you want to basically look at the science, look what's happening around you, make really good decisions for your family, make good decisions for the community or state you live in. unevidentab inevitably, it's not that. once you have the peer pressure of politics saying, "you have to take a side to be with trump or against trump," it pollutes your thinking. that's what worries me, are people making the best decisions for their family and state, or is it because of the jersey they wear in american politics? >> jim vandehei, thank you. jim will be joining "morning joe" in a bit. i'll be reading axios am in a little while. you can sign up for the newsletter at signup.axios.com. that does it for me on this tuesday morning. i'm yasmin vossoughian. "morning joe" starts right now. i've been working under dr. birx and admiral girard's leadership to increase the supply of testing across the united states. >> we have focused on every piece of the supply chain that

relates to testing. >> we're testing, not necessarily with the more stringent tests, but temperatures, to make sure everybody is safe. >> governors are expanding testing, and we ensure them we are going to continue to work in every way to support their efforts to do just that. >> the military and va have stepped up every step of the way to prosivide support in testing and care. >> not everybody believes we have to do that much testing. we're going maximum, you understand. some people don't want to do that much testing. >> wait. >> there are some people who don't want to do that much testing. >> wait, that's all -- >> who are those people? >> everybody has been talking about testing. the governors have talked about testing. ceos have been talking about testing. >> who doesn't want testing? >> small business restaurant owners have been talking. everybody has been talking about testing, mr. president. until you get widespread testing, you can't really reopen the government safely. i just --

>> who doesn't want testing? >> who doesn't want testing? you know, it's like some people, i don't know, some people don't want to have a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. i don't know. some people say, "sir, i don't." by the way, willie, i counted three or four sirs yesterday in the press conference i didn't want to watch. you wonder if the guy walks to the helicopter and sees a frog, and he goes, the frog said "sir. sir, you look tall today." where does he get the sirs from? isn't that something about the frog is talking? but how would you like to be one of these lackeys that are following donald trump? because think about it. if you're a trump lackey, and you have to follow everything he says, first you start by saying it's a hoax. it's being blown up and blown out of proportion. and i know, there was a certain

lackey that was attacking me for using the 1 to 2 million number. then, of course, donald trump used it, like, two days later. felt really sorry for him. but just the last week or two, trump talks about, "i have total authority." he does the mussolini thing. really, it's pretty incredible, that an american president does the full mussolini thing, but he does. then he goes, "wait a second. no, no, no. you gov r knoernors have all th power. be safe. you decide." then, of course, he's "liberate, liberate michigan." he does the liberate thing. and then yesterday, he comes back and said, "hey, you know, you've got to be safe. it's a good thing we were safe. if we weren't safe, 1 to 2 million people would have died." then you had dr. birx going out saying, you know, "we don't know who is asymptomatic. we don't know who has underlying

conditions. we don't know who is going to die from this." yesterday, we got the science view, with a lot of sirs, to sir with dumb scattered in there. now, we've got governors in georgia going, "yeah, let's open up gyms, tattoo parlors, massage parlors. let's try to get people as close together as possible." then they're looking up at donald trump, who is saying, "hey, you know, 1 to 2 million people could die from this." this is bad stuff. it just -- he just keeps going back and forth and back and forth. i guess, i don't know why, so he can't ever be nailed down by people. the problem is, he just weakens his case every day. >> yeah. he changes, obviously, from day to day, his point of view, from total authority to this is on the governors. we're not testing on street

corners. it's up to the states. the states should have had the ventilators. this is the governors' fault. governor cuomo of new york will be at the white house today for a meeting with the president of the united states. to your point about the states, joe, they'd not provided evidence. start with governor kemp in the state of georgia, that they met even the federal guidelines the white house put out last week, to say, "okay, we are through the gating process, as they call it in the guidelines. we are ready because of data points a, b, and c, to open the gyms and the tattoo parlors, and to crowd people together on treadmills and everything else you do at a gym, i'm told. they don't have the data to support. >> i wouldn't know how the gym would look either, willie. >> i've seen them on tv. >> i wouldn't know. >> i think you're right, that they are following what they believe is the instinct of the president. as you said, liberate, which is to open up your state when you're ready. it is time to get the country back to business.

