our discussions will focus with the people that we're dealing with on rejuvenating the economy and always health, always health. health and life, living is number one. but the rejuvenated economy, and i think it's going to go quickly. we'll be utilizing our robust testing capacity for the governors. we'll be giving them what they need if they don't have it themselves. we hope by now they'll be able to have it themselves. we were hoping they'd have it for themselves early on but they weren't. such great advances have been made. we'll be dealing with that. they can rely on us very strongly. they'll be relying on us i think for some help, and we're there, whether it's building hospital beds which i don't think they're going to need. you look at javits center, the great, great job that the army corps of engineers did. fema got involved. we actually ended upsetting our medical people. that was not a covid-19 center.

they asked could you do that. even after we did that, it was not used very much. meaning they didn't have to use it nearly to the extent they thought. it wasn't that they made a mistake. nobody made a mistake. i'd rather have too much than too little. err on the side of caution. it's really incredible what they did including the two ships, the two great ships. i just want to thank a lot of really great people, a lot of great politicians, and we're going to be announcing the political list tomorrow. on there we're going to have a lot of senators. we're going to be having a meeting with the governors probably on thursday, a meeting by teleconference and a lot of things will be discussed and some of the details will be discuss discussed. we want them to do an incredible job running their states. i think they'll do an incredible job. i think each one will do an

incredible job. again t federal government is there. we have ventilators if they need them. we have beds if they need them. we have hospitals if they need them. we have a testing capacity that's now second to none. again, other countries are calling us -- countries that you thought were doing well are calling us for help on testing. we're there to help. with that, if you have a few questions, we'll take them. if not, that would be okay, too. go ahead, please, jeff. >> mr. president, two questions. first on your announcement about w.h.o., i understand your grievances with them, but can you address why it is the correct time to do this now in the middle -- >> we're going to be dealing with countries and we're going to be dleelg with leaders of different parts of the world. we spend $500 million a year, we have for many years, far more than anybody else, including china. look, i read off a long list of problems that we have, and we've had problems with them for

years. it doesn't -- we're looking at a term of 60 to 90 days. we're doing a very thorough investigation right now as we speak. this should have been done by previous administrations a long time ago. when you look at the mistakes that were made, all of the mistakes that were made, it's just something we have to look at. it is very china centric. i told that to president xi. i said the world health organization is very china centric, meaning whatever it is, china was always right. you can't do that. you can't do that. not right. again, it's not a question of money, but when we're spending $500 million and china is spending $38 million, $34 million, $40 million, $42 million in a case. it's not money, but it's not right. so we'll see. this is an evaluation period. in the meantime we're putting a hold on all funds going to world health. we will be able to take that

money and channel it to the areas that most need it. that's another way of doing it. we have not been treated properly. >> mr. president, you mentioned you're going to be speaking with all the governors tomorrow, make recommendations -- >> probably thursday. >> thursday. what if they don't listen to you or take your advice or obey you? will you consider taking away their federal funding? >> i don't want to say that. they'll listen. they'll be fine. we'll have a good relationship. they need the federal government, not only for funding. i'm not saying take it away, but they need it for advice. they'll need maybe equipment that we have. we have a tremendous stockpile that we're in the process of completing. we're in a very good position. the cupboard was bare when i got here. in all fairness to previous administrations, no one ever thought anything like this was going to happen, but it did happen. the governors will be very respectful of the presidency. again, this isn't me.

this is the presidency. the presidency has such a great importance in terms of what we're doings, and you can talk about constitution, you can talk about federalism, talk about whatever you want. but the best way, i'm talking now from a managerial standpoint is to let individual governors run individual states and come to us if they have difficulty, and we will help them. yeah, john. >> you talk about having testing and tracing equipment and the facility for that in place to open up the government. dr. fauci said this morning that critical testing and tracing ability does not currently exist. >> i don't know. i don't know. i don't know what he said. nobody knows. >> my question is will it exist by may 1st? >> the individual governors have testing. the individual governors -- we have many forms of testing and new testing is being developed. our country has to get opened,

and it will get opened. it will get opened safely and hopefully quickly. some areas quicker than other areas. but there's tremendous testing, and the governors will use whatever testing is necessary, and if they're not satisfied with their testing, they shouldn't open. they'll use whatever testing is necessary. go ahead, please. >> thank you, mr. president. back to the w.h.o. will you support the organization again if ted rose is immediately replaced, or do you want to see him step down? >> we're doing an investigation. i don't know the gentleman, but i know there have been problems, and it's been very unfair to the united states just like the world trade organization has been very, very unfair. now they're coming into line. when they consider china a developing nation, and because china is a developing nation they take massive advantage of the united states? why didn't other presidents stop this? i've been talking about it from the day i got in.

