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♪ we'll get to the other side. we'll be a stronger nation for it. please give your health care workers that you know a big hug. >> they say when things happen, some people rise to the occasion, some people shrink down and i feel incredibly lucky that everyone me has risen to the occasion. >> from the janitors to the cleaners to the techs to the medical residents, the nurses, the trainees, the fellows, the doctors, they've gone above and beyond to save lives. >> every day, i work with some of the most intelligent, tough,

compassionate, resilient individuals i've ever met. it's important to remember that there is still good, even in the midst of this crisis. >> once again, we start tonight's show with perhaps the most important voices in this war against the coronavirus, the medical professionals, the ones on the front lines. welcome to monday. it is "meet the press daily." i'm katy tur, in for chuck todd, continuing msnbc's breaking news coverage of the coronavirus pandemic. we're standing by for today's briefing at the white house, on a day where the president is claiming, inaccurately, that he gets to decide when and how to reopen states that are shut down by the virus. the u.s. constitution, though, gives governors the authority to require businesses to close, which many have exercised. and the president does not have the authority to direct the states, or other local officials to lift those emergency orders. today's briefing also comes as the president is eager to turn

the page on this national nightmare, as the number of confirmed u.s. cases is now above a half a million, with more than 20,000 confirmed deaths. all 50 states are currently under disaster declarations. that is for the first time in american history. but the number of new cases nationally does appear to be stabilizing, as you can see right there on your screen. and at the epicenter, in new york, while deaths are still high, the hospitalization rate is declining, which is a very hopeful sign. the president's inaccurate claim, though, that he gets to decide which states reopen comes as this afternoon, a group of governors in the northeast announced a working group of elected leaders and public health officials to come up with a plan to safely get their local economies going again. a consortium of states on the west coast have formed their own group, as well. we don't know exactly what these plans will end up looking like, but in just a moment, i will speak with connecticut's

governor, who will be a critical part of the northeast working group. today, he warned, though, against the urge to reopen too quickly, as multiple people familiar with the matter have confirmed to nbc news, the president is determined to reopen the nation's economy with a, quote, big bang, by early next month. that, though, may be at odds with experts, like the nation's top infectious dez expert, dr. anthony fauci, who has repeatedly said that the virus sets the timeline for when it is safe to reopen. not the white house. this weekend, dr. fauci also acknowledged that the federal government could have acted sooner. that came after this "new york times" investigation, deeply reported and exhaustive look at the president's apparent failures to heed warnings from inside his own administration. "the times" reports that mr. trump's response was colored by his suspicion for and distan for what he viewed as the deep state, the very people in his

government whose expertise might have guided him towards stepped that would slow the virus. we anticipate the president will be asked about this and his trust in experts like dr. fauci as the country turns its focus on what happened after we hit the peak. we'll go to the kwhous for the latest in just a moment. but let's begin tonight with a view from a governor who is near the epicenter of this nation's outbreak and partal of that contingent of northeast governors, starting to talk about a plan for what is next. ned lamont is the governor of connecticut. mr. governor, thank you very much for joining us. i want to ask you, first, about a call between the white house and governors today where vice president pence told states and governors of states that they need to get more testing done, that they need to find machines and hospitals that aren't running at full capacity. is that what's happening? are there machines that aren't running at full capacity right now across the states?

>> what we really need is the green light to figure out what the antibody testing is going to be. we heard that -- we're going to find out if that green light is coming, i think later this week. we want to ramp up our antibody testing, we want to do that in association with massachusetts, rhode island and new york, because they're all my adjoining states. that will give us the best indication of the level of infection and how fast we get people back to work. >> isn it the antibody testing they're asking states to ramp up or the antibody testing? >> i think it's both. they want us to do both. we don't have enough of the antigens right now, we're looking for that. we made that very clear. they said some of the equipment has more capacity than what we're using right now and we should think about that, but we also need the test kits that allow us to do more of that testing. >> well, let me ask you this -- i know they want you to do more. how can you do more, do you need

the federal government's help for that? >> look, the federal government, they could have taken the leader earl on all sorts of ppe, we'd love them to take more of the lead on testing. i do know that they're going to put together a committee, including some governors and other health care professionals, so we stop having the felts point the finger at the state and back and forth, so we can get a strategy in place to do broad-based testing, especially in those states that have been most hit by the virus. >> do you feel like the administration's trying to pass the buck to states? >> i think -- you know, early on, they were saying, hey, states, why aren't you doing more? we were saying, why aren't you doing more? you are the ones that can get the ppe, you're the ones that can get the gowns, you know, we're not in an ideal position to negotiate ventilator contracts with a distributor in beijing, but that said, why look backward? look forward.

