>> biden has said that he's not going to adopt something like medicare for all. it remains unlikely he'd do that, even though he and senator sanders are working together. certainly, yasmin, he did say that he was interested in talking about lowering the age for folks in america who are eligible for medicare. that is one health care concession we could see in terms of how they're working together on something like medicare. also, they're both interested in doing things like lowering prescription drug costs and making it easier to access health care. i think they'll work on those things. there's no chance biden will adopt something like medicare for all. i think senator sanders is aware of that. he's finding other ways that he can get concessions on health care. >> alexi mccammond, thank you, as always. great to see you. you can sign up for the newsletter at signup.axios.com. that does it for me on this tuesday morning. i am yasmin vossoughian. "morning joe" starts right now.

nobody knows the system better than me. which is why i alone can fix it. >> the powers of the president are very substantial and will not be questioned. >> iran is a different place than when i took over. when i took over the united states -- when i took over the military, we didn't have ammunition. when somebody is the president of the united states, the authority is total. that's the way it's got to be. >> president trump added another step yesterday -- >> well, no. >> -- in his march toward authoritarianism. he tried. >> he tried. >> good morning and welcome to "morning joe." it's tuesday. >> that's the thing, he tried. he's done this before. i know we really differ here. you're very, very concerned when he talks like that, about the constitution and the country. i'm actually mainly concerned for his mental health.

also, the extraordinary -- i feel very, very badly whenever he speaks that way, willie, for people who have to walk around in shame every day at penn, knowing he graduated from their college. knowing no more about the constitution, madisonian democracy. he blabbered for years. article 2 gives me all the power i need. then you'll have trump apologists going, "well, that's not exactly what he meant to say." he just keeps going back to saying, "yes, ultimate power as president of the united states." he did it again yesterday. >> that was such a perfect snapshot of the trump years. you had president trump saying, yes, authoritarian, something that was authoritarian. we're not surprised he said that, because we just laid out, he's said things like that over and over again.

the reason i said it is a perfect snapshot is a republican, mike pence, a life-long conservative, stepped to the podium and was asked the same question. do you agree with the president's view, that his power is absolute. when someone is president of the united states, the authority is total? you could see him swallow a bit and said, "yes, the president's powers are plentery," meaning they are absolute. >> along with joe, willie, and me, we have national affairs analyst, co-host of showtime's "the circus," and editor and chief of the "recount," john heilemann. big news in politics. and nbc news correspondent carol lee joins us, as well. we'll get to president trump's campaign rally masked as a coronavirus briefing in just a moment. and his claims of having total authority after a month of saying the states bear all the

responsibility. and i have no responsibility. >> look at the constitution. i can't do anything. it's the constitution. suddenly, it's so funny, mika, yesterday afternoon you called me up and said, "hey, cuomo is holding a press conference with the other governors, and trump is going to go crazy." i go, "what do you mean?" "well, since he's giving them the power, they're taking the power and, of course, they're going to figure out when to reopen their states to economic business." >> they're working together to lead. that always gets to him. >> since he won't lead. yesterday,pletely melted down. >> yeah. >> started yapping like an authoritarian wanna-be. >> we'll also be covering the devastating impact the coronavirus is having on the crew of the "uss roosevelt." >> this is a sad story. >> almost 600 members of the 5,000 stationed aboard the "roosevelt" have tested positive

for covid-19. now, a sailor has died from coronavirus-related complications. we'll talk about that. we're also following a huge story in the political world. in wisconsin, a liberal challenger has defeated a republican incumbent for a seat on the wisconsin supreme court. a victory that will have enormous implications for the november election. we will explain that ahead, as well. but we begin with the coronavirus death toll in new york state, which has now surpassed 10,000 people. 671 new yorkers died on sunday, which is about 100 less than the day before. the state continues to edge closer to 200,000 virus cases. the dizzying death rate and hospitalizations trend downward. governor andrew cuomo says the worst of this nightmare might be over but will never be forgotten.

>> 2,700 lives were lost in 9/11. 9/11 changed every new yorker who was in a position to appreciate on that day what happened. and the number of lives lost was horrific after 9/11. the grief was horrific. and we are at 10,000 deaths. we can control the spread. feel good about that. the worst is over. yeah, if we continue to be smart going forward. remember, we have the hand on the valve. you turn that valve too fast, you'll see that number jump right back. >> we're going to be talking to governor cuomo in a little bit this morning. willie, these counts are wildly inaccurate. you had dr. gottlieb tell rich lowry our numbers are as

inaccurate as china's. maybe less so because we don't have community-wide testing. so the numbers are wildly low when you look at the infections. from what i've heard, talking to health care officials, talking to new yorkers, talking to reporters on this story, they all say the same thing. the death count is also dramatically undercounted. so many people are just dying in their homes that never get to the hospital, that don't want to go into the hospital. we will never know. >> people can't get testing. >> we will never know how many people are dying and have died from this disease. >> without question. talk to any doctor in any city, and they will tell you exactly what you said, joe. which is, first of all, you and i both know people who had it but didn't get tested, either because they couldn't get a test or didn't want to waste a test on themselves, when they knew,

sitting in their homes, they had it, and they rode it out. we know, without testing, the numbers are exponentially higher. also, as you say, the number of deaths, people who have been told not to go to the hospital, people who can't go to the hospital because they weren't showing certain signs, stayed home and died at home. we know that's something they're looking at in new york in terms of the total number of deaths. until we have testing, nationwide testing, we will never know. we will never know how many people have this. we will never be able to begin to get our arms around it. we are nowhere close, as the president boasts about having the most raw number of tests in the world. yes, 2 million or so. but in a country of 330 million people, we haven't begun to scratch the surface of the extent of this problem. talking about going back to work, when we have no idea who even has it in this country. only the number of people who tested positive, and there aren't enough tests. that's not enough. it won't be enough for a long time, until we get testing. >> you know, john heilemann, i don't know if, as a young child, you ever put your hand on a hot

stove, but i can tell you, for young children who -- do you still do that? perhaps you still do that. >> oh, yeah. routinely. >> yeah. in fact, that's why you're in the kitchen right now. you do it during breaks, just to make yourself feel alive. >> correct. >> anyway, as a young child who sticks their hand on a hot stove, most learn. that apparently is not the case with some trumpists in the media who are trying to hawk their bo books or who want members of the extreme cult to go to their website. a lot of the mistakes these trump apologists were making throughout january and february and march, saying that this was all overrated, the coverage was a hoax, or who was saying it is just likestopped

saying that, right? suddenly, when people started dying the way they started to die. they took their hand off a hot stove. we've been through a horrendous two or three weeks. now, some of them are starting to put their hands on the hot stove again. some of the very people -- i won't even mention their names. i don't want to promote them. they used to be important voices on the right. some of them even worked in the reagan administration. now, they're going back to the whole yarn that, "oh, it's just the flu. it's just the flu." i wish that all of these white house people and all of the trump people that say "it's just a flu," i'd love for them, if they really feel that way, to get all their family and all of their loved ones together. they can throw a huge party in a barn. they can invite 1,000 other people.

film it, if they really believe that. of course, they're not going to do that. i don't want them to do that. because i actually care about whether americans live or die from this coronavirus. >> right. >> it's hard for me, after all we've been through, to listen to somebody that used to have a shred of respect on the right, say, "this is nothing more than the flu." they're going back to that now. they're starting to say, "oh, see, look, it's not 2 million deaths. it's not 100,000 deaths. it's 60,000 deaths." well, of course, that's the first wave. we don't know how many deaths there will be. this is not the flu. 25 people are dying here. veterans are getting wiped out there. 600 navy shipmates on the "roosevelt" have it. this is a pandemic. yet, they keep going back for

mor more. some of them on the same media outlets that got in trouble for lying to old people, to senior citizens, to the infirmed, the first time around. >> right. it's sick and pathological, joe. we've seen it all throughout the trump era. the consequences were not as great as they are now. i think it is one of the things we have to really be concerned about right now. a combination of things. one of them is, you know, if it is the case that we end up with -- the estimates turn out to be right, that in this wave at least, we only end up with -- only, i say -- end up with 60,000 deaths instead of 100,000 or 200,000 deaths, the missing link there is that the reason that will have happened is because of the extreme social distancing measures that were put in place. so that's the lesson. the lesson is we shut the economy down. we shut down most of the states in the country. it worked, to flatten the curve in those places. not that the virus wasn't as dangerous, as we said.

but that we were able to affect it by taking these dramatic actions. instead, some of the people you're talking about, and it looks like increasingly the president of the united states will say, "hey, maybe this wasn't so bad after all, and now we can get back to business." that is going to be an incredibly dangerous scenario. we all agree that donald trump does not have the power to open or close down the states. those are states -- within states' authority. the president has influence especially with red state governors. if the governors hear donald trump say, "hey, it's time to open for business," they're going to open for business. that could put at risk the lives of tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of americans. of course, we do know we are all one country. it could hit the states harder. it can affect all the other states, too. >> absolutely. >> well, mika, it could not only put those people's lives at risk, and it will. >> it will. >> as we heard yesterday, not just on the coasts, but in

heartland america where, for the most part, in rural communities, people are older and health care systems are not as good. the funding has been gutted by washington the past five years. mika, the second part of that is the economy. i'm scared to death for small business owners who are told, "you can open your store." then the second wave comes. >> that'd be hard to survive. >> i don't know a single doctor that doesn't say some second wave is coming in the fall. >> right. >> we don't know how big it is going to be. could be very bad. we have to prepare. >> well, there are governors working on filling the void in leadership the president left for them. states on the country's east and west coasts are forming regional pacts to coordinate reopening society from the stay at home orders each has issued. the first announcement came yesterday on the east coast, where new york governor cuomo said his state, along with new jersey, connecticut, pennsylvania, delaware, rhode island, and massachusetts, each

plan to name a public health and economic official to help with the reopening plan. each governor's chief of staff will also be a part of the group. later in the day, california, washington, and oregon also announced they would be joining forces to plan to ease stay at home restrictions. the group said they will study data and research from other countries in order to come up with a consistent plan. wow. the governors made their announcements just hours after president trump declared on twitter that it is his decision to decide when to open up the states. wonder if he heard about the councils being set up and just felt very left out. adding that he is working closely with the states, and that a decision would be made shortly. then came the president's coronavirus press briefing. wow. the longest and most combative to date. he lashed out at the press, disputed reports that he was

slow to respond to the pandemic, and then defended his claim to have broad, executive authority over the states. >> what provision in the constitution gives the president the power to open or close state economies? then -- >> numerous provisions. we'll give you a legal brief if you want. >> the states closed, ordered schools closed. states ordered restaurants and -- >> because i let that happen. i would have preferred that. i let that happen. if i wanted to, i could have closed it up. the president of the united states has the authority to do what the president has the authority to do, which is very powerful. the president of the united states calls the shots. they can't do anything without the approval of the president of the united states. >> mr. president. >> when somebody is the president of the united states, the authority is total. that's the way it's got to be. >> total, your authority is total? >> total. >> you said when someone is president of the united states, their authority is total. that is not true. who told you that? >> you know what we're going to

do? we're going to write up papers on this. it is not going to be necessary because the governors need us one way or the other. ultimately, it comes with the federal government. that being said, we're getting along very well with the governors. i feel very certain that there won't be a problem. yeah, go ahead. >> has any governor agreed that you have the authority to decide when their state -- >> i haven't asked anybody. you know why? because i don't have to. go ahead, please. >> who told you the president has the total authority? >> enough, please. >> wow. there was a lot more melting down than we showed you there. none of it had a lot of new information in it or news value. >> there was actually just -- >> zero. >> let's be clear, no news coming from the president. >> no. >> nothing new coming from the president. >> he was very upset. >> two hours. >> very out of whack. outside of himself and angry. >> it was a sad display. >> he picked on reporters. there was this strange little video. >> felt bad. >> on taxpayer's dollar.

