how are you today? >> good morning and welcome to a.m. joy. this week in america one of the many disturbing scenes we witnessed came from lansing, michigan during the so-called n operation grid lock protest where at least two confederate flags were mixed in with maga

flags and thousands expressed their objection to the stay at home orders issued by their governor to try and stop the spread of the coronavirus. some of the protesters even chanted the maga staple lock her up in reference to the governor who spoke to my colleague about the dangers that the ralliers put their community in. >> when you see a, you know, political rally, that's what it was yesterday, a political rally like that where people aren't wearing masks and they're in close quarters and they are suching one another you know that's precisely what makes this kind of disease drag out and expose more people. >> and let's be clear. these are organized political rallies. which like the old tea party protests at the start of president obama's administration are magically sprouting up all over the country. the ralliers are physically demonstrating their rejection of social distancing as a way to combat the spread of the

coronavirus. like this group of protesters outside the ohio state house in a photo that went viral for their zombie like fervor. this week after saying he had total authority to reopen the country, a claim that is categorically untrue based on the constitution and federal law, trump on thursday reversed course and said no, no, wait it's up to governors to make that call only to take to twitter on friday to call for the quote, liberation of minnesota, michigan and virginia. in his tweet about liberating virginia he ern threw in some gun loving scare tactics saying the state's 2nd amendment was quote, under siege. i mean, what is he calling for? armed maga supporters to defy their governors' orders and storm back to their low paid jobs, booming wall street or bust. it sounds a lot like the brooks

brothers protest during the 2000 election or the tea party's vow to stop the little people from getting health care and mortgage relief. full liberty. right? this thing about insta protests about what really rich people want, but which are cast at regular folks almost all white just happening to show up to defend their freedom, sometimes with their guns and always with their screaming rage is kind of a republican thing. coincident tally, minnesota, michigan are democratic states and michigan is crucial for re-election. he has found a way to campaign amid the coronavirus pandemic after all. his daily pressers have become a daily televised platform for his 2020 campaign. on monday he even played a government produced taxpayer funded propaganda ad. and these protests with the maga hats and the confederate flags are all feeling a lot like the previous come pain rallies that

trump has been forced to forego. the banner cry is against the backdrop of a horrific american death toll as outbreaks unfold across the country. the virus has killed more than 36,000 people in the united states claiming at least 7,000 lives. not just in nursing homes according to the "new york times" including in nursing homes across the country and killing people of color, african americans at a much higher rate including the mother of my next guest. ellison's mother died on march 26th from complications of covid-19, the illness produced by the coronavirus. she was 82. and keith ellison, attorney general of minnesota joins me now. and first i want to start by issuing my condolences and the condolences of our entire team to you for the loss of your mom. i know it is in a hard to recover from loss and i'm really

sorry to hear that that happened. >> thank you very much. >> if you can talk a little bit about the experience that your family went through i want to give you that opportunity. >> well, i -- you know, my heart goes out to everyone who has lost a loved one during this pandemic because you know, you -- it's just difficult to honor them and show them the public demonstration of love and honor that you want to do because the funerals have to be very limited, only a few people, three could be at the actual interment of my mother's casket. and it's just strange. you can't hug people, you can't hug your loved ones. you can't lean on their shoulder and cry with them the way that we would ordinarily do for our loved ones and so you know, me and my brothers and my kids and their kids have -- we've lost the very pillar of our family and you know, it's -- i just -- my heart goes out to everyone

and i guess i can say in my brother's can say and my son can say we know from firsthand experience how absolutely serious coronavirus is. that it is absolutely serious, that if you are not observing social distancing you're putting your loved ones at risk no matter how strong and healthy you think you are. you could be an asymptomatic carrier and so it is essential that we all observe the proper protocols. physical distancing, quarantine, it's life or death. and so when the president defies that, it's deeply disturbing to me. >> yeah. your son jeremiah wrote a really moving piece in the "new york times" talking about the loss of his grandmother. but also talking about the disparities, the historic disparities that go all the way back, you can go back to enslavement, you can go back to red lining, you can go back to communities of color, black

folks in particular happening to live in the last choice communities in a lot of these places whether it's in minneapolis or whether it's in detroit and you know, white folks being able to escape to the suburbs when the first black family moves in and black people left in a situation where they're nor vulnerable by default. jobs where you're closer to people, stuck working next to each other. when you hear donald trump talking in a sort of faux con federal language about these lockdown orders which are meant to save lives and you see people with these insta protests paid for by activists for the super rich, egging on this kind of activity that could get violent, what does that say to you? >> it says to me that the -- that the president is willing to risk the lives of people who believe in him so that he can have advantages like re-election and things like that. he's literally willing to sacrifice the lives of americans

for personal gain and that's deeply disturbing to me. it's not new. how many people who fought on the confederate side owned massive plantations? not that many. they bought themselves out of having to fight for their slavery and they let poor whites die for them and so you foe, it's not a new story, right? but it's disturbing, it's sad, and i just -- i pray for those people because even though i disagree absolutely with these protests and i think that they're completely and entirely inappropriate, i know that they and their loved ones will pay an awful price. >> yeah, earlier velshi was talking about some of the people who were paying for this. the stephen moore crowd that are all about the super rich. i think these folks that are out there, i don't know why -- what got them to turn out but they need to understand that none of

these people who are paying for those protests care about them getting sick or not. they care about the economy and their wealth. they care about their stock, they care about themselves. so i guess these folks whatever they want to believe, i guess they believe -- you are in the midst of a fight right now in your state trying to fight to prevent renters from suffering and being evicted in this crisis. can you tell us about that fight and how that is going? >> yes, we've -- the governor very wisely issued a prohibition on eviction. the attorney general, that's me, is charged with enforcing this and it's very simple. how can you shelter in place with no shelter? you can't stay at home if you have no home so we've got to keep people in the homes that they're in to maintain safety for them and the entire community and yet we've seen some landlords shut off the people's water, shut off people's utilities, do other sort of annoying things to try

to push people out of their home at a critical moment when they need a home more than ever. now, i will say that many landlords have been great, you know, i want to commend all the ones who have done the right thing, but for the few who have not, we have enforced a law against them. we will continue to do so. we -- you know, we are going to investigate and make sure there's due process, but if we come to the conclusion that you are trying to defacto evict people because the courts will not allow you to, we are going to take civil action against you and you may have to deal with other consequences as well. it's heartless, it's wrong, it's illegal and we're not going to put up with it. >> and we know that there's a presidential race coming up. it's still coming. what would you say to joe biden who, you know, falls on the other side of the line from donald trump who i guess he's going the old confederacy jefferson davis route. >> right. >> you were on the bernie

sanders sort of spectrum in the spectrum of the democratic and independent democratic leaning side. what should joe biden rethink in your view if you think he should rethink anything about what he wants to do vis-a-vis is economy, vis-a-vis health care should he become president? >> well, i get -- i believe that joe biden's ears are open and he's listening, but look, this pandemic reveals the ripped social fabric of our society. it refeels the fact that if you don't have health care and you don't have health care for all, many more people are at risk. it shows if we don't have broad band for everybody it's very difficult to work remotely, to do distance learning, you have communities that are simply ice lated because they don't have proper internet access. i mean, the fact that we don't -- we have a housing crisis for low income people shows that if you're homeless and you're very close to the age you're out. the low wages, people don't have

