appreciate it very much. he was a big success, a big, big success. let's do here and there next, okay? we're all set. >> reporter: mr. president, you talked your meeting tomorrow with governor cuomo that you mentioned. is there a reason he's coming all the way down here? >> i don't know. he wanted to. believe it or not, we get along, okay? he was very generous yesterday in particular. he said we did a, quote, phenomenal deal, i don't know if anybody wrote that but i appreciate that, because it's not about me, it's about these people and thousands behind mike and the admiral and all of the other people that are working with us. look, i don't understand, when i see, uh, polling and approval ratings for the job, this group should get a 95, it really should. and we're really helping the governors a lot. and the governors call me. the ones i know or the republicans. but the ones i know. and they say, it's incredible, the job you're doing. again, not me, the job this

group is doing. uh, and you sit here. and i'm watching from, uh, from the corner, and i'm just saying, boy, it's incredible stuff, when you watch the general get up, and talk about, boom, boom, boom. you don't see that. you don't see that when you hear the admiral speak about the testing, how good it is, and yet people don't like to say it. but remember, it was all about ventilators a month ago. ventilators, ventilators. then we fixed it, you don't hear about ventilators. where is the ventilators, you haven't asked about ventilators recently, what's going on, what about ventilators. we're helping other countries now, because they can't have -- they're very hard to come by and they take a long time to make, like years. it's incredible, the job they've done, that our people have done, and also private companies have done. you know, you talk about the act, we don't like to use it unless we have to. a lot of times just the fact that you have it gets you everything you need. we don't want to embarrass any of the companies, but we have

used it on a number of occasions and it worked, but it worked just as well before you have to use it because they don't want to be embarrassed. please, go ahead. >> reporter: thank you, mr. president. >> no, i think right behind you, i promised, i cannot tell a lie, so we'll get you next, okay? we'll get you next. >> reporter: thank you so much, mr. president. my question, i have two questions. the first is on testing. you talked about the idea that first it was ventilators and now it's testing. you seem to be implying that talking about testing is a personal attack on you. the aspect of testing has been an issue for a long time, why do you think it's a personal attack on you? >> it's not bipartisan, it's mostly partisan, more importantly than mostly partisan, it's incorrect. the experts -- look at the maps, you have the maps with so many

locations. in the case, as an example, governor hogue aahogan, he didny know. it was very obvious to those listening on the call today, even though you weren't supposed to be on it, i'm sure some of you were or representatives were. he really didn't know about the federal laboratories, would you say that's correct, mike, he didn't know. and mike doesn't like to get into this stuff, he's less controversial than i am, but he didn't know about it, and if he did know about it, he would have been happy. no, we've done a really good job over testing. that being said, we have tests coming out in the next few weeks that will blow the whole industry away. a lot of people love the abbott test, so do i, the abbott test is great, you touch, boom. the problem is it doesn't do massive numbers like the big machine. but the big machine takes a day, takes a day and a half with delivery and everything else. but we have tremendous testing. tremendous testing capability.

remember this. we've tested more than any country in the world by far. in fact i think i read where if you add up every other country in the world, we've tested more. but remember this. we're dealing in politics. we're dealing with a thing called november 3 of this year. do you know what november 3 represents, right, you know better than anybody in the room. it's called the presidential election. no matter what i do, no matter where we go, no matter how well we do, no matter what, if i came up with a tablet, you take it and this plague is gone, they'll say, trump did a terrible job, because that's their sound bite. that's the political sound bite. they know the great job we've done. but with all of that being said, and also, there is a thing that somebody could talk to if they want but i don't want to bore you with it, not everybody believes we should do so much testing, we don't need so much.

we're talking about maximum, maximum. the reason that the democrats and some others maybe because they don't know, they want maximum because they want to be able to criticize, because it's almost impossible to get to the maximum number. yet we've been able to do it already. but with that, and you'll be seeing this over the next -- i think over the next a couple of weeks or sooner, we have a test, if it comes out, it will revolutionize the whole world of testing, it will be something really special. so i don't view it as personal at all. what i do say is, it's something that's not fair to thousands of people that have done such a good job. >> reporter: the second question is about your language and how you approached the coronavirus at the beginning. i interviewed someone who said his family got sick, he went to a funeral in mid-march, he said mainly because the president wasn't taking it seriously, he said, if the president had had a mask on, if he was saying we should have stayed home, i would have stayed home. he said his family members were sickened because they were listening to you. do you feel like or are you

concerned that downplaying the virus maybe got some people sick? >> and a lot of people love trump, right? a lot of people love me, you see it all the time, i guess i'm here for a reason, to the best of my knowledge i won. and i think we're going to win again, i think we're going to win in a landslide. but just so you understand -- you're talking about march, right? excuse me, excuse me. in january, we put a ban on china where china can't come in and in march we put on a ban in europe so european can't come in. so how can you say i wasn't taking it seriously? i put on a ban on china before anyone in this country died. nancy pelosi, she wanted to have a street party in chinatown in san francisco at the end of february. that's a month later. and then they tell me it's only