that's exactly what governor kemp of georgia said yesterday, "i have to get my people back to work." we agree, but you have to show data that reveals you're ready to get back to work. >> well, also, i think, joe, your bigger point is, follow this president with care. 24 hours later, he will leave you high and dry, looking ridiculous, opening nail salons, gyms, whatever else. he will say, "well, a lot of people could die." he won't be there for you. i don't know how many times the hand has to be put on the hot stove for a lot of the republicans, especially. >> his exercise is a cya exercise. >> he's not going to be there for you. >> first of all, he doesn't want to be blamed for the stock market going down, so he says, "this is a hoax. it is an exaggeration. media coverage is an exaggerated hoax." then he says 15 people will go down to zero.

he's told he needs to do a china pan and ban and europe ban. toothless china ban. >> to say he did it. >> saying president xi is doing a great job. refuses to do a europe ban for six weeks because he and mnuchin don't want the stock markets to be hurt. then we go through the maus l the mussolini." it is always then "i am not mussolini." it is always to deflect to the governors about the economy and whatever. the second there is an outbreak from a gym, tattoo parlor, massage parlor, donald trump will be the first to say, "we gave you guidelines, and you didn't follow it. i can't do your job for you." >> dr. birx basically said, we don't know who is vulnerable or who can be struck down.

stay home. that was the bottom line from the president's briefing yesterday. jon meacham has dubbed this a partisan pandemic because of the divide and how states have responded to it. we're seeing that play out now, as a handful of red state governors are taking steps to reopen their economies now. as joe and willie mentioned, georgia governor brian kemp will allow non-essential businesses to begin reopening this friday with limitations. gyms, tattoo parlors, bowling alleys, salons, and barbershops can reopen, as long as they follow social distancing guidelines. you need to explain to me how you can social distance in a lot of these places, because people come very close to you. they'll styrene creen employees signs of a fever or res papirat illness, but they can't test them. dine-in restaurants and theaters will be allowed to resume activity monday. >> by taking this measured

action, we will get georgians back to work safely, without undermining the process that we all have made in this battle against covid-19. i will say, you know, when we have more people moving around, we're probably going to see our cases continue to go up. but we're a lot better prepared for that now than we were over a month ago. i can tell you, i don't give a damn about politics right now. >> whatever. >> yeah. >> i'm a georgia native. >> what do you give a damn about? >> i'm a georgia native, by the way. watching that -- >> i'm scared. >> -- doesn't fill me with immense pride. >> no. >> i think that's the same spot -- >> don't. >> -- that that governor said, "well, nobody ever told us this could be spread asymptomatically." >> yeah. >> really? actually, everybody told you it could be spread asymptomatically. everybody. by the way, just for the yahoos out there, whether you're from the north, the south, the east,

or the west, going, "yeah, he's reopening the government," guess what? he's going against donald trump's own guidelines, right? i don't know. is he liberating georgia from the iron grip of trumpism? because donald trump, and all his health officials, over the past several days have been saying, "you need to meet certain guidelines before you open up. . >> yeah. >> i know we have a lot to read. we have jim vandehei. >> jim and reverend al sharpton with us. >> jim, i heard you talking a little bit about this before. talking about your concern about people's safety because of partisan politics. like, listen, i don't give a damn whether somebody is a republican or democrat or independent. i want them to be safe. i want their children to be safe, their parents and grandparents to be safe. some people are making some

really stupid decisions just based on what side of the aisle they're on in the middle of a pandemic where deaths are still spiking. we're at 42,000 or 43,000 now. we'll be at 60,000 dead by the e -- 50,000 dead by the end of the week. you have a governor opening tattoo parlors, massage parlors, and gyms? i mean, i understand state parks, where people can walk and there is ventilation. i understand even beaches in florida, as long as people walk 6 feet apart. there's ventilation and a huge breeze blowing. i do not understand these petri dishes of pandemic spread being opened. >> mika mentioned it earlier, that meacham called it a partisan pandemic. the truth is, we just have a -- there's something problemen bro country, in that we live in two

parallel universes. this will always be the inevitable outcome. people were first looking at it from the lens of, what is best for my family and community? now, it is the partisan phase. you had, last night, the president of the united states on twitter saying, "we're going to lock down all immigration including green cards," and republicans will rally around that. southern states saying, "the hell with it, we're going to open for business." you know other republicans are going to follow suit. the truth is, if you're an average republican, you live in a different world right now. you were living in a state that likely has fewer cases, and you're consuming a lot of content that's deeply spectacle about the threat of the coronavirus. if you're a democrat, you're much more likely to live in a pig ci big city. you're more likely to know someone sick or dying from the coronavirus. you're watching coverage that has a much more ominous tone about it. every single thing that's happened in the last decade, even when it is a tragic thing that should unite people, it