>> for everybody. >> staffers edited a video where sound bites were taken out of context and graphics were made to attack the media. >> you know what made it special? >> this is what the president is making his staff do on coronavirus time. >> the sweeping orchestra in the background that you play during campaigns. i'm watching this and going, are you kidding me? >> this was sad. >> it is like taxpayers made a campaign ad for donald trump to air at this briefing. >> then his top scientists were sitting there, watching this video instead of doing what they need to do to save lives. so let's see, you've got your scientists at your two-hour press conferences. you won't invoke the defense production act to coordinate something nationally. >> for testing. >> and use your power. you won't do that? then you say it is all on the governors. so the governors step up. they step up and they try and

help. they step up to fill the void in leadership that you left wide open and you told was on them. now, you're freaking out. this is truly pathetic. sad for americans who are struggling through this, who need so much more from the president of the united states and the white house, the people in the white house who work for him. carol lee, is there any information that you have heard as to what was behind this, beyond the obvious, the governors outshining the president of the united states? >> reporter: well, part of it is that what the president is saying really fits what he wants his agenda to be, which is to open the economy. what was so remarkable about yesterday is that, for weeks, when governors were not issuing stay at home orders across their states, and there was concern and there were calls for the president to issue a national stay at home recommendation, not even an order, the president was

saying that he didn't have the authority to tell the states what to do. yesterday -- and this was just a week before his press conference i asked him this question. he said, "you know, it's the constitution. i can't do that." now, we see him yesterday saying that he has absolute authority to tell the states what to do. really, what he's trying to do here, and we've seen this before, is bend the constitution and use it as an excuse for what he wants to do. whatever that is. before, it was that he didn't have the authority. now, it is that he has the absolute authority. what we've seen, as you guys have been talking about, is that while he was saying he couldn't come in and tell states what to do, he wasn't going to issue a recommendation, not even an order, stay at home orders, states took it upon themselves to cut him out. he's not part of the conversation. now, he's in the situation where he desperately wants to have some sort of economic opening beginning on may 1st.

he needs dpov knogovernors to dm what he actually doesn't have the authority to tell them to do. because he's so determined to have some sort of economic opening on may 1st. he's worried, frankly, about what this is going to do for his election in november. >> you know, there are a couple of things that, speaking of november, there are a couple of things that upset the president. of course, the "new york times" article this past weekend, the list of the dates, all the recei receipts, all the president's screw-ups. there was a "washington post," of course, article from last week, "70 days of dithering." i forget the headline, but it was "70 days of dithering." also, wisconsin, willie. make no mistake about it. >> forgot about that. >> this is a president who feels the walls closing in. pennsylvania is biden country. good luck in scranton, mr. president. good luck in the suburb

phillies. i'm sure the suburbs of pittsburgh also right now, very concerned at your poor handling of this. he has insulted the governor of michigan, who is wildly o p lly there. won't call her by her name. then in wisconsin, we'll get to those elections in a second. willie, he kept talking about what he did on his toothless china pan at the end of january, which was pathetic. 40,000 people came in after that toothless ban. just really quickly, i'll run down these quotes quickly. on february 10th, he said at the white house, "we're in great shape. we have 12 cases, 11 cases, and many of them are in good shape now." on february 23rd, almost a full month later, he said, "we have it very much under control in this country." february 24th, "the coronavirus is very much under control in the usa." february 26th, "we're at a low

level. as they got better, we take them off the list. pretty soon, we're going to be down to only five people." that was on february 26th. of course, we know now how many people have died in america. february 26th, he goes in again, "when you have 15 people and the 15 people within a couple days is going to be down to close to zero, that's a pretty good job that we've done." close to zero. how many americans have died of this now? >> we're at 22,000. >> 22,000. february 26th, he said, "we're going down, not up," at a press conference. february 27th, he says, "it's going to disappear one day. it's like a miracle, it will disappear." that's february 27th. that's like almost a month after he claims that he's doing all of these great things with his toothless china pban. march 7th, he says, "i'm not

concerned at all. no, we've done a great job. i'm not concerned at all." on march the 10th, he said, "we're doing a great job with it, and it will go away. just stay calm. it will go away." willie, that was in march. yet, willie, more people have died since then than died on 9/11, than died on both iraq wars, that died in the afghanistan war. the president was saying late into february, quote, i'm not concerned at all. >> joe, we could read those quotes all morning. if you want to go back to late january on cnbc, when the president of the united states said, "we have it totally under control. it's one person on china." february 10th, when he said, "when the april weather comes, it is going to warm up and miraculously this thing will go away." there is no question that he downplayed this for months and months, when we should have been ramping up testing, getting ppe into hospitals.

that's a fact. none of that was in the campaign video that he played in the briefing room yesterday, that left out effectively the entire month of february, along with portions of march and some of that late january quotations that i mentioned. it wasn't there. that entire preere preebriefing refutation, attempted refutation of the "new york times" piece that made him so angry. here's an exchange with president trump and a cbs reporter about the quotes you read, the ones i cited left out of the video. >> what did you do with the time you -- the month of february. there was a gap. >> what do you do. >> the entire month of february. >> what do you do when you have no case in the whole united states. >> you had cases. >> excuse me. you reported it. zero cases, zero deaths on january 17th. >> january. february, the entire month of february. >> i said in january. >> there is a complete gap. >> january 30th. >> what did your administration do in february, from the time your travel ban --

>> a lot. >> what? >> we'll give you a list. part of it was up there. >> it wasn't. the video had gaps. >> look. you know you're a fake. you know that. your network, the way you cover it is fake. >> mika, that's what the president does when there is no good answer to that question. you bark down at the reporter. paula reid there of cbs. there is no answer. he put in that travel restriction, which, as joe pointed out, was full of holes and let 40,000 people or so back into the u.s. they did nothing in february, which therein lies the problem. fundamentally, when he said, "we had zero deaths. we had no problem. what would you have done?" the point of this, as dr. fauci and dr. birx said, is continue on the trajectory. not to take your foot off the gas. look at the numbers and say, "we're good. next problem." no, you put in place policies that keep the number low. you don't put in one toothless travel ban and walk away. >> well, and carol lee, you have

also, of course -- it is a cbs reporter. when was it, a month ago, month and a half ago, when a cbs reporter was talking to kellyanne conway about this, and kellyanne conway said, "it's contained. are you a doctor," and started yelling at her. said, "it's contained, completecomplete ly contained." same time larry kudlow said the coronavirus was contained. now, 20,000 deaths later, here we find ourselves with the president wanting to pretend the month of february didn't happ . happen.happen. >> yeah, joe. he's hung on the china ban. there were a number of holes in the travel ban he initiated early on in january. the problem is, and when the president -- they showed this video yesterday in the briefing room. they quoted maggie haberman of the "new york times," doing an interview with a podcast, saying

that -- talking about the effectiveness of this ban on china. what they cut out -- and she was right about this -- is what she said was that the president acted as if this was his mission accomplished moment. he's really just zeroed in on that. completely ignored everything else that could have been done and should have been done in the weeks after that. so every time we are in these briefings and he's confronted with what he didn't do, he always reverts back to this ban on travel to china. yes, it was important, but it wasn't the only thing that he should have done and could have done. you could create an entire other video of all of those quotes that you all just mentioned, that would paint a dramatically different picture. the president, what he was trying to do is what he always does when he feels backed into a corner. >> exactly. >> the question is whether it'll work this time. it doesn't seem like it is. >> definitely. carol lee, thank you so much. you've definitely seen the

president backed into a corner yesterday. you see what happens. he starts talking about all his pour, a power and acts like a little baby, to use his language. i want to read a tweet before going to break. liz cheney felt the need to tweet yesterday evening. "the federal government does not have absolute power." she quoted from the constitution, "the power is not delegated to the united states by the constitution, nor prohibited to the states, a reserve to the states respectively, or to the people." i think the president really, at this point, is going to find that he is going to hit a wall if he thinks that he is king of america. it's not how it works. >> i wonder if donald trump knows -- i don't wonder. that's a rhetorical question, whether it's the 10th amendment. i had that hanging outside my office at the 127 cannon office

building. good to know republicans still believe that. ahead, the governor of new york, andrew cuomo, joins us. first, we reported on the "uss theodore roosevelt" last week, after its commanding officer was fired for warning about the coronavirus spreading on board his ship. now, a sailor is dead. some 600 are sickened with the virus. we'll talk to retired four-star admiral jam adderall next on "morning joe." it is being contained. do you not think it is contained in this country? >> i'm not a doctor or lawyer. >> are you a doctor or lawyer. you said something that's not true. we've got the retinol that gives you results in one week. not just any retinol. accelerated retinol sa. for not only smoother skin in one day, but younger-looking skin in just one week. and that's clinically proven. results that fast or your money back.

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welcome back to "morning joe." a sailor assigned to the aircraft carrier "uss roosevelt" has died from coronavirus-related complications. the navy announced the news yesterday. it is the first death of a sailor from the virus-stricken carrier that was forced to dock

in guam last month. the navy said it was the first virus-caused death of an active service member. in all, nearly 600 members of the 5,000 stationed aboard the "roosevelt" have tested positive for covid-19. all have been removed from the ship and are living in isolated quarters on guam. four were hospitalized over the weekend, but none in intensive. you'll remember the outbreak led to the removal of captain brett crozier after his letter demanding action from the navy was leaked to the press. shortly thereafter, acting secretary of the navy, thomas mod l modly resigned, after he flew to the ship to insult captain crozier to his crew. joining us now, retired four-star navy admiral, jam jamjames james stavridis. you have commanded a carrier strike group yourself. you know what it is like to lead

a group of men aboard a ship like this. it seems to me the death we saw yesterday is exactly what captain crozier was worried about, what he warned about, and what he was fired for. >> that's exactly right, willie. let's first -- why is this? why do we have 600 sailors? that's 10% of the crew. think of that adjusted nationally for the united states. that'd be as though the united states had somewhere around 35 million cases. we've got about 500,000. so the carrier is full of covid-19. why is that? i'd invite everybody to think about your kitchen at home. say, a nice suburban kitchen. except think of it with 15 people living in it. they're packed in there. our sailors are in these compartments which turn into places where coronavirus simply multiplies. captain crozier knew that. he saw that coming.

i believe he first went to the chain of command. he didn't get sufficient action, from all i can see. we'll have an investigation that will tell us exactly what happened. then he did what i think a commanding officer should do. he put the welfare and safety of his crew first. because we are not at war. if we were at war, we would fight through it. we'd fight with 10% of the crew ill. we could do that. we're not at war. the captain made the right call, pushing the navy to take that ship offline. it is a tragedy that that sailor died. but everything that has happened, in my view, validates what captain crozier attempted to do. >> admiral, obviously, he was making that plea, captain crozier, when it went public out of desperation. he didn't think he was getting the support he needed up the