any savings to fall back on in a crisis like this and so the fact that we have had 40 years of flat wages and disinvestment in government means that people are more vulnerable than ever. i think that bernie sanders and joe biden are talking and i'm -- i'm happy that the conversations are ongoing and i just -- i really need somebody who's just going to address the inequality that is right now being exposed more than ever to -- in this next election. i need somebody who's going to say, what can we do to promote prosperity for working people all over again and that's what i'm focused on and so i think if joe biden is up for that conversation i'm up for that conversation too. >> yeah, indeed. one would hope a president would be talking about liberating people from poverty and want and from disease and fear. that would be nice. minnesota attorney general, keith ellison, again,

condolences to you from our team and thank you so much for being here this morning. >> from my whole family, thank you very much. we appreciate it. >> thank you. thank you. and joining me now is john meechham, how author of "the hope of glory." and also the pod cast hope through history. that seems appropriate, john. thank you so much for being here this morning. i want to put back up this photo of these ohio protesters that went viral this week. a lot of people said it looked like a zombie movie. zombie directors also think so too. it looked like a scene out of the walking dead or whatever. >> yeah. exactly. >> what is this rage that these -- that these protesters, one of them is running for office, i should note, one of the people in that office. what is it that they're trying to channel here? is this sort of knneo confedera

and what does that have to do with the pandemic? >> that's a great question. it it is the vernacular of fear. general ellison just used that term. we have two tributaries in american life. we have a tributary of hope, of building of a journey toward a more perfect union despite our manifest faults and we have a tributary of fear which is they are coming for us. and there's always been a they. there's been a they since the 1790s when john adams and the federalists passed the alienist acts which gave the united states power to deport immigrants that he just deemed to be undesirable. and to shut down the press. it's a perennial tension between hope and fear. the american story has been noblest when the forces of hope have eked out a victory and it's

always been a victory that's been eeked out. i think what we're seeing now is the manifestation in this particular moment of pandemic and let's be clear, the pandemic for many people is creating anxiety and a even more distrust of the institutions that one would ideally count on to deliver social order. right? so in this case, you have folks on the right who are sensing that this is some global force and they don't like things that are outside their borders, america first is a phrase that was used by charles lindburg and the nazi sympathizers. it became president trump's rallying cry. you have that on the right and on the left you have people who are seeing that this pandemic has revealed these enormous

holes in our social safety net and so you -- you have this tension but here's the difference. the folks who are worried about the safety net are taking the science seriously. they're taking the facts seriously. and the folks on the right who are storming offices and talking about liberation seem to be living in an alternate reality where science doesn't matter. and i think that in a moment like this, it requires a kind of presidential leadership. any kind of public leadership to say we have to follow the facts. >> yeah. i mean, instead what seems to be happening is that you do have very, very wealthy people who see their own interests as getting as many people back on the cog and the wheel as possible for them, for themselves, who are then paying or you know, creating these --

these supposed grass roots movements. the devosz family, very, very wealthy family. the secretary of education is probably the most famous member of it is one of the groups promoting this thing called the michigan freedom front. it's run by a long time political advisor to the voss family. he was campaign manager for the husband of current u.s. education secretary betsy devoss. in that family people profited off the war in iraq. meanwhile, while they're doing this and getting people to come together in ways that could sicken and kill them so that they can demand to go back to work, the white house as they were discouraging the use of masks and saying they're o optional it's not a big deal, they were scrambling to find masks for themselves, going to

taiwan to make sure senior staff in the white house were safe. your thoughts? >> well, we all have a hierarchy of interests. what you end up doing is whatever your interest is, whatever the weight of that is is what you do and there are forces in the country today who in their hierarchy of interests have decided that opening the economy quickly and that scapegoating globalism, china, democratic governors finding a them. once again, remember, there's always a them. there's always a finger or the object of a finger to point at. is somehow more important than a sensible rollout of a rational response to a pandemic that has now killed i think 10 to 12

times as many people as died on september 11th. think about that for a second. september 11th, 2001, changed our foreign policy and our distribution of interests, our view of our role in the world for 20 years. and now ten times, 12 times as many people have died since what, march 1st more or less, february? so what's -- what worried me at the beginning of this and i think actually we talked about it, is when -- when the pandemic -- when it became clear, my anxiety was, is our polarization such that this will become a partisan pandemic? that is, are we so dug in into our different camps and particularly on the right in this case, i'm not making a

false ekwif lquivalent here thae would be interpreted and acted on not rationally but passionately and that's what the american revolution was about. however imperfect it was. it was about putting reason at the center of the national enterprise so we would at least give our brains a fighting chance against our guts. and that was the -- that was part of the central force in this. we are now, when you look at those pictures, when you look at people talking about liberation, the president of the united states talking about liberation and then bringing guns into it for god's sake, that's passion. that's appetite. that's ideology. that's not reason and consideration and a kind of balance about what do the facts tell us. and this is not, to be clear, a partisan point. i'm not reflexively acting because of a preexisting view of

the president. one of the tragedies of the era is that the president manages to fulfill every time one's preexisting view of him. there's never been a president -- not never. i cannot think of a president off the top of my head who has so self-evidently failed to learn on the job. abraham lincoln starts out saying he would protect slavery in southern states and ends up on january 1st, 1863 with the emancipation proclamation. john kennedy screws up the bay of pigs in 1961. by october 1962 he manages the cuban missile crisis. ronald reagan comes in talking about the soviet union as an evil empire. by may he's in red square playing with babies. right? so you have these moments in our history where presidents have challenged their bases, not

simply coddled them, and learned from experience. and in this case, the president continues to simply coddle his base at a dangerous level and almost willfully doesn't want to learn on the job. >> yeah. he just wants to be who he is because he sees that as a way to be a success on television because apparently that is his priority, to be a success on television and get high ratings. good for him. always great to talk with you. thank you for making some time with us this morning. >> thanks, joy. coming up, florida congresswoman joins me live as the governor of her state, get this, opens up the beaches in the middle of a pandemic. perfect. wayfair has way more ways to renovate your home, from inspiration to installation. like way more vanities perfect for you. nice. way more unique fixtures and tiles.

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when we have a vaccine against this we'll be able to

stop the spread of covid from person to person. our mitigation measure is the social distancing and based on what has been reported probably a year if not longer is what some individuals have talked about. >> at a press briefing on monday, florida surgeon general shared reasonable medically sound information about the fight against covid-19 in his state. but right after those comments caught him being suspiciously escorted out by the governor's spokeswoman. it's worth noting that the surgeon general's message on social distancing directly contradicts the governor and donald trump's suggestion. >> this particular pandemic is one where i don't think nationwide there's been a single

fatality under 25. for whatever reason, it just doesn't seem to threaten, you know, kids. >> huh? >> and after being criticized for being late to close beaches desantis gave the okay for some beaches in northern florida to reopen. joining me now is val demings. congress you so much for being here. what do you make of this governor's behavior here? this -- the surgeon general of the state of florida gave very sound, very wise scientifically backed information, suddenly he disappears and now the governor is talking about reopening beaches. what are your thoughts on that? >> well, good morning, joy. it's good to be back with you and look, the same surgeon general declared a public health emergency in florida on march 1st. yet it wasn't until april 3rd that our governor decided to issue a stay at home order. look, we've seen what this pandemic can do nationally.