a political talking point. but you feed into it because you're too good a reporter to let that happen, really, you are a good reporter. you're too good a reporter to let that happen. remember this. so at the end of january, i put on a ban. people who were in that room will tell you, i think there were 21 people, i was the only one in that whole room that wanted to do it. fortunately i was the only one who counted. because i was reading bad things about china. world health organization should have told us. but i was reading it, all they had to do was read it, but they tried to cover up for china. wait, you can't say this -- >> reporter: in february and march -- >> you can't say this. i put on a ban. i stopped china from coming into the united states. i stopped europe from coming into the united states long before the march date you're talking about so people should say i acted very early. that was a very hard thing to do. doing that was a very hard thing. i didn't want to do that. but i did it because i

thought -- and dr. fauci said that by doing it, president trump saved tens of thousands of lives. so i did take it very seriously. >> reporter: you held rallies in february and march. >> oh, i really don't know about rallies. i know one thing, i haven't left the white house in months except for a brief moment to give a wonderful ship, the "comfort" -- >> reporter: you held a rally in march. >> did i hold a rally? i'm sorry i held a rally. did i hold a rally? in january when i did this, you had virtually no cases and no deaths and yet i put it on, so how could i not? why was nancy pelosi, right, nancy pelosi is holding a street fair. she wants a street fair in san francisco, in chinatown, to prove -- you know what the purpose of it was, to prove that there's no problem. many other politicians did the same thing, wanted to prove -- while i was -- no, of course not. people are amazed at how early i

acted. and i did act early. with that being said, it's very hard to say let's close down the greatest economy in the history of the world. i had to close down -- i and everybody else that works with me and 300 -- close to 350 million people, built the greatest economy in the history of the world, best employment numbers, best stock market numbers, best numbers in virtually every category, even good manufacturing numbers, the previous administration said manufacturing was dead for our country. even great manufacturing numbers. and you know what? i did that, and somebody walked into my office and said, sir, you're going to have to close down the economy. you're going to have to close the country. but you know what i say to you? we're going to rebuild it and we're going to rebuild it better and it's going to go faster than people think. i built it once, i'll build it a second time. please. >> reporter: mr. president, thank you. going back to the topic of friendship and bipartisanship,

americans, with the exception of pelosi, schumer, and even romney, americans have seen an unprecedented chapter of bipartisanship and cooperation. on the political landscape. on a personal note, what has been the most significant signal that your relationship with democrats have changed for the good of america? >> i think it's a great question, because there is bipartisanship. look, we're getting the paycheck plan, it's already $350 billion was approved, essentially unanimously, and you have 250 which i think you'll find out it's a higher number than that, i'm not going to say it because it hasn't been released, it's going to small business and workers. these are bipartisan plans, it's great thing that's happening. i think the fact that we're able to do all of this in a bipartisan way is great. the tax cuts that the

republicans did, we had no help from the democrats so you can't say that's bipartisan. but this wheole thing, getting our country back, and nancy pelosi's been, uh, she's very nasty, uh, she, you know, wasted a lot of time with the impeachment hoax, it was a total hoax, went nowhere. but -- and that was not good. and schumer i guess it's the same thing but he sort of accepted it, he just did what he was supposed to do and he didn't do very well with it. but, you know, that was not appropriate. that was a bad thing for our country. but it was fine. i mean, i understand the game. they have a little bit of a majority so they say let's do something and let's try and stir it up. but they wasted a year, they wasted tremendous -- we could have been doing things that would have been great for our country. they could have been looking into china. they should have been looking into china as an example. a lot of people are blaming the democrats for wasting all that time because it was during that period of time, as you know, that it was fomenting. but i think we've had a great spirit of bipartisanship in a

certain way. it's not -- i wouldn't say, uh, we're going to set records throughout the world. but things are happening that are very good. the country is coming together. and i'll tell you what. the people are coming together. the people are really coming together. i think you're going to find that our country is much more unified. i do think the press, the media, foments tremendous anger. for example, i'll be asked a tremendously hostile question from somebody and i'll answer it in a hostile way, which is appropriate, because otherwise you look foolish, otherwise it looks like you walk off the stage and bow your head. i can't do that, i just can't do that. a lot of questions that are asked from certain networks are so hostile, and there's no reason for it. there's no reason for it. we are in a war. this is a world war ii. this is a world war i. where by the way the war essentially ended because of a plague. that was one of the worst ever.

we lost almost 100 million people. but we're in a big war. and i'll say one thing about -- because i think it's important. the last person, i did it early, but i was the last person that wanted to close down one of the great economic, uh, you can't call it an experiment, but everything i guess in life is an experiment, so i say experiments, but one of the great economic stories in history. i'm the last person that wanted to do it. but we did the right thing because if you couldn't do it you would have had a million people, a million and a half people, maybe 2 million people, dead. now, we're going toward 50, i'm hearing, or 60,000 people. one is too many. i always say it. one is too many. but we're going toward 50 or 60,000 people. that's at the lower -- as you know, the low number was supposed to be 100,000 people. we could end up at 50 to 60.