>>. >> should he have acted differently? secretary modly flew to the ship, doing what he thought president trump would want. the captain was cheered by the crew leaving the ship. did he do anything wrong, as someone with command of one of these ships itself? >> i want to see the results of the investigation that tell us exactly what relief was offered to captain crozier before he launched that missile of a letter. should he have kept that in classified channels? yes. i think he should have. should he have had a narrow distribution of that letter strictly to his chain of command? yes, he should have. in desperation, instead of a broadly release letter, he could have picked up the phone and called the chief of naval operatio operations, called the chief of the navy. instead, he took a public push.

he must have felt that was what was required to keep his crew safe. so i think he would probably say, "look, i took those chances. i knew my career was at risk. but i did what i felt i had to do for my crew." you know, when i see that video of hundreds, if not thousands, of his crew members cheering him as he left the ship, i think that that's a commanding officer who can walk off tr roosevelt, legacy of president roesz veose with his head held high. >> admiral -- >> now we know 600 sailors aboard the ship have it, joe. one of them has died. joe? >> so, admiral, let's just look at this crisis that we're facing. there's obviously a lack of leadership coming out of the white house. i think even many of donald trump's own supporters would agree with that. it's just been erratic,

frightening, how we lost well over a month in february, as we've gone through the timeline. every scientist, every doctor says we can expect this to re-emerge in the fall. you have been in charge of leading so many men and women. you've been in charge of logistics. tell me, admiral, how would you handle this crisis starting today, planning for not only to reopen the country, but also to look forward to the fall and prepare for the second wave of this pandemic. >> joe, first and foremost, i would emphasize what we've all been talking about, which is a national level campaign of testing. until we can open our eyes, literally, and see what's in front of us with some certainty, we're not going to make the right choices.

first and foremost is testing. secondly, keep the foot on the pedal of treatment so that we can have paltiatives. that's the key to reopening the country, the testing regime coupled with a treatment regime. then you put it in a rolling wave. it is like a military campaign. you have to have goals and timelines. you'll move regionally and safely. third and finally, i would encourage leadership to be thinking about what can the military do in this? we've seen the edge of that, with "comfort" and "mercy." some deployments of our national guard. joe, as you know, there are 1.2 million young men and women, all volunteers, predisposed to serve others in the military today. there are 800,000 reservists. it is an enormous force. if we were thinking now about that second wave, we would think coherently about how we could

imempli imploy all of that to help us in what is inevitably a second wave, but one we will be vastly better prepared to deal with. >> admiral, finally, obviously, people who consider us -- countries who consider themselves to be enemies of the united states of america are going to look for weaknesses, are going to look possibly to attack us in weak spots when we are down. what's the greatest national security threat, other than this pandemic, that you would be telling the president to be prepared for? >> you know, the conventional answer to that would be, watch out for china, which seems to have made the turn more swiftly than we have coming out of this, although we can't really trust their numbers. i'll tell you what i would watch for. i would watch for cyber, a cy r cyberattack, for two reasons. one, we're constantly vul nusnee in our zone. now, so many businesses, economic processes, our military

activities are shifting over into the cyber sphere, as we put everything online. it creates a new vulnerability. it won't just be china. russia is very good. iran is quite capable. north korea, not bad. watch for cyber as a threat based on the way we're shifting the economy at the moment. >> all right. retired four-star admiral james stavridis, thank you so much. coming up, president trump insists he alone can reopen the country. eugene robinson says a different group has the power, we the people. we will read from gene's new column just ahead on "morning joe." >> we're going to be talking about that wisconsin result. >> oh, my. big neese. >> it's really shocked the white house. people, obviously, looking forward to the 2020 election. >> that was a shocker. ♪ you should be mad they gave this guy a promotion.

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last week, the wisconsin-led legislature, backed by ma jorjo courts, forced an election in the middle of a pandemic. joe biden won over bernie sanders in the democratic primary. it's the result of another race that is most notable. liberal challenger jill karofsky defeated republican incumbent daniel kelly for a seat on the

wisconsin supreme court. despite president trump's endorsement of kelly with 90% of the returns counted, karofsky led kelly by more than 100,000 votes and 7 percentage points. the result narrows to a 4-3. the conservative majority on the non-partisan wisconsin supreme court, with the next seat up for election in 2023. the court is expected soon to decide a case that seeks to purge more than 200,000 people from wisconsin's voter rolls. the republican party of wisconsin issued a statement yesterday, saying they are disappointed in kelly's loss. accused democrats of attempting to rig the election in their favor. >> i'm sorry. john heilemann -- >> are you serious? >> john, i mean, you know, in the immortal words of forrest gump, "stupid is as stupid do ,

does." in this case, stupid would be the wisconsin republican party, forced people to go out and vote in the middle of a pandemic, believing that it would lower turnout and would elect a republican so they could purge voter rolls. now, with one conservative voting with the two liberals in that 3-3 deadlock case, now we have that ramification, that voting rights case actually may favor the voters. maybe there won't be the massive voter purge republicans in wisconsin wanted to do. also, man, you look at kenosha. if tim russet was alive, he'd say, 2020 is wisconsin, wisconsin. more specifically, kenosha, kenosha, kenosha. kenosha went big for the democr democrats' candidate. >> not just stupid is as stupid

does, but stupider is as stupider does. in this case, stupider was donald trump. i think you may remember, on the friday before the scheduled wisconsin election, donald trump, at the daily white house briefing, the show that we look at every day, he got up and said that the reason the governor wanted to cancel or postpone the election was because he, donald trump had, that day, endorsed, in a very strong way, daniel kelly, the republican who was in that supreme court election, for the chief justice. trump made the implausible claim that day he endorsed him that morning and his poll numbers already shot through the roof over the course of the subsequent three or four hours since he issued the endorsement. that was his position. "i endorsed this guy today. poll numbers shot through the roof. now, the governor wants to shut down this election." well, it turns out the gov nor d governor did try to postpone the

vote on the public health. the election was held. lo and behold, look what happened. donald trump's endorsement didn't turn out to keep the supreme court seat in republican hands. in fact, the opposite thing has happened. as you pointed out, with this new democrat, jill karofsky, on the court, and the one conservative justice siding with liberals on this voting purge question, you have the 4-3 majority not to do the purge. the purge, 200,000 names on the voter rolls at stake in the purge, it could be the difference between republicans -- donald trump, let's be specific, could be the difference between donald trump winning in wisconsin this november and losing in wisconsin this november. probably the most important state in the election this november. this could turn out to be the decisive thing that keeps republicans from being able to steal this election in wisconsin. we now have a chance to not have

that voter purge take place, and to have something that approximates a fair election in wisconsin. it is a huge moment right now. this thing backfired in the most dramatic way possible. not just on republicans but on donald trump himself. >> john, let's talk about november. we know in 2016 the spread was less than 23,000 votes that gave that state to donald trump over hillary clinton. if you look at turnout last week, and we got the results in last night that we saw the new justice headed for a ten-year term to the supreme court. progressive justice unseating a scott walker, conservative justice there. what about turnout there? in milwaukee, 180 polling places were taken down to five. people lined up for hours in the rain and the cold during a pandemic to vote. what is the turnout in that primary telling you about what we may see in the critical state in november? >> well, look, it'll be

impossible to judge anything on the basis of that primary, given the unusual circumstances. so many voters who decided to stay away from the polls for reasons of their health. even in those -- in that environment, even in that environment, you saw this overwhelming democratic turnout in the state of wisconsin. relatively speaking, the turnout was not as high as it would have been if this wasn't taking place in the middle of a pandemic. the democrats haven't won a judicial election to that supreme court in a long time. it's the case that if you can't help but look at the fact that so many democrats were given this unpalatable choice, between protecting their personal safety and public health, and exercising the right to vote. they decided to do it anyway. there was a lopsided victory in the race, which was so important. it was across the state. so i think if you're republicans looking at the state of affairs coming out of this truncated

democratic primary season, what we've seen in january, february, march, and now into april, as most of the primary elections and elections have been postponed in other states, there's nothing since march, since february and into march and now april, there's nothing you can look at if you're a republican, in the way the democratic primaries played out, and not be nervous about the fact that democrats are incredibly energized, incredibly fired up. you can't help but think president trump's performance in this pandemic is only going to raise the stakes on this election and drive democratic engagement even higher. >> we've been saying it for some time now. those presidential briefings every day actually damage trudod tru trump's brand, his poll numbers. >> totally. >> if you're in pittsburgh, if you're in the suburbs of philly, you're worried about your parents or grandparents getting this. if you're in florida, central florida, where there's so many senior citizens, and you're

worried about your mom or dad getting this, or your grandparents getting this, and you see that farce going on in the white house yesterday for over two hours. a president who doesn't want to talk about his concern for the sick, his concern for the dying but, instead, just, of course, talks about himself. it's going to be devastating for poll numbers. mika, you can look at what happened in wisconsin. who knows what's going to happen in the fall. look at what happened in wisconsin. look what happened in 2019 special elections. look at the historic landslide in the house in 2018. look what happened in 2017. donald trump has, it seems, has lost just about every critical race that he could lose. even when republicans win, they seem to be underperforming in

dramatic, sometimes historic fashion. that happened again yesterday. >> yeah. >> as we've been saying for a very long time, donald trump is toxic to the republican brand. you look at -- i know we have to go, but i'm sorry, john heilemann, alex is going to yell at me, but i have to bring this up. i was reading the "banger" newspaper yesterday and saw that susan collins is sitting with a 37% approval rating in maine. 54% disapproval in maine. this is -- trump is just absolutely destroying her chances. whether you look from maine to arizona, this guy is toxic. >> yes. i mean, look, joe, you made the point. the reality is that whatever you think of the strength of donald tru trump's base, everything we talk about in terms of how he's been able to maintain the loyalty of the core group that support him, the reality is that in 2017,

2018, 2019, and now into 2020, every time voters have had a chance to try to vote in a proxy contest, which is what all of these are now, every election is about donald trump. every instance, the electorate is basically saying, "we want to cast our vote against donald trump. "m measured in every possible way. you've seen it three and a half years. people say, "trump doesn't pay a price for all of his lies and all of his misgovernment, all the things we say he does wrong." he has paid a pride, and the republican party has consistently for three and a half years. i think it's -- you know, if i'm a republican right now, i'm looking at this bargain with trump, and i'm thinking to myself, like susan collins must be, "oh, my god, the piper is about to get paid in november, and it potentially could be very, very ugly." for republicans, that is. >> trump scandals, john

heilemann, the proof was redacted, rebranded, didn't really touch the american people or his people. now, the proof is in the suffering that people are feeling today. the proof is in the death toll. you can't hide that. john heilemann, thank you very much. >> by the way, mika, the proof every day is in the testing. >> there's no testing. >> millions and millions of americans cannot get it. yet, they see the president of the united states lying every day. saying, remember march 6th, the president said, "if you want a test, you can get a test. "that that's the same day kellyanne convey saway said you can get o. larry kudlow said it was contained. the president said, "if you want a test, you can get a test." here we are, the middle of april, millions and millions of americans still cannot get a test. >> they can see it for themselves. coming up, we're going to have dr. dave campbell joining us. he is taking a look at what's going on in nursing homes across the country.

also ahead, the pre-existing condition in the oval office. how the trump administration's war on science made the nation vulnerable to this public health crisis. ♪ 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. an effortless transaction- all without leaving the comfort- and safety of your home. that's the power of sanctuary. and for a little extra help, receive 0% apr financing and defer your first payment up to 120 days on the purchase of a new lincoln.