we have over 700,000 people who have contracted the virus. in florida we have over 24,000 people, 700 have died from it. we've seen what this virus can do. and we need to lean on and listen to the medical experts to help lead us through this. look, when i heard our governor say that children, we should consider reopening the schools because children can't contract the virus, right here in orange county we have a child that is less than one year old who has the virus and children all over this nation have contracted the virus. we all remember the horrific images of spring breakers partying basically like it was 1999 on florida's beaches. yet the surgeon general had issued a public health emergency in florida and now our governor is talking about reopening the beaches. we can get through this pandemic, i have no doubt about that. but we have to have decisive,

smart, strategic leaders who listen to the experts and those experts are people like florida's surgeon general and other medical experts across this country. >> yeah, indeed. and there's a statement here from desantis' communication director. the doctor was not pulled out of the press conference which ran longer than expected. desantis communication director told news week in a statement he had a prescheduled meeting with governor desantis chief of staff and needed to attend and after he went to state of emergency operations center. so that is the at the same time from them. i want to make sure i'm fairly reading that. on the question of schools, however, the miami herald has a piece called playing games with numbers. the state only reports, this is from the herald, the number of floridaians waiting to hear back from state labs, not the private ones.

just state labs and of those private labs are completing more than 90% of florida's tests. are you concerned that the number of people who are infected with coronavirus and who have died and who may day is higher than what's being reported? >> well, joy, we are very much concerned and we've heard those numbers as well and are trying to do our own investigation to find out exactly what those numbers are. you know, in this pandemic, the governor and other leaders, we have to be transparent if we're going to be serious about reducing the number of people who test positive, with florida's nursing homes for example, we know that the governor's office has not been as transparent as we would like for him to be but we also know that over 1,200 either residents or workers have contracted or tested positive for the virus. so we have got to be transparent in the numbers. look, no one planned to be dealing with covid-19 right now but we have to do everything we

can as i said, to save lives. the governor's primary responsibility is the preservation of human lives and those numbers are critical to doing just that. >> well, it's not clear that he knows that. just by some of the things he's done. i want to let you listen to the govern, to governor dissan tis. this is him explaining why he's deemed the wwe to be an essential business. we know that the woman who owns it, a friend of the president, is the small business administrator of that family that's friends with trump. here he is explaining that. >> obviously wwe, there's no crowd or anything so it's a very small number of people. so we just kind of look at it on a case by case basis. i think people have been starved for content. we haven't had a lot of new content since the beginning of march. if you think about it we've never had a period like this in modern american history where you've had little new content

especially in the sporting realm. we're watching rerun from like the early 2000s. >> congresswoman, it sounds like the governor is saying people must have play wrestling. i don't understand it, do you? >> i don't think the governor truly understands it when i heard him say that wwe was an essential business and we think about the many businesses, many of them small businesses that quite frankly may should be on that essential business list but they're closed down or have had to extremely, you know, redo their business plan to just try to stay afloat. to hear the governor say wwe is an essential business is not only embarrassing but it just shows a complete failure of leadership as far as i am concerned. you know, i just heard jon meech

ham talk about learning how you go and the president's failure to learn in the job, to do better with each passing day. i think our governor is a little bit too concerned about what this president who quite frankly has fumbled the ball in every step of the way a little bit more concern about what this president thinks and it's causing our governor to have a complete failure of leadership. he also said he was reopening the beaches because people needed fresh air. well, you know what, fresh air doesn't really matter much if you're not alive and so the preservation of human life is the governor's number one responsibility and that has to be forefront in his mind every day that he gets up until we see the bell flattening here and those cases reduced. >> indeed. speaking of learning on the job, ron desantis seems to have

learned a lot from rick scott who is the former governor who really i think from all that i've read about it and just having lived there for quite a long time really made a mess of the unemployment system in the state. it was designed to fail. it was designed to make it hard to apply, to make the benefits very meager. now the orlando sentinel is reporting that florida's unemployment system processed just 4% of 850,000 applications since the coronavirus crisis began. long lines of people bunched up together in public health crisis in just trying to apply. this is a mess. is there anything that can be done about it? i guess at the federal level there's nothing that can be done but what is your comment on the mess? you're seeing a little video of it there. >> joy, there's no other word to describe it. it is a mess. when floridaians are hurting

they've been told that they can apply for these unemployment benefits that have been expanded and extended to help them survive during this terrible time and the numbers are just disgraceful quite frankly. 4% out of 850,000. you know, i always try to have hope and give people the benefit of the doubt. i did not believe some of the stories that i had been told about the system being designed to fail. i didn't want to believe that because i believe that every public servant should have -- should put the public first but i talked to some people who were in the florida legislature during the time when the previous administration was there and they basically confirmed that yes, this system was designed to be difficult to navigate, to discourage people from applying, which means it was not designed to help people who need it the most. the florida democratic delegation has written letters to the governor, we've been in

contact with his office. we've been putting the pressure on and i feel it's sad to even have to say that we put the pressure on the governor to take care of floridaians because that's his number one job, but we have. we'll continue to do that. i know he's changed the leadership there but i don't believe this -- you can boil this problem down to one person. i believe it is a failure again on the governor's office to do the right thing and develop a system that is easy to navigate and that will get relief into the hands of floridaians who need the help the most. >> yeah, and congresswoman, one further question for you. we know now that joe biden will be the democratic nominee. he's on a path to receive that nomination. there's been a lot of talk about who he should pick for a vice president for a running mate. and for a lot of african

americans who are watching the black community be disproportion nats gnatly impacted by this crisis as well as poverty and want in general, and have been so loyal to the democratic party, the most loyal voters for the democrats are black women and so there's a lot of talk out there that a black woman should be the nominee, that black women have earned that opportunity especially by resurrecting the vise president's campaign. if you were asked to be that running mate, to run with joe biden, would you take that job? >> joy, let me say this. as you well know, i have dedicated my life to public service, and i am still a public servant. i select the tough jobs because i truly wanted to make a difference. if joe biden asked me to serve as his vice president during such a critical and tough time for our nation of course i would say yes to continue to serve the

people who need the help the most. you know, when i think about just being either president or vice president or being a leader, quite frankly in any public office, we need to pick people or select people who number one, put people first, number two, have on the ground experience. right now we know more than ever we need a crisis manager, a person who's willing to make the tough decisions, unify our nation, be a bridge builder to get things done. that's the time that we're in. you asked about an african american woman. i think that history calls for and quite frankly demands that the time is right, that the vice president and quite frankly the president, we are ready to have a woman, i think we're certainly ready to have an african american woman in such a critical leadership role, we have several women who are ready, willing and able and i just hope and pray that vice

president biden will select an african american woman to serve beside him. >> congresswoman val demings. i think that you have made a good case and i think that it would be wise for the vice president to consider you and also you did an excellent job i now have the chance to say on the impeachment hearings. thank you so much and be safe. >> thank you, joy. you too. >> coming up, another woman who could be the next vice president of the united states, senator elizabeth warren joins me live. i just love hitting the open road and telling people

