it four blocks? is it people with 25, infection rate 50, infection rate? i call them clusters. you have clusters that pop up across the state. as soon as you see some smoke and you see a little fire, run there and tamp it out as fast as you can. and in buffalo, we have had clusters that have popped up -- nassau, suffolk, westchester, rockland, right? they've all had clusters. >> governor, when you say you believe the worst is over, are you in effect encouraging the type of behavior that you're trying to prevent? i mean, this sort of optimism

that might bring people out of their homes into public spaces? >> no. that's why i've said the exact opposite 57 times. stay the course. stay the course. it's working. stay the course. stay inside. take precautions. right? that's why i say that 100 times to an annoying, repetitive level. >> governor -- >> but, facts are facts, and i'm not going to lie to the public. facts are facts. numbers are numbers. i need the public to believe in the credibility of what we're doing, right? credibility comes from two elements, in my opinion. are you giving me all of the information or are you spinning me? are you deciding that you can't tell me facts because i may become too optimistic? are you manipulating me? with giving me information? which is what i think you're suggesting.

no. you get all the facts. i'm not worried that you can't handle information. you get all the facts. second, what i am proposing we do is drawn from those facts. right? here's all the information. i work for you. i give you all the information. no spin, no gloss, no sugar, no glazing. here are the facts. i'm not worried that you can't handle the facts, you're going to get depressed. you're going to get optimistic. you're irrational. here are the facts. second component, here's what i propose. basised on those facts. i think it's the intelligent response to those facts. i hope you agree with me that it is the intelligent response and you follow the proposal because i need you to follow the proposal because it's all about

you. if you, the public, if the people don't decide to do social distancing, nothing works. if the people don't decide to stay home, nothing works. i could never mandate -- 19 million people, you must stay in your house. and if they say, as new yorkers can say, i think you're being overly dramatic or you're too political or you don't know what you're talking about -- what do i do when 19 million people defy the order? what, arrest 19 million people? they have to believe it. so, they get all the facts. i'm not going to shape the information they get. here are all the numbers. but -- and here's my policy based on the numbers. and here's what i suggest and i hope you think it is not only credible but competent and smart, and i hope you accept it. that's the best i can do. >> governor -- >> joseph. >> all the numbers that we have -- >> and good day. i am andrea mitchell, continuing

our coverage of the coronavirus pandemic from washington. the death toll in the u.s. doubling over the past six days with more than 22,000 americans losing their lives to this virus. moments ago, you heard new york governor andrew cuomo saying that the curve in new york continues to flatten. the state is seeing an overall decrease in the total number of hospitalizations, but sadly, tragically, the death toll in new york state alone has now passed 10,000 people. when it comes to reopening, governor cuomo says it is a delicate balance, and we need to learn from other countries and listen to medical experts, not the politicians. here in d.c., the president's desire to reopen the nation and kick-start the economy is growing with a senior administration official telling nbc news that barring new outbreaks, "i think we are all expecting or planning for may 1st." and there are new questions about dr. anthony fauci's future. the president retweeting a message on sunday, including a "fire fauci" hashtag only hours after these comments from

dr. fauci on how this pandemic could have been handled early on. >> obviously, you could logically say that if you had a process that was ongoing and you started mitigation earlier, you could have saved lives. obviously, no one is going to deny that. but what goes into those kinds of decisions is complicated. but you're right, i mean, 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 joining me now is nbc white house correspondent and "weekend today" co-host peter alexander, reuters white house correspondent jeff mason, and dr. amish aralgia from the johns hopkins school for public health. peter, first to you. all of the questions raised by the president that you just heard governor cuomo say listen to the medical experts, not the politicians, saying that, he himself a politician saying he's not going to sugar-coat it, he's not going to glaze it.