okay. it's horrible. if we didn't do what we did, we would have had -- i think a million people. maybe 2 million people. maybe more than that. and you look at -- there's one country in particular that, uh, decided, let's wing it, let's just keep going. they are being inundated with death. now, if you take a look at some of the hospitals where, one of them i knew growing up in queens, and i'm looking at the bodies laying in the hallways, being brought into refrigerated trucks, massive trucks, these bodies in. multiply that times ten. it's not sustainable. and many people that have this theory, oh, let's, uh, you know, maybe we could have just gone right through it, i was -- i was somebody that would have loved to have done that. but it wouldn't have been sustainable. you can't lose a million people. that's more than -- that's almost double what we lost in

the civil war. i use that as a guide, civil war, 600,000 people died. umm, so it's not sustainable. but it could have been much more than a million people. if you took a number and cut it in half and in half and half again, you would end up at 500,000 people, okay? if you want to make a very conservative guesstimate. 500,000 people is not acceptable. is that a correct sort of an analogy? so, i mean, i see it all the time. by friends of mine, by people that i have great respect for. well, we have could have done this, we could have done -- and remember this. when we say 50 and they compare 50 to the 35 of the flu because it averaged 35, 36,000 over a ten-year period, that's a lot, who would think that, but we're not talking about, uh, with the flu. that's just -- it just goes. we're not locking ourselves in our units, we're not locking ourselves in our apartments and not moving and not touching anybody and just saying, the world. in this case we are. and we're still going to lose

between 50 and 60. but if we just kept it going on a normal basis, which is really the only standard that you can compare it to with the flu, because that was a normal basis. you get into an airplane, you travel to florida, you go to texas, you go wherever you're going. but in this case, if we didn't do anything, the number wouldn't be 50 to 60,000. the number would be a million people dead. it would be a million five, a million two, maybe 700,000. it would have been a number like that, because -- because -- and it's so important, because i see so much, oh, well, you -- you can't compare it. because i'll tell you, the people of this country, the way they've lived, it's not -- it's not great. it's terrible. maybe the first three days, they're all of a sudden -- you see what's going on, they want to get going. and i get that fully. but i just say this. if we would have done that, we

would have lost anywhere from a million to more than 2 million people. now, with all of the death that we've seen at 50 or 60,000 people heading toward, right now it's at 40, but 50 or 60,000 people, probably over 50, but that's with our guard up. if we took our guard down and just said, okay, we're just going to keep this open, we would have lost millions of people. can you imagine? look how bad it looks now when you look at the bodies, when you look at hart island in new york where they have the mass grave and a lot of things that you see, could you imagine if we had the guard down, if we didn't do anything, if we had said let's ride it out? it would not have been sustainable in any way, it would have been an atrocity. so we've done the right thing, we've really done the right thing. and the people that have worked so hard -- and dangerously. i'll tell you, again, i say it, but i watch those doctors and

nurses and medical people running into those hospitals, and they don't even have their gear on, forget about gear, whether it's great gear or not, and we're bringing in the best gear in the world, but they're running in with open everything, and they're -- i mean, the job. they're like warriors. the job they're doing. but if we didn't do the moves that we made, you would have had a million, a million and a half, 2 million people dead. so multiply that times 50. you're talking about you would have had 10 to 20 to 25 times more dead than all of the people that we've been watching. that's not acceptable. the 50,000 is not acceptable, it's so horrible. but can you imagine multiplying that out by 20 or more? it's not acceptable. so it's a very good question. i appreciate it. we'll see you tomorrow. we'll see you tomorrow. >> reporter: can i ask you for

larry hogan's response to what you just told me, mr. president? >> a lot to review from there, as there is every day. and before we bring in our guests, let's do so, starting with the top of the briefing. the president made clear they have handed the states, handed the governors, a list, a list of where to call in their states to find testing labs, not quite the traditional role of the federal government. he took a swing at governor hogan and governor pritzker, maryland and illinois, for not understanding either the testing or the capacity in their states. he continues to emphasize positive quotes he's getting from andrew cuomo of new york, the third time he's used the word "phenomenal" because cuomo used it to describe the job the government had done. indeed he's having a house guest

tomorrow, governor cuomo will join him in the oval office. today, again, the president held up positive clippings to back up his story. today, again, he said we're in very good shape on testing. today he forced an army general to talk about the southern border wall. he said after the cry about ventilators, we are the king of ventilators all over the world. but then he said the focus shifted to, we'll get him on testing. as if the move for aggressive testing was about him and a way of attacking him politically and not a public health matter. "we'll get him on testing." pence talked about testing capacity vis-à-vis phase i. national testing capacity. we want people watching to realize testing capacity is not testing. they are two different things, and we've learned that every day as the new numbers come in.