i think we're working together now, but i do get the idea that we're going to get a lot more help from them on testing by the end of this week. >> so, when you have meetings with other governors in the northeast, the northeastern corridor governors, i know there was that news conference a little bit earlier, we heard you speak for a moment. what exactly -- i guess, how exactly are you going to come up with a plan to reopen? what do you need to have put in place to get that ball moving? >> we're going to come up with a protocol and testing priorities. it will be sort of common, state to state. obviously, if there's a higher infection rate in new york than there is in connecticut, it will be a different mix of testing. by the way, you can add massachusetts to the map. they just joined, as well. but what we think, we have a lot of similarities, we have a lot of differences. but if we share our notes going forward, we work together as we slowly closed down parts of the

economy and we are working together as we open it up. >> you answered my very next question, which was about massachusetts and why didn't they weren't apart of this, but i guess that is news here, that massachusetts will be joining this consortium. how do you plan, or, how do you think you'll be able to reopen the states? will it be a rolling reopening where certain sectors can glo back to work or certain employees can go back to work before others? >> i'll let you know that in a week, when our group comes back, but i've got some real priorities. i've got our defense manufacturing, major manufacturing, most of which has to stay open by law because they're critical infrastructure, and i need testing and protective equipment to keep them working. that's a priority, as well as, obviously, the other front line responders that we have. and once we get more masks and gear and testing, then a lot of our smaller merchants can open, as well, without being at risk to their customers and vice versa. that's going to take awhile.

>> you said that the testing is going to get ramped up, hopefully this week with the help of the federal government. you also mentioned they are helping with ppe, as well. what are your expectations for how many tests can start getting done at the end of this week? are we going to be up to millions of tests like they've often promised and how much ppe will we have and how does that effect the timeline for when the reopening could potentially happen? >> we've gotten the ventilators. we got a nice shipment of them today, i think we're in pretty good shape on that front. obviously the n-95 masks are very important, but i do worry that they're rushing back and not willing to be thoughtful about this. i look at singapore, i look at hong kong, you look at japan, they got back a little soon and now you see the rate of infection going up in those countries and they are forced to close down a second time. and i think that would be a body blow to the economic confidence of this country and certainly in this region. so, all the governors agreed, we want to get our region open, but

we want to do it in a way that is not a false start and we have to go back a second time. don't let that happen. >> and all of these economies across these states are all interconnected, a lot of people coming in, commute from new york to connecticut and vice versa. ned lamont, thank you. joining me from the white house is my nbc news colleague, hans nichols. also with us, msnbc contributor jake sherman. hans, what can we expect from this briefing today? >> look for an update on testing. the white house may be providing a little bit more support to the states on testing. from the white house's perspective, they don't deny they may need to provide support or incentives to increase capacity, but there does seem to be frustration somewhere between frustration and concern that there isn't more testing taking place at the state level. so, look for an incentive plan

coming out of today on what they can do to get the states to get this test up and running, because when you talk to public health officials, when you listen to the governors, when you listen to members of the task force, at least on the medical side, there's an acknowledgement that before you can bring the country back to work, either on a regional basis, staggered basis, as the governor just suggested, you need to have better visibility. and that seems to be the priority today, the call that the vice president had with the governors, increasing testing results, testing capacities. just get more numbers, more data. i suspect we'll get an update on that. and then we'll see what else the president has to say in terms of these regional agreements from both on the west coast and the east coast on this sort of triaged approach on sharing resources and sharing some of the risks, as these states go forward and try to open up their economies just a little bit. katy? >> hans, as we've been talking about, the president does not have the authority to reopen states, that authority lies