2,700 lives were lost in 9/11, and 9/11 changed every new yorker who was in a position to

appreciate, on that day, what happened. and the number of lives lost was horrific after 9/11. the grief was horrific. and we are at 10,000 deaths. we can control the spread. fe feel good about that. the worst is over. yeah, if we continue to be smart going forward. because, remember, we have the hand on the valve. you turn that valve too fast, you'll see that number jump right back. >> just past the top of the hour. the coronavirus death toll in new york state has now surpassed 10,000 people. 671 new yorkers died on sunday, which is about 100 less than the day before. the state continues to edge closer to 200,000 virus cases. governor andrew cuomo says the worst of this nightmare may be over. >> let's be clear. >> let's play.

>> in the first wave. the worst is over in the first wave. so many expect another wave this fall. >> the governor will be our guest coming up this morning. a lot to talk to him about. joining joe, willie, and me, we have washington anchor for bbc world news america, katty kay. editor of the "new yorker" magazine, david rem nick. pulitzer prize-winning columnist and editor of the "washington post" and msnbc analyst, eugene robinson. great to have you all on board. states on the east and west coasts are forming regional pacts to coordinate reopening society from the stay at home orders each has issued. the first announcement came yesterday on the east coast, where new york governor cuomo and his state, along with new jersey, connecticut, pennsylvania, delaware, rhode island, and massachusetts, each plan to name a public health and economic official to help with the reopening plan. each governor's chief of staff will also be a part of this

group. later in the day, california, washington, and oregon also announced they would be joining forces to plan to ease stay at home restrictions. the group said they are going to study data and research from other countries in order to come up with a consistent plan, a plan that, hopefully, keeps people safe. now, the governors made their announcements just hours after president trump declared on twitter that it is his decision to decide when to open up the states. adding that he is working closely with the states and that a decision will be made shortly. then came the president's crazy coronavirus press briefing. the longest and most combative to date. >> it was -- man. >> he went nuts on the press. >> unmoored. >> weird video. >> even more unmoored than usual. i think he lifted part of that video from fox news show, actually. >> i think he worked with a friend at fox to, like, come up with the idea and put together

clips. some of them were taken out of context to back up his claim that he really was prepared for the pandemic. clearly, the record shows he wasn't. at times, even pushed back. he also talked about his broad executive authority over the states. >> what provision in the constitution gives the president the power to open or close state economies? and then -- >> numerous provision. we'll give you a legal brief if you want. >> the states closed, ordered schools closed. the states ordered businesses like restaurants. >> i let that happen. because i would have preferred that. i let that happen. if i wanted to, i could have closed it up. the president of the united states has the authority to do what the president has the authority to do, which is very powerful. the president of the united states calls the shots. they can't do anything without the approval of the president of the united states. >> mr. president. >> when somebody is the president of the united states, the authority is total.

that's the way it's got to be. >> total, your authority is total? >> total. >> you said when someone is president of the united states, their authority is total. that is not true. who told you that? >> you know what we're going to do? we're going to write up papers on this. it is not going to be necessary. because the governors need us one way or the other. ultimately, it comes with the federal government. that being said, we're getting along very well with the governors. i feel very certain that there won't be a problem. please, go ahead. >> has any governor agreed that you have the authority to decide when their state opens back up? >> i haven't asked anyone. you know why? i don't have to. >> who told you the president has total authority? >> enough. >> hold on. hold on. >> is he in eighth grade? >> everything i learned in constitutional law was wrong, if you believe donald trump. everything. this isn't -- this is a pre-existing condition, as david remnick said. we have the receipts.

roll the tape. >> nobody knows the system better than me. which is why i alone can fix it. >> the powers of the president are very substantial and will not be questioned. >> iran is a different place than when i look over. when i took over the united states states. when i took over the military, we didn't have ammunition. when somebody is the president of the united states, the authority is total. that's the way it's got to be. >> yeah. whatever. so, david remnick -- >> is someone going to tell him? >> i love reading what you wrote on election night. it was so prescient. this is what david posted at 2: 00 a.m. election night. the election of donald trump to the presidency is nothing less than a tragedy for the american public. a tragedy for the constitution.

a triumph for the forces at home and aboard, of nativism, authoritarian, misogyny, and racism. trump's shocking victory -- i have to keep reading. his ascension to the presidency is a sickening event in the history of the united states and liberal democracy. david, of course, i'm always pollyannis pollyannish. i run around telling everybody it'll be okay. usually it is. i have to say, you nailed it on election night. you're calling this a precyst g i -- pre-existing conditions. we could have put in clips where he said, "article 2 gives me absolute power." this is his view of power. it is a completely ignorant view of power. he doesn't know the system better than anybody. in fact, you could look at those clips and say that perhaps he knows the system less than anybody that's ever sat in the

oval office. >> well, i think when he used to say, "i know the system better than anybody else," he admitted that he felt that he knew the tax system better than anybody else. he was very adept at getting away with paying those taxes. you know, this whole episode makes me think back to a couple of days after trump was elected. i was able to go to the white house and interview barack obama just after he met with trump. subsequent reporting in that interview allowed me to get some insight into what their one major encounter was like. over and over, obama would try to pass on really important information, classified information, to the president-elect about north korea, about the iran nuclear deal, about all of these things, including national emergencies. at one point, he said to trump, "you know, i have this woman, lisa monaco, who is my homeland

security person. they call her dr. doom because she comes to me with the most inconvenient information. doesn't sugar coat it and forces me to look reality in the eye." trump jokingly, who spent most of the encounter talking about the enormous size of his rallies and his crowds and popularity, and not listening to any of these important briefings, finally said, "yeah, maybe i will hire somebody like lisa monaco, my own dr. doom who will tell it to me straight." of course he did not. he's not interested in that. he's not interested in science. he's not interested in ever being contradicted or facing reality in time, if it is inconvenient. he has an authoritarian personality. we saw it at this briefing yesterday when he went on and on about his unlimited powers. there are times, unfortunately, and i don't say this easily, he reminds me of my years covering the soviet union, in the worst

sense. it is a chilling, chilling thing to witness. >> in fact, really all we heard from dr. fauci yesterday, it seemed, his primary purpose for being there was to come out and apologize for something he said the day before in an interview. where he said, "yeah, we probably should have put in social distancing a month earlier than we did." he shad to go out and say, "it was a poor choice of words. i shouldn't have answered a hypothetical question." then president trump talked for two hours. gene, joe talked about trump going against everything he learned in his constitutional law class. maybe look back to the revolution. get a ticket to "hamilton." we didn't have a king with executive authority over everything. he is talking about his sole power to open the government, whatever it means from the federal level. as we been reporting all

morning, the governors on the east coast -- we'll talk to cuomo in a moment -- and a group on the west coast know they're the ones that implemented these shutdowns, closed the schools, did all the things they did, all the measures they took. they will be the ones who open them. they know the president is wrong. they don't have time for the two-hour news briefing. they're moving ahead without him. >> yeah. i assume the governors were not watching that dumpster fire of an appearance by the president yesterday. as you said, they have a lot to do. i mean, the east coast governors, the west coast governors are moving on. they are figuring out how to -- once the pandemic subsides to a point where they believe it is safe, they're working on how to, in a sort of phased way, with

testing, with contact tracing, everything the federal government should have been organizing but didn't, how to begin opening up the country. that's a good thing. we will all recall that in recent briefings, the president has been putting all the responsibility on the governors. they should have gotten the v t ventilators. they should have gotten the ppe. what am i, a shipping clerk? they should have done all this stuff and handled this crisis. blame them. now, it's this absurd claim that he has more power than the kings and queens of england, actually, at least since the magna carta. some sort of absolute power, which is ridiculous on its face. also disturbing. the man is president of the united states. he's sitting in the white house. we hope it's not very much longer, but that's where he is.

he is, at the very least, being of no help in this situation. actually, you know, this is damaging. this was a waste of everybody's time yesterday. he can see it's been getting worse and worse and worse. who knows what today's briefing will be like, if, indeed, there is one. >> katty kay, take a look at the chart from the "financial times" that shows the united states and great britain continue to skyrocket upward in cases. beyond everybody else. again, the two leaders of the free world, during world war ii and after. now, unfortunately, have lagged behind everybody else. i think one of the things we found out is that harold wilson

said said, "in politics, a week is a lifetime, or a long time." we learned the same with pandemics, haven't we? you look what california did, shutting down when they shut down. look at what san francisco did. it's extraordinary, how few numbers of coronavirus cases are coming out of california. they shut down earlier than everybody else. >> yeah. this is something that unfolded in days. it really seems like there was critical period in the middle of march, around five days to seven days, that made the difference between california shutting down and areas on the east coast shutting down. look at the difference in their death toll. i think the question, partly, was the authority question yesterday in the press conference that was so alarming. but the other bit of that press conference that i found so distressing was when president trump was asked repeatedly, "what did you do in february with the time that was bought?"

you shut down the flights, partially shut down the flights from china. what'd you do in february? he was asked again and again, and he had no answer. it worried me because i was thinking, what are they doing now? we are in a critical stage now where we have to be doing things to prepare to open up again. we have to be getting the wide spread testing. we have to be putting in place thousands of people to do contact tracing. they're starting to do it a little bit in massachusetts. it's going to be thousands of people who need to be trained to do the contact tracing. we need to be putting in place the quarantine facilities. so when you do find somebody positive, and you contact trace the people they've been in contact with, you put those people into quarantine. therefore, you isolate the virus. i don't see those things happening. it feels like we are wasting time again. you look to that press conference. last night, i was listening to the press conference. i started listening to it, then i thought, okay, i listened for half an hour. i took the dog for a walk and came back. i thought, okay. i have to make dinner for the

family. i start making dinner, put my airpods back in. he's still going, hour and a half later. my primary anxiety at this point is, fauci has been standing there for two hours. could he have a break? the country would be better if fauci laid down for two hours and had some sleep, or did his work, doing anything other than standing there. the process we need to happen to reopen the country is not happening in the window we're buying again. >> so true. >> the staggering part is trudod trump spoke for two hours and made no news. he settled scores with the press. he repeated a lot of the same things. two hours, no news made. david remnick, this is a before and after clip of donald trump on federalism. take a look. >> i don't take responsibility at all. we're letting the governors do

in their states pretty much what they want. so you have to look. you have to give a little flexibility. we have a thing called the constitution, which i cherish, number one. as you know, i want the governors to be running things. the president of the united states has the authority to do what the president has the authority to do, which is very powerful. the president of the united states calls the shots. they can't do anything without the approval of the president. >> mr. president. >> when somebody is the president of the united states, the authority is total. that's the way it's got to be. >> total, your authority is total? >> total. >> what happened? >> james, i have to say -- yes, i've been to law school. more importantly, i've seen "hamilton" ma tiny times. james madison and alexander hamilton would disagree. getting back to your concerns, david, about who i've called an autocrat in waiting for a couple of years. conservative writer yesterday

said, "listen, here's the deal, donald trump didn't believe what he said yesterday any more than he believed what he said on april 4th. because donald trump doesn't believe in anything." which is -- >> conservative -- liberal or conservative, that's just an observant remark. observant of reality. news flash, he's not a competent executive. news flash, he's not much -- it's not that he's not a constitutional scholar. it's not absolutely clear he has read it, by the evidence. what seemed to take place in the pre briefing room yesterday, and day after excruciating day, is, more than anything, donald trump framing a re-election strategy. a re-election rhetoric tahat's based on finding enemies, whether it's the obama administration, the w.h.o., the