we're looking at it strongly. i have a problem with world health and world trade, both of them. i'm not sure which is worse, you want to know the truth. we'll figure it out. >> mr. president, you were criticizing the w.h.o. for praising china as transparent. you were saying many of the same things about china just a couple of months ago. how do you square your decision -- >> i did a trade deal with china where china is supposed to be spending $250 billion in our country. we're going to be watching very much to see. we got a little waylaid by the virus. i'd love to have a good relationship with china. we made a phenomenal deal. because of me, china has paid us tens of billions of dollars over the course of a very short period of time, billions. some of that money has been spent to farmers that were targeted by china. we cannot let that happen. we can't let that happen. so we ended up signing a very good trade deal.

now i want to see if china lives up to it. i know president xi. i think he will live up to it. if he doesn't live up to it, that will be okay, too, because we have very, very good alternatives. go ahead. >> today 600,000 cases, 25,000 deaths. i know you want to blame the w.h.o. i've spoken to hundreds of people across the country in the last few weeks who say they still can't get tested and they aren't social distancing. they aren't -- >> excuse me. i know your question. you ready? the governors are supposed to do testing. it's up to the governors. go ahead, please. >> mr. president, that's not the question. >> quiet. >> that's not the question. >> quiet. quiet. >> they say they're following your lead, that they are not social distancing -- >> the governors are doing the testing. it's now not up and hasn't been up to the federal government. go ahead.

>> i told them when they put this guy here, it's nothing but trouble. he's a show boat. if you keep talking, i'll leave and you can have it out with the rest of these people. if you keep talking, i'm going to leave and you can have it out with them. >> a simple question. >> just a loud mouth. go ahead. >> if you could kind of clarify. are you lifting your slow-the-spread before the may 1 deadline -- >> not at all. the governors will be running their individual states. some of them will say, no, i can't open now, and some of them may last longer than we even would think. others will say i can. i don't want to mention states. there are numerous states in great shape right now. they're viewing the rest of the country like we don't even believe this is happening. we have a lot of those states. they're set to open practically now. we're going to let them open sooner than the date. we're going to pick a date, get a date that's good. it's going to be sooner, sooner

than the end of the month. there are many states out there looking at this and reviewing it and saying we shouldn't be even included in this. there are some that want to open up almost now. now, if we disagree with it, we're not going to let them open. if some governor has a lot of problems, a lot of cases, a lot of death and they want to open early, we're not going to let it happen. so we're there to watch. we're there to help, but we're also there to be critics. on testing, very important, we've always wanted the states to do the testing. we're now providing great testing, but the state has to provide the great testing. the state has to provide the ventilators, but they didn't do that. we ended up going into the ventilator business essentially. and we've made tens of thousands of ventilators and we solved a big problem for the states. we want them to do the testing. and we are there to help. please. >> i have two questions. >> just one. >> first can i follow up --

>> one question. >> can i follow up on jordan's question. do you want to walk back where you did praise china in january about being transparent. >> i'm always respectful of china. why wouldn't i be? in the meantime china has paid us nothing in your last administration, nothing in any previous administration. they paid us tens of billions of dollars because of what we've done. and the trade deal we have, they have to give us $250 billion in purchases. let's see if they do that. they're also paying us 25% or $250 billion in tariffs. we're taking in billions of dollars for china, from china. they never paid us ten cents. that's a great thing. now, if they don't produce or if we find out bad things, we're not going to be happy. and we're doing that. that's what we're doing. look, we have an investigation under way.

we're paying almost $500 million. we have an investigation under way on this world health organization. we will find out exactly what went on, and we may be satisfied that it can be remedied and we may be satisfied that it's so bad it can't be remedied. if it can't, we're going to go a different route. >> that's not my question. you were criticizing the w.h.o. for praising china for being transparent. you also praised china -- >> i don't talk about china's transparency. if i'm so good to china, how come i'm the only leader of a country that closed our borders tightly against china. by the way, when i closed the border, that was long ahead of anybody -- you can ask anybody that was in the room, 21 people. i was the one person that wanted to do it. deborah can tell you that better than anybody. i was the one person that wanted to do it. you know why? because i don't believe everything i hear. if we didn't close our border

early, very early, long before the kind of dates you're talking about, we would have had thousands, probably hundreds of thousands more deaths. that's enough. thank you. >> last week you said you would have data in the coming days about the coronavirus's disproportionate impact on black americans? >> that's being worked on very strongly. >> when will we have that? >> i would say within two weeks. cdc is working, but we're getting reports on that. >> mr. president, talking about reopening parts of the country by the end of the month. if you do that and as a result you see a spike in cases in those areas -- >> we may or may not. some countries have and some countries haven't. i'm watching other countries. i'm studying other countries as they open. i don't want to go into names because for some it would be a little embarrassing. i'm studying other kunlts as we go along. on that, we have looked at every country that's opened, some successfully, some okay.