within the governors, according to our constitution. are we going to expect the president to stand firm on that may 1st deadline or may 1st reopening date? >> no, i mean, that's aspirational, right? some folks in the white house say they want to have a big bang and really have the economy start moving on that. in a lot of ways, and jake knows this from his capitol hill reporting, deadlines can force decisions. and that may 1 deadline is really when this most recent it ration of slow the spread end else. you get a wide range of views inside the white house on whether or not the president will lift the guidelines or whether or not they'll do that beforehand or get something from the states, at the governors level, even before the may 1, but you know, i'd just be really hesitant that saying may 1 is absolutely when this is going to happen. it's aspirational. there's some talk about it, but nothing is firm and everyone wants to see more data coming in, particularly how the country

behaved is the young word, but maybe just how the country did over the easter holiday. so, even though there are signs for hospital mitchell out there, there are some concerns inside the white house that maybe there's a little relaxing of social distancing over the easter and passover holidays and then we'll see an uptick in a couple weeks, because a lot of the data we're looking at, they're lagging indicators, so, it's difficult to see this spread of the virus in real-time. again, another reason why the testing is so crucial. >> let's be clear here. .9% of the population has currently been tested for coronavirus. .9%. not even 1% of the population. jake sherman, it would take a logistical miracle to get testing ramped up so heavily between now and may 1st that we would actually have the visibility for who has this virus, that health experts and governors and local officials say they would want before reopening the country. what are senators and

congressmen and women saying to the president about this idea that may 1st could be a date that we start running again? >> well, the chief person who was whispering in his ear from capitol hill was mark meadows, who is now his chief of staff. if you look at the committee he's put together to examine reopening the economy, it's mark meadows, it's two people he's related to, jared kushner and ivanka trump who, to my knowledge, i could be missing a critical part of their biography, they have no public health or pandemic expertise. so, and then he has three people, larry kudlow, wilbur ross and steven mnuchin, who are in his cabinet, who are friends of his from his new york days and who have worked on wall street. so, if you are looking at a decision point, in which you have to begin to make a decision that affects millions of peoples lives based on public health evidence, you would, in my estimation, and i would think a

lot of people's estimations, you want somebody with public health expertise on that committee. and that's not what i only think, but if you look at massachusetts, at maryland, across the country, they have enlisted former trump administration officials like scott gotlieb, who was in charge of the fda, to and vise t advis these things. and again, this is all noting what you say before, katy, which is, the president's not closed anything. so, he would be unable to open anything. he could offer a suggestion, but that suggestion is just a suggestion. the governors are going to make their own decisions. and what's really interesting, if you look at the politics of this, you see on the east coast and the west coast, states are banding together and making decisions in lieu, or in play of, a strong federal response, because the president could have shut down parts of the country, he could have done these things, he decided against it. so, he doesn't really have the power to open things back up. and if you look at congress, i

mean, you asked what congress believes here, congress isn't even here. so, you know that they understand the risk that people have traveling and reengaging with society in the absence of widespread testing or some sort of vaccine or therapeutic. so, again, it's just an example of unusual kind of line of decision-making here in the white house. >> jake, wait to ask you about the stage four stimulus, but hans, very quickly, anthony fauci was responding to the "the new york times" reporting and admitted that the administration had acted sooner, that more l e lives could have been saved. after that, the president retweeted a tweet that had #firefauci contained in it. can you give us anymore insight on what's happening behind the scenes there at the white house? >> well, a couple things. it's unusual the white house to do what they did today, and scoe out, say that he and fauci are on the same page.

there's a rapport between the president and fauci and not to read too much into that tweet. at the same time, the standard operating procedure here is to simply say, we're going to let the tweet speak for itself. and the tweet, if it speaks for itself, is endorsing this view that fauci, who is popular among some conservatives, that he should be dismissed. that's one of the key questions for the president today, will fauci be there? we'll see in moments here, the briefing has been delayed in the 5:30. and how robustly the president offers a defense of fauci after this tweet that he caused some uncertainty with. guys? >> jake, very quickly, if you can, just give us an update on where the stage four stimulus stands? >> grid lock. republicans and democrats are at lagger heads over this small business lending fund. nancy pelosi just was on a call with house democrats, that republicans are not negotiating. democrats want a host of our critical priorities, hospital

money, state and local government money. but neither side is budging and neither side is in town. we anticipate big meetings and some congressional leaders heading back to washington, because this is a critical issue. businesses could go bankrupt if this money doesn't get in the pipeline and the administration is saying it could dry out by friday. >> small business owners i've been talking to have said that the money is delayed already. jake sherman, thank you very much and hans nichols, thank you, as well. again, as hans just mentioned, the briefing has been moved back to 5:30. up next, we're going to talk to our medical experts about how we can possibly start opening the country without millions more tests. that is the theme of the day. and late, a surprise from bernie sanders. he's now formally backing joe biden. but will his supporters join him? ♪ more than ever, your home is your sanctuary. that's why lincoln offers you the ability to purchase a new vehicle remotely with participating dealers.