almost instantaneously, largely because of our consumption habits, and largely because of our political instincts, instantly becomes red versus blue. you step back, it is asinine in a moment like this. all that really matters is the science, your family, and what decisions should you make? i totally get the instinct of a southern governor or mayor wanting to get your community back to work. if you have the testing that you guys keep talking about, if you have the capacity at your hospitals to deal with a flare-up, if you have a sound plan for being able to deal with social distancing in these businesses that you're reopening, then, yeah, maybe you can do it and do it in a phased way. what i worry about is what you talked about, the testing. i'll talk about it personally for a second. my co-founder had the coronavirus early on. i got tested because i had some symptoms. it took 1 1 days before i got te results. i get the results and, thankfully, they're negative. the doctor says, "by the way, there is a 30% chance it is inaccurate." a family member last night has

to go to the hospital in wisconsin, who is in a high, high risk category. goes to the emergency room, and they won't test you for the coronavirus. they won't test you for the flu because they'd use the same swab that they're using for the flu to use for the coronavirus testing. the idea that localities are ready for this, it just doesn't match the facts on the ground. that's where these mixed messages that the president or the administration sends. it hurts because you need to have this based on science, then make sane decisions so you can get back to work in a reasonable amount of time. >> i mean, it is crazy. willie, you've got people that heard all through february, january and february, that this was a hoax. talk radio people saying it is nothing more than the flu.

of course, that changed when people started dying left and right. now, actually, social distancing has seemed to start to bend the curve. you, once again, have, again, cable radio -- or cable tv hosts, talk radio people, saying, "oh, nothing to do with anything." we saw the tv doctors get on talking about it, "people have to die. it happens, people have to die." steven moore, "let them die." he doesn't say it that way, but read through it. we have to get the economy open. those people going out there and doing everything the doctors are telling them not to do, he called them the rosa parks of this generation. it's just -- i worry for them. i'll be honest with you, like jim, i worry for my own family, and i worry for loved ones. because we have a couple of really high-risk people living

with us and around us. i don't -- you know, i'm getting notices, that baseball season may be started up soon by people who obviously are not listening to what doctors are saying. it's crazy. like don't get your information from talk radio. don't get your information from cable news hosts. get your information from doctors, from scientists, from the people who know best. my god, willie, talk about the death of expertise, leading to the death of over 40,000 americans. i mean, that's where we are right now. dangerous, really dangerous. >> governor kemp in georgia yesterday, we just heard that clip, was sort of defiant. he said, "i don't give a damn about politics right now." we don't give a damn about politics right now. care about the health of your

state, vulnerable people in your state of georgia and across the country. if you look at expertise -- i talked to a leading doctor at harvard two days ago who said, "here is what this will look like." he was talking about michigan because of the liberate and protests there. he said, a couple of weeks, it'll look fine and they'll say, "we were right about this." then the cases will explode again. the hospitals will be full again. we'll be right back where we started. it may look okay for a couple weeks, but you have to look down the road. i think dr. fauci and dr. birx would tell you exactly the same thing. one other point about georgia, as we talk about using data and science, you'd like to believe this was a coordinated effort, where the governor talked to everybody in hot spots, in vulnerable places. we learned at nbc news last night that the mayor of albany, georgia, in south georgia, very, very hard-hit city, had no idea about this. he heard about it on tv. his aide was watching television and came in and said, "mr. mayor, they're opening up

the state." the mayor said, "whoa, whoa, whoa, we're not ready for that." they had a couple funerals that led to big problems in the state of albany. they've had a terrible outbreak down there. reverend sharpton, i'll ask you. we talked about georgia. you can look at tennessee as another state, south carolina, a lot of the sec east states, if you want to put it that way, talking about opening for business. the state of tennessee says, "by may 1st, the governor will completely lift the stay at home order there." >> we have members of the action network in albany that was just as outraged or more as the mayor there. the real question i raise is, what did the governor of georgia or tennessee or any of these states that are announcing the reopening, what do they know now that they did not know when they closed the states? the facts have not changed. in fact, we're getting the situation intensified, in terms