no total disaster, but some okay. and some have to go back to the hot spot and fix the hot spot. we think we're going to do it very successfully. again, we have one country but lots of different pieces. it's a puzzle. we have beautiful pieces, beautiful states with capable governors. they know when it's time to open. we don't want to put pressure on anybody. i'm not going to put any pressure on any governor to open. i'm not going to say to governor cuomo you've got to open within seven days. it want him to take his time, do it right and open new york. i'm not putting any pressure on the governors. some of them don't need pressure or not pressure. they're ready to go. that's a good thing. so we'll open it up in beautiful little pieces as it comes along. go ahead. behind you. >> just a quick question. you spoke about governor cuomo. wondering if you have any thoughts on some of his remarks from earlier today where he basically said were new york to be pressured to be opened, it

would cause a constitutional crisis and he basically said you declared your sing king trump. >> yeah, i declared myself as king. i heard he said that. i didn't see the remarks. he understands how we helped him. he needed help. >> let me bring back kristen welker and our two medical experts, dr. lipi roy and dr. william schaffner. i first want to start with you, kristen welker. the president -- i do think we're learning what the president has ordered, and i think it's important he just said and emphasized he's not going to order any state to open before they want to open. that's an important point there. he's hinted he's willing to open before then if a state is ready. he seemed to want to walk that back. the biggest thing that i think i can't figure out here that i want you to try to untangle is this issue of saying, well, it's the states that have to do the testing. that's not on the federal government.

that seems to be a big deflection and a big missing piece of this puzzle to open up the country. >> it's a huge missing piece, chuck. president trump remember had initially said, look, we're ramping up testing. we're making sure that various different states have the tests that they need. there's going to be testing in the parking lot of walmart, for example. yes, there has been this ramping up of testing across the country, and yet it's still not anywhere close to where it needs to be, and the united states is lagging when it comes to testing per capita, when you compare it to other countries like south korea, for example. so it's still hard to see how some of these hard-hit areas like new york will be able to reopen until they have that widespread testing. it remains to be answered why president trump is deflecting that solely to the states, why he's not taking more responsibility for that.

it's also just worth underscoring, chuck, this point again, yesterday president trump saying he has total authority. this is a major backtrack from that. he's now saying the decision to reopen is up to these governors, even indicating some of them are so eager to reopen because they haven't been hit as hard, that it might open before that may 1st deadline that he had been looking at. so there have been a number of contradictions and confusing statements that we've seen from this administration. the ones about testing, yet another example of that, chuck. the bottom line, every single medical professional and official has said there needs to be more widespread testing before some of these hardest hit areas in particular can reopen, chuck. >> i want to bring in the two doctors, lipi roy and william schaffner. dr. roy, i have to admit, if you're trying to follow the logic train of his complaints about the w.h.o., at the same

time he's shielding apparently the lack of transparency by china, going out of his way to praise china and simultaneously criticize the w.h.o. for apparently being duped by china. that logic train is very difficult to follow. the bottom line is, did china deceive the w.h.o., or is that something that's too soon to know? >> i think it's important to recognize that the world health organization, many countries around the world depend on the world health organization for its technical assistance and guidance, particularly a lot of developing countries, india, for example. we need to remember, we live in a world with other countries. this global pandemic has shown that. india also mass produces a lot of medications that we depend on, both china and india. they've actually shut down some of that production which is going to result in medication shortage for us. this idea of cutting back

funding by our president, cutting back funding to the w.h.o. in the midst of a global pandemic is nothing short of insanity. we really need to work together and develop a public health strategy and a strong public health infrastructure to follow up on kristen's point of both widespread testing hand in hand with contact tracing so we understand the scope of the problem and get people healthy and safe. >> i'm going to go back to the briefing here in a minute. but it is worth noting on that front that this testing issue again, this is equipment that the federal government was supposed to get, the biggest thing being swabs. >> the united nations economist says there's a danger that the food supply could be interrupted during this pandemic. i wanted to know what you're

going to do about that? >> i think our farmers are incredible. they're producing levels of food just unbelievable. our transportation -- that's one of the reasons i have the transportation on the line tomorrow for the delivery of the footed. we're doing phenomenally with the food, and i will say the stores, kroger and walmart which does a lot of the food, many of the stores, they seem to be in very good shape. i haven't heard that at all. we're going to be very strong on food supply. how about one more question. >> mr. president, the death projections that you mentioned earlier are based on full social distancing until the end of may. so if you ease up on these guidelines now, how many more americans do you think will die? >> first of all, we'll have guidelines, even for the states that open, and they'll be guidelines. we will not have any problem with that. your question is a very interesting question. the states that are opening are not states which will have a problem with that. plus, they will have to adhere to guidelines until a certain

point into the future when the enemy is vanquished. >> the reason they don't have a problem now is because of social distancing. >> no. the reason they don't have -- partially, and some of that will stay in effect. much of it will stay in effect. but the reason is there are different kinds of states. they have lots of room. they have fewer people and they have lots of room. that's one of the primary reasons. i want to thank you all very much. a lot of positive things are happening. we're going to have some very strong recommendations for the governors. we're going to work with the governors. the governors are going to do a good job. if they don't do a good job, we'll come down on them very hard. we'll have no other choice. >> we've been listening to president trump's coronavirus briefing. he appears to i believe ended the briefing there completely at this point. obviously is not 100% sure on that front. but the big news coming out of