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is joining the pact of east coast states that will work in tandem to lift coronavirus restriction is. and while these states all say they will work together, they are also calling for federal assistance with testing. testing is a key part of the question of when and how we can start to get back to normal. joining me now for a medical perspective on the coronavirus response is joseph fair and dr. peter hotez, dean of the national school of tropical medicine at baylor college of medicine. gentlemen, welcome. jo joseph, right now, we said this a lot and we're going to say it again, .9% of the population has been tested. in order to get the country reopened, most health experts will say, you need more visibility, you need more testing out there. how do we get from where we are today to the millions of tests, or, at least a million tests done a day?

what's the time frame for that? >> i think it's going to be at least several months, if not more than that. there's a variety of complex factors that go into it. everything from our trade restrictions that we currently have in place, with places like, our major manufactures of chemicals, and the precursors that we need for tests, the nasal swabs, a lot of those can't be imported right now due to the trade restrictions. so, those are things that we don't think about when we're talking about the tests, per se, but they're all required for us to do the test successfully. on the other hand of things, a lot of things that we're talking about, making both the antibody test, as well as the molecular test, requires them to biologically grow them up and that takes effort. there's a few specialized facilities across the u.s. where we can do that and companies can, of course, ramp that up under the defense production act. it's going to take a requirement of all that to happen together

within a few months period. we have 330 million people in this country and for us to all go back to work safely, it's going to require even more than a million tests per day. >> just to be clear, are you saying it's going to take us months before we can start testing a million people per day? >> i don't know if it's going to take us months before a million people a day, it's going to take us at least a month for us to get there, because we're not there yet. and i do think it's going to take us months to where we can test everyone that needs to be tested, both in a rural or urban setting and having it really widely available, both the acute tests to tell you if you have covid-19 and the antibody test to tell you if you had and have recovered from covid-19. >> dr. hotez, i mean, if that's the case, it's going to take us a month before we can get to a million people per day, i mean, may 1st isn't realistic, is june 1st realistic? >> well, i think it's good to bring it home with an example,

katy. so, let's talk about new york city. let's say -- split the difference. say the middle of may, that the curve has gone down enough, there's a decision to open up the city and bring people back into the workplace. the logistics are going to be extremely daunting. first of all, in terms of the percentage of people have a been infected already in new york and are antibody positive and perhaps reassist went who might feel safe going back to the workplace, we don't know what that number is, is it 20%, 30%, 40% of the population? we don't really have that number, but it's certainly not -- it's probably not going to be the majority of new yorkers. so, how do we -- we have to do the antibody test to test everyone to see if they've been previously exposed and maybe resistant or not. then you have everybody else that's coming back into the workplace that hasn't been infected and yet there's still some low level of transmission going on in new york, at least

for awhile, and then you're going to have to do the pcr test to see if they're actively infected and then as infected individuals pop up, you're going to need to do contact tracing. now, contract tracing means, as it says, identifying the contacts of all the infected individuals and we know that this is a pretty transmissible virus, maybe not as much as measles, but up there. remember last year when we had measles in new york city, it was all hands on deck for the city health department to trace down the contacts of the 600 infected individuals of measles. that occupied almost a full activity of the city and local health departments. now, look at the numbers of new yorkers that are infected. if you look at the new york/new jersey area, it's about, what, 250,000, maybe more? imagine doing contact tracing on thousands and thousands of individuals. the point is, there's not going to be the manpower, the human power, the human capital to have

all those people. we're going to have to do hiring of individuals, maybe thousands of individuals to contact that contact tracing. the point is, as dr. fair points out, this isn't going to happen very quickly. this is not a quick fix. this is going to take, probably months to gear up and so, what i've been recommending is, look, don't be in a hurry to lift that social distancing. it's going to take time to put it all in placement and we don't even have a good road map laid out by the federal government for how we're going to do that interplay of the antibody testing, the contact tracing, the pcr testing. so, this is going to be a very carefully orchestrated dance that needs to be established. we don't have the guidance from the federal government yet to do that, we don't have the human capital to do it and we -- and gearing up for all the supply chain for the tests, so, that's what we're talking about. >> you make it sound like we're never going to be let out of our