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i am asking all americans, i'm asking every democrat, i'm asking every independent. i'm asking a lot of republicans to come together in this campaign to support your candidacy which i endorse to make certain that we defeat somebody who i believe and i'm

speaking just for myself now, is the most dangerous president in the modern history of this country. >> this week joe biden's nomination became all but certain when his last opponent standing, senator bernie sanders endorsed his candidacy and he also got the nod from former president barack obama and after that biden received another very key endorsement. >> joe biden is a selfless public servant. he is committed to the fight for social and racial and economic justice. joe biden will lead a government that works for the american people. and now it's up to all of us to help make joe biden the next president of the united states. let's get to work. >> while senator warren did not win the democratic nomination she was a key favorite among

women progressives. and wouldn't you love to know what conversations the senator is having with former vice president joe biden about his economic platform? well, i had the chance to ask her. joining me now is senator elizabeth warren of massachusetts. thanks so much for joining me this morning. >> thank you for having me. it's good to be with you at least virtually. >> yes, absolutely. so there is a piece that says that the battle to keep trump's coronavirus effort honest has begun. read a little bit. this is from rolling stone. senators warren, tom parker and sent a list of questions to scott, the senior counsel to the prt and the white house's designated ethics official and it highlighted the potential working group led by jared kushner. private companies assisting kushner on a voluntary bases

were seeking to trench themselves hoping to win contracts down the road. wealthy folks are having a much easier time getting access to that money that was designated by congress than regular folks working, you know, smaller businesses. what can with done about that? >> so look, i think of this as the central question around a work site and donald trump has a view on oversight. he doesn't want any. he doesn't want anyone looking over his shoulder. he doesn't want anyone examining how he spends taxpayer money or whether he's fulfilled his obligations as president to keep us safe in the middle of a pandemic. so donald trump doesn't want any part of that. he's fired an ig. he's put his cronies in charge. but here's the idea. he can't fire a free press. he can't fire congress and he sure can't fire me. so we're on top of him and we're going to stay on top of him for

oversight and that means oversight about how he's managing the pandemic, and how he's managing the money that congress has proappropriated toy to help this economy. what we're looking for right now is to get information, hard data about where that money is going and to make sure that that money is not just once again on a bailout going to the tree tops, but that the money is truly going to the grass roots, to the small businesses that both desperately need it and that are the real backbone of our economy and that we need to keep alive so that they can help restart this economy as our health conditions permit it. >> yeah, i mean, the reporting that we're getting on the conversation that you and the other senators are having with the white house are not good. one of these conversations, he's using the words like dereliction of duties. what are they saying back to you

when you all are talking to them in the white house? >> you know, this is the problem of course. vice president pence gets on a phone call with all of the democrats in the senate, and he basically says as little as he possibly can. he tries not to be aggressive or tries not to get into a fight, but he also tries to say nothing. and tries to deny every problem that we identify. and that's when you see the senators. getting more and more and more frustrated. you know, when the trump administration says, hey, the response to the pandemic is the responsibility of the states, he's just wrong. and king is right when he says that is a dereliction of the president of the united states. it is the responsibility of the president to keep us safe and he has the tools. the defense production act to

make sure that we have enough masks and gowns and resrespirat. he as failed in that and he has also failed in the notion of what he's telling people libera michigan, virginia? encouraging people to come out and try to turn this health crisis into a political rally for himself. that is absolutely the wrong kind of leadership. it is the kind of leadership that puts lives at risk, and it is the kind of leadership that undermines the very strength of this country. >> you, on the other hand, you put out some plans as well as other members of congress, plans that you want focused on rather instead. you released something along with congressman brocanna called the essential workers bill of rights. explain that, and talk about that a bit.

>> sure. so here's the basic idea. this about who isn't working from home right now. who has to be there on the front lines to keep us fed and keep us safe. it's people who are stocking grocery store shelves, people who are making deliveries, people who are cleaning the hospitals and the grocery stores and the places that are open. people who are running the drug stores, and many of these folks are paid minimum wage, don't have any real protective gear, and are really out there on the front lines. this is a moment when we need to acknowledge how important these folks are, and really put our shoulder behind supporting them. so this is a time to say people who are on the front lines should get testing, they should get protective equipment. they should get hazardous duty pay, and they could get the kind of protection as workers that

whistle-blowers will be protected so if they point out unsafe conditions, that they will be able to be protect indeed their jobs. it's a time to say that their collective bargaining agreements will be respected, and those who want to unionize and have a union to represent them, will have the opportunity to do that. you know, we're reminded in this crisis of how much we depend on people who year by year have been on the wrong end of the economic stick. people who are just barely hanging on with minimum wage, sometimes not even minimum wage, and it is time for us to acknowledge the importance of their work and to show that as a country we want to strengthen them and help them stay in their jobs. >> yeah. in order to do that, there needs to be a politics not just from the white house, but across the board that actually is more open to ordinary people actually

getting something. we have a challenge that there is a real interest in getting a lot and wealthy folks getting a lot, people going back to work to make rich people richer. you have a lot of support, i've got this question from one of our young producers who talked to a lot of friends where he's clothesered -- on the phone, not in person -- they supported your campaign, and one of the things you said is you want to go out and support similarly minded kinds of political candidates. can you talk a bit about, what does that look like, for you going out and trying to collect more youths into the house and senate? >> it's not more mes, but more people who wants to get in the fight for everyone. we don't just involved to have a country that works for those at the top, but we can have a

country that works for everyone. for me it's a lot of organizations saying, come on in, get out there and run for office. if you do there are going to be people who want to go with you. >> i see this as one of these moments that just doesn't come along very often, but we have a chance to think heart about the kind of country we want to be. that's everything from who's running for school board and what they're fighting for, and our teachers trying to get our kids educated, all the way through to president of the united states this is a moment when it's all out there in front of us. i'm in there for this fight, to fight for the policies, but also

to fight for the people who will carry out those policies. it's part of the reason you pointed out by up this is the week i endorsed joe biden. it's partly because of policies. joe biden has said he's in favor of cancelling a chunk of stay tuned load debt. he wants to raise social security and disability payments, things that i really care a lot about. that he wants to put more restrictions and oversight on money that goes to wall street, but it's also about the kind of person you are and who you're fighting for right now we have a president of the united states who things only about himself, who has no empathy for other human beings. joe biden is a man who cares about others. i have seen him up close. i saw him when he came here to boston after the bombings, and he's a man who lost a wife, lost

a child, lost another child, an adult child. he comforted families who lost loved once in a terrorist bombings, and he did it from the heart, not from show, but from the heart. that's the kind of man in a crisis you said to have leading the country. that's the kind of man where every day everybody is talking about policies, and whether or not the money going out next is going to help wall street or help the low-wage workers who have keeping or country going. that's why i support joe biden. that's why i'm glad to say i hope everyone goes to joebide up.com, pitching in $5, volunteers some time, boo youece

are really in this taupe. together. your polling, particular lay in michigan and wisconsin, as somebody that a lot of people would like to see on that ticket. a lot of people would. you have a lot of support from african-american women. i was down there with you in texas and saw hose those women of color resonated with you. you were able to talk about different demographics, but there's a lot of people that the ticket be racially diverse, or, you know, that's a conversation that's happening out there. what do you make of that question? is it workable for the biden campaign to go in with an

all-white ticket? >> that's a decision up to the vice president. here's how i see this. i'm in this fight all the way, no matter what what i care about is we have a country that's in the middle of a crisis right flow. and i'm giving it everything i can, just to try to be helpful, whether it's policies or try to bring in people, but make sure we get through this crisis with the minimum loss of life, that we do it together embracing each other, and also that we recognize that part of the reason that this crisis has hit us so hard is because we have long-term structural problems that we need to fix. we have had put so much risk on individual families. we have squeezed families for so long right to the breaking point so there's no flexibility left.