that is subtly the opposite of the optimism and the optimistic projections that we're hearing from the white house. and your reporting and our colleagues' reporting is the president wants to reopen, as if he could, but he can certainly send a very powerful signal. >> reporter: yeah, andrea, i think you're exactly right. we've heard from the president talking about his desire to have a big bang for the reopening, as he's indicated, take place after the federal social distancing guidelines expire at the end of this month. so, effectively, may 1st, just a couple, 2 1/2 weeks or so from now. but as we've heard from multiple public health experts, including some of the president's own advisers, they don't see that big bang. they say, in the words of robert redfield, director of the cdc, this needs to be a more gradual process. redfield says it needs to be data-driven, which you can also compare to the president, who just a few days ago said that this will be based on the facts and on his instincts, in effect saying that both of those will play a role in the situation as the president prepares to make

this decision. and as it relates to the decision, it's not entirely clear what power, what authority the president is referring to when he talks about his desire to reopen the country. i asked him that very question on friday. he said he could override the states whenever he wants. and he's, in effect, doubling down on that today with a tweet he posted a short time ago, where he says in part "some of the fake news media are saying that it is the governor's decision to open up the states, not that of the president of the united states and the federal government. let it be fully understood that this is incorrect. it is the decision of the president, and for many good reasons." to be very clear, the president and legal scholars have now weighed in on this, does not have any authority to force the states to lift those emergency-type shelter-in-place orders right now. i've reached out to the white house for any better guidance to what the president is referring when he talks about this authority, but in the words of our colleague, pete williams, much the same way the president didn't have the power to turn the switch off nationwide, he

doesn't have the power to just flip it back on. andrea? >> and peter, you and jeff mason both have watched this president very, very closely for a long time. jeff, in your reporting and how you're reading him, he is really pushing, and a number of his economic advisers are pushing against the medical experts. he wants to focus on the economy as much as on the health risks that are being talked about. >> yeah, he certainly does. and you know, yesterday was easter. only about a week and a half ago, the president had said he wanted to have the economy open by easter. and then, of course, he did listen to the health experts and agreed to extend mitigation efforts until the end of april. i think it's important as we're looking at and discussing whether and when he decides to open up the economy at the end of that period, that the models that his corona task force has been using or have been using

includes mitigation efforts through the end of may. so, if he does decide to make a decision to open things up by may 1st or even in mid-may, that will have some kind of an impact on how many people are affected, and that's a question i asked last week as well. so, that's something that they're looking at, but you're absolutely right to say, andrea, that he is very much focused on the economy for everyone who's affected by the economy, not least of which himself and his electoral prospect. >> absolutely. dr. dalja, in looking at the medical risks of this, i want to play a little bit of the cdc director, dr. redfield, who spoke with savannah guthrie on the "today" show this morning. >> one of the influential modelers or researcher at university of washington, talked about the dangers of reopening society prematurely. he said he's concerned about a second wave of infection. actually, in july or august.

what's your take on that? >> well, there's no doubt that we have to reopen correctly. it's going to be a step-by-step, gradual process. it's got to be data-driven. >> doctor? >> i do agree with dr. redfield, that this is going to be a layered response, where you start to see certain things come back to life, where other things may still be off the table until we know what's going to happen, because as soon as you start to allow people to interact, we're going to see more cases. the question will be, are those cases too much for the hospital capacity in whatever region you're talking about to handle? and that really needs to be the metric. do we have enough ventilators? do we have enough personal protective equipment? do we have enough staff? because that's what this is all about, is preserving hospital capacity, because the virus hasn't gone anywhere. it's not magically disappeared. it will be here and with us until we have a vaccine. so we do have to do this the right way and not just take actions to take actions, but take the right actions. and i do think there is a balance and it's very hard to come up with the right formula for this, but we do have to