of the need for testing and in terms of the escalating amount of deaths. they are literally playing politics with the lives of their citizens, and it's atrocious. then we have these, in some cases, orchestrated demonstrations that are coming out saying that we are against the stay home edict, with no pa basis at all, other than to say, "i want the right to flirt with dying." i mean, this is an absolute absurdity on its face. when we look at it, as jim says, that we're so divided as a country, where we're not divided is with the pandemic. this virus does not check off boxes, whether you're republican, democrat, black, white, rich or poor. this virus is an all demographic kind of disaster. whether or not we're going to choose to live together, we will die together unless we solve

this and stay home until we find out how we deal with this. this is not about which side you're on. this is about all of us trying to stay above ground. >> you know who else said that yesterday? for one, brief, shining moment in time, after he had lulled red state governors out to make these reckless proclamations. that's right, sir did, sir donald trump did. everybody calling him sir wherever he goes, "sir." >> his scientists believe this. >> donald trump yesterday, actually, spoke the truth, admitted the truth. admitted what his scientists and doctors have been saying for some time. that is, if these stay at home orders had been ignored, and if we were reckless with the stay

at home orders, millions of people could die. take a look at donald trump and dr. birx from yesterday. >> if we didn't do it, you would have had a million people, 1.5 million people, maybe 2 million people dead. now, we're going toward 50,000, i'm hearing, or 60,000 people. one is too many, i always say it. one is too many, but we're going toward 50,000 or 60,000. that's at the lower -- as you know, the low number was supposed to be 100,000. we could end up at 50,000 to 60,000. okay, it's horrible. if we didn't do what we did, we would have had, i think, 1 million people, maybe 2 million people, maybe more than that. >> this is a highly contagious virus, and we don't know by looking at someone whether they have pre-existing conditions or not. so all of us, as far as

protecting others, must continue to do all of the recommendations, to ensure when we're in an asymptomatic state, we're not passing the virus to others. >> did you hear that? that applies to everybody. >> yeah. >> that applies to everybody. >> that does apply to everybody. donald, thank you, again, for your support. we appreciate you watching. appreciate that, in the middle of a pandemic, you actually have enough time to watch our show and then tweet about it. yes, this year, the ratings have -- even before this pandemic, the best ever, and we thank you. >> this is childish, tweeting. >> this is what donald trump tweeted. >> calling you a psycho. >> he watches every day, by the way. >> this is your president, ladies and gentlemen. while tens of thousands of people have died, and there is suffering across the board in hospitals and hot spots across the country. there is not the testing that

americans need, and the president refuses to do what needs to be done to get testing across the board. he's doing this. joe? >> he's tweeting, "watch the first five minutes of poorly rated morning psycho on msdnc." original, donald, sir. just to see if he is as nuts as people are saying. i love this. he does, and everybody around him, tells me he watches every day. i like this. just to see such hatred and contempt. i used to do his show all the time, before the 2016 election. then cut him off. wasn't worth the effort. his mind is shot. and if you look right up above that, he's pinned a tweet where barack obama's face is actually superimposed on another head, reverend al. a tweet to say many people found offensive would be an understatement. here you have a guy who is in

the middle of a pandemic. he can't get out of the mud. again, every tweet he tweets about us is usually filled with 20 or 30 lies. counted about four or five in that one right there. but he can't get out of his own way. he can't. he can't do the country's bidding. we were just showing clips where he actually was responsible yesterday. >> well -- >> he can't help himself. he can't help himself. in the middle of a pandemic, he puts up an ad where barack obama's head is superimposed in another ad. that is beyond childish. i think a lot of people found it to be deeply offensive. just as republicans would have found barack obama doing that to george w. bush, had he done that in his re-election campaign. >> no, absolutely. when you look at -- when you look at when you have world leaders in history that face

crisis, churchill during world war ii, lincoln during the civil war, would you really think, mr. president, since you're watching now pause you're so obsessed with joe scarborough that you can't help it. since we have your attention because of joe, would you really imagine winston churchill doing a tweet about something as ridiculous as you did with this whole commercial about joe biden learning huh ining how to deal roaches, and superimposing obama's head in the middle of world war ii? do you think abe lincoln would be doing the adolescent nonsense you're doing in the middle of a civil war? people are dying. you're the head of state. whether we supported you or not, this is in your lap. this will go down in history in the trump era. what are they going to say, that you were tweeting, that you were watching cable tv, taking shots