weft to make long-term changes. we have to get rid of that student debt that's crushing young people. we have to increase social security payments. we've got to make sure a system that's not just working for the investor class, not just working for corporate executives, giant corporations, but that really is working for everyone else, a system that's building opportunity and opening doors for everyone else. i'm in that fight 110%, no matter what to me that's what public service is all about. i'm happy to fight that fight alongside the vice president, alongside the senators and representatives, alongside the new people who are running for office, because this is it. november 2020, this is our chance. it's our chance either to keep pitching over this cliff with donald trump and the

republicans, or to say we can build something a whole lot better. so this is a moment for me of really great oop miism, because i see people are off the sidelines. we're going to build that america, and i'm in that fight all the way. optimism is a good things. thank you, senator elizabeth. really appreciate your time. please stay safe. >> thank you. you stay safe, too. next up, in a state with a -- with some of the biggest hot spots, a loyal trump governor is desperately trying to protect profits over people. you ever wish you weren't a motaur? sure. sometimes i wish i had legs like you. yeah, like a regular person. no. still half bike/half man, just the opposite.

oh, so the legs on the bottom and motorcycle on the top? yeah. yeah, i could see that. for those who were born to ride, there's progressive.

i'm concerned about my health, my family, about our families, our security. >> these meat processing workers are on the front lines. they are working in a workplace with such high density if anything should break out in the workplace it would have an immediate impact in those small communities where those plants are. these are ticking time bombs workplaces. >> i don't know how i'm going to work. she said, i'm sick. she said, baby, they're telling

us if we don't come, we don't get paid or we risk getting fired. she had to go, you know? >> good morning, welcome back. we are currently awaiting an update from governor cuomo, and we'll bring it to you live when that happens. first there are more than 700,000 confirmed cases of covid-19 in the united states. the virus is taking a particularly deadly toll on various hot spots. this was the scene outside a nursing home in andover, north carolina, where 17 bodies were discovered piled in a small moe went to hold only four. as rachel maddow has been hammering home nightly, nursing homes along like this one, prisons, places of worship, now food processing plants, are becoming large-scale victims of

covid-19. the virus has shuttered multiple meat packing plants across the country, where people work obvious for low wages, frequently in close physical proximity to one another, to prepare the beef, pork and poultry we see in grocery stores during our weekly food runs and the meat in the food we're seeing delivered. the same plants have being local epicenters of the pandemic. in iowa a pork processing plant in columbus junction has closed. tyson foods, the owner, says two have died. in chicago, 21 employ crease at the rose meat packing facilities on the city's south side have tested positive for the coronavirus infection, which fellow employees found out about during at town hall-style meeting during this week. the employees are receiving protective equipment, but will keep working. outbreaks have been reported at similar plants.

several have closed, two two of the seven largest beef processing plants in the u.s. but there is perhaps no plant harder hit that issen smithfield pork processing plants in sioux falls, south dakota, which became the largest hot spot in the united states. more than half of the 1,411 coronavirus cases in the entire state in south dakota have been link the back to this one plant. cases connected to the plant now near is 00. the plant has been shut down, but south dakota governor kristi noem still refuses to issue stay-at-home orders. >> it's critical infrastructure, regardless of a shelter in place order or not, it would have been up and running because it's an important part of our nation's food supply. that's what's been happening. they've not been telling all the facts behind this. the people of south dakota can

be trusted to make good decisions. we have common sense. that's why people want to live here. >> joining me now is the director of the harvard global health institute, andrew sim zimmern, and caitlyn dickinson. caitlyn, i'm going to go to you first. you wrote a piece in the too many about this meat plant, where it's the biggest coronavirus hot spot in the united states. refugees from around the world worked at the smithfield pork factory in sioux falls, now they face mounting illness and sudden loss of their jobs. talk a bit about this plant. >> so this plant is a beacon, one of the largest employer in the city of sioux falls, more than 3700 people work there, and it churns day and night. it's open 24/7, eight stories tall, they're open on hole dales, and about 85% of the

workers are foreign-born, so they're either immigrants or refugees from all over the world. i spoke to people from sudan, from ethiopia, from china, from central america, el salvador and honduras. the work is incorrect are credibly difficult. people talk about having to go home at night and ice their wrists and take ibuprofen, because it's physical. but this is the place where the american dollar stretches very far. imgranlt families talk about being able to buy homes, send kids to college. one of the woman i spoke to from south sudan, she supports nine people on her salary from smithfield. she's a single mother. even though she came down with a case that was so bad she thought she was going to die, and she grew up as an orphan so she was worried about leaving her three boys alone, but now that she's better, she's desperate to go back to work. so that's the complicated

analysis, deciding between their health and that i financial livelihood. >> to stay with you just one moment, you have the sioux falls mayor issues they ordinances, with a shelter in place ordinance now that governor noem has rejected his request to issue a countywide order. the governor is resisting the science and the logic while mayors are fighting to do them. what in the word? >> that's right. sy south dakota was only one of five that -- but it gives you a sense of the way things are being communicated. people working six or search days a week like that mother i told you about, the messages coming down from her state

government are keep going to work. she told me about a video sent to her from a ceo of the company, imploring her and her colleagues for continues to show up and providing food, because we have to keep american grocery store shelves stocked, so there's this pressure to prioritize that business over yourself when you're feeling sick. she broke down crying when she was telling me that, because she realized she hadn't been thinking about herself, but these messages she kept getting that she needed to keep working. i want to read part of a piece from that state. the headline is i lost him because of that horrible place. smithfield worker dies from covid-19. the 64-year-old man showed up for every one of his shifts where he worked for nearly two tech cases. augustin kept coming to work even he began experiencing

covid-19 symptoms like fever and cough, because he needed to work. this is the way the governor is looking at the businesses in her state unfortunately. >> we do have a shot spot in sioux falls. i think everybody is well aware of that. i want to give you perspective on this situation. i know that the national news is talking about the fact that this is a hot spot in the nation. you know, that's fine, however they want to classify it, we'll take it. we have given or businesses an opportunity to be innovative. they've had the opportunity to still deliver service to say their customers. we just have a really business-friendly environment. >> doctor, is that a logical way for the governor to be looking at this? her priority seems to be being business friendly. >> good morning, joy. thanks for having me on. so i understand business friendly, but it's hard to run businesses when you have workers

getting sick and dying. what we need to understand is that if you want to be business friendly, you have to be health friendly first. if we can protect people's public health, we can put in the things that keep workers safe and healthy. we can get back to business when it's appropriate, but to try to just keep going, as though the pandemic doesn't exist is obviously going to end up causing a lot of business harm and i think more importantly harming more people, particularly folks who don't have a lot of reserve. it's simplistic that somehow you can choose business over people's health. >> if we should mass testing and you can't say we're going to test every sing the person in sioux falls. we note this person has it, got over it. this person doesn't have it, this person is a potential carrier. if we were rapid testing and could do that, isn't that the

most reasonable -- >> joy, that would be great. i would imagine if we had like ramped up our testing infrastructure the way south korea did, the way that germany has, we would have so many more options. we could keep plants open, we test people and just make sure that as long as people didn't have the infection they could come in. in very cramped imparts, it's very hard for even one infected person to not set off a whole chain of infections. there are still things you can do. give people sick leave, a lot of things you can do to make this situation better. we just didn't, and we see the consequences of that, and it's very unfortunate. >> we just didn't. i want to go to you, andrew. this is your bailiwick, writing about foods and the way it interacts with our entire lives. everyone is taking for granted that we can order seamless in, we can make a food run every two weeks, there's a lot of