balance the risks of keeping the economic shutdown with the risks of the virus resurging, and hopefully, we'll get to a middle place and not a false alternative with letting the virus rip on one hand and keeping us in a wuhan-style lockdown on the other. >> and dr. adalja, we don't know, actually, how this virus does react. we don't know how long someone might be immune, for instance, even having gotten it, and whether it comes back that more quickly. >> yeah, we don't quite understand immunity yet, and i think this is an important research question that we're trying to understand. we presume that individuals who have recovered from this are immune, at least for some time, and probably immune from getting a severe infection for the rest of their life, hopefully. we know with other coronaviruss, you can get reinfected, but those reinfections are clinically silent. we don't know how contagious there are. so there are a lot of clinical questions, especially talking about antibody tests that sort of clear people, to understand what the limitations of those are and what predictive value they may have. >> and peter, there is a lot of

reporting over the weekend. the president's certainly pushing back against "the new york times" reporting tagging him and his administration for all of these missed signals in february, for waiting three weeks, at least, before shutting down after there were some very clear warnings. >> reporter: yeah, no, andrea, they're exactly right, "the new york times" and other outlets reporting about the conflicts amongst some of the president's top advisers, the fact they couldn't get on the same page about what to do. the president repeatedly, as we have heard, touts his january ban on travelers coming and foreign nationals who had spent time within the last 14 days in china. even that hasn't been a perfect solution with more than 40,000 individuals arriving in the u.s. since that ban was put in place, but it was notable that in one of those tweets, as he pushed back, he also retweeted someone who included hsh hsh fi ed #fir has people talking, even though the president doesn't have the power to fire dr. anthony fauci,

andrea. >> but he could certainly sideline him or stop listening to him, and that would create an uproar across the country as well as on capitol hill. thank you very much to peter, to jeff, and of course, dr. adalja. thanks for your expertise as well. meanwhile, democrats on capitol hill have hit a wall in their efforts to expand the emergency aid to states and small businesses. that wall, many report is set at republican leader mitch mcconnell, who is calling for half the spending after blaming impeachment for the lackluster response to covid-19. the kentucky senator is also the subject of a new, deeply reported profile in "the new yorker" that doesn't him trump's enabler in chief, questioning his risky alliance with the president amid a pandemic. joining me now is the author, pulitzer prize-winning reporter jane mayer, "washington post" correspondent for "the new yorker." jane, thanks very much for being with us. you go all the way back to a lot of the things that we've seen over these past years with mcconnell. but if we focus on the pandemic itself, on the attempt to get

things started, to get aid to people, the fact that there is not a form weighing negotiation on capitol hill is really front and center. >> it really is, andrea. and you know, from the start, i think if you look at the record, you can see, is that mitch mcconnell, the senate majority leader, underestimated this particular problem, this spreading pandemic. he took off early to go down to louisville for celebratory kind of gathering that he wanted to go to at the time when nancy pelosi was trying to put together a package of kind of a relief package, the first one. when senators were saying early on, senators like chris murphy of connecticut, that they needed to have more emergency funding, and chuck schumer was saying the same thing, mitch mcconnell was defending the trump administration's sort of

stalling and just mocked the democrats for asking for more funding by saying that they were just showing performtive outrage. so he really dragged his heels before understanding the size of the threat here, and he backed up the trump administration, which is pretty much what he has been doing, as we saw during the impeachment and many other times since trump was elected. yet, what my reporting showed that was interesting was, behind trump's back, people within his inner circle say that he has described trump as nuts. he has said that he can't stand him. and he's likened him to roy moore, who is a politician that he loathes. and so, you get the sense that he has privately all of these doubts about the fitness of the president to handle any kind of crisis, let alone this one, but he has not stood up and defended

the country and asserted the power of the senate to put some kind of a check on the executive branch. and so, that's what this story is about, the symbiotic relationship between mitch mcconnell and president trump. >> and that's not to excuse republican senators for not standing up and being willing to, you know, challenge mcconnell's authority, but he has been a legislative master at controlling the republican majority. you also, interestingly, reached a really incredible source, david jones, who has since died. but the letters that you looked at that perhaps his family shared, showing that this head, former head of huma -- humana, support of mcconnell, was criticizing him during this crisis for the way he was