the president said on testing, we're going maximum, we're going to the outer limits. a reporter asked about the ppp payments, not necessarily going to the most needy recipients in the country and the president interrupted and said, i know i didn't get any. in response to a question from yamiche alcindor, the president said -- and he's said this before, not everybody believes we should do so much testing. he said about himself, a lot of people love trump, a lot of people love me, i think we're going to win in a landslide. there were various campaign mentions and talking points throughout this. he gave us our daily reminder of the civil war death toll. he gave us our daily reminder of what opec plus means. our daily reminder that people were amazed at how early acted. he was reminded, in fact he last held a rally march 2, february

28, you will recall, is the date he referred to the reaction to covid as the latest democratic hoax. he said world war i essentially ended because of the plague, which may be a surprise to historians. and our daily reminder that if he had done nothing, 2 million people would be dead, quote, we could end up at 50 to 60. of course by saying that, he means 50 to 60,000 dead across this country. we're fortunate to be joined at this hour by former democratic u.s. senator from missouri, claire mccaskill. senator, it's a lot, but have at it in any order you wish. >> well, let's start with testing. you know, they are obfuscating the problem, and that is testing supplies. it doesn't matter how many facilities you have in a state

if you don't have the swabs, if you don't have the reagents, which are the chemicals you need to actually get the test results, if you don't have the tubes to carry the swabs to those facilities for the testing process. so that's what the governors are saying. and it is not democratic governors that are saying we don't have the tests. it is republican governors that are saying we don't have the testing supplies needed. so this is not a matter of larry hogan not knowing that there are testing facilities in his state. this is a matter of larry hogan needing the supplies in order to fully utilize those testing facilities. and, you know, the admiral kind of admitted, they're not going to have the supplies they need for another -- two or three weeks, i think, several of the people who briefed today referred to several weeks, a handful of weeks. some states are moving into reopening because of the pressure that's being put on

them in their states. and clearly there is not the testing capability we need. this isn't about trump. this isn't about whether you like him or don't like him. this is just the facts. and that's what's so frustrating about these briefings, is those get glossed over, misrepresented, or sometimes they're just lied about. >> that's right. claire, the talking points he is concerned with and trying to push out are pretty obvious the second and third time around. they're the ones he's saying every day. and the newest one from this weekend is to remind us that, you know, not everybody thinks we need widespread testing. >> i don't know who that is. maybe some of these, you know, alt-right guys that are having these small groups of bands, small groups of protesters around the country, maybe they don't think. but i am not aware of medical experts, scientists, health care professionals. i'm not aware of any of them that are saying that we don't

need testing, particularly as the country begins to ramp back up again. if you don't have both the testing capability and the tracing capability, then we're going to be right back where we are right now, in another two or three months. and lord only nose whose fault it will be then. but he'll probably figure out somebody to blame. >> lest people think the criticism is a partisan manner, we have a collection of some of the various state governors who over the past let's call it 48 to 72 hours have been talking about and asking about testing. >> to try to push this off to say that the governors have plenty of testing and they should just get to work on testing, somehow we aren't doing our job, is just absolutely false. >> we have a shortage, worldwide shortage of some of the materials that go into this, so

we really need help. >> we have the capacity to double or triple the number of tests that we're doing but we need some of these supplies. >> let's add to our conversation dr. kavida patel, a senior aide to valerie jarrett in the white house, advising on health reform, financial regulatory reform, economic recovery issues, also happens to be a clinical physician, and among our medical contributors. doctor, just in your lifetime and your learning and practicing medicine, find that this conversation really takes the phrase "public health" and tosses it on its ear, when we have a president with a straight face saying testing is a local matter. you are tempted to come back and say, well, imagine if we had treated jonas salk's research that way and the dissemination of his lifesaving creation.

>> oh, absolutely, brian. think of every discovery, including antiretrovirals for hiv and all the medications for cancer. it was only through a coordinated federal response in partnership with researchers, public health, and health care workers, that we were able to really tackle some of our world's most thorny diseases. and i truly -- i just -- i listen to these briefings, and as a physician, i just kind of shake my head, trying to understand what someone watching, just a member of the public, is exposis supposed to y from this. what do we do if we don't even have agreement that we need universal testing? >> senator, those around him have often talked about his craving of approval, whether it's from foreign leaders or

domestic figures who rival him for time and attention, media time and attention. his preoccupation these days with andrew cuomo of new york, it was just this weekend he made the white house press room and his vice president standing next to him watch television clips of how andrew cuomo complimented the administration on television. >> yeah, and it's fascinating, when you think about the reality, which is that governor cuomo has been the example that every leader should emulate in terms of his briefings. they have been factual, they have been straightforward, he has never lied, he has said this is what's happening and why. he's complained everything clearly. he doesn't do this hot and cold like trump does. one day, china is terrible. the next day, xi is wonderful.