secondary and tertiary thoughts about who is making that possible? the people actually handling the food instant is becoming a problem. meat processing plants senior closing due to outbreaks. beef short-day-old falls may follow. -- reducing production by as much as 25%, industry officials say, sparking fears of a further round of hoarding. we have in georgia poultry workers dead from the coronavirus, according to a company, this is an nbc report. tyson's senior vice president for human resources has said the company has improved measures, by checking temperatures, and providing more space, but people are still dying. your thoughts, andrew? >> it is a horror show that is sadly, i believe, going to

continue and get worse. had we taken the proper precautions four weeks ago, six weeks ago, even perhaps three weeks ago -- and by that, i mean taking care of the people as the dr. and ms. caitlin both illustrated, if we knocked food production down 25%, we could still feed all americans. s if we were smarter about our food chain, we could still feed more americans. the problem becomes that cowless keep giving milk, zucchini will continue to flower on the vine, but we can't bring people who have never done the jobs and get them into the labor system, healthy people, so that we can

continue to distribute the food. it's always not about the food, it's about the people. you can go back to the foundational days of our country, for 400 years we've created vulnerable and marginalized communities, taken advantage of them. now we have turned them on their ear and deemed them essential, but not enough that we protected their health by increasing spacing, giving them masks, decreasing production by a certain percentage, perhaps it would have stayed open. i find the governor of south dakota's messaging repugnant. business is important, but people come first. without the human beings, there is no business. i fear that the sinclair louis era of food production is still with us, and we will pay the price weeks down the road.

the last point i would make if you see 25% of the shelves empty, it creates concern. with good national leadership, i believe we could get around that. what's going to scare a lot of people is seeing the ambiguity, uncertainty of what is missing from our shelves and the fact that so many americans don't have access to fresh food. that's the thing that creates social unrest. i'm wetry fitted as i play this out in my head as to what happens if our supply chain continuing to dim mini. >> you and me both, brother, this is the stuff that increases my insomnia. andrew zimmern, dr. jha, and caitlyn dickinson, thank you. please stay safe. house democrats have a science-based plan -- imagine that -- to reopen the economy, based on science. we'll give you the details, next.

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you condition testings testing, testing, unless you have a documentation of how that is affecting communities, unless you have the data from how this money is spent in terms of the paycheck protection program, which we fully support, but let's make it be fair and also inclusive so that everyone can participate in it. house speaker nancy pelosi spoke with my colleague chris hayes this week on what has to happen in order to reopen the economy and do it safely. some republicans are all too happy to for him donald trump's playbook in choosing money over lives. >> it is always the american government's position to say, in the choice between the loss of our way of life as americans and the loss of life, we have to always choose the latter.

it's our -- this is the lesser of two evils. it's not zero evil, but lesser, and we intend to move forward in that direction. >> yes, we shut down, but the shutdown did not stop the spread of the virus. the shutdown slowed the spread of the virus at enormous cost, but it still spread. when we end the shutdown, the virus is going to spread faster. that's just a fact. the american people understand that. my next guest is one of the house democrats who have put out a plan called the reopen america act, that relies on science -- yes, science -- to reopen the economy. >> joining me is jameie raskin. if a few people have to die to get wall street cooking again,

hmm -- do you have a better plan? >> yes, that's derangement and madness. there are three kinds of plans out there. donald trump, which is no plan at all. he published his flappy guidelines for the states on thursday, basically making recommendations about what the states should do with respect to schools and restaurants and businesses. it's not a plan. it doesn't mention the federal government or federal role in spearheading the production of the testing kids and equipment. it totally and dates federal authority. and then there's a coalition of states, that's pretty promising what governor has cuomo in the east, and what's happeningty west, but it's almost like the articles of confederation, a bunch of states trying to get together, but there's no national leadership, no national responsibility for production of the equipment. there's no national investment in guidelines that will bring us

together as a country. so we've introduced yesterday the reopen america act, in i think it was two days we got more than 52 dough sponsrespo c. i've been working with donna shalal shalala, and it's a real plan, and what the plan says is when guided by science, and what did science tells us? the public health authorities say states ready to open when two conditions are met. one, the hospitals can meet the demand, so they're no longer in a crisis overload situation, and two, the infection rate is below one. what that means is each person who gets the disease is infecting no more than one other person, which means that the slope of the curve is downward. if they're infecting more than one person, the slope is upward and we're back in a pandemic type of situation. once those two conditions are met, we're saying the secretary

of hhs can received the reopening plans, and we will spearhead a national testing regime, a national contact tracing regime, approve state plans that institute the right public health with regards to education, for the workplace, for commerce, for social life, we'll work with them with the best scientific efforts, we approve the plans, and then we play for it. the federal government nor is it the lethal indifference in negligence of the trump approach, which is whatever happens in the states happens. it's taking a meaningful central role and letting federalism work its magic to approve these plans and bring people back online, so we can move quickly if there's any recurrence. we'll have immediate outbreaks and shutdowns following. >> yeah, well, that sounds logical. it sounds like a good idea.

hold on for just a second, congressman. i want to add presidential historician michael beschloss. i want to add you in. who you heard is a logical way to use science and put that in the mix in order to reopen the economy in a safe way and not have further outbreaks. here is the people who listen to donald trump. this is in minnesota. this was one of these protests, these, you know, made-up protests. take a listen to this. >> i want to get going for the economy. this whole thing is a hoax. this whole propaganda, it's a made-up thing by the w.h.o., by the cdc, bill gates. do you want someone to put in a chip in your hand add track you? if that's what you like, go with that. maybe you with see from the

backseat and how how that works for you. >> this sounds a bit off-key here. he thinking they're going to put a microchip. essential he's willing to die for the economy. what is this? >> and if he doesn't like big brother, how about when donald trump said as a president he has total authority and total power. you've got a president who every day says something different. one day he said he had total authority under the constitution, which he doesn't. there's chicks and balances by people -- at the local level, citizens, and then the next day it's all the on the governors. jamie is actually right. these are not articles of confederation. we're in a situation, where thrills -- we expect presidents to act in an emergency and

orchestrate a response. and yet donald trump wants both, right? he wants all of the power and grandeur of being president. he doesn't want to take any responsibility for anything that happens. he wants them to say that he's in charge. that's what it sounds like. >> that's not the way it works. that's exactly right. wants the power, but not the responsibility. john kennedy had the famous fiasco, and took full responsibility. oddly enough, the gallup poll approval rating went to the highest point in the '8 ons. kennedy said it's amazing, the worse i do, the more popular i get. >> congressman raskin, i don't mean this to sound facetious, but you named it the trump is awesome and greatest president in history of the earth act,

that maybe he would sign it? he's not going to read it, you know? it seems that all he wants is praise, so maybe if you just renamed it something that said trump is awesome, do you think he would sign it? >> i would take that. it's already called the reopen america act, but we could call it the donald trump true federalism reopen america act, if he ade ray to go with it. we're talking about saving lives here. we have no plan at the federal level. we were all waiting with bated breath to see what the president would release when he said he would come out with his plan. his plan was a bunch of recommendations for what he thinking the states should do if and when they reopen. it's completely useless and worthless. the day before he said he was totally in control. he just oscillates between being king kong and -- we need real

leadership and that's the role of congress. we have to get congress back to washington. we have to get back in session, and we need to pass a responsible plan guided by science to build the equipment that we need, to assemble the scientists we need to work with the states to get back into business, and we're creating a health equipment production board, which professor beschloss will recognize as based on war production boards from prior periods in american history. we need to centralize the authority so we don't have states in bidding wars against each other fighting for the to realize they need to take care of our people. we have to act like one nation again. if the president doesn't know how to do it, i say that with all respect, congress does know how to do it. we have to pass a reopen america act. we'll take all the best ideas, including mobile testing when my colleague jim clyburn has