it, number one, we're withholding new funding to the w.h.o. he was very careful in what he said. the money has likely already gone out the door. this is about additional new money. as soon as we learn more about that. he was very specific in how he identified that. may not be actually yanking money away. it's about putting new money forward. that's number one. number two, he's backing off on his demand when it comes to the governors, that they open when he says so. he acknowledges that it is not his call. but he did say he wanted a plan from every individual governor on that front. let me bring back a couple of the doctors with me, drs. schaffner and roy. dr. schaffner, let me get to you. i want to go back to this issue of w.h.o. and china. i think you in the medical community is like, what's with the blame game now? we can worry about this in three years. again, if you're irritated with the w.h.o. and how they handled

china, biologic you should be more upset with china deceiving the w.h.o. did china deceive the w.h.o. or is it too soon to tell? >> i think it's too soon to tell, chuck. in the beginning the chinese molecular biologist identified the coronavirus, sequenced the genome and sent it out to the world scientific community which allowed vaccine development, diagnostic tests and the like. that was a marvel of transparency and we all praised china. then, of course, when they started to count cases, those data were very uncertain. they seemed to change the ground rules. we weren't entirely sure whether we were getting the whole story. of course, china did not allow in a delegation from the world health organization or from the cdc which surprised many of us because i think the world ooes community would have been there

working shoulder to shoulder with chinese colleagues, helping out to identify the outbreak, its extent and defining which populations were most affected. it took a while for china to begin to open up and provide information in a more coherent fashion. that's certainly true. >> so ultimately, dr. schaffner, is it china's lack of transparency then, if you're looking to say who caused a slow response, is it china's lack of transparency or should that not have been on them? >> well, chuck, you know, an after-action report is very important. we are here going forward. and what we hope to do is through out the world and certainly in the united states bring this outbreak to a close or at least reduce it as much as we can as quickly as we k. i'd like to hold off on the

after-action report for a little while and look at what we're doing now. certainly i would agree with your previous statement and dr. roy that testing is terribly important as we go forward. >> i was just going to say, dr. roy, i want to go back to this testing front. he seemed to say the federal government is here for ventilators. the fire department is here to building field hospitals. testing, sorry, not on the federal government's docket here. frankly, if you're going to go down the after-action reports, the reason we're here is due to the cdc's faulty tests from the beginning. again, can this get done without the federal government supporting testing? >> chuck, the medical and public health communities have been very consistent with our messaging and our requests. in fact, we've been begging for the defense production act to mass produce protective equipment, vents and other medical supplies and federalize

the distribution of said supplies directly to hospitals and front line doctors and nurses so they can do their job, which is save lives. we absolutely need these items to save lives and do the work that we need. testing, absolutely. it's crazy that we still are having the same conversation. we need widespread testing and that's effective in terms of specificity and sensitivity. we need to know exactly who is sick in terms of the diagnostic, but we also need to understand who is immune possibly and who is recovered and can maybe go back to work. this idea of the economy opening up, i understand the president multiple times has said let's open up the economy, created a task force. correct me if i'm wrong, but i don't think there's anyone with medical or public health training on that task force. i'm no financial pundit, but i know something about health and wellness and sickness. i don't think you can open up an economy with dead people.

so let's do what needs to be done. i agree with dr. schaffner. let's move forward and get some action points so we can really get people going here. >> for the life of me i don't understand why this testing debacle has about the got a manhattan project-likens of urgency. this is everything. it's everything to open up the government. it's everything to get us out of our houses. it's one of the frustrations to watch. it's like a slow motion train wreck. dr. roy, thank you for that. kristen welker, final point here. it's always sort of interpreting where the president's head is at. the decision to go after w.h.o., not attack china. the decision to walk back the governors hit today and at the same time talk optimistic about the economy. you cover this president very closely. what did you learn from those decisions by him today? >> well, look, he's been

signaling that he was going to cut the new funding or halt it to the w.h.o. -- >> well, we went pretty well today. 2 1/2 hours where we didn't have any major transmission error. unfortunately i'll have to leave it there. i will for kristen welker, thank you. sorry about the technical hiccup. for the entire nbc and msnbc team that helps us with the briefings, thank you. ari melber, i'm handing it to you, my friend. the baton is yours. i'm out. >> appreciate it chuck todd. nbc's chuck todd. i'm ari melber. let me tell you what we're going to do. msnbc broadcast part of the white house coronavirus briefing. we have our experts lined up to go through it. in a few moments we have a

special fact check prepared. some of what the president was said was false and we want you to have the facts as part of the coverage. one headline, president trump blaming the world health organization for its response to this pandemic and announcing he's using his authority to halt funding to the organization, arguing they were china-centric and took china's word on the virus in the early stages. the president, of course, has ignored his own recent activities which is to say how he downplayed the virus, watt he's accusing the w.h.o. of. he did even worse. we have the public evidence of that. president trump saying he does want to move forward to reopening the economy. the plans are being finalized, but he wants to basically, the president, let each governor make their own calls for what is appropriate. of course, under our system of federalism and the u.s. constitution, that's not how it works. any president, this one or another, can say those words, that he is going to stand up there and tell governor what