one day he says social distancing is important. the next day he's tweeting "liberate" in all caps. he is all over the map, terribly inconsistent, very damaging to this effort. so i think it's very interesting that cuomo has really taken the position, in a lot of the public's eye too, as the leader to look to for real information, for things you can count on, things that are science-based. so the fact that cuomo is coming down to the white house tomorrow, it should be interesting, especially if trump tries to lasso him into, come on and adore me, you're here to adore me. i don't think cuomo will play that way. it will be interesting to watch. >> and doctor, a quick question, please fact-check me as i fact-check pence. pence declared there will be enough national testing capacity to reach a potential phase i. i chose to point out, testing

capacity does not equal actual testing, volume, availability, and the like. is that correct? >> that's absolutely correct. and they've been talking, brian, about these 5,000 machines or units that can process tests, what they're calling high throughput tests. even if we have the 5,000, let me just kind of give you some perspective. at most those machines could do several hundred tests a day. that still only gets us to about a million tests a day. to your point and to the senator's point, that has nothing to do, and we've already seen stories where we are undertesting because of access problems in many communities around the country. so to put up a number with dots on a map and tell you that we've got it covered, again, it's sending out a false signal to anybody in the american public. >> and just quickly before we

yield the floor to ari melber, let's bring in steve kornacki. steve, let's talk about the data you can employ at the big board to back up our conversation both on testing and the subject of this weekend. we see the protest movement, a lot of it organized, a lot of them self-identified trump supporters, about getting back, reopening the country and what american attitudes are on that score. >> yeah, we've got some testing numbers and poll numbers. let's start with the question of testing, you're having a conversation about it, where the u.s. actually is right now and where it needs to be. this is the number of tests that have been performed daily. and what you see here, a couple of things. first of all, you notice the line goes up to about 500,000 here. there's no exact answer to this, but it seems the consensus from a lot of the experts is that we need to be doing at least 500,000 tests a day, somewhere around there, maybe even a little bit more, to be in the ballpark of where we need to be

on testing. you see the trajectory, there was a steady growth there. it sort of has stopped here at about 140, 150,000. this is yesterday's number here. yesterday it hit 167,000. today, if you look, this is the most recent one, as of 4:00 this afternoon, today's number was just under 140,000. so it's been in that ballpark for a while now and it really needs to be much higher. we'll continue to monitor that, see if those numbers do and can start to grow here significantly. the other question, beyond testing, you mentioned poll numbers about the question of what folks are thinking here in terms of how long these stay-at-home orders should stay in place, how long they're comfortable staying at home. take a look at this here. in our nbc/"wall street journal" poll over the weekend, we asked the question this way, what are you more worried about? are you more worried that these restrictions are going to be lifted too soon or are you more worried that they're going to be in place too long and there are negative consequences from that? you see pretty overwhelming

here, 58/32 margin, the majority say they're worried about it being lifted too soon. an interesting partisan divide, democrats are overwhelmingly more worried about getting rid of restrictions too quickly. among republicans, more of a split verdict there, 42% more worried about them ending too soon, 45% more worried about these staying in place too long. overall, though, 60%. the other question, the economic question, these lockdowns are in place, while a lot of people aren't working in a lot of cases, what should the government be doing, should the government be spending and spending more money here, the question, are you more worried the government is going to spend too much or too little, not enough? 48%, a plurality, saying they're more worried about the government spending too much. again, there's a partisan divide here. on the democratic side it's only 33% who are worried the government is going to spend too much here. on the republican side,

completely opposite, 61% are worried about the government spending too much. you can see, the balance you're seeing there, brian, folks seem patient, on the whole here, 60% more worried about the restrictions being lifted too soon. but a little hesitation about the government stepping in and spending a lot more money. >> steve kornacki at the big board, part of our coverage, thank you, pal. as more and more elected officials learn how to deal with the wiring of this president, it is apparent they are doing so, andr andrew cuomo, to claire's point, doesn't say anything cavalier or off-the-cuff at his briefing, nor does he tend to say much by accident. so when he used the word "phenomenal" to describe the government response, in response to new york's need, he did so perhaps knowing that would reach its intended target. in fact the president has quoted something like three times the fact that andrew cuomo used that

word on television. the same is true on these several times a week conference calls that mike pence has and sometimes the president joins with the nation's governors. there was a conference call that went off the rails, i believe either friday or saturday. the president described the governors on it as rude, fresh, and nasty to mike pence. we can assume by that, there were criticisms of the administration and perhaps excessive questions. the president characterized today's call as having gone very well. he stopped just short of the perfect phone call, but could not help himself in singling out the governors of maryland and illinois as either not understanding something, in his view, or perhaps they had questions. here is that portion. >> we provided each governor with a list of the names,