pandem handling the pandemic. >> yeah, it's extraordinary. there are a number of people who have known mitch mcconnell for many years, some of whom have supported him, like david jones, hugely i, who have just been very disappointed, again, that he has not served sort of the essential constitutional function that the senate can serve. and so, david jones, who mcdonnell has described as the single most influential friend and mentor that he's had in his career, privately wrote two letters that are scathing to mcconnell, basically saying in essen essence, do your job. and i got a hold of these letters. i saw them. i saw mcconnell's response to the first one. and the feeling is, and no one people in louisville where mcconnell is from, and in kentucky, that he knows better. he should have done more. and he needs to do more to try to put a check on what david jones calls an errant president.

>> jane mayer, chief washington correspondent for "the new yorker," thank you so much for your reporting. >> thanks for having me. meanwhile, more than a million americans -- you bet. in a sharp turn, we turn south to where more than a million americans are having power outages today, including thousands across the south, but without a safe place to social distance as storms rip through the region, destroying homes, forcing people into crowded shelters. this video from south carolina shows what is happening all the way to louisiana. the storm system now moving north towards new york, raising concerns about the field hospitals set up in central park. joining me now, nbc's blayne alexander in chatsworth, georgia. blaine, te blayne, tell us what's happening there. >> reporter: andrea, in the past hour, we learned that the death toll here has gone up. the county ema director says that the death toll now stands at seven and a couple dozen more about taken to the hospital.

you can see behind me, andrea, at least one of the structures that was in the path of that storm. this apartment building a little bit over here where you can't see a convenience store with the roof blown off. but andrea, the area that really has gotten the brunt of this is a pair of adjacent trailer parks about a mile and a half away. that's where you saw those seven people killed. now, andrea, let me talk to you, of course, about what's remarkable here, not just in these storms, but in the timing of them. about 90 minutes ago, georgia governor brian kemp declared a state of emergency here for the state of georgia, which means that right now in the state of georgia, simultaneously, there is a state of emergency and a public health state of emergency, of course, dealing with coronavirus. so, that really underscores not only the difficult but the, quite frankly, rare situation that so many are in. and just quickly, i want to show you this middle school. this is what's serving as a shelter for so many people here. we asked the county director if the coronavirus in any way impacted their storm response. he said, absolutely not.

they've got people who came here -- [ inaudible ] so certainly a double hit for the people here. >> blayne alexander in a windy and difficult location in georgia. thanks so much for that tragic update from georgia, where the death toll is continuing to rise. meanwhile, also, nursing homes across the country have become hotspots. they are basically petri dishes for the rapidly spreading virus among the nation ooze vulnerable elderly. virginia congressman abigail span river is asking for more funding to address the nursing home crisis. stay with us. you're watching "andrea mitchell reports." you're watching msnbc. at papa john's, we want you to know that from our

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among the most vulnerable people in this crisis are residents of nursing homes and assisted living facilities. nbc news is now reporting that more than 2,200 patients have died from coronavirus outbreaks in nursing homes alone. and there were reports of much higher numbers of fatalities because the federal government no longer tracks these deaths. the tragedy of loss also, of course, compounded by separation. family visits ruled out. loved ones dying without the comfort of their closest relatives. roslyn pearson is mourning the loss of her 71-year-old father, ralph, who was diagnosed with covid-19. he passed away last week at canterbury rehabilitation and health care in virginia, where 42 residents have now died from the disease. >> i don't have my dad.