they can do and when they can do it. the fact is, it doesn't really matter. i offer that not as a criticism of the president, but a reminder that every state has a governor with its own coequal government branch. the governor makes those calls in each state. i want to go to our experts before we turn to the fact check. jeh johnson ran the homeland security department under president obama. dr. ba dill yeah, infectious disease physician from boston university school of medicine. "the new york times'" peter baker. thanks to each of you. dr., what does it mean when the u.s. government withholds funding from the w.h.o. and what, as a reminder for everyone, does the w.h.o. do in coordinating these intergovernmental pandemic responses. >> w.h.o. has been a technical partner in this pandemic. let's step back and see what it does. there's a world economic forum

study that says every month w.h.o. looks at about 7,000 reports of potential outbreaks and does about 300 investigations, keeping us protected at baseline from outbreaks. in this particular pandemic, w.h.o. helped set up the diagnostic capacity in a lot of o countries along with regional partners. they are the platform over which sovereign countries share data, technical expertise and they are our eyes on this pandemic. so if we hadn't learned the lesson before, this idea an outbreak anywhere is an outbreak everywhere by basically reducing the funding for w.h.o., we don't know what that translates to be and what they've said in the press conference today is basically cutting off the global response to this pandemic at its knees. >> that's important context. jeh johnson, this has been a fight often waged and led by the governors. the president didn't exactly lead in closing down the economy, so to speak. the governors did.

governor cuomo has been speaking about that. take a listen. >> this wasn't a bending of the constitution. what the president said last night, it was a breaking of the constitution. he basically declared himself king trump. look, the governors are in charge because the president put them in charge. 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. >> jeh, what you just saw from the president in battling with the governors, claiming he could authorize what they do and then trying to distract and deflect on the w.h.o., what's your response to someone who has run a complex agency? >> ari, thanks for having me. let's be clear. the federal government has the

authority in a situation like this to regulate our international borders with other nations. the federal government has some authority to regulate the travel of contaminated persons one by one in interstate travel, between states. the federal government does not have, the president does not have the general police power or public health authority to tell people to stay in their homes or to stay away from their places of work. i'm sitting here in my home in new jersey by virtue of an order of the governor of new jersey. i'm prohibited from going to my law firm in manhattan by order of the governor of new york. president trump doesn't have the authority to tell these governors, lift these executive orders, i am king and i can tell you what i want you to do. >> jeh, let's pause on that. you're giving us a very clear capsule explanation probably because you're an esteemed

attorney as well as a former homeland security director. but to put that in plain english, that means when the president claims that he will authorize or bless what these governors do, on a scale of zero to ten, how much credibility or value does that have? >> the president -- when he says i'm authorizing the governors to do what they want to do, implies he has the authority in the first place, and he does not. so i don't know why he keeps stating it that way. yesterday, it was basically i am king and i can supplant the governors. today it's i'll let the governors do what they believe they need to do, it's up to them. it's only tuesday. we'll see what throw brings. the roles should be very clear here. the federal government's role is to surge resources including, by the way, test kits. >> yeah. all very important context. peter baker, again, as we widen

out beyond just what the president says to what's actually happening, i want to put something up on the screen that's a reminder in this grim time, so many cases, so much loss of life, so many lost jobs. that's what america and the world is going through. that doesn't mean there aren't places where things are working. it's also our job to tell that story. look at california, the blue line here versus new york, from march to april 14th. governor cuomo has got a tough job, higher population density in manhattan. peter, with your reporting on what's going on in the states, what does it tell us about the governors that have had progress to see california keeping that curve so flat? >> i think that's a really good point. first of all, that's one of the reasons why the president talks about parts of the country that are not doing badly. he looks at charts that are even more extensive and says why should we have limits in these states where there aren't a lot of cases and aren't a lot of deaths.

well, the answer from the public health people is because we had the restrictions in place that has allowed these places to flatten the curve or vice president seen as much of an outbreak as they might have otherwise. the risk is, if you open too quickly, don't do it with the right cautions, keep some measures in place, you could suddenly see those lines on that chart begin to spike the same way they did in new york. it's not a given they would stay down just because they're down now. the president did seem to indicate he understood that a little bit today where he said even states that will reopen will not reopen without guidelines. what you heard from some public health people, even if you were to reopen, you might reopen only some businesses. take your time, a phased kind of way, do it with plas, or other kinds of guidelines. i think what you're seeing is an evolution of his position yesterday as secretary johnson said, it's no longer i will tell you what to do. it's, well, there may be different answers for different