international community, other countries, the press. he's framing his run for office in november. that's clearly what's happening. whether he is doing a good job of it or not is determined by who you are. i think if you look over on fox, he's doing a brilliant job. as a result, he's taking on a press secretary now who is quoted as saying, in the thick of this, the most per preposterous things. he is looki inin ining not at t reality. it is a catastrophic event of the natural world, but he's making it much worse by making it a political catastrophe. no one is suggesting that this pandemic is the fault of politicians. certainly not an american one. but he has kpas paexacerbated i such a degree that the price is

very, very deep and tragic. >> and, of course, the press secretary you're speaking of poeldly proclaimed, i think to trish raegan, that donald trump, as president, would never let the coronavirus come to america. willie, yes, president trump doesn't believe in anything. he doesn't, according to this conservative writer, didn't believe what he said yesterday or on april 4th, because he is a day trader. some argue he is a clown and we shouldn't worry about him. he may be a clown, but it makes him more dangerous. he is so unmoored eidealogicall. he is not a conservative or a liberal. the only thing he believes in as a day trader is increasing his power and his authority. >> yeah. obviously, you know many of these people. the principle conservatives who were conservative during the

trump years came out immediately yesterday and said, "whoa, put the brakes on what the president said yesterday." what a monumental waste of time. let's be honest, that we have to have this debate. again, we're debating middle school american history right now in the middle of a pandemic. so that's why i think, as you said, there is no news when the president of the united states speaks. if dr. fauci and dr. birx are giving an update about what's happening in the country, what is being done to enhance testing, to get it out across the country, or ppe, ventilators from places where they're needed, that's one thing. two hours of the president having a personal therapy session, venting because there was a big, deeply reported "new york times" piece on saturday, is a complete waste of the country's time in a critical moment right now. >> a waste of dr. birx and dr. fauci's time, which is so insulting, to cat katty's point. it is insulting and damaging, having them sitting there, listening to this useless garbage that he is putting out.

disinformation. while his top scientists are standing there for hours every single day. when we got to the useful portions of yesterday's briefing, dr. deborah birx talked about ways to protect vulnerable senior citizens amid the pandemic. >> we really need to continue to protect and continue to test in nursing homes. because we know that that's a particularly vulnerable group. it's a group where, often now, we're beginning to understand asymptomatic transmission. no one is intending to pass the virus on to others, but we know in essential workers around the united states, people are unknowingly infected and passing the virus on. so those are the ones that we're very interested in finding. you might say, "how do you find them, paubecause they don't hav symptoms." this is where we have to increase surveillance in a dl deliberative and understanding

way. i think we can see where there's outbreaks. once people have symptoms, you can see them. where do you do senturveillance before the symptoms? >> testing, testing, testing. >> which the president said 3 million tests have been conducted. he was quite proud of that number. it doesn't give us any answers as to when we're going to have a real testing system. >> would be very good if we were luxembourg. >> it'd be good if we could test people all the time. we can't. according to "usa today," 2,300 nursing home facilities in 37 states reported cases. the "associated press" notes the alarming death rates in senior living homes has surged to more than 3,600 nationwide. we want to bring in "morning joe" chief medical correspondent dr. dave campbell, who has been looking at this. dr. dave, these are the places where, i would think -- i'll ask

you -- where it almost is impossible to contain a spread of something like the coronavirus. >> mika, the virus has to be kept out of the nursing homes. that's really the most critical point. there are three steps happening seimultaneously now. dr. birx spoke of one. that's the national approach, where surveillance testing will be done. that is the equivalent of having a guard standing on duty at night in a combat zone, so that his fellow troops can sleep. that's the national approach. that's where you go and you test people, employees, and residents, to see, even before they become symptomatic. do they have the disease? the second is the state approach. florida has now assigned the florida national guard to actually put strike teams together, to go to nursing homes, and to implement this testing of both the staff and

the people who live there. the third approach is already in place. that is to dramatically improve the infection control procedures that happen in each nursing home. it's limiting the number of employees that are interacting. limiting visitors, washing hands, wearing masks, wearing gloves. all three of these things are happening at the same time. this critical population in nursing homes are, as we all know, those that are most at risk of dying from the disease. they are squeezed in, just like on the "uss roosevelt," together. they have nowhere to go. >> what we're finding, unfortunately, dave, is that whether you're talking about nursing homes -- >> this is terrible. >> -- whether you're talking about va hospitals, whether you're talking about homeless shelters, there is no separation. these people, unfortunately, whether they're in the va

hospitals or whether they're in the homeless shelters or whether they're in these nursing homes, unfortunately and, of course, on the "roosevelt," the coronavirus just sweeps through, finding one victim after another. proving, once again, that this is far more that n the flu. >> yes. it is. and we know that this particular virus is so contagioucontagious. it spreads in these clusters, like in nursing homes, on the ship, or in homes where there are a lot of people having to live close together. and the critical thing that we are all learning is this asymptomatic but contagious phase. that's what makes this different than a lot of other viruses. it makes it very hard to control in a nursing home, where you have staff going home for the night, coming paback the next d. if they do not know they're infected, even with tight infection control procedures, it will be easy for the staff to

inadvertently pass the virus to just one resident in a nursing home. who then passes it to the others. a week later, here we do again. >> all right. dr. dave campbell, thank you so much. >> thank you, dave. david remnick, we're still learning about the coronavirus. one thing that, unfortunately, is all too well-known at this time is that it disproportionately impacts the poor. it disproportionately impacts black americans. it dispromorportionately impact socio-economic disadvantaged people. it is a disease that impacts the truly disadvantaged in our society. >> absolutely. it's very clear that african-americans have been hit by this at a terrible rate. mortality rate there is higher. the roots of it are social.

more the point, are because of our racist legacy and the fact that african-americans have -- are disproportionately poor. their access to good health care is far less than pre-existing conditions are higher. there are all kinds of factors making it worse. the proximity in which they live. the housing so many african-americans labor under from day to day. unfortunately, one of the many aspects of this pandemic is that it puts into very high relief the pre-existing conditions that we have as a society. not only our society but so many others. >> david remnick, his new commentary is in the new issue of the "new yorker." eugene robinson, we'll be reading your piece in the "washington post." thank you, both. still ahead, a lesson in leadership. 70 years in the making. "morning joe" is back in a moment. ♪ to be king for a day

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gene robinson, want to continue our conversation about communities disproportionately hit by coronavirus. we've been talking over the last couple weeks about places like chicago, milwaukee, the state of louisiana, where the percentage of the cases of african-americans with coronavirus far outstrips their percentage of the total population in those states. we've heard doctors talk about underlying conditions, diabetes, hypertension, things like that. clearly, this is going after african-american communities in a way that it isn't going after any other community. >> it really is. and the roots, as i think dave remnick said earlier, the roots are social. it goes back through the history of this country that got us to

this place. you have so many african-americans with low incomes, with inadequate housing, with inadequate access to health care, especially preventive health care. so you just have too great a percentage of people who have the pre-existing conditions that covid-19 thrives on. who have high blood pressure, diabetes, and who are overweight. all of these things kind of compound. then when you have people who are living in housing conditions where it is difficult to separate and to isolate people who are affected, you get these clusters. you end up with the kind of figures we're seeing.

you know, the government, the federal government and the states could be, and should be, addressing this directly. these conditions were known, what the disease was doing was known and how it was doing it was known. there could have been kind of a strike force approach to try to protect these communities from the kinds of infection rates and death rates we're seeing now. >> all right. it is more than likely that, at some point, every person in america will know someone who has died of covid-19. the u.s. death toll now stands at over 23,000. behind every single one of those number it is a name and a story. here are some of them. nypd has lost now 23 members to the coronavirus. after the recent deaths of two

detectives. detective raymond abare and jeffrey scalf are the most recent detectives to lose their battle with the deadly virus, which the head of the nypd's detective union calls the invisible bullet. detective abrear, 19-year veteran of the force, assigned to the special victims division, leaves behind his wife and two children. detective scalf, who joined the force 14 years ago as a member of the bronx gang squad, is survived by his wife and three children. the tsa is reporting its first few deaths of their staff and is confirming 373 positive cases in its ranks. alberto camacho, branch manager for the tsa's acquisition program in arlington, virginia. he joined the force in 2005 and was most recently working on passenger and baggage technologies implementation. he died from complications of

the coronavirus on april 3rd. francis "frank" boccabella iii. explosive detention canine handler died on april 2nd. the first death due to coronavirus for the agency. boccabella and his canine partner, bullet, a 6-year-old german short-haired pointer, screened thousands of passengers to keep them and the transportation system safe. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. ♪

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we cannot tell what the course of this fell war will be. it spreads remorse to ever wider regions. we know it will be hard. we expect it will be long. we cannot predict or measure its episodes or its tribulation. but one thing is certain. one thing is sure. one thing stands out stark and undeniable. massive and unassailable for all the world to see. it will not be by german hands that the structure of europe will be rebuilt. or the union of the european family achieved. >> we're prepared and had we're doing a great job with it. it will go away. just stay calm. it will go away.

everybody has to be vigilant and has to be careful. be calm. it's really working out. a lot of good things are going to happen. >> okay. good. two different styles of leadership when it comes to rallying a country. joining us, best-selling author eric larson. his new book is "the splendid and the vile," a saga of churchill, family, and defiance during the blitz. also with us, author and nbc news presidential historian, micha michael. >> how would winston churchill have handled this pandemic, or any pandemic? >> first of all, i was really struck by something that david remnick said. he referred to trump being intolerant of reality. that was clearly something that churchill could not afford to be. i mean, he faced an existential threat from germany.

immediate threat being the lo t lufwuafa. one of the most compelling things he did as a leader was to recognize that there was this, this reality. there was this existential threat. there was one way to deal with it, and it was head on. acknowledge there was this reality. >> eric, one of the most dramatic examples of that, where winston churchill just would not allow happy talk in the midst of this was the war crisis. i looked up the quote. if this long island story of ours is to end at last, let it end only when each of us lies choking in his own blood upon the ground. >> wow.

>> winston churchill took it head on from the very beginning. as you said, never engaged in happy talk or pollyannish behavior. >> actually, i think even more telling than that particular moment, was how he dealt with the immediate threat from the lithuafa. it was vital in terms of adding one more wall to hitler's attempt to, perhaps, invade england. he constructed the planes in a direct way. he appointed his old friend, a really cataclysmically

energizing guy, to take over the task of shaking up the aircraft production industry. he made him immediately the minister of aircraft production. he worked miracles. i mean, this was a case where trump didn't want happy talk. he got the real deal and got it, frankly, more than he wanted. in the course of the first year, churchill's guy resigned 14 times to get some attention. it was a clear case of how he led. he understood, this was real. this was not something that would go away by saying, "you know, don't worry about it. they're not coming. it's okay." >> katty kay has a question. >> i have to say, i was laughing because i think it is almost cruel to put the clips of trump and churchill back-to-back like that.

if you look throughout history of presidents who faced crises of some nature, can you compare the way trump is handling this, what it is telling us about him? put him in the historical context compared to other american presidents. let's leave churchill aside. that is way too high a bar in this case. >> you're absolutely right, katty. can you imagine yesterday, you know, we have roosevelt or churchill, had they come back, franklin roosevelt come back and seen the press conference. they would have thought the british had won the revolutionary war. our revolution, as you well know, was fought to make sure you didn't have some leader going out there and saying, "i've got total authority." that's exactly what we fought against. that's the reason the framers, like james madison, wrote a constitution, to make sure that presidents of the united states were checked by congress, by the judiciary, by the press, by the

american people. to make sure that they did not have too much power and to make sure there would never be a dictatorship. remember always that fdr and churchill were fighting fascism. >> it's willie geist. i was thinking as we watched the churchill clip, that was around the time in 1941 that he's writing these letters to dfdr, trying to recruit the united states into the war in europe. it took pearl harbor to get the u.s. there. when we talk about fdr and churchill in that time, there's obviously some mythology. there's some romance around the fireside chats, around churchill's speeches during the blitz. embedded in many of those speeches though, michael, is reality. which is not what we hear from the president every day. >> right. >> there is flowery language. there is optimism. there is hope. they always said, "this is not easy. this is going to be hard. we have to dig in."