addresses, and phone numbers of the labs where they can find additional testing capacity within their states. some of the governors like, uh, as an example, the governor from maryland didn't really understand the list, he didn't understand too much about what was going on, so now i think he'll be able to do that. states need to assess their complete inventory of available capacity, some states have far more capacity than they actually understand, and it is a complex subject, but some of the governors didn't understand it, uh, the governor, as an example, pritzker from illinois, did not understand his capacity. >> so he took something less than a roundhouse swing at both those governors. a few moments ago governor hogan of maryland responded to the president. >> i think what the president may be referring to is that they sent out a list to each of the governors of all of the different lab facilities in their states, which most of the

governors in their states already knew where the lab facilities were in their states. they're either federal health facilities that we've desperately been trying to get help from, or state-owned facilities. i'm not sure what the president is referring to. i have a pretty good understanding of what's going on and i appreciated the information that was provided by his team, but he wasn't there, i'm not sure what he was trying to say. >> so, claire mccaskill, this speaks to the first point i started with, immediately when the briefing wrapped up, and that is, today's presentation to the governors was, here are 5,000 labs and phone numbers, good luck with that. the other thing is, this flattery or no flattery. the head of north korea, for example, knows always to bust out the really good letterhead, and your letter will get a really good mention. >> yeah, i mean, these governors

are -- first of all they're engaged 24/7 in their states. they know where the lab facilities are. they know what they can and can't access right now. maybe for the first time they began saying they could use military installations, maybe that was new information for some of the governors. but the governors also know that taking on this president is going to hurt their states. he is not hesitant about playing favorites. he is not hesitant about punishing, quote unquote, the states he doesn't think have been differential enoueferentia. these governors are looking after their states. if that includes keeping their mouths shut when donald trump says bad things about them, most of them will do that too. >> and doctor, your opinion on the reports we've seen just today, georgia's plan to reopen certain facilities, including but not limited to gyms and

hairdressers and then approximately a week later, some restaurants with controls. this is happening across our country and is going to, in real time. >> look, i am incredibly sympathetic to many of the business owners and also to many of us who are trying to isolate and just keep the infection down. however, if we do this too early, like in georgia, like reopening the beaches in florida, brian, and the executive order from texas as well as other states, we could see a resurgence, a spike. and dr. fauci and others have already alluded to this. so i think the most important thing for those states, if you live in one of them, is to have a very clear line to your health care professionals, because i can guarantee we're going to see some cases, and we already know that testing is so hard, so i encourage everybody to still do

what they can to stay home and try to do what we can as a country to keep the infection plateaued as possible. >> thank you for having us into your home, senator mccaskill, dr. patel, and steve kornacki, we appreciate it. our special live coverage continues with my colleague ari melber. ari? >> brian williams, thank you very much. our coverage continues. we'll be joined by our experts shortly, including harold raines of "the new york times." connecticut governor ned lamont, thanks for being here. >> good evening, ari. >> good evening. governor, where do you see your state's efforts fitting in with everything we've just been hearing from the federal level?

>> it's bipolar down there. we had a good constructive meeting with vice president's commission. yeah, we know about our lab testing sites. that's like saying were the razors are. we still need the razor blades to get the testing done. the federal government could be a lot more help. then you hear the press conference of the president and it feels like the governors are being used as a campaign prop. let's let the vice president's team going and keep the politics out of it. >> you say bipartisanship at the mike pence level is working. does that mean you don't think it's working with the president?

>> dr. fauci, dr. birx, are committed to the social distancing, stay at home, stay with that a little bit longer, that would greatly reduce the risk of a second rise of this pandemic. but you get mixed signals coming from the white house, absolutely. >> take a listen to one of your fellow governors, this is governor brian kemp in georgia, who was later to slow things down and now seems to be earlier to try to partially reopen. take a look. >> given the favorable data, enhanced testing, and approval of our health care professionals, we will allow gyms, fitness centers, bowling alleys, body arts studios, bar berse barbers, cosmetologists, nail care artists, estheticians, their respective schools, and massage therapists to reopen their doors this friday, april 24. local action cannot be taken that is more or less restrictive.

>> is your state close to something like that? do you think that is a reasonable option on the menu right now for a state like georgia? >> i think it's dangerously premature. i think dr. birx and dr. fauci would agree with that. i think they would argue, you don't want to do this until you make sure that a massage therapist has a surgical mask to protect him or her. you want to make sure there's some testing. you're going to be in close contact with a number of clients every day and you could transmit that virus and have one more super spreader. i think it's irresponsible. >> i want to play for you as well the president who has been encouraging these sort of protests that have gotten a lot of attention and exactly what he said about it so viewers can hear and make up their own mind. take a listen. >> people feel that way. you're allowed to protest. they feel that way. i watched the protest and they were all six feet apart, it was

a very orderly group of people. but, you know, some -- some have gone too far, some governors have gone too far. some things that happened are, uh, maybe not so appropriate. and i think in the end it's not going to matter because we're starting to open up our states. >> how do you view his role in that somewhat unusual encouragement on twitter and elsewhere for people to protest, on the other hand the argument in a democracy like ours is people have every right to publicly use their free speech to say they don't like these restrictions on the economy or they want to make a different tradeoff than the ones that the experts are counseling. >> you've got your right to free speech. and i've got my right to say there's public health issue involved. you've got your sign that says liberate connecticut. but the flip side of that sign would be saying, you're also liberating the virus and you're making it less safe for all your fellow citizens. so governors have to draw the right balance.