and others don't have their loved ones. there still remains questions on what they could have done differently. to prevent this tragedy of unnecessary loss of lives. >> and joining me now is virginia congresswoman abigail spanberger. congresswoman, thank you very much. i know you're trying do something about this, looking for more money. how is that going, your efforts to try to secure better oversight of these facilities? >> so, andrea, the heartbreaking story that you just highlighted is one of 42 that we have here in central virginia where family members, loved ones have died of covid-19 at this one facility. and we have other outbreaks of covid-19 in other nursing home and rehabilitation centers throughout virginia. you know, i've been working with our state leadership, and i've also been working at the federal

level to ensure that we are making good decisions moving forward to protect people from this type of heartbreaking loss. the governor northam here in the commonwealth of virginia has established a task force focused on addressing the threat of covid-19 and outbreaks of covid-19 in our nursing homes. at the federal level, i have been pushing for additional funding, notably in the c.a.r.e.s. act. there was $100 billion allocated to hhs, and i joined with two republican virginia colleagues and another democrat from virginia to ask secretary azar to ensure that a minimum of $15 billion goes to our nation's nursing homes and a minimum of $10 billion goes to assisted living facilities. these locations need help and they need it immediately. just also on thursday, i led an effort for emergency funding to nursing homes. and i had 41 colleagues join me in that effort.

they need testing. they need ppe. they need additional money for staffing. what is so tragic is that when one person gets sick in this nursing home, when we look at who is most vulnerable to covid-19, if people, senior citizens and those with pre-existing or co-morbidities. and we are just seeing horrific outcomes when covid-19 is able to infect nursing homes and kill our seniors. >> congresswoman, just as of friday when we were last tracking, there were 84 people, patients, infected there at canterbury and 25 health care workers. we don't know if those numbers have gone up. but has secretary azar gotten back to you with any kind of guarantee that that proportion of the c.a.r.e.s. act will go towards these facilities? >> we've gotten no response back from the secretary related specifically to the needs of nursing homes.

and while the canterbury rehabilitation center is at this point the place where we have seen the most tragic numbers of death, it is an example of what we could be seeing elsewhere, if we don't continue to take emergency, immediate action, to ensure that we are testing every health care worker that is in those facilities and that this isn't happening just in virginia, but nationwide, and that we are ensuring that there's the personal protective equipment so that the workers and the health care professionals who are working with and providing aid to those who are infirmed and those living in assisted living facilities, that they, if there is a case that is still unknown, that it isn't able to transmit patient to patient via health care worker. the need here is emergent, and it is significant, and we have a responsibility, i believe as a community and as a country, to our nation's seniors, for them

to be protected in their senior years, and particularly those who are most vulnerable and those who are in locations like nursing homes and long-term care facilities. but i haven't received a response back. i will continue, continue pushing. i'm now asking for an investigation into hhs's use of the strategic national stockpile. there's been reports out of a variety of states, including virginia, that the purchases made by particular states have been taken and diverted. there's also tremendous underprovision. you know, virginia, for example, has requested ppe, ventilators, other really necessary pieces of equipment, and has received just a fraction, a small fraction of what's been requested, and what has been requested is what is needed. so we are only getting a small percentage of what is actually needed on the ground to save

lives. >> please keep us up to date on any response that you get as well. we will keep tracking this. thank you so much, congresswoman abigail spanberger. >> thank you for highlighting this. >> from virginia. you bet. and up next, the president pushing for the country to reopen in weeks, not months. i'll talk to a leading scientist on what it might take to make that happen safely. you're watching "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc. our homes. overnight they became our offices, schools and playgrounds. all those places out there, are now in here. that's why we're still offering fast, free two day shipping on thousands of items. even the big stuff. and doing everything it takes to ensure your safety. so you can make your home everything you need it to be. wayfair. way more than furniture. some because ourstop. communities need you. which is why we're working to keep you working.