>> after pearl harbor, people remember fdr as this great war president. he didn't look that way the beginning of 1942. a lot of people thought of him as the president who had made all sorts of mistakes that had led to the bombing of all those ships at pearl harbor. so the result was, he didn't begin by going on the radio and saying, "americans, we're going to finish the war in victory by the middle of 1942." he said, "this is going to take a long time. it is going to get worse before it gets better. there's going to be a lot of sacrifice required." so when all that happened, people felt the president had leveled with them. there was a bond between the president and the people, that he did not have to sort of say, essentially, "yes, i know i told you that victory would come quickly, and i'm sorry it hasn't. but i'm doing a great job. pay no attention to the man behind the curtain." >> eric larson, of course, we see self-pity in donald trump's

pronouncements that the press is against him. that the elites have always been against him. i must say, in one area where trump and churchill do share similarities is the fact that churchill was loathed by many elites in great britain in 1939 and 1940, when he took over in 1940. many in his own war cabinet had little use for him. yet, he figured out a way to make things work, how to move the country forward together. even though many around him during that momentous year really had very little use for him in peacetime. >> well, that's true. at the time when he became prime minister, he was considered to be an erratic character. once referred to as a rogue elephant. but, you know, he very quickly asserted his authority.

he established confidence in his leadership. i'll tell you, i think the way -- most important thing, i feel, in terms of his leadership style, was the way he spoke to the country. i'm not talking about all those wonderful phrases that we know was the way he spoke to country. i'm not talking about all those wonderful phrases that we know today, never has so much been owed by so many to so few, but i'm talking about the way he structured his speeches which was so very important. again, he would tell the public exactly what was going on in very sober ways and not sugarcoat anything. he would then come back in the next part of the speech with real grounds for optimism, concrete things. again, not happy talk. not, we're going to have a billion tests in two weeks. he came back with a real appraisal of what could be done and why there was cause for

optimism. but then he would wrap up the speech with this wonderful rhetorical thing that literally got people out of their seats. today we want to stay in our seats and stay in our homes. but metaphorically, he got people into the spirit of what he was trying to achieve. he made them feel bolder and loftier than before he began his speech. that's something i really miss right now. >> the new book is "splendor in the vile." thank you. and his latest book is entitled "president of war." still ahead, there are a number of groups in the united states that are particularly vulnerable to the coronavirus pandemic, including some of those with mental illnesses. our next guest says we have a system that is utterly unprepared to deal with this. that discussion is next on "morning joe." "morning joe." nowadays you do more from home than ever before.

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a look at the new pbs documentary entitled "the definition of insanity" which premieres tonight. norm orrenstein joins us now. he is president of the matthew

orrenstein national foundation which was the catalyst of the film. norm, thank you for being on with us. >> thank you for being here, norm. i'm so moved by what you've done in memory of matthew. it seems so much more relevant now than ever before, because even before this pandemic, there was a mental health crisis among our young in the country, a growing isolation, a growing sense of helplessness and anxiety and depression. it seems to me that the timing for this film, the timing for everything that you've done in matthew's memory -- >> is more desperate than ever. >> -- is more desperate than ever, could not be more important than right now. >> i couldn't agree more, and thank you both for your advocacy on this set of issues. we lost our son five years ago january 3rd after a 10-year

struggle with serious mental illness. it occurred when he was 24, and that's typical. there are large numbers of people, many, many millions, with serious mental illness. a lot of them are homeless, many of them are in the prison. the cook county jail is both the largest repository for people with serious mental illness in the country, and now the place that has the most with coronavirus. you're caught if you are in prison in a situation where there can be no social distancing. they have no equipment. we've released some but antnot lot, and if you're homeless, it's an even worse situation. if you're homeless and have a condition like our son had where you have no insight into your illness and you get the coronavirus, and you can spread it to others and you're not capable of understanding the situation and getting the treatment, it's a terrible problem. and as the documentary shows, the miami model krafcrafted by

remarkable judge steve weissman there shows us we can do something about it if we have the will and put ourselves through it. in miami, they've saved lives and saved money. when this is over -- by the way, when it's over we're likely to have a sharp increase of mental illness. we've seen that with a pandemic in the past, but we have to change so many elements of this system so other families don't have to go through what we went through and people don't have to go through what our son did. >> what are some of the things that miami did that works, because i would think that the process of trying to find solutions here would be tremendously convoluted and confusing for people, policymakers and lawmakers. >> so there are really two elements to this program. one is they've now trained 7,500

police officers in what's called crisis intervention team policing, a 40-hour program developed in memphis, and they've cut the number of arrests in half and the number of shootings from what was two a month before they started this program to now five or six in the last eight to ten years, saif saving a fortune in wrongful death lawsuits, but also they reduced the prison population. they closed a jail, one of the three in the county, and saved $12 million a year. seven years now, that's $84 million. many fewer people are in jail in miami which means fewer who are going to be subjected to the potential virus. at the same time, the core of this program is a pre-trial diversion, the program, where if you come into the criminal justice system with a non-violent felony or a misdemeanor, you're given the choice of going trial which almost certainly will mean jail or prison and probably solitary

confinement or a program where they give you a place to live, clothing, a mental health professional who watches over a social worker, and very importantly, a peer counselor, somebody who has had this condition in the past, and they take you through a program personalized for you, and if you comply with the elements of it, you come back to court every month. within a year they expunge the charges, and many of these people end up getting their lives back. when you do that, you're taking homeless off the street, you're giving people opportunities to have their lives, and you're saving a ton of money. it's astonishing in many ways that the model hasn't been followed in other places, but of course it takes an initial commitment. >> the documentary airs tonight at 10:00 eastern time. >> willie, go ahead. i'm sorry. >> yeah, i was just going to ask norm and say i'm so sorry for the loss of your son but so

grateful for everything you've done since then. when you look at this program in miami, we do talk more about mental health. we're better about discussing it, acknowledging it, taking the stigma away from it but we're not good at treating it. why do you think as a country we're so slow to take seriously the problem of mental health and appreciate its impact? >> so i think there are two reasons fundamentally, willie. one is when i first started to talk about our son, which was very tough, i got flooded with responses. i've never told anybody this. this is the first time i've opened up about it. the stigma is still there about speaking about it. the other part of it is we don't treat these illnesses as brain diseases the same way we look at other diseases. the recovery rates are even better than they are for diabetes or heart disease. we think of it as mental illnesses, which means, as i had

many well-meaning people tell me when i was struggling with matthew, just kick him in the ass and he'll get up and do something about it. that's not the way a brain disease works, and until we start to treat these as illnesses of origin and treat with resources, it's not going to happen. every family is touched by this, every family in one way or another, and we have to get them mobilized the same way we've seen mobilization of other illnesses like breast cancer, prostate cancer or aids. >> the documentary airs tonight on pbs. norman orrenstein, thank you so much. the next hour of "morning joe" starts right now. nobody knows the system better than me.

which is why i alone can fix this. >> the president of the president is big. >> when i took over our military, we didn't have ammunition. when somebody is the president of the united states, the authority is total. and that's the way it's got to be. >> president trump added another step yesterday in his march toward a authorize teuthoritari. he tried. >> that's the thing, he tried, and he's done this before. i know we really differ here. i know you're very, very concerned when he talks like that about the constitution and the country. i'm actually mainly concerned for his mental health and also the extraordinary -- i feel very, very badly whenever he speaks that way, willie, for peop people, him, who have to walk away in shame every day that he

graduated from their college knowing no more about history or the constitution or madisonian democracy than he does. again, he's just blathered for yea years, gives me all the power i need and then you have trump saying, well, that's not exactly what he meant to say, then he just goes back to his ultimate power as president of the united states, and he did it again yesterday. >> that was a perfect snapshot of the trump years, because you had trump saying, yes, something that was authoritarian. we're not surprised he said that, because he said things like that over and over again. the reason i said a perfect snapshot, a republican, mike pence, a life-long conservative, stepped to the podium and was asked about the president, do you believe in his power, that

his power are absolute? he stood there and said, yes, the president's power is plentiful. so you not only had the president but his vice president. >> editor in chief of the recount, jen heilman. correspondent carol lee joins us as well. we're going to get to president trump's campaign rally as a mass coronavirus briefing in just a moment, and his claims of having total authority after a month of saying the states have all the responsibility and now he has the responsibility. >> i can't do this, it's the constitution. yesterday afternoon you called me up and you said, hey, cuomo is holding a press conference with the other governors and trump is going to go crazy. i said, what do you mean?

ets he said, well, since he's giving pou the power, they're taking the power and they're trying to figure out when to open their states for economic business -- >> working together to lead. >> -- working together to lead and then yesterday he went full orbit and started yapping. >> we're talking about the impact the coronavirus is having for the sailors on the uss theodore roosevelt. now a sailor has died from coronavirus-related complications. we'll talk about that. we're also following a huge story in the political world. in wisconsin, a liberal challenger has defeated a republican incumbent for a seat

on the wisconsin supreme court, a victory that will have enormous implications for the november election. we will explain that ahead as well. but we begin with the coronavirus death toll in new york state which has now surp s surpassed 10,000 people. 671 new yorkers died on sunday, which is about 100 less than the day before. the state continues to edge closer to 200,000 virus cases as the dizzying death rate and hospitalizations trend downward. governor andrew cuomo says the worst of this nightmare might be over but will never be forgotten. >> 2,700 lives were lost in 9/11 and 9/11 changed every new yorker who was in a position to appreciate on that day what happened. and the number of lives lost was horrific after 9/11.