and i think the overwhelming majority of governors are doing that. >> governor, you've been out front here, you were just quite clear about areas where you disagree with the trump administration and others. i did want to speak to something where folks have been somewhat critical of you and your state here, reading from the "hard for the "hartford courant," you're being sued about significant reduction of the jail population due to covid-19. as you know, someone in that system who was supposed to be released, was 63 years old and ultimately died when they couldn't secure a place for him to go, his name was carlos de leon. the aclu and others who are suing you say, why not use this as an opportunity to more further reduce the at-risk inmate population. >> i think they want to use it

as an opportunity for a mass release. i don't think that's the right protocol. what we have done is we have a thousand fewer people in our prisons today than we had just six weeks ago. we're doing it on a very thoughtful, methodical basis. those folks who are the most at risk, we're trying to find a home setting for them, if that's safe. those closest to release and have a good record, we're getting those folks out as well. we're trying to find the safest place for those people to be and i don't think a mass release is the way copy, i wanted to get tn the record as well. thanks for making time for us. appreciate it. now we're joined by an infectious disease expert from ucla and an infectious disease from the university of alabama, who got the virus last month. and the former executive editor of "the new york times."

doctor, your view on where we are here starting a new week in this era. >> well, thank you for having me, ari. i think we are still unsure of where we stand on the curve because we don't have adequate testing in place. we are still unsure what antibody tests mean, whether or not they mean that people have immunity or not. we still do not know anything about the duration of immunity. and we still don't know how we can determine if people can or cannot be reinfected. so in terms of testing, i think we're still in a very similar place. you know, i think there have been strides made. but i think this lag in testing and the lag in terms of equipment, in terms of all of the supplies that are needed to be able to really enact testing on a widespread level, is really problematic. >> yeah. all of that i understand. doctor, i want to play for you something we have here from a

front line worker, this is a nurse at mt. sinai. we've been interfering with our teams to try to get these front line views as well as credentialed experts like yourself. take a listen. >> we were afraid of dying in the hallway. so they set up, mt. sinai has zoom so they can bring in ipads in the room. and they get the family on the phones to make a phone call. to say their goodbyes over zoom. because we're not allowed to have any visitors right now. >> doctor, i wonder if you could walk us through what it means, given your experience here, to have this death count mounting, what it means for people who are close to it, the war analogies

are somewhat limited utility, but there's certainly a feeling of being a front line doctor, nurse, at war with so many deaths every day. >> well, i can take the war analogy in a different kind of way. this is all about the brothers and sisters doing their job every day. when you're in war, you're in the trench, you're with people, and you're trying to get the job done every day. what i think that portrayal shows us is the human side of all this. what's especially cruel about this virus is that once someone gets sick enough to go in the hospital, they're isolated from their family, from their friends. it's hard for the patient, it's especially cruel and hard for the families. trying to imagine what it's like as a health care provider who is

right at that interface, they're trying desperately to make some human connection to the patient and put the family at ease, it's enormous pressure on the health care workers. my hats off to all the health care workers who are doing thise you, walk us through your understanding having gone through the virus, that's that diagram where you know it better than a layperson like us would if we went through it, and so you're both expert and the patient and all that, how you're doing and what you learned and learned living through it. >> i learned several things. the first thing, ari, is this virus is a monster. it's cruel. it starts off kind of slow and about day five or six, it escalates to a level that is almost hard to describe. every night you sit there and suffer and wonder if this is the moment where my breathing is going to get bad and go to the

hospital and get on a ventilator then mercifully the next morning you feel better and think it's gone and boom, it's back again night after night and as a provider, i know what it's like. i know what's in front of me if my breathing gets short and that's a nightmare. it a nightmare for everyone but it was especially a nightmare for me and the thing i took away from this is it really helps me when i'm in the covid clinic now really understand what patients are going through. i had empathy before. i'm proud of myself on that as a provider but this is difference having been through it and helping patients dealing with this every day, it gives me an extra level to relate to what they're going through. >> i want to bring you in here on the wider set of theater that we're seeing. the president is clearly into these briefings, even as so many around him say it's hurting himself and making him center stage. he's lost the rally flag effect

and op ed of misinformation but he was clearly into it. here is what he's talking about governor you moe coming to the white house tomorrow. >> the governors are really getting it together in new york. a lot of good things are happening in new york and i think the governor will see us tomorrow, he's coming to the oval office tomorrow afternoon. andrew is going to come in with some of his people so we look forward to that. >> how -- what is important for folks to keep in mind as the president continues to hold these briefings and use it as a kind of a place to settle scores apart from their stated purpose of providing a medical update? >> well, last week at this time you and i were tempted to laugh to keep from crying about that absurd infomercial the president showed. tonight, i feel that we've been exposed, the american people have been exposed to a sinister

whirlwind of double talk and it's designed to guide the american people and the press away from the central question that comes up at the end of every one of these briefings. when is this president going to step forward and do his job? now tonight, we know that job as most nights has to do with national security what is needed is a president that orders a national crash program to give us testing results that the governors and our health officials need to make the critical decision about whether to reopen the economy. and we have to understand that that is a life and death decision out in the country, and so it makes it doubly sinister he's talking unrest about expertise. let me drill down a little on presidential leadership.