situations. >> peter baker, everyone knows you to be a pretty straight shooter, straight reporter. i'm curious within those guidelines that obviously you follow, since we talk so much about guidelines, what you can contribute or tell us about "the new york times" issuing such a body blow to the president. i'll say it this way. you can say it the way you want. the president was clearly rattled by "the times" investigative reporting. to use a kol loek lichl, he owned himself in hijacking the briefing to fry to play a video that looked like the white house defense of his own record rather than new information which caused its own set of responses and viewers are familiar. it would seem what hit home was not opinion or criticism or the like, but rather an exhaustive piece of investigative reporting that called out the response. i'm curious as a member of "the

new york times," what you can tell us about this and the reporting, at the same time people saying are we relate gaiting the past when we need to be doing the crisis response? it would seem part of investigating this is getting the response right. peter? >> it's our responsibility as a news organization to look at what the government did or didn't do and figure out what lessons can be learned from it. that's amicable to american journalism. the piece run by my colleagues over the weekend has stood the test of all sorts of blows. no one challenged it in a factual way. it was based not only on documentary evidence including emails, some on-the-record interviews. almost all the sources are people that work for the government. these are not trump critics. these are people involved in the situation telling what happened, when it happened, how it happened. the president, of course, in his defense yesterday, understandably upset about it. he was misleading at several points. he played maggie haberman and

quotes she said on the podcast without including entirely what she said, trying to make it look like she was saying something she wasn't. we stand by the reporting. we think the reporting is important. it's important for everybody including it and looking at how it can be done in a different way. >> we wanted to give you the mic there, a story that obviously has legs. my thanks to you all. obviously we have been keeping up with this breaking news. we want to turn now on the facts that undercut what we saw and heard in the rose garden today. the larger context here is that, as i've mentioned, today and yesterday the president seized the time that is allotted for federal updates about the coronavirus to keep you and your family safe, to tell you what you need to know, to provide the information that your taxpayer

dollars fund, he has very clearly hijacked that time to wage what can only be considered as scores to settle, attacking the w.h.o. today and attacking the press, as peter was mentioning, and defending the president's record yesterday. >> they said i acted late on closing down the country. some people wish we never closed it down. if we didn't, we would have lost hundreds of thousands of people. interestingly so, i'm against -- we did the right -- everything we did was right. >> let me be clear speaking to you as a journalist. those are empirical claims. meaning we can gather the evidence to show whether they are true or false. ex-pers and members of donald trump's own administration say those were false claims, for him to assert he acted early, decisively or correctly in every case involving the virus. here are the receipts. that thorough "new york times" investigation finding the president was slow to absorb the scale of the risk and the warnings from senior officials.

now today his new claims that the w.h.o. was wrong, late and china-centric, those are misleading and contradicted by donald trump himself. take a look at this. in january trump saying the u.s. greatly appreciated china's efforts and transparency. referring to the virus he said it will all work out well and i want to thank president xi. in february he added president xi was powerfully focused on leading the counterattacks on the coronavirus. donald trump today, as he attacks the w.h.o., went out of his way to dismiss criticism of china's handling of the virus at the time. >> are you concerned that china is covering up the full extent of the coronavirus? >> no. china is working very hard. late last night i had a very good talk with president xi. we talked about, mostly about the coronavirus. they're working really hard and i think they're doing a very professional job. they're in touch with the world,

our world organization, cdc, also. we're working together. but world health is working with them. >> world health is working with them. that's what the president sounded like in realtime. today he's criticizing the world health organization for saying at that time that he was praising them and china, they weren't doing the right things. that's donald trump's own record. we also know what life was like just a few months ago. everyone remembers it. trump was downplaying the threat. the presidential primaries were in full bloom. people were living a normal life in america. we know behind the scenes, the state department's epidemiologist put warnings that the coronavirus was spreading across the globe and heading to the u.s. trump and his top officials also on notice because experts inside his security council will urging officials to think of plans to quarantine cities the size of chalk. so what was that health organization actually doing in

january? let me show you. the w.h.o. was publicly urging countries to prepare for containment including active surveillance, early detection, isolation, case management and contact tracing. why am i showing you this right now? because you need to know the facts that while donald trump defunds the w.h.o. and tries to blame them to distract from his own response, he is actually only calling attention to the fact that the w.h.o. was ahead of president trump. in fact, just days after getting the coronavirus briefing, he said this in january. >> have you been briefed by the cdc, are there worries about a pandemic at this point? >> i have. no, not at all. >> no, not at all worried. the political ploy is easy to see. you have donald trump projecting his own weakness, what he did four months for months in front of you, trying to claim maybe it

was the w.h.o. doing what he did. again to the facts, by late february, donald trump's task force which included dr. fauci concluded they needed to move toward the aggressive social distancing we're now living through. and then there was their own doctor issuing this blunt warning on february 25th. >> we expect we will see community spread in this country. it's not so much a question of the this will happen anymore, but rather more a question of exactly when this will happen and how many people in this country will have severe illness. >> that was in february. that was in public. we all know what happened. we're all living with the consequences. this is as serious as it gets. today when the president walks out and says he's taken the money from the w.h.o., that it's their fault, they were china-centr china-centric, they didn't do the right thing, you need to know what president trump was doing and saying at the time. the w.h.o. was actually putting