and the grief was horrific. and we are at 10,000 deaths. we can control the spread. feel good about that. the worst is over. yeah, if we continue to be smart going forward, because remember, we have the hand on that valve. you turn that valve too fast, you'll see that number jump right back. >> we're going to be talking to governor cuomo in a little bit this morning. willie, these counts are wildly inaccurate. your dr. gottlieb tells us that our numbers are less accurate than china because we don't have communitywide testing. the numbers are wildly low when you look at the infections, but from what i heard, the health caro fishe officials talking to

yorkers, talking to reporters on this story, they all say the same thing, the death count is undercounted because so many people are just dying in their homes that never get to the hospital, that don't want to go into the hospital, and we will never know. >> people take a test. >> we will never know how many people are dying and have died from this disease. >> without question. talk to any doctor in any city and they will tell you exactly what you just said, joe, which is, first of all, you and i both know people who have had it and they didn't get tested either because they couldn't get a test or they didn't want to waste a test on themselves because they knew they had it and they just rode it out. without testing, the numbers exponentially higher. also, as you say, the number of deaths. people who can't go to the hospital or make it to the hospital because they showed

certain signs died at home. that's what we're looking at in new york in terms of a number of deaths. until we have nationwide testing, we will never know. we will never know who has this. we will never be able to begin to get our arms around it. the president boasted getting his arms around it, but in a country of 2.3 million people, we haven't gotten our fingers around the extent of this problem. so talking about going back to work when there aren't enough tests, that's not enough and it won't be fire long time until we get tested. >> john heilemann, i don't know if, as a young child, you put your hand on the stove -- or do you still do that? perhaps you still do that. >> routinely. routinely. yeah. >> in fact, that's why you're in the kitchen right now, because you just make yourself feel

alive. anyway, as a young child who t puts their hand on a hot stove, most learn, which is not the case of trump in the media or people who try to hawk their books or people who are the extreme cult of trump and want you to go to their website, because trump saying in january, february and march saying this was all overrated or the coverage was a hoax, or he was saying it's just like a flu, they stopped saying that, right? when people started dying the way they started to die, they took their hand off the hot stove. we've been through a horrendous two or three weeks. now some of them are starting to put their hands on the hot stove again. i don't even want to mention

their names because i don't want to promote them, but they used to be important voices on the right, some of them even worked in the raegan administration. now they're going through the whole yarn of, it's just the flu, it's just the flu. i wish the white house people and all the trump people who say it's just the flu, i would love for them, if they really feel that way, to get all their family and all of their loved ones together, they can throw a huge party in a barn, they can invite a thousand other people and film it if they really believe that. of course, they're not going to do that, and i don't want them to do that because i actually care about whether americans live or die from this coronavirus. >> right. >> but it's hard for me, after all we've been through, to listen to somebody that used to

have a shred of respect on the right say this is nothing more than the flu. and they're going back to that now, and they're starting to say, oh, see, look, it's not 2 million deaths, it's not 100,000 deaths, it's 60,000 deaths. that's the first way, we don't know how many deaths it will be, but this is not the flu. 23,000 people are dying here and veterans are getting wiped out there, and 600, maybe, shipmates on the roosevelt have it. this is a pandemic, and yet they keep going back for more. some of them on the same media outlets that got in trouble for lying to old people to senior citizens who were burned the first time around. >> it's sick and pathological, joe, and we've seen it all

throughout the trump era but the consequences were not as great as they are now. it's one of the things we ever to -- we have to be really concerned about now, if it's the case that the estimates turn out to be right that in this wave, we only end up with 60,000 deaths or 100,000 deaths or 200,000 deaths, the missing link of the reason that happened is because of the extreme social distancing measures that were put in place. that's the lesson. the lesson is we shut the economy down, we shut down most of the states in the country and it worked to flatten the curve in those places. not that the virus wasn't as dangerous, it's that we were affected by taking these dramatic actions. instead some of the people you're talking about, and it looks like increasingly the president of the united states is going to say, hey, maybe this wasn't so bad after all and we can get back to business, and that is going to be an incredibly dangerous scenario.

we all agree that donald trump does not have the power to open or close down the states, that those are states within the states' authorities. but the reality is the president has influence especially with the governors. if he says it's time to open up for business, they're going to open up for business and that could put at risk the lives of tens of thousands of americans, because we know we're all one country. it could hit those states harder but hit the other states, too. >> it's a welcome message from the u.s. governor, the worst is over. of course, that comes with a caveat, and governor andrew cuomo joins us straight ahead to talk about that. . they're all possible with a cfp® professional. find yours at letsmakeaplan.org.

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states on the country's east and west coasts are forming regional pacts to coordinate reopening society from the stay-at-home orders each has issued. the first announcement came yesterday on the east coast

where new york governor cuomo said his state, along with new jersey, connecticut, pennsylvania, delaware, rhode island and massachusetts, each plan to name a public health and economic official to help with the reopening plan. each governor's chief of staff will also be a part of the group. later in the day, california, washington and oregon also announced they would be joining forces to plan to ease stay-at-home restrictions. the group said they would study data and research from other countries in order to come up with a consistent plan. wow. the governors made their announcements just hours after president trump declared on twitter that it is his decision to decide when to open up the states. wonder if he heard about these councils that are being set up and just felt very left out? adding that he is working closely with the states and that a decision would be made shortly. then came the president's coronavirus press briefing. wow. the longest and most combative

to date where he lashed out at the press, disputed reports that he was slow to respond to the pandemic and then defended his claim to have broad executive authority over the states. >> reporter: what provision in the constitution gives the president the power to open or close state economies -- >> new information. we'll give you a legal brief if you want. >> reporter: schools have been closed in states that have ordered businesses like restaurants -- >> i would have preferred that. i let that happen. if i wanted to, i could have closed it up. the president of the united states has the authority to do what the president has the authority to do, which is very powerful. the president of the united states calls the shots. they can't do anything without the approval of the president of the united states. when somebody is the president of the united states, the authority is total, and that's the way it's got to be. >> reporter: you said when somebody is president of the

united states, their authority is total. that is not true. >> we're going to write up papers on this. it's not going to be necessary because the governors need us one way or the other, because ultimately it comes with the federal government. that being said, we're getting along very well with the governors, and i feel very certain that there won't be a problem. yeah, please, go ahead. >> reporter: has any governor agreed that you have the authority to decide when their state gets back up? >> i don't have to answer that. you know why? because there isn't. >> no one had any new information or news value. zero. >> let's be clear. no news coming from the president. nothing new coming from the president yesterday for two hours. >> he was very out of whack, outside of himself and angry. he picked on reporters. there was this strange little

video that on taxpayers' dollar, on the white house's time, staff members actually edited together a video where sound bites were taken out of context and graphics were made to attack the media. this is what the president is making his staff do on coronavirus time. >> the sweeping sort of orchestra in the background that you play during campaign, i'm watching this and i'm going, are you kidding me? >> this was sad. >> it was like taxpayers made a campaign ad for donald trump to air at this briefing. >> and then his top scientists were sitting there watching this video instead of doing what they need to do to save lives. so, let's see, you've got your scientists at your two-hour press conferences? you won't invoke the defense production act to actually coordinate something national and use your power?

you won't do that? and then you say it's all on the governors? so the governors step up and they try and help. they step up to fill the void in leadership that you left wide open and that you told was on them. and now you're freaking out. this is truly pathetic but sad for americans who are struggling through this who need so much more from the president of the united states and the white house, the people in the white house who work for him. carol lee, is there any information that you have heard as to what was behind this beyond the obvious, the governors outshining the president of the united states? >> well, part of it is what the president is saying really fits what he wants his agenda to be, which is to open the economy. and what was so remarkable about yesterday is that for weeks when governors were not issuing stay-at-home orders across their states and there was concern and there were calls for the

president to issue a national stay-at-home recommendation, not even an order, the president was saying he didn't have the authority to tell the states what to do. and yesterday -- and this is just a week before his press conference i asked him this question, and he said, it's the constitution, it's the constitution, i can't do that. and now we see him yesterday saying he has absolute authority to tell the states what to do. and, really, what he's trying to do here -- and we've seen this before -- is bend the constitution and use it as an excuse for what he wants to do, whatever that is. before it was that he didn't have the authority, now it is that he has the absolute authority. and what we've seen, as you guys have been talking about, while he was saying he couldn't come in and tell states what to do, he wasn't going to issue a recommendation, not even stay-at-home orders, that states looked upon themselves to basically cut him out and he's not in on that conversation.

now he's in the situation where he definitely wants to have some kind of economic opening beginning on may 1st, and he needs for governors to do for him what he actually doesn't have the authority to tell them to do, because he's so determined to have some sort of economic opening on may 1st because he's worried, frankly, about what this is going to do to his election in november. >> nbc's carol lee, thank you so much. coming up, childhood in an anxious age. we'll talk to the author of the new cover story about the crisis of modern story. but first the governor of new york, andrew cuomo, is standing by. he joins us live. governor, welcome. thank you very much for being on. we want to ask you what's happening on the front lines in new york state and new york city, but first, this council that you have put together, what do you hope -- what void do you hope it will fill that perhaps some states aren't getting from washington? what do you think you and the other governors will be able to

do to help americans get through this? >> thank you, mika. look, you're exactly right. this wasn't a bending of the constitution, it was a breaking of the constitution. he basically declared himself king trump, right, and all that annoying federal and state back and forth that our founding fathers went through, he just disregarded that and said total authority. then we would have had king george washington. the governors are in charge because the president put them in charge. this is a total 180 from where the president started. when this started he could have closed down the economy. he didn't want to, so he left it to the governors. and i have had to do this, and i'm in this position because the federal government, frankly, didn't want to be in this position. so now the states are doing it. now you get to the next phase which is going to be the reopening. i understand the president wants

to do it quickly. i understand the political environment. i get it. but i also know that if we do this wrong, you will see the number of infections increase dramatically. what you're seeing in that infection rate is a direct consequence of our actions, and we reopen too fast, you will see those numbers go up and we'll go right back to square one. >> governor cuomo, willie geist. good to see you this morning. as you said, the president has politics to think about, he wants to open the economy, to use his terms. you have the reality of data, you have the reality of what's happening in your state. there could come a moment when the president gets up at that podium one of these days and he says, i'm declaring the economy back open. what will you say back to him in that scenario? >> willie, the only way this situation gets worse is if the president creates a constitutional crisis. if he says to me, i declare it

open, and that is a public health risk or it's reckless with the welfare of the people of my state, i will oppose it. and then we will have a constitutional crisis like you haven't seen in decades where states tell the federal government, we're not going to follow your order. it would be terrible for this country, it would be terrible for this president. i just hope he gets control of what he was saying last night and he doesn't go down that road. again, willie, what he was saying last night was the exact opposite of what he has done to date. i would have welcomed more federal assistance from the federal government. i believe in the federal government. remember, i was the hud secretary, i worked with fema. i never saw fema take the position that this president said we're not a shipping clerk for the states.

yes, you are. you're fema. your job is to handle a federal emergency. you declared a federal emergency, and then you stepped back and said, okay, i declare a federal emergency, the states are in charge. i've never seen that before. but that's what they did. this is now an absurd 180 the other way where he says, i know i put the governors in charge, i know i didn't step in, but now i have total authority, and by the way, he's not answering any of the substantive points. where do we do this reopening? where are the funds? you didn't provide any funds to the state governments? where is the testing? i can't do the testing. no states have the capacity to do the testing we need to do. that's a real substantive challenge. let the federal government handle that. >> even yesterday the president trying to have it both ways saying my authority is total but it's the states' fault they

don't have ventilators or personal protective equipment for their hospital. you said the worst is over. that's been the screaming headline on the back of the new york post, but there is a second clause to that. the worst is over if we continue to be smart. what did you mean by that message? i know the hospitalizations are down and that's great news, but continuing to be smart means what from where you sit? >> you're exactly right, willie. the caveat swallows the premise. the worst is over if we continue to do what we're doing. the important thing to remember here is why were all the projections wrong? the president's projection. peter navarro's projection, cdc's projection, white house coronavirus task force projection, then the gates model, columbia model, cornell model. they were all wrong, and it's good news, because we changed

the trajectory of the virus. and we've proven something when i say the worst is over. we've proven that the virus is not unstoppable, right? there was a fear when we started that maybe you can't stop this beast. maybe it will come in under the doors. we proved you can stop the beast. that should be vindicating in some ways. but we stopped the beast by our action, and that's why we reduced the curve and the infection rate. it's all subject to what we do. if we go out there today and we start to see more people on the street, that infection rate will go up, i guarantee you, in three days. it's a direct consequence of our actions. >> it's about what we do and also what leaders tell us to do. the president was asked a lot in his briefing yesterday about what he did in february because he was so emphatic that in january nobody had died yet.