focusing on. much more diligence contact tracing. we can do this if we pull the country together. we shouldn't waste too much more time talking about the derangement of the president in press conferences, because it's a distraction from what we need to be doing now. >> you know, michael, it seems to moe that donald trump loves power and grandeur. it's surprising that he wouldn't want to take the example of probably the most powerful, the president who exerted the most power we have seen in the 20th century, which is fdr. >> absolutely. >> who took complete command of the economy. he doesn't seem to want to follow that example, because i guess the ideologues around him are saying, no, no, no that's socialism. it surprises me. >> roosevelt didn't say i think i'll call up the governor of missouri and see if he'll send

me a submarine, or eisenhower didn't say, maybe nebraska could build a highway here and we could get another state to hook another -- >> nasa in the 1960s we didn't have someone say to governor of florida, can you build us a rocket and fire it off? that is what the modern united states is. that's what the modern presidency is, and most of all, you're absolutely right, joy, with someone with as many delusions of grandeur as donald trump has, you would think he would want to follow in the footsteps of great presidents. >> the other issue i see is trump is so fixated in another opportunity to flog his fear of foreigners, to throw this on some sort of hatred of people who are from china, we're now seeing reverberations of that hate here, more of these attack on immigrant communities, people trying to blame immigrants for

bringing this in. we're seeing more anti-semitic attacks connected to this. he's using it for the same thing that produced charlottesville. i think that's a lot of fear with this is little rallies being created, that these things could turn into new opportunities for antiimmigrant, antimigrant, antiasian, just violence in general. you're absolutely right. people tend to blame it on immigrants and people they label as outsiders. but what you usually didn't have in american history is a president in certain ways leading the band. yesterday when we saw those tweets from donald trump saying let's liberate the states, especially virginia and also protect the second amendment, yesterday was the day in history that virginia seceded from the union. i think that was a very dangerous thing to say and do.

>> indeed. jamie raskin, you're from the state of maryland. harriet tubman was from this state. this state is not immune to that history as well. when you hear that kind of rhetoric coming out of the president, when what you want to hear is some kind of leadership you were discussing, do you feel your constituents are being made unsafe by that kind of rhetoric? >> i know it. that kind of scapegoating is the opposite of leadership. it demonstrates the vacuousness and emptyness of the president's plan. every day he veers off in another direction, attacking this foreign group or that foreign group, or the world health organization, which he was praising a few weeks ago for their great leadership. look, there's no center conviction within the trump

administration as to what to do. so congress has to supply it. we've got the leadership to do it. this bill was put together by peter welsch in vermont, anna eschew in california, hakeem jeffries in new york, our great colleague donna shalala from florida. we did this in difficult conditions, where staff can hardly meet. we have a plan and we want people to rally behind that plan, to get the whole country behind it, because it involves every single american. wish much, magical thinking will not get us through this crisis. scapegoating will not guess us through this crisis. there will be absolute slaughter if we don't put a real plan on the table. >> how can people read this act and support it? is there somewhere online that can be found? >> yeah, if you go to reopen america act online, you go to my website, which is just

jamieraskin@house.gov, you'll find it. go to any of the other members' web sites. we'll be out campaigning for it. we're getting scientists behind it, epidemiologists behind it. we need a real plan. our plan allows the states to bands together in regions to submit plans for a whole group of -- that's terrific. as governor cuomo has been saying, they need federal resources. >> i want to node, as you can see, governor cuomo has taken his seats. he's gearing up, with the number of lives lost that that you can see on screen. i'm going to ask my producers to let me know when you want to fully listen in on that, but i do still have my guests.

what should joe biden be doing now? i'm sore -- >> what are they all talking about, testing? which was sort of sobering. i think i'm communicating information, facts, my daughters are probably some of the most informed people on the situation given the hardship they endure being my daughter during this time. she said i don't understand all of this about testing. people have lives to live, even in this craze time, but for me the best thing i can do is communicate facts to people so they have the ability to communicate. that's what i've been trying to

do since day one. here are the facts, and i'll tell you what i think the course of conduct should be, given these facts, but here are the facts, right? before you tell me what you think, just tell me the facts, and then we'll get to your personal interpretation of the facts. facts on testing, because it is granular, it is a little boring, but also vitally important. testing is how you monitor the rate of infection and you control for it. that is the whole tension in reopening. everybody wants to reopen. you don't need to hold up a placard saying we want to reopen. knotts wants to reopen more than me. nobody wants to get on with life more than me, and everybody else. we're all in the same boat. we all have the same feelings. the tension on reopening is how

fast can you reopen and what can you reopen without raising that infection rate so you go right back to where we were, overwhelming the hospitals? the infection rate now is one person infects 0.9 other people. you can't infect 0.9, but basically one person is infecting one person, a tad less. i don't even know that it's a tad less. i don't know that the statistics are that accurate, frankly. that's where we are now. when that is happening, the virus is basically stable. where we were was one person was infecting 1.4 people. that's when you have outbreak, widespread epidemic. we brought it down from 1.4 to 0.9. how did you do that?

those were the pause policies, close down business, close down schools, everybody has to take precautions, but it work. we went from 1.4 to 0.9. wuhan says at one point they got down for 0.3, which is where you start to see the numbers drop. but that's where we are. the tension is, when you start to open business, you start to have gatherings, you put people on a bus on a subway, in a retail store, then you're going to see more infections. you'll see that infection rate rise, and then you're going to be back to where we were. how do you gauge this, right? how do you calibrate it? that is all about the testing. and you have very tight window. you're at 0.9 now. you can only go up to 1.2 before you see those hospitalization numbers start taking off again. you're talking about a very,

very tight window that you have to calibrate, and this is all without precedent. so how do you actually do that intelligently? well, you have to test. and testing informs the calibration. what is testing? testing is you test, you test is person to see whether they're positive or negative for the coronavirus. there's also something called antibody testing, but let's put that aside for a second. you test a person. when you find a person who's positive, you then trace. they call them detectives. you find that person, you interview that person, find out who they contact, and you follow that tree down. that's testing and then tracing. they talk about tracing. trace all those contacts. then you find the people who are

positive. you isolate the positive people so they can't continue to spread. tracing requires an army, literally an army. you would need thousands of people who just trace in the state of new york, right? because any one person then leads to 10, 20 possible people who were infected. you have to trace all through those people. you find a positive person, you isolate them. the trick with testing is not that we don't know how to do it. weaver done it better in this state than almost any other state, almost any other country. it's bringing it up to scale, and these are private-sector companies that are doing this. but we have done a very good job in testing. and the state has played a pivotal role in testing. you look at how new york -- the number of tests we do.

it's more than california, more than any other state. it's more than any other country. we've had great success in ramping up testing. we know how important it is. we jumped on it in new rochelle, and it worked. we still have as issue, but it's no longer a hot spot cluster, because you do a lot of testing, you take the positives, and you isolate them. this is now -- the challenge is now bringing this up to scale, october? we did 500,000 tests in a month. that's great news. the bad news is, it's only a fraction of what you need. the more you test the move information, the more you can

reopen society. how does testing actually work? again you have to know the facts, otherwise this is all a blur and it becomes a he said/she said. there are about 30 private companies, large, private companies in the country that are even international. 30 large companies make equipment to test. and they all have their own test, okay? so you have the acme test, this test, this test. those 30 companies have been selling their machines to local laboratories. that is their business. they make a machine, roesch makes a machine, they then sell it to people. you have to buy the machines. they then sell the local labs

their testing protocol. their test works on their machine. so you buy the roche machine, you then have to buy the roche test from the roche corporation. you buy the acme machine, you then have to buy the acme test from the acme corporation. they sell these tests to local labs. we have about 300 local labs in our state, who have bought these 30 types of manufacturers and 30 types of tests, okay? and then every time the lab goes to run that test, if i'm running the acme test, i have to have the acme equipment and the acme vial and the acme swab, and the acme reagents. who is reagents? when you take the swab, nasal swab, throat swab, you then test it with other chemicals.