at people, that you were obsessed because you couldn't control? or that you took charge of the state and brought it to safety, and you disproved all your doubters by rising to the occasion and becoming great? or do you have that in you? you're the one on trial, announcing you're going to end immigration after you let everybody in here. as your followers are now saying, let's end stay at home. that's real consistent. let's all go out now to our parlors and our massage parlors, but we're going to block everybody from coming in here so we can just cause killing ourselves, by ourselves. that makes a whole lot of sense, mr. president. >> so the president was showing his range, guys. this morning, he's doing some criticism of cable tv last night, shutting down immigration to this country. he issued a tweet last night, his previous tweet said, he intends to issue an executive order suspending immigration to the united states, citing

coronavirus and the, quote, need to protect the jobs of our great american citizens. "washington post" reports the announcement caught some homeland security officials off guard, while a senior administration official tells nbc news the plan has been under consideration for some time. yet the move may be too little, too late. numerous health officials and allies of the president's own administration, as far back as january, pushed the president on similar restrictions, specifically the travel pban frm europe. his deputy national security adviser joined the chorus in calling for stricter travel measures days later. it wasn't until a month and a half later, on march 11th, that the president shut down travel from europe. let's bring in senior white house reporter for nbc news digital shannon pettypiece. we'll get to you in a moment. my first thought after reading the tweet before going to bed was, the virus is here. it feels good politically to

shut down immigration. it's a signal. the virus doesn't know about the border, number one. and it crossed the border sometime in january. >> by the way, people, we don't want people copping he incomingy be infected. think if you're in another country. mine, somebody told me three weeks ago, a diplomat told me other countries were scared to death of americans going into their country because we have more cases than anywhere in the world. our testing is so dismal, people are scared to death of americans coming into their country. the thing is, this is symbolic. what he did last night was symbolic. just like the china ban was symbolling. he'd already let -- i mean, 430,000 people came from china to the united states from the beginning of this. an additional 40,000 came to the united states from china after

the so-called ban. willie, as you pointed out, when he put that toothless china ban in, again, toothless because he was afraid the markets may go down, he was begged by his own health officials to shut down travel from europe at the end of january. steve mnuchin and donald trump said no, they weren't going to ban travel from europe at the end of january because, again, they didn't want to harm the stock market. he finally did it, again, in march. by that time, all the travel between europe and new york especially caused a massive outbreak. just as you said, people came over here. nobody thought it was a big problem. donald trump said it was not a big problem. two weeks later, we start having these explosions, these outbreaks in new york city. that's a real problem. you're right, people are already in here. that's why, when donald trump is screaming at reporters, saying, "look at me, i did this toothless china paban.

this toothless china ban before a single person died," that's like a cop saying, "i locked the front door after you let all the killers inside the house." little late. little late. yeah, let's go to shannon. shannon, a lot of things going on at the white house. the president is tweeting, of course, about his favorite television show. he just can't quit us. we wish he could. also, he's tweeting these dec e decrees from the white house at night. one day, he says he is spartacus. the next day, he says he is powerless. then yesterday, he's talking about how 1 or 2 million people could have died if we didn't have social distancing. this is a president who can't seem to make up his mind. >> reporter: yesterday, he was talking about opening up the country. now, this move to essentially close it down to immigration. i will say this tweet caught

white house officials off guard. this is something that had been talked about in the white house for quite a while, but the idea of the president tweeting it, i think around 10:00 last night, surprised a lot of people. we're not able to get specifics from anyone yet about what countries would be affected or how this would be implemented. it also is surprising because it probably won't have a lot of real world implications. for the moegs past part, immigr is shut down. we have a non-essential travel ban on mexico, on china, on most countries in europe, india, where we get a lot of immigration from is on a nationwide lockdown. we're not getting a lot of immigrants from there. visa offices are closed in a lot of places. appointments, interviews to get a visa have been canceled. there's not a lot of immigration going on. on the other front where this is concerning is for farmers. the administration had been talking about trying to loosen restrictions on mie grant wogra

during the pandemic to get them over to work for the harvest season. farmers are complaining they're not getting the farm labor they need through legal immigration. the administration had been in the process of talking about how to make it easier and lift these restrictions on migrant labor. how would this affect those? not a lot of implications. a lot of questions. i will say, there is one way this makes sense, and it is politically for the president. he wants to get the conversation back to immigration. this is the topic he always wanted to be talking about for his 2020 re-election. he made sure to bring up the border wall yesterday in the preefing wh i briefing when the head of the army corps of engineers was there to talk about hospitals. the president touted how many parts of the wall had been pi built. imprags migration is a number o issue for republicans and swing states. with the focus on the pandemic, this is a way he can get the