out the warnings, calling for containments, telling countries to get ready. here in late february is exactly what president trump was saying. >> mr. president, the cdc said yesterday they believe it's inevitable that the virus will spread in the united states and it's not a question of the but when. do you agree with that assessment? >> i don't believe it's inevitable. it it could be a small level or a large level. it's going to be very well under control. it may get bigger, a little bigger, may not get bigger at all. we'll see what happens. >> we'll see what happens. you've probably heard that phrase. it's one the president uses a lot. unfortunately we've all seen and lived through what happens. we're not going over this history right now to make any kind of point against this or that government official. we're going over this history because the president, now the second day in a row, has hijacked the time to update everyone on the virus, to tell you the public information and

security and public health information you need, he's hijacked that time to defend his record to attack other people, in this case inaccurately attacking the w.h.o. which may not be a perfect organization above reproach but happened to be ahead of him. why do i say that? because it was three more weeks after what i just showed you until the president did issue the first social distancing guidelines on march 16th. having gone through the facts, i want to bring in lawrence gostin, director of the world health organization center on health and human rights. we reached out to you when the president announced very recently, within the last two hours, he was defunding the w.h.o. in the rose garden. you agreed to rush and make this interview, and i appreciate it, sir. >> of course, yes. it's truly shocking. i think every one of your viewers understands we're in a

once-in-a-century event, an unprecedented global health crisis. to actually in the midst of that crisis cut the funding of the world's global health leader, the world health organization is truly shocking. what he's taking from the w.h.o. is not just money for preparedness. it's not just money that w.h.o. is going to need when this marches through africa and latin america and the indian sub continent. it's also things that americans care about. it's aids, polio, mental health. all the good things that the world health organization does. really all this is doing is shifting the blame because, as you said, it was abundantly clear for many weeks and months that there was a tsunami coming from china, then east asia, then

europe. we had plenty of notice and we were unprepared and we can't blame china for that. we can't blame the world health organization for that. i just -- >> let me jump in. if a president -- take this one out of it. if a president correctly found a level of failure in an organization, domestic or foreign, that they thought it merited defunding, there is a mechanism by which that might be valid. i think what gets to the heart of it, you're mentioning the w.h.o. does a lot of good work. that's clear, the viewers know that. at the heart of this is the president going out today and making a claim that the w.h.o. missed the boat, wasn't ready, didn't put the word out in january and that he did. those are two empirical claims. how do you rate both of them? >> empirically they're simply flat-out wrong. when w.h.o. got its first report from china, it transparently issued that report.

it very quickly called for strict containment measures, for isolation, quarantine, contact tracing. it approved a w.h.o. test kit which the united states never used and has done testing at a paltry level compared to other w.h.o. member states like south korea, and it's just simply factually untrue that we could hold w.h.o. accountable for our failures because we had notice, and w.h.o. was warning. >> and the president had notice. even when americans thought, boy, i wasn't thinking about this in january, the reporting, which is so vital, shows the president's top people had notice. final question to you again, and i really appreciate you jumping in on this quite major development. in your view as an expert does defunding and disentangling to

whatever degree the united states from w.h.o. right now, does that make it more likely that more people will catch this virus and die? >> there's no question about it. without >> there's no question about it. without a w.h.o., there will be -- there will be many, many more deaths. and not just as it marches through subsuharran africa, which is next, but here in the united states. if there are epidemics everywhere or anywhere, it's going to get to the united states. so we will see a second wave. we could see a third wave. and we will have done nothing about it. in fact, we will have done the opposite. >> we wanted to get your expertise on this. again, thank you. we are in rolling coverage here. i'm ari melber. we're going to turn now to another one of the reports that we had planned.

michelle nor sis a contributing columnny joins us, as well as charlie sykes and the mayor of new orleans, latoyia cantrell. thanks to all of you for your patience. mayor, as a local official dealing with this on the front lines, your response to what we were just discussing, the trump administration's unusual decision to try to cut off the w.h.o. in the middle of a pandemic. and anything else you wanted to respond to from the president's remarks today. >> well, i think that the world health organization is one that we definitely need to be adequately funded, because we're not in this world alone. and so as it relates to this pandemic as we have seen the hurt disrupt the world, we need to also prepare to support countries that have yet to experience what we have been experiencing every single day.