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new york's governor cuomo is going to be making an announcement, he says, with other governors about a reopening plan at a 2:00 eastern news conference today, but what would it really take to get the country moving without endangering people from a resurgence of the coronavirus? johns hopkins university school of public health has outlined a very specific national plan. and joining us now, dr. joshua scharfstein, vice president of the public health at johns hopkins. first of all, your plan talks about testing all symptomatic patients as well as going on and identifying and isolating all positive cases, conducting contact tracing. we'd need 100,000 paid volunteer tracers to get this done. is this realistic? is it possible? >> i think it is possible. other countries have done it successfully, and the united states has a lot of people who could really pitch in and help. the goal here is to stop the virus from moving from person to person. and there are ways to do that besides shutting down the whole

economy. what you do is you find where the virus is through testing and then you have the people isolate themselves and you try to figure out where they may have passed and have those people quarantined. and if you can do that effectively, then you don't see a lot of community spread. so, that really creates the conditions that would allow for a broader reopening. >> at the same time, you have politicians, certainly led by the president, pushing and talking from our reporting about may 1st. that is not a realistic deadline from a medical standpoint, is it? >> well, certainly not in a lot of parts of the country. i mean, you really need to see cases declining substantially before you would try to start reopening. and on top of that, you need the ability to monitor what's happening, because you don't want to be surprised with people showing up in the emergency department sick again because it's spreading. and we know what this infection, because it takes a while to get

infected, and then once you're infected, it takes a while to get really sick, that if, suddenly, people start showing up at the emergency room, you're in for a month of it getting worse, doubling, doubling, doubling, like it's been doing. so, we need a system to pick it up so early so that steps can be taken before you get to a point of crisis. >> dr. fauci is, if he is in trouble with the president -- and it's hard to read in between the lines of tweets and hashtags -- but if he is in trouble, it's partly because of the kind of warning he acknowledged yesterday, ignored, things would have been remedied a lot sooner, as we played at the top of the show, a lot earlier if they had taken action earlier. what do you think with dr. fauci possibly being on the line, he could be sidelined, if not fired, technically, by the president? >> well, i would say that dr. fauci has been telling the american people the truth. and in a crisis like this,

someone has to tell the truth. credibility is critical to the response. you know, the government is asking people to do extraordinary things, and they will do extraordinary things -- they'll stay at home, they'll understand all these measures that have been taken, if they believe what is going on. and the truth is critical to that. and so, dr. fauci needs to be brought forward even more. he and his peers at the cdc should be leading the response and communicating the truth to people. if you start to pull the plug on the truth, then the ability of the country to respond to this crisis is going to be seriously hampered. people won't believe it when the government tells them to do something, even to protect themselves and their families. >> i wanted to share with you and our viewers a johns hopkins doctor talking about a patient's last wish. >> when that family member's loved one came in, he was not

allowed to go into the room. the one request his mom said was, she never wanted to die alone. he stood outside the glass doors watching as the respiratory therapist and i, full gowned -- all right, we are in these bunny suits -- and both the respiratory therapist and i held the patient's hand until her last breath, and when we declared the time of death, and i looked over to the son, his tears and his emotion said it all. >> that -- >> boy, i know -- >> you know him. it's such a compelling -- >> i do know him. >> a compelling commentary. >> it is compelling -- >> i apologize for probably butchering his name. >> oh, that's okay. i think it's dr. ganiatos. and he really puts words to the cruelty of this disease, and the

way it pushes us apart, even at the point of people dying. and i think it really speaks to his humanity, the humanity of all of the caregivers at johns hopkins and beyond, that people are really going the extra mile to try to add some humanity to this devastating situation. >> dr. sharpstein, thank you and to all of your colleagues at johns hopkins as well. next, as america's children are homeschooled, save the children is partnering with famous needs to keep children from slipping behind and going hungry without federally funded school meals. jennifer garner and mark shriver are joining me next. but first, some of the great tenor andrea bocelli's rendition of "amazing grace" in front of the duomo, part of a live-streamed easter concert. it's been watched almost more than 26 million times on youtube. ♪ that saved a wretch like me