country back talking about imfwrai immigrati immigration, where he thinks he has strength. >> shannon pettypiece, thank you. joe, during a pandemic like this, with a virus that spreads like this, which has different exposure, different types of symptoms for people, different age groups affected, you're not afraid of immigrants. you're afraid of everybody. anybody and everybody at this point, until we have testing, could be a predatorial, virus-holding person that doesn't know they're holding it. it's not immigrants. >> it is everybody. >> it's nuts. >> it's everybody. i'll say the same thing about immigrants now as i said about syria back when syria was blowing up. unless you can screen syrians coming in, several year acs ago the middle of the civil war, no, we shouldn't let them in. germany let the syrians in, and they had no idea whether they could figure out whether there were going to be safety risks or

not. it's the same thing here. no, of course not. we don't want people imdprmigrig here unless we can make sure they are safe and that they're healthy. >> the enemy is not immigrants, it's testing. >> the enemy is this virus and how it spreads. i'm not going to say we should be making a political point by letting a lot of immigrants in right now to let us feel good about ourselves. no. shut it down. it is like i said with china, shut it completely down. shut the travel down. take care of what we have. we don't have enough testing for americans. so it is ridiculous for donald trump to even tweet that. it was symbolic. it surprised his own people in the white house last night. he has to do it because he thinks it'll help him. it's not going to help him. willie, a new poll came across from the "washington post."

it's a university of maryland poll that finds most rate trump's coronavirus response negatively, and expect crowds will be unsafe until summer. 54% rate his performance as poor in this pandemic. a full 72% though say that their governors are doing a great job. only 26% say their governors are doing a poor job. again, donald trump can try his wizard of oz routine all he wants. it's just not working. people who are fighting this pandemic see what they see and know what they know. they're not watching protests on cable news and going, "hey, i want to go out and hang out with a lot of people in tight, confined spaces." >> they're just not. >> they know doctors or nurses, loved ones who have been

impacted by this pandemic, and they want to keep their family safe. >> of course. that "washington post" poll reflects what the nbc poll showed, which is that people are happy with the job their governors are doing, by and large, and they are concerned, vast majorities, about going back to work too soon. they want to go back to work and need the job, but they don't want to go back if it'll reset the clock and force us to shut down again. i want to go back to shannon's reporting and think about what she said. we've gotten used to this over three and a half year s. it is worth pausing and thinking, the president of the united states surprised his own white house, surprised homeland security, in other words, all the people who would need to know, all the people who theoretically would get together in a room and make this decision, by stopping immigration to this country. a decision as monumental as shutting down immigration to the united states, it appears, was made with a president probably

watching table news, with his phone, and sending a tweet. everyone now has to rush in and rationalize this decision. >> it's like "i am mussolini or spartacus." he says it for effect. yes, it is frightening as hell, but he does it for effect. then there's never any follow-through. it is for effect. he is a day trader. he changes his position and has changed it several times this week. jim vandehei, again, it's frightening to americans who, you look at the poll numbers, they're not ready for their states to open up yet. it reminds me of the ronald reagan saying, where he said, "a recession is when your neighbor lost his job. a depression is when you've lost your job." an epidemic is when your nay poor a neighbor, his or her family is sick, and a pandemic is when you

or your family is affected by it." there are millions and millions of americans who have family members who have either been impacted by this or have underlying health concerns, and they're scared to death and want to protect their family. all the political b.s., the talk radio b.s., the table news b.s., all the press conference b.s. in the world is not going to change that fact. >> one of the complexities in covering donald trump is he often speaks or tweets in these bright, booming colors, but then governs in gray. what i mean by that, i don't know what that tweet meant last night. we have few immigrants coming into the nation. most of our borders are blocked down. we've stopped the screening process because you're trying to keep people out. i don't know if he actually means we're going to have a prolonged immigration ban, if it'll be any different from now. the people not knowing about it internally probably have about as good of information as we have. it is confusing to reporters.