those are reagents. depending on what test you bought, they have their own reagents for every test. the acme test has one set of reagents. the roche test has another set of reagents, and you have to go back to them to buy the reagents. that's the basic chain. it gets very complicated very quickly, because you have the national manufacturers who sold their machines to local labs. the local labs then need to go back to that manufacturer to run their tests, and there's very little uniformity among the tests. so you're trying to coordinate this whole private sector system. we have some public labs, the stye has a wadsworth lab, but the real capacity is in the private labs. so how do you bring this up to

scale? and how do you cut to the chase on this one? we called the top 50 producing labs in the state and said, tell us what it takes to double your output, okay? this is literally what they said. so there's no interpretation here. most of them come back -- sometimes they talk about the equipment, nasoswab, vial, but what you see most of them are talking about we can't get the reagents. we can't get these other chemicals that we need to test where do they get the reagents from? their manufacturer who made the machine in the first place. they all say with the machines we bought, we could be doing more if they would give us the reagents. that's the logjam that we are

in. they bought machine, they have the machine, they have the test, but they need the reagents to do a higher volume of tests. when you go back to the manufacturer and say why don't you distribute more reagents? they say one of two things -- i can't get more reagents, because they come from china, they come from here, they come from here, we don't make them in the united states. or they say the federal government is telling me who to distribute it to. this is why i say you have the federal government involved in this situation, rightfully so. the federal government is saying to acme pharmaceutical, give x to california, give y to chicago, give z to new york. these manufacturers are regulated by the federal government, and the federal government clearly has a role in addressing this crisis.

but we need two things from the federal government. we need help on that supply chain, especially when it becomes international, and we need coordination, and basic partnership. i get the states' role. we've been testing. i guess that this is hard. i guess that it's difficult. i get it's never perfect. i get in this society it's a blame game, and everyone says why didn't we have enough testing? it's the fed, it's the state. that's going to happen anyway. i'm not asking for the federal government to come in and do any more than they need to do, but we need their coordination and partnership. we also need funding. get we have to fund airlines, small business, yeah, i agree 100%, but you also have to fund state government. when you fund state government, you're not funding a private business, okay?

we're not an airline. you don't have an issue of should government really be given tax dollars to this private entity. when you fund a state government, you are funding them to perform the functions you want us to to reopen. you i get it. when you fund state governments, you're funding small businesses and hospitals and schools anyway. and the republican doctrine used to be limited government and states rights. i'm a good distribution mechanism to small businesses and hospitals and schools, because i know what's going on in this state. but if you want us to reopen, we need funding the national governors association is highly relevant, because this is now all up to the governors. the national governors association is bipartisan.

the chairman is republican, i'm the vice charm, i'm a democrat. i'm the incoming chairperson. we did a press release yesterday saying we need funding in this next bill. we need $500 billion for the states so we can do this reopening. the federal government sent 1.5 million cloth masks to new york state. i want to thank them for that. we can distribute these cloth masks to people to help implement or policy where, if you're in public, you have to wear a masks. it's not a surgical mask. it's a cloth mask manufactured by the hanes corporation, i believe, but we are asking people to wear masks, and this is going to be very helpful, because we'll have additional masks to distribute to the public. last point, personal opinion. this is not a fact, this is not my opinion. can you throw it in the garbage.

the emotion in this country is as high as i can recall. people are frustrated, anxious, we're scared, we're angry. we've never been through this before, and on every level, this is a terrible experience. it's disorienting, it threatens you to your core. it makes you reflect on your whole life and it really has -- it's mentally very difficult. it's emotionally difficult. economically it's disastrous. the market goes down, your retirement funds go down, you're not getting a paycheck. it is as tumultuous a time as we have ever seen but in the midst

of this, there's no time for politics. how does this situation get worse and get worse quickly? if you politicize all that emotion. we cannot go there. that's why i worked so hard, when anyone races any political agenda to me, i worked so hard to distance myself from it. i'm not running for anything. i'm not going anywhere. i'm going to be governor of the state of the new york until the people kick me out. then i'm going to spend time with my family and that's that. i have no political agenda. i've stayed 100 miles away from politics. just so people know that there is no possibility of a political distortion here. it's no time for politics. look, if you have partisan division splitting this nation now, it's going to make it

worse. abraham lincoln -- a house divided against itself cannot stand. 1858. where did abraham lincoln get it from? if a house divided against itself cannot stand. mark 3:25. this is an accepted wisdom, let us say. a house cannot stand. not to mention a house cannot rise up from the greatest challenge it has seen since world war ii. this is no time and no place for division. we have our hands full as it is. let's just stay together and work it through. that's why we're called the united states, right? the unity was key. going back to abraham lincoln, it was always about the unity, going back to the framers of the

constitution, always about the balance of power to ensure unity. we need that unity now more than ever before. questions? >> reporter: your mask order took effect last night. you're currently not wearing a mask. do you fear that there's a do as i say, not as i do aspect to this? and what would you say to somebody at home saying the governor is not wearing a mask, not i. >> when i am in public walking the dog on the street and there is a place where i could come in contact with other people within the -- and i can't maintain social distancing, i am wearing a mask. if i'm walking through the backyard alone and nobody's around me, i don't wear a mask. wear a mask in public if you are in a situation where you can't encroach on other people without

maintaining social distancing. that's when you wear a mask. here i'm not going to come any closer to you than i many a there's no possibility that you and i, john, violate the social distancing guideline. i'm socially distanced from hours. i'm socially distanced from mel will -- melissa. in public, i think it's a small inconvenience that has a tremendous benefit for people, and you want to go walk the dog with me? i'll walk the dog with you, i'll wear a mask. my daughter wears a mask. the dog doesn't wear a mask. i've not heard any data that suggests pets should wear a mask, so captain is not

violating anything, but we'll walk the dog, i wear a mask. not as attractive as yours, by the way. you have a very stylish fashion forward. >> reporter: i thought that president trump has encouraging implicitly and explicitly some republican states to move ahead with reopening plans. beaching are reopening in florida. there have been protests around the country. what do you make of that piecemeal approach. given that people could travel, et cetera, doesn't that defeat the purpose of trying to stamp this out? >> look, i think that no one should inject politics. that's why, jessie, you know, do as you say -- uh, you know how hard i've worked and how many times i've said it, taken myself totally out of contention for miss possible political position, just to make sure nobody do say there's a political angle to this.

s i can't speak for anyone else. i can speak for my relationship, what i'm doing in this state, how i'm working with other officials and how i'm trying to work with the federal government. i think the president's points that there are different states in different positions, and once you say it's up to the states' governors, you will potentially get 50 different paths forward. that's what he said. that's his model. he did not say this is a nationwide program he's asking states to buy into. so what i do here may very well be different from what the florida governor can do. well, your point is taken, yes, these can drive from new york to florida or florida to new york. is that a down side of a