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at risk falling further behind, as well as missing breakfast and lunch. to help solve the problem, act dresses jennifer garner and amy adams and others have launched "save with stories." an instagram account featuring famous feature to read children's book to raise money to save the children and another

program, no kid hunger. >> i am going to read big red barn by margaret wisebrown. i love this book. by the big red barn in the great green fields, there was a young pig who was learning to squeal. squeal, squeal! >> joining me now is long time child advocate and actor jennifer garner and mark with "save the children." thank you for both of you joining me. jennifer, what is the meaning for you in this crisis to be able to serve this way and read to children online? >> good morning. hi. thank you for having us on. hi, mark. how are you doing? >> good. >> i've worked with mark "save the children" is focusing on early education in the united states and rural america for the last 12 years. and we had just been to kentucky when all of this started to go

down and it was evident even then the week before everything shut down they were already talking about how would we get food to the kids? what will we do? well, it might be a break but there was no concept at the time that it would be the longest summer in kids' lives or in history. and we already focus so much on the summer slide and keeping kids reading and engaged and active in homes where there isn't broad band, where there is only one book for 13 children in poor america, where there aren't work sheets and work books and all kinds of classes to keep them engaged. so when this hit, it was already talk of mind. >> mark, you know, "save the children" has done so much but one thing is bigger than all of us is the digital divide and so many children are not empowered because they don't have access to these wonderful programs. >> that's why this effort was so

important to get books and to get food into kids' homes. so what save the children is doing across the country feeding kids over 100,000 a day in rural america as jennifer just said but getting books and work sheets into their homes. schools are working on such thin margins already. you know? s the transportation, the gas cost to transport this food is so expensive. the fact that there aren't work sheets, asever said, there is not money for xeroxing paper and getting that out to kids family and what save the children is doing through dollars raised. people can go online and hear the stories like jennifer just read. over 1506 books out there or go to save the children.org/save with stories to get connected as well. it's important to not only provide content to families all across the country but also to raise a few dollars to help kids

in rural america. >> such a great program. i want to just share a clip of some of the others who have been reading stories as you have, jennifer. >>. [ speaking in foreign language ] >> five miles off coast of maine and slightly overdue, a circus ship was steaming south in a fog as thick as stew! >> i've loved you since forever. before birds flew over rainbows! >> our friend hoda, as well as steve carrell. you're taking your celebrity and your talent, jennifer, using it for save the children and for that, we really love you for you. >> oh, thank you. it was amy adams' idea for the record. she called me and said i have

this idea i think celebrities should help to read kids out of school and have food and i kind of said, all right. i called mark and we dove in. so it's been a big group effort and it's been, yes, i've badgers everyone i've ever worked with. we are in part a generous communities. we can you kate winslet up reading "green eggs and ham." come on! what is more fun than that? you have to check it out! >> it's all across the world. >> i love that. >> the fun thing, it turned out that amy had a really good idea. it's across the world. it's save with stories in nepal and australia and north korea and others are starting up this week. >> australia, mexico, india. it's all across the world and how people want to be connected

and provide great content for their kids so their kids can continue to learn. i think how jennifer said how important it is, the summer slide, especially for poor kids, is going to be the longest summer ever so we need to make sure if we do get back and when we get back, the kids get the resources, both food and occasional sources this summer come june, july, august, so they can go back to school as best prepared as possible. that's why the effort save the stories is so important. >> thank you so much jennifer garner and mark schrieber. thank you for save the children and we will put this on social media and come visit us again too. that does it for this edition of "andrea mitchell reports." thank you. remember, follow the show online on facebook and on twitter at "mitch reports" and ari will pick up our coverage after this break. bright dawn our country has endured. it has seen the break in the clouds before anyone else.

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good afternoon. i'm ari melber. we begin with president trump jousting with his own medical experts about crisis response and governors who decide when to try to restart daily life around the country. president trump hoping to reopen the economy with, quote, big bang by may 1st and launching a new council tomorrow that would explore how to proceed. new york governor andrew