it is confusing to the public. one day, he'll say, "yes, i have the authority to tell every governor in the nation to do, despite the constitution." the next day, he says, "i'll defer to them." where it is frustrating, the mixed messages, pause evbecausee people who want to be educated. i was talking to my brother yesterday, who is a trump supporter. he said, it seems everything is overhyped. i said, "listen to the president. he said 1 or 2 million people will die if we don't take the precautions." the next day, he'll tweet something in contrast to that. that's probably why people look at the governors and say, "i'm supportive of the governors," and they look at donald trump and are frustrated. governors have to deal with facts on the ground and be clinical with the decisions they're making. they have to be science-pabased and based on the facts on the ground. this is a casualty of the press conference. it is two and a half hours where it is hard to find a consistency

so we can work from a common set of facts. >> jim, thank you very much. >> thank you. italy, france, germany, and the uk all recorded their lowest daily death tolls in a week, in a sign the curve of coronavirus cases is flattening in europe. >> finally. boy, that's good news. >> governments across the continent are cautiously lifting lockdowns with shops and workplaces opening for business. joining us from rome, nbc news foreign correspondent matt bradley. in pay jibeijing, correspondent mackey frayer. matt, around the world, we're seeing spots of unrest growing amid the lockdowns. what trends are you noticing? >> reporter: yeah. mika, we can say there are echoes of the same protests we're seeing in the states, but throughout the world, they're actually more violent. we saw protests in paris, the outskirts of paris just yesterday. these aren't necessarily tied

directly to the coronavirus and its effects, but it is part of that. there's poverty increasing. we see from the united nations as many as 500,000 people throughout the world could slide into poverty as a result of the lockdowns. we're seeing riots in lebanon, in iraq's baghdad's sodder city. we saw them in kenya, as many people have died of covid-19 as have been killed by police who are enforcing the lockdown related to covid-19. when we do around and talk about how the economic effect and how the governors are going to be -- in the united states are bucking this -- the president's orders and trying to lift the lockdown when they shouldn't, we do have to remember, throughout the world, especially in places like india, where police were clashing with migrant workers unable to return home, there are billions and billions of people whose livelihoods are going to be affected in a way they wouldn't in america. who will slip from being just

poor to being absolutely destitute. for them, this isn't just about the virus. for people here in italy, there is a major imbalance. in the north of italy, we've seen a lot more cases of the actual virus. that's a much wealthier place. in the south, there isn't as many -- there aren't as many ca cases. for people there, they're feeling the economic impact much, much worse paubecause it so poor. there is this feeling in some parts of the world that this is a rich person's disease. that's part of the problem here. that's part of the perception and one of the reasons you're seeing unrest. paroxysms of violence throughout the entire world. >> let's go to janis, where she is. there are certain areas that there are resurgences. the virus popping back up. what does it look like? what can we learn from what they're seeing there? >> reporter: as you look a

couple months out, down the timeline of this disease, there are some red flags that are popping up. cases continue to dog countries across asia. take singapore, for example. for the past couple of months, they had the numbers under control. they put in a system of testing. they had a system where they could track infections in order to give the appearance of controlling it. until they weren't controlling it. there are now thousands of cases being reported in singapore. over 1,400 yesterday alone. a lot of them are being linked to these large communities of migrant workers that just didn't come on to the government's radar before. that's why in places like hong kong, even though they're reporting no new cases, they're expanding their social distancing rules. in south korea, they're down to single digits for new cases every day, but they're still keeping restrictions in place so they can avoid a new outbreak. here in china, even though parts

of the economy are coming back on track, there are still a lot of restrictions in place. in beijing, anybody coming to the city, whether it's from outside of the country or somewhere else in china, you have to do 14 days of quarantine. they have a system in place, where even to get into the grocery store, to go to starbucks, you have to show your health code to prove you are virus free. these restrictions are expected to stay in place for a while. they don't want to have this feared second wave. i talked to one expert who said that this is what we can expect, this cycle of suppression and lift, possibly for the next 18 months, until there is a vaccine. what that means for the u.s. is that even when and if the curve does flatten, there will not be this immediate rebound or revival of the way things were, at least not any time soon. >> all right. janis mackey frayer in beijing and matt bradley in rome, thank

you both. coming up, new research shows the outbreak in los angeles county is likely far more widespread than previously thought. it's connected to those antibody tests we've been hearing about. our chief medical correspondent dr. dave campbell explains that next on "morning joe." is your sanctuary. that's why lincoln offers you the ability to purchase a new vehicle remotely with participating dealers. an effortless transaction- all without leaving the comfort- and safety of your home. that's the power of sanctuary. and for a little extra help, receive 0% apr financing and defer your first payment up to 120 days on the purchase of a new lincoln.