i think if you had a dwight eisenhower or lbj or jfk or a nixon or i dare say president obama, we would have long since seen a mass mobilization involving the pentagon, the pharmaceutical and the medical equipment industries to give us the information that we need to know whether we can safely open the economy. now, 150,000 tests a day when we need several million a day just for our health care workers in the hospitals is a national tragedy. it's a disaster waiting to draw us all into a whirl wind. and, you know, i heard the president say the states and the governors should be doing the testing, not the federal government. well, maybe but what we all know is missing is a federal ramrod

to get this testing done. so i think we're on a toboggan to disaster if we keep seeing actions like that taken by the georgia governor today. >> yeah, and this is one of those things that is just difficult for us all to go through. you wish that we could just focus on fighting this deadly disease, which is bad enough, but you have the president acting in this way and brian williams and our special coverage was pointing this out and i want to play it for folks at home that may not have seen it to get the fact check. the president while literally tens of thousands of people are dead in this country and this is real, went out there and either really believes this terrible thing or is just screamiheming lying hoping it will rile people up but goes out there and says with a straight face the concern about preventing the next 40,000 deaths is an effort to get him, donald trump, take a look.

>> remember, it was all ventilators and the reason it was all ventilators they said there is no way he'll ever be able to catch this one and not only did we catch it, we are now the king of ventilators all over the world and that wasn't playing well so they said testing, testing, we'll get him on testing. it used to be ventilators, ventilators and now it's testing, testing. >> you look at that. what do you even say? >> well, it's all about him, isn't it? it's not about these people having to say good-bye by electronic means and it was a give away with trump's narcissim is we saw today in his comments about the governors. his fragile ego is such that if he's afraid of someone you see one of two reactions.

he swings at them as with governor hogan and pritzer, doing a good job and not having the equipment the federal government needs to give him and pandering to andrew cuomo he senses is a national figure because the american people are desperate for expert advice from their political leaders about protecting their health. >> dr. sagg, i'll ask you this in the medical way and leave the white house analysis to the side but is it true or false that the expert and medical search for ventilators was an effort to make donald trump look bad? >> it's hard for me to believe that. if we turn back the clock and go back to march, what we were trying to do is prevent the spike from overwhelming the health system. hospitals were being flooded

with patients. they were getting sicker and going into respiratory sicker and going to the icu and we needed ventilators. patients were flowing into the icu at rapid pace but once they're there, they stay for ten days, two weeks. you can see how that leads to a lot of patients and a lot of need for ventilators. fortunately what happened is we were successful at stay at home and the curve was flattened. he's right, we're not focused on ventilators anymore because for the moment we don't need them. what worries me is that if we we lease the constraints on stay at home and we don't have a good plan on how to contain this, we're just going to go right back to where we were on march 1st. the virus is still there and over 98% of the population is susceptible. mix it back together, why would we expect anything different? we'll get the surge and we'll be back looking for ventilators again, i'm afraid. >> important point of caution there as we look at these

decisions in the weeks ahead. i have about 45 seconds until chris hayes, i give you that time for our final word. >> well, i would just like to amplify what everybody has said here. i would like to see the focus on what we need to do, how we get testing ramped up, how we can have a national strategy. we are the united states of america. we're supposed to be working together. we're supposed to be moving forward on a plan. you know, i would like to say that also if we cut now if we start opening up now it's like jumping out of a plan and loose and you started to decelerate. the bottom line is when we start to see public health measures working, we didn't need so many ventilators. we didn't need so much of this. this is a fact showing how much work we've done. that the really the important thing. we need to keep going in this direction.

we can't stop now. >> right. and your point if there is a bit of a spike from some of this, that's a product of the work done, not a reason to stop working. i want to thank both of our doctors and mr. rains, appreciate it. that does it for me. i will be back here with brian williams in the 7:00 p.m. eastern hour tomorrow but don't go any write, chris hayes starts now. good evening from new york. i'm chris hayes. as we enter yet another week of staying at home, the coronavirus pandemic has now taken the lives of nearly 42,000 americans. it's been over a month of social distancing. six weeks in some places and so it is extremely understandable and i say this as a personal expression of how i feel people are eager to get back to some kind of normal and there really is encouraging news out of new york where the one-day death toll fell below