houses. today, the governors -- >> well, we will get there. we will get there, but the point is, it's -- it's not trivial. it's -- it's -- this is a substantial human effort. we've done, you know, the country's done big things before, but we can't dismiss how complicated it will be. >> well, the governors up and down the northeast corridor, delaware, rhode island, new jersey, connecticut, new york, massachusetts, as well, pennsylvania, they're all getting together to come up with a working plan for when they can reopen, because the economies of all these states are so interconnected, not just the economics, with trucking, but just with commuting. a lot of people live in connecticut, work in new york, vice versa. they're not separate at all. can just a group of governors in one part of the country work together to reopen that part of the country? is that a safe way to do it, to have these rolling reopenings, not just of states, but of regions in the u.s., once the

testing gets under control in that part of the country, dr. hotez? >> i'd be curious to hear what joseph has to say. yes, i think that's probably the way we're going to go and open up the country in regions. but it will take some time to coordinate it all together, and again, i don't think the states have the clout, the scientific horsepower to know how to organize that. sure, they can tap into some of the academics and professors there, but they're going to need the cdc guidance to carefully orchestrate it, and tom freeden had a very nice op-ed piece in "the new york times" over the weekend, that points out the cdc is multidimensional. they are set up to manage all of this, but they have to now take that on and build an inf infrastructure and by region. >> joseph, what do you think? >> yeah, i completely agree.

ideally, we would have that on a national basis, where all 50 governors are agreed and doing the same thing at the same time, but that being said, in the absence of that, as long as we have, you know, dense urban hubs and states that have very close economic ties with one another andly clustered together, as long as they are coordinating with each other, that's better than nothing. and i think that approach -- it's going to be a rolling approach, you know, things like bars and restaurants, i wouldn't expect those to open really soon, you know, because those are still going to be areas where there's frankly unacceptable kind of social -- the opposite of social distancing, in that kind of environment, so things like that are still going to suffer for a bit longer and, you know, i think other businesses are going to open up sooner, but it might be changes in the way that we, you know, shop for groceries, et cetera, so, there might be kind of different human dynamics in how we're interacting with one another for the foreseeable

future. >> maybe hang onto those masks for a little longer than you expected. dr. joseph fair, dr. peter hotez, thank you. and ahead, this is what need looks like in america right now. the coronavirus is taking a massive toll on food banks across the country. we'll talk with someone dealing with the surge. look at all those cars. first-hand. that's next. our members understand social distancing. being prepared and overcoming challenges. usaa has been standing with them for nearly a hundred years. and we'll be here to serve you for a hundred more. ♪ andif you have moderate to you severe psoriasis... little things, can become your big moment. that's why there's otezla.

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welcome back. as unemployment numbers in the

united states are hitting unprecedented highs, so are the number of people turning to food banks for assistance. but feeding so many families quickly is depleting the reserves these food banks rely on. and as nbc news correspondent joe fryer reports, they're struggling to keep up with the demand. >> san antonio, texas, 10,000 cars lining up at this food bank, where they usually feed 58,000 people, last week, 120,000 showed up for food. >> i'm on a fixed income, i got my sister-in-law and them are on a fixed income, so, yeah, we're pretty well -- we have to do this to survive. >> reporter: with unemployment skyrocketing, many families no longer have enough money for groceries, leading to record lines at food banks across the country. >> you know, i had a lady here yesterday with four little kids in the car and she said, i'm a waitress and i don't have any food. >> reporter: from california to miami to the heartland of nebraska. >> it's not unusual for twice as many people to come through the line than what we are able to