on february 10th, he says by april when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away. then on february 23rd, we have it very much under control in this country. february 24th, it's under control. february 27th, one day it will be like a miracle, it will disappear. it was two hours long. did you have a chance, governor, to see the president's briefing? would there be value for a governor to watch that? >> no, a governor should not watch that. there is no value in it. it would be -- it is infuriating and offensive, and, frankly, ignorant of the facts. the president stood up and said forget the constitution of the united states. forget the concept of federalism. to hear a republican stand up there, by the way, and argue big government and total authority of the federal government is

somewhat a muamusing. if it wasn't so serious, it could be funny, it could be a comedy skit. it's frightening. it's frightening. this is the last place we should be, this crazy politics, this absurd positioning when we're talking about life and death. and we really have the toughest governmental problem we've ever faced right in front of us, and we have to deal with this absurdity. >> so i know you have to go, but can you characterize how things are going on the front lines in new york city? >> look, the numbers have flattened. i take some peace in that because nobody knew that we could actually do this. we could have taken all these initiatives and made all these steps and you could have still seen that virus number go up, and that would have been a really frightening place. so the flattening is good, that

we didn't overwhelm the hospital system is good. the number of deaths is still painfully high. but hopefully the deaths will follow the flattening of the hospitalization curve. and then the reopening has to be planned and be smart and controlled and don't let the expectations get ahead of the reality because then people will react to the expectations, and we don't want to have take reversal of our progress. but, look, it is looking better. we did flatten the curve. we can control our future. and in a society that desperately needs control and some feeling that this is going to be okay, i think we have reason to believe that. >> all right, governor andrew cuomo, thank you so much for being with us, and thank you for your leadership in this

extraordinary crisis. we greatly appreciate it. >> thank you, joe. thank you, mika. thank you, willie. up next, many health care workers on the front lines of this pandemic are reportedly being told not to speak out about the dangerous conditions they are facing at work, some under the penalty of losing their job. we'll talk to a leader at one of the top nursing organizations about that. keep it right here on "morning joe."

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with the death rate in the united states topping 23,000, it is likely all of us will know someone affected by the virus. for sandy brown of grand blank, michigan, this is all too true. in a matter of three days, sandy lost her husband of 35 years and her only child due to the coronavirus. her husband, friday brown jr., developed the virus first and was admitted to the icu. he was placed on a ventilator and died shortly after sandy's 20-year-old son, freddy brown iii, who suffered from asthma developed symptoms one day after his father. friday was a church person. their son had dreams of playing football for michigan state university as a walk-on next

year. sandy says she has two guardian angels, telling them, you guys are going to be looking over me, and i'm going to need it. i'm going to need it. we'll be right back.

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death here has no dignity. patients can't have visitors. they're scared. they can't even see their nurse's eyes. >> i sat 12 hours by his bedside with all my ppe on. he would grab my hand and i would just tell him everything is going to be okay, we're doing the best we could. i could see the fear in his eyes, and it was heartbreaking because this is still so new to us, and we're just doing what we can and we don't know what's going to happen. >> that was a nurse at a bronx hospital in new york attempting to describe to the "new york times" nick kristof the unimaginable fear coronavirus patients must face. but the front line workers are also the ones who are scared and putting their lives on the line

every day to save lives, some of them making the ultimate sacrifice. in massachusetts, a nurse who worked at any nursing home in littleton died from symptoms of the coronavirus two weeks ago. the nurse, maria creer, had gone public about the poor conditions of the home, causing her to be sent home. her grandmother told the boston globe she loved being a nurse because she loved helping everyone she could. 21-year-old valerie viveras died after contracting the coronavirus. a nursing assistant, she knew she was at risk for contracting the virus but she did what she could at the hospital in riverside. her family said they will always remember her spirit of dedication and perseverance in

her goals. joining us now, director of the american nursing association's center for ethics and human rights, liz stokes. liz, thank you so much. tell us how, is there any way possible at this point to help nurses and health care professionals who are putting themselves out there? they're he cexposed in every wa without the supplies, without the ppe, but sometimes even with them, they are exposed, are they not? >> absolutely, and that's the biggest challenge. these are incredibly difficult decisions. just imagine if you are a registered nurse and you have to decide each day whether you're going to go in and fulfill your professional obligation, which is outlined in our code of ethics, and this is a time when we're desperately needed. so whether you go to work and fulfill that obligation or whether you sacrifice and risk your own personal safety, maybe

even your life or the lives of your family and those close to you, simply because you don't have the adequate equipment to keep you safe, it's incredibly heart-wrenching. >> hey, liz, it's willie geist. so grateful to have you on this morning. i've been talking to localitits doctors in the e.r.s, and what they say is the nurses deserve hazard pay, what the nurses are doing in these icus is incredible. it goes beyond what they're asked to do. they're asked not just to provide medical care but emotional support for those dying without their families. in some ways they're acting as priests and rabbis because those sick in the rooms cannot be with their families. can you talk about the emotional toll that takes on our nurses in this country? >> luttabsolutely, and one of t things i keep thinking about is the psychological toll is going to be the next pandemic. the psychological toll on the

health care workers who are witnessing massive amounts of death, massive amounts of grief and sorrow every single day is almost like wartime. and we're expecting that many nurses are going to suffer from ptsd, moral distress and burnout, and it is critical that organizations are being proactive at this time to help mitigate and alleviate some of these symptoms. >> yeah, that's a difficult thing to do when you're in the trenches in the middle of all this. as we talk to politicians about getting help into these hospitals, we hear hospitalizations are down in new york city, for example. we hear that the ppe situation is better in many of these hospitals. but as you sit here with us this morning, liz, what do your nurses need right now? what is out there that every day they reach out to you and say, hey, we need this? >> we are hearing from nurses kind of across the spectrum.

we are hearing from nurses who are gung ho, they're on auto pilot, they're out there, they're ready, they're taking care of their patients. then we hear from nurses who are doing the same but are truly suffering, and every single day is an emotional challenge, and they're scared to go home, they're scared to expose their family members, and then we're hearing from nurses who are saying it's not worth my personal risk, and they're quitting their job. they don't want to expose their family. i heard from nurses who are pregnant or nurses who have young children or elderly family members in their home, and they are absolutely -- they feel like it's not worth the risk. and then, of course, as you just reported, there are nurses who are dying, and this is incredibly tragic. >> liz stokes, thank you so much for joining us. she is director of the american nurses association's center for ethics and human rights. another issue front and center for millions of families during this pandemic, the rising anxiety and depression in

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so, to everyone who is helping to keep us safe against covid-19 day in and day out, all of us at amgen say, ... thank you. now more than ever, we need the good stuff in life. togetherness, ♪ ♪ patience, ♪ ♪ laughter, ♪ ♪ love. milk. love what's real. ior anything i want to buy isk going to be on rakuten. rakuten is easy to use,

free to sign up and it's in over 3,000 stores. i buy a lot of makeup. shampoo, conditioner. books, food. travel. shoes. stuff for my backyard. anything from clothes to electronics. workout gear. i even recently got cash back on domain hosting. you can buy tires. to me, rakuten is a great way to get cash back on anything you buy. rack it up with rakuten, sign up today to get cash back on everything you buy. the coronavirus pandemic has shuttered schools and playgrounds across the country and has changed the way we and our children live daily lives. many parents are struggling with how to explain what is happening outside their homes to their kids. this comes amid a spike in anxiety and depression among children and teens. according to a pew research poll, 13% of teens age 12 to 17 said they had experienced at

least one major depressive episode in the past year up from 8% in 2007 and 29% said they felt tense or nervous about their day almost every day. leaving families concerned about how much this crisis could be impacting their children's mental health. joining us now, senior editor at the atlantic, kate julian. she writes the cover story for the new issue entitled "childhood in an anxious age." and the crisis of modern parenting. it was an anxious age, kate, even before this, but this has taken everything to such a new level. what are you finding, and tell us about what some of the solutions might be at a time like this. >> i think that's right. we were experiencing a mental health crisis in this country before covid. we'll be experiencing even a bigger one after covid.

what we need to think about now is what we can do for our children for a world that's going to be more stressful than the one that -- certainly more stressful than -- as i was reporting, it was amazing the researchers who focus on childhood held emphasize the same thing. -- the key thing to know -- universal response. what we can do is help our children learn to cope with it. and that will be crucial in the months ahead. >> okay, thank you.

willie geist, when we are -- when we are moving forward through this, willie, what are you hearing from parents and from friends that you connect with? i know you're trying to drive three hours to see family members and see nieces and nephews and it's hard to sort of keep a family together at a time like this. how are you doing with your kids who are really at sort of a key age where it's hard to understand, but they can understand enough? >> yeah, my kids are 12 and 10. my wife and i have been amazed and so impressed by how resilient they are through this. but we do know they're internalizing a lot. you can't totally shield all this news from them. the tv is on from time to time. my daughter who is 12 has a phone now. she's reading things. we give them the opportunity to talk and see if they're worried about something in particular. they have questions about what's happening out there. at the very least, they have the best information, but it is. you're right. it's disorienting when you go

see grandma and grandpa and they stand in the driveway or in the doorway and the other grandmaand grandpa come over for easter and they're watching from a distance. they know this isn't normal. you wonder like so many other things, like kids who know about school shootings and may watch that on tv, they are internalizing that fear and anxiety and you hope as a parent they have a place to talk about it and explain how they're feeling and ask questions and hopefully provide them some answers. >> yeah, we have kids from 11 to 32, and so a lot of different levels of the type of conversation to have. honesty, obviously, the best policy. kids can tell when you're lying and there's no reason to. we're all in this together, and the kids can be a part of it. it's especially hard, though, for families with very young children in apartment complexes where there's nowhere to go and everyone is cooped up.

one great thing about social media is that parents are exchanging ideas as they get through this. we're going to end today with a couple of stories that might help a little bit amid so much uncertainty in the world. in boston, baseball fans are reeling from the void of their beloved red sox season so native bostonian actor john krasinski with the help from david ortiz teamed up to present a lifetime surprise for the city's hometown health care heroes. >> i know we're all missing baseball season, but that doesn't mean that i can't bring baseball to you. >> so the red sox are going to donate four tickets for life. >> what? >> yes. >> to you and everybody at beth israel. >> yes.

>> you hear them all go, what? that's awesome. in detroit, one hospital has a message for its patients recovering from covid-19. don't stop believing. for decades after the rock band journey famously introduced the world to mythical south detroit, their hit song can be heard blaring down the hallways of henry ford hospital to pump up sick patients, give them some inspiration. and over in atlanta, a high school principal rented six billboards to honor the graduating senior class whose ceremonial walks across the stage were cut short by the pandemic. so willie, we're all, as we look at final thoughts here, all looking for ways to find the bright lights. >> yeah, and there's a lot of light out there. people are shining right now in this terrible time. mika, just a few minutes ago we had governor cuomo on in an extraordinary interview. he's been very careful over the last couple of months because he

knows he needs the president to provide him with some of the things his state needs to get back on its feet. that seems to be gone. he said in answering to your question that there is no value in watching the president's daily briefing. he says it's irrelevant. he said, in fact, it looks like an "snl" skit to categorize it. he also said that he's ready for a constitutional fight if the president commands that the economy is open and new york is not ready, governor cuomo said he's ready for the constitutional crisis as he called it that will follow. >> these are difficult times. thank you, willie. that does it for us this morning. stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now. hi there. i'm stephanie ruhle. it is tuesday, april 14th. here's what's happening today. after suffering through one of the toughest weeks our country has ever seen, we've got some positive news. the