and so add get resources we know are necessary. and even the role that the united states of america has played with aiding and providing support of nations across this -- throughout the world. so it's very important. >> charlie? >> >> it's fascinating watching the president ping-ponging back and forth essentially saying i alone can solve this problem and it's up to the governors. so yesterday, i have total support and i have total power, and today, then backing off from all of this. so this is a president that wants to play at being the big problem solver, but he doesn't want to do the work, because he doesn't want to take the responsibility. and you have to understand the cutting off the funds of the world health organization is very much a -- finding someone else to blame, to point the

fingers at. this is a president who doesn't believe the buck stops with him. we've seen this. a month ago, the president says i have no responsibility whatsoever. yesterday, i have total power. today, hey, it's up to the governors and i'm going to blame the world health organization. i really do think that we are seeing this sort of quintessential trumpism in very real time with unfortunately potentially tragic consequences. >> well, charlie, viewers will know you as someone with a history in traditional conservative thought in america. by that standard, where is the president's approach to federalism to the governors fit in here tonight? >> well, that was fascinating. i was wondering yesterday, so are conservatives still believe in state's rights or go along with the president's idea that he can tell the states what to do? obviously, somebody pointed out to him that despite his

constitutional no nothingism, that there are no provisions in the constitution that enables him to enforce his will on the state government. but it was interesting over the last 24, 48 hours to watch the silence among republicans, very few other than people like lynne cheney -- liz cheney, pressed back against the president. this is a fundamental tenant of conservatism, or it has been for decades, that in fact the 10th amendment reserves most of the powers to the states, not the federal government. and here's the president who, as claims sweeping powers that do not exist, rewriting the constitution. it was an extraordinary moment as we saw the president's constitutional no nothingism unchallenged by a party that off tries to wrap itself around the constitution. >> michelle? >> you know, it's interesting to listen to the president speak at a moment where the country so badly needs stability and the

notion of having someone having a steady hand on the helm. instead one day he says he has total authority, the next basically saying carry on, governors. you're seeing a president who deflects, demeans, and denounces others as opposed to taking responsibility. you didn't hear him talk at all about the long lines at food banks. you didn't hear him talk about the specifics of what we're going to do to test people if we're going to be sending people back to work. i think charlie is right, he likes the notion of power, but he doesn't take on the actual mantle of power, which is about logistics, about details, about building teams, and exactly at the moment when we should be linking arms with an international organization, he instead deflects the blame and sends them off and does exactly what the head of the w.h.o. pleaded with him not to do, which is to turn this into political matter. >> right. and that really goes to what's

happening in the real world. louisiana governor edwards has been speaking about this, mayor, and that's where you are, where these decisions can be life and death, but they are what local officials are really dealing with. you ovebviously working in cop cert on when and how eventually when to reopen. take a listen to governor edwards. >> optimistic phase, that we move from surge and we begin to transition into suppression. ultimately on our way to herd immunity and ultimately to a vaccine. but in this transition, where we do see light at the end of the tunnel, where there is a ray of optimism and hopefulness, that this too shall pass. it's also perhaps the most difficult and challenging phase of all. >> we're actually going to play

governor edwards. take a look. >> we're still very much in the middle of the efforts to flatten the curve and see that curve actually tart to trend downward, which is incredibly important. and we're reporting and everybody is seeing some of these favorable numbers. we know that the day's death count is serious, the largest ever. but as i mentioned before, that's a lagging indicator. >> two governors there, in contrast to the president, the second obviously being in your state. walk us through how you're making these decisions in the coming months. >> well, one is that we have to let the data truly guide us. what is very clear that the virus is in control as it relates to a timeline. and so looking at the data sets, but also looking at where even perishes in the state of louisiana for example, are behind the city of new orleans. so when i made the initial no

gathering order and canceling events and parades, which was on march 9th. so the state of louisiana followed, but then also various parishes, as well. but not only that, when you look at our neighboring states that had yet to take any action, so you really can't look at it in isolation. you have to look at your neighbors next to you. so parishes, as well as states that you're surrounded by. the city of new orleans is a destination city. you know that, a world class city. and in terms of our industry, hospitality and tourism, that's our main driver. for the city of new orleans and the state of louisiana. so when we think about opening up, it really does -- you have to factor in what's happening around you. and so until other areas are safe, i don't see how we as a city could feel safe. >> understood. mayor, these are serious times,

but on a slightly lighter note, i will say i always loved going to jazz fest in new orleans. sad to not have it this year, but we'll be back when it's time. >> yes, yes. we will be back and we'll be ready to receive you and love on you the way that only the people of new orleans can. >> there you go. i'll take that up as an offer on live tv and i'll hold you to it. charlie and michelle with the 40 seconds, where do we go from here? >> well, this is a nation desperately in need of reassurance and a sign of empathy for the president and for two straight nights we did not get it. we had that meltdown yesterday, and then tonight we had the president essentially filibustering reading off this list of people he's going to be talking to. and so -- >> and let me get michelle, because i have 20 seconds. your thoughts? >> stay at home, let's look to

the date when the virus will allow us to go back and think of those who need help right now. there are a lot of people hurting right now. >> appreciate it. strong final words from our experts. thanks to each of you. that does it for me. our special coverage "all in with chris hayes" is up next. i'm chris hayes. tonight, the speaker of the house of representatives, nancy pelosi will join me here, as the president tries to steer the country towards a premature reopening. we also saw what happened in the last few months, right? three absolutely deadly errors made from the beginning of the pandemic by the president and his administration. one, just not taking the virus seriously enough. not appreciating what a dangerous novel virus it is from the beginning.