provide food. >> reporter: it's a similar scene in pittsburgh -- >> keep it going. >> reporter: where the national guard was brought in to distribute nearly 1,000 boxes of food in just three hours. >> we're looking at an increase of 17.1 million people over the course of the next six months. >> reporter: this woman runs feeding america, the country's largest hunger relief organization. shell says demand at their food banks is up 98%, but food donations and inventories have plummeted. >> in order to feed the people who are turning to us for help, we're going to need an estimated $1.4 billion and we believe that that's, in fact, a conservative estimate. >> joining me now is eric cooper, president and ceo of the san antonio food bank. eric, thank you for being here with us. what exactly do you need to make sure that you can feed all of the people that are showing up at your food pantry? >> well, katy, as one of those 200 food banks across america that are apart of feeding

america, and all of our pantries that we provide food to, we are in desperate need of funds, of food and volunteers. our demand has doubled. we're seeing twice as many people now that we were pre-covid-19 and if we're going to be able to meet that need, we're going to need a lot more support. >> i read today that the majority of volunteers at food banks across the country are elderly and since the elderly are so at risk to this virus, many of them are not coming in to work in order to help distribute this food. so, if you are asking for volunteers, are you asking for a specific type of volunteer? >> yeah, that's a great question. so, so many of our partner pantries at our food bank networks are run by retirees and seniors. and many of them are staying home. and i think they should. we are really looking for

volunteers that are able and fall under the covid-19 protocols to make sure that they're healthy, they haven't traveled, we have to do some temperature checking. they need to be wearing masks and gloves and of course physical distancing while they're volunteering with us, but those volunteers are critical for us to do our mission. we just are so humbled by their actions and, in some cases, all of us are putting ourselves at risk by serving on the front lines. many companies have stepped up. here locally in san antonio, we've got usaa, they have given tremendous amount of money. our food retailers are donating food, but really, this need outpaces the supply. it's an opportunity for some state and federal partnerships with food banks to really make sure that we don't run out of food and that we've got the ability to meet the needs of this crisis.

>> i've always been reading about how, and we've done this reporting, dairy farms are struggling because they don't have the demand any longer for a lot of their product, other crops and farms across the country don't have the demand for their product, yes, people are going to grocery stores in droves, but restaurants are not taking orders, so, the -- just the packaging, from getting dairy from a dairy farm to a restaurant, it's different than the packaging getting it from there to your home, they don't sell it to restaurants in gallons or quarters, they sell it in much larger containers. would it help if the federal government or the state governments stepped in and ramped up production for different, just basic packaging for a lot of this food so that instead of it going to waste, it could get redirected to the places that need it most, these food pantries across the country, that are struggling right now to keep up with the demand? >> katy, the answer is simple --

yes. that is the lowest hanging fruit, so to speak. the ability to take advantage of those surpluses in the food industry, right, to look at the supply chain where maybe there are some products backed up and to divert that towards food banks, who have increase in demand and can't keep up, this is where usda and the federal government could really make a strong intervention to keep those farmers, keep those dare youry guys, keep all of them from ever wasting food. we are in desperate need of that food and the feeding america network is really working to keep food from going into land fills, keeping food from going to waste. we're very creative, very nimble. many of us take bulk product and repackage, but never, ever should food be wasted when there's a demand like today or even without the covid-19 cri s

crisis, food banks could put a lot of that food on the table for hungry americans and better nourish communities across our nation. >> i'm sure there are people watching at home that want to help in any way they could. should they be sending food to their local pantries, is that possible? or is it better to get funds directly so that pantries themselves can go out and buy their own food? >> we, you know, food banks are known for their efficiencies and their ability to really leverage the community's investments, so, at this time, we'd encourage viewers not to add anymore demand on the grocery supply chain. they're struggling to keep up with the demands from their customers, so the best thing for people to do is to make a monetary donation to their local feeding america food bank. if you do that, your local food bank will be able to procure the food, whether produce or frozen or staple items or even nonfood

item items, we're in desperate need of cleaning supplies, toilet paper, diapers, detergents. but if you can, as we talked earlier, volunteer, that would go a long way in helping your local food bank really meet this unprecedented need. the thousands of people that showed up were so grateful to get help. in the end, it's love. food is love. and our communities across america have the opportunity to extend some love to families that are in crisis. they don't know where to turn for help and so, they're turning to their local food bank and it's been our privilege to be able to respond to that need. >> well said. eric cooper, thank you very much for joining us and helping us know how to best help you. and as we await the white house coronavirus briefing, we will have your 2020 politics fix next with a big endorsement for joe biden. plus, the very first wisconsin election results are coming in. stale with us. your mission:

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so, today, i am asking all americans, i'm asking every democrat, i'm asking independent, i'm asking a lot of republicans, to come together in this campaign to support your condition s candidacy, which i endorse. >> welcome back. that was senator bernie sanders endorsing joe biden this afternoon, less than a week after sanders suspended his own presidential campaign. sanders' appearance at biden's virtual event came as a surprise. it also comes against another 2020 development for the biden camp. a woman who briefly worked as an aide for former vice president joe biden in the 1990s as expanded her claims that he harassed her to now include an instance of sexual assault. the biden campaign says the incident, quote, absolutely did not happen. and all of that is happening as we are also starting to get our first look at the results from

last week's chaotic wisconsin primary, where voters went to the polls in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. we're joined now by shaq brewster and ali vitale. ali, i do want to start with you, and we did just get a two-minute warning from the white house and people are starting to file in, so, if i have to interrupt, i do apologize. what do we know about this allegation? >> katy, tara reed, as you mentioned, worked as a staff assistant in joe biden's office from late 1992 until mid 1993. over that time, she says she was sexually harassed and now that's expanded to include sexual assault. and this story happened in two parts. reed came forward in proil apri 2019, saying that they were touched inappropriately and felt uncomfortable by joe biden, at

the time, you'll remember he said he was going to be more cognizant of people's personal space. but in march, tara reed expanded her story to say that she was sexually assaulted by biden in a corridor of the capitol complex in the spring of 1993 the, when she brought him a gym bag. now, i've spoken with reed multiple times since she made those allegations and mike memoli and i, who also reported this story with me, a also spoken with five people -- >> i'm so sorry, ali, i do have to interrupt you. we're seeing -- ali, i'm sorry, i have to interrupt. the president of the united states has taken the podium. it is now one month since he declared a national emergency. let's listen. >> all across our great south, who have endured deadly tornadoes and other severe weather in texas, louisiana, mississippi, alabama, florida, georgia, tennessee and south carolina. my administration will do everything possible to help those communities get back on their feet, we're speaking with

the governors and representatives, fema's already on its way and they got their there as soon as we heard the word, i said, get out there. so, fema is there, and i know the great job that fema fema does. it's really something very special. so we just want to say, warmest condolences and we're with you all the way. it's a tough deal. that was a bad, bad level five, that was a bad group. that's as high as it gets. that was a bad grouping of tornadoes, something that is something incredible, the power, the horrible, destructive power. america is continuing to make critical progress in our war against the virus. over the weekend, the number of daily new infections remained flat. nationwide flat. hospitalizations are slowing in hot spots in new york, new jersey, michigan and louisiana. this is clear evidence that our aggressive strategy to combat

the virus is working, and that americans are following the guidelines. it's been incredible what they've done. you looked at the charts, and the charts and the models from early on predictions -- a sign of people doing things right, but it's still just a horrible thing all over the world. 184 countries. this is only a tribute to our wonderful health care advisers and experts who have been with us right from the beginning. we appreciate it so much. in fact, dr. fauci is here. maybe i could ask tony to say a few words before we go any further. thank you very much. tony, please. >> thank you, mr. president.

just a couple of things and then a comment about something that happened yesterday. you're going the hear from dr. birx soon about the numbers that we've been talking about, how things are starting to balance off. i think as we go by each day, we'll see -- and again, i never like to get ahead of myself or of d looks like even though we've had a really bad week last week, remember when i was speaking to you before i was saying this was really a bad week, there's still going to be a lot of deaths, but we're starting to see in some areas now that kind of flattening, particularly in a place that was a hot spot like new york. that's the first thing. the second thing is i had a really very productive conversation with the congressional black caucus this morning for about an hour. and they really wanted to know what exactly are we going to be doing in the immediate as well as the long range about the health disparities and the discrepancy both in infection

and in poor outcome in the minorities in general, but specifically african-american. i made it very clear that what we have to do is focus on getting the resources where the vulnerable are to be able to get testing done, to get the appropriate identification where proper and where appropriate to isolate contact trace if we can. but also to help mitigate in a community that is suffering much more disproportionately. the other point i wanted to make is that i had an interview yesterday that i was asked a hypothetical question, and hypothetical questions sometimes can get you into some difficulty, because it's -- what would have or could have, the nature of the hypothetical question was, if, in fact, we admit gated earlier, could lives have been saved? and the answer to my question, as i always do and i'm doing right now, perfectly honestly

say yes. obviously, if mitigation helps, i've been up here telling you mitigation works. so if mitigation works and you do it earlier, you probably would have saved more lives. if you initiated it later, you probably would have lost more lives. you initiate it at a certain time. that was taken as a way that maybe somehow something was at fault here. so let me tell you from my experience, and i can only speak from my own experience, is that we have been talking before any meetings that we had about the pros and the cons, the effectiveness or not of strong mitigations. so discussions were going on mostly among the medical people about what that would mean. the first and only time that dr. birx and i went in and formally made a recommendation to the president to actually have a

"shutdown" in the sense of not really shutdown but to have strong mitigation, we discussed it. obviously, there would be concern by some that in fact might have some negative consequences. nonetheless, the president listened to the recommendation and went to the mitigation. the next second time that i went with dr. birx into the president and said, 15 days are not enough, we need to go 30 days. obviously, there were people who had a problem with that. so i can only tell you what i know and what my recommendations were. but clearly, as happens all the time, there were interpretations of that response to a hypothetical question that i just thought it would be very nice for me to clarify because i

didn't have the chance to clarify. thank you. [ inaudible question ] >> i don't remember the date was. i can tell you the first and only time that i said we should do mitigation strongly, the response was yes, we'll do it. >> what did you do, the travel restrictions in >> no, that was separate. that was whether or not we wanted to go into a mitigation stage of 15 days. the travel was another recommendation, when we said we probably should be doing that and the answer was yes. and then another time is we should do it with europe. and the answer was yes. and the next time we should do it with the uk. and the answer was yes. >> in this interview, you said there was pushback. where did that pushback come from. >> no, that was the wrong choice of words. when people discuss, not necessarily in front of the president, but when people discuss, they say well, this is going to have maybe a harmful effect. it wasn't anybody saying no, you shouldn't do that. >> are you doing this

voluntarily? >> everything i do is voluntarily. please. don't even imply that. >> so mr. president -- >> you look at statistics, i happened to write a couple of them down. if you look at statistics, so on january 6, that's long before the dates you're talking about, there were cdc issued a travel notice for wuhan, china, before there was even a confirmed case of the virus in the united states. that's on january 6. this is all documented. because we have so much fake news, i like to document things. january 6, long before the dates we're talking about, cdc issued a travel notice to wuhan, for wuhan. on january 11th, we have zero cases in the united states, zero. we don't have any cases. so there are no cases reported

that we know of. this is january 11. the cdc issued a level one travel notice for health, while there was still no confirmed cases. so we had zero cases. people want me to act. i'm supposed to close down the economy. the greatest economy in the history of the world, and we don't have one case confirmed in the united states. that's january 11. on january 17, the cdc began implementing public health entry screenings at three major u.s. airports that received the greatest volume of passengers from wuhan at my instructions. there was not a single case of the coronavirus in the united states. so on january 17th, there wasn't a case. the fake news is saying he didn't act fast enough. well, you remember what happened, because when i did act, i was criticized by nancy pelosi, by sleepy joe biden. i was criticized by everybody. in fact, i was call ee eed xen s

xenophobic. i was called many other things by democrats and by the media definitely. now, on january 21st, long before the time we're taking. because tony is talking about i believe the end of february. on january 21st, okay? still early. there was one case of the virus at that time, we called it the wuhan virus, right? wuhan. there was one case in the whole united states, we had one case. this is all documented. it all comes from you, a lot of it comes from you people. on january 21st, the cdc ak c y activated an emergency operation center. there was just one case, one person. there was one person in the united states. one case in the whole united states, one case.

i'm supposed to shut down the government, the biggest economy in the history of the world, shut it down. we have one case. seven cases were on january 31st. now, january 21st, there was a case, not one person had died. you heard that, steve? not one person. so we have this massive country, the united states of america. we have the greatest economy in the world. w bigger than china's by a lot because of what we've done in the last 3 1/2 years. prior to the virus but including the virus. so we have the biggest economy, the greatest economy we've ever had, the highest employment numbers, best unemployment numbers also, the best of everything. so on january 31st, think of it, not one person has died. not one. nobody died. i don't think you'll find