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the problem is that these are tests that need to be validated and calibrated. many of the tests out there

don't do that. so even though you hear about companies saying flooding the market with the antibody tests, a lot are not validated. there is an assumption, reasonable assumption, when you have an antibody, you are protected against reinfection. that's not been proven for this particular virus. >> that was dr. anthony fauci's take on antibody testing, as more states spring for it as a lifeline to reopen the country. for more on this, let's bring in chief medical correspondent dr. dave campbell. dr. dave, tell us about this testing, because everybody wants testing. we understand it is complicated and there's different levels of testing. so is this foolproof in helping us find a way forward? >> antibody testing is part of an overall strategy to get people out of the house, back to

work, paback to school. we've talked for months now about the nasal swab viral testing, looking for the virus itself. that's the nucleic acid test. now, we're talking about the antibody testing, which is looking for the proteins made in response to having been infected. and the problem we have in the very short term is a lot of the tests on the market have not been assessed. dr. fauci says validated. validated means assessed for accuracy, assessed to see that the test, when it says there are antibodies, is really correct. or when it says there are not antibodies, it is correct. imagine a pregnancy test where you're not really sure if that test is real or not, and you run home and tell your parents, your spouse that you're pregnant. the tests have to be accurate. the overall strategy to getting back to work is important.

>> yeah. mika, that's one of the problems. even yesterday, dr. birx was talking about how these tests aren't 100% accurate. in fact, there are a lot of false positives. there are a lot of false negatives, as well. dave, it seems like for every answer we think we're going to get from testing, we get even more questions because of the way this was rolled out. the cdc failed to do this properly. we didn't take tests from the world health organization. we refused that. then we threw it open to a lot of different companies. i read one report after another that a lot of these test results may be inaccurate. what do we do? who do we believe? >> well, we are moving forward. we're moving forward with more of the viral swab testing. we're moving forward with having more antibody tests validated

and calibrated, to tell us how many antibodies are in there. as i see it, states are going to be opening up soon. georgia has already. before a lot of the people that live there are comfortable. we, as individuals, will have to develop our own strategy if we are now called upon to go back to work. or kids are called upon to go back to school before you're ready. all of these pieces of the puzzle will be important, including social distancing, including insisting on people around you follow the rules. if you're at work and you don't want to be there, insist on people around you following the rules of social distancing. >> dr. dave campbell, thank you for being with us. willie, quickly, we're talking about georgia, tennessee, talking about these other states where they're getting way ahead of even the president. they're getting way ahead of dr. birx and the recommendations. they're getting ahead at a time when we still have a lot more questions than we do answers

about this. we don't know which testing is reliable. we don't know about antibody testing. as dr. fauci said, we don't know if the existence of antibodies in our blood is going to stop us from getting this virus again. there are still so many questions out over 40,000 americans dead. it seems to me this situation defines the expression "fool's rush in." >> yeah. i think reverend said it well earlier in the show, when he said, "what do you know now, governor kemp of georgia, today that you didn't know two weeks ago when you shut the state down?" what has changed in the two weeks? is there an elixir? why is the coast clear for people to go to gyms, tattoo parlors, the massage parlors, places he's going to open up. the answer is he doesn't have anything. he was asked yesterday, and he

said, "i'm not going to play politics right now. we have to get our people back to work." which, again, we all agree with. we have friends whose fwbusiness are shut down. they've had to fire friends they've worked with forever. it is a terrible time. all these people out of work, many we know. some of them we live with. they are going through this. it is not about that. it's about, is it safe to go back, so when they go back three weeks from now, you don't have an explosion again in atlanta or albany or somewhere in georgia, or somewhere in east tennessee, or in south carolina, where you're dealing with this all over again. as i said, resetting the clock. having to shut everything down again. that's the medical view. that's what dr. birx would say, what dr. fauci would say. somehow, some of the governors have gone with their dput guts said, "we're ready to go back." >> again, before we really know and, of course, we all want the economy started up as quickly as possible. we all have children. we all have family members. we all have loved ones who are

working. >> yeah. >> a lot of people who have lost jobs who need to find jobs. that only happens when the economy reopens. as we said from the beginning, if it arereopens and closes aga you talk about a great depression, that'll be ugly. rev, as we close out this hour, i want to talk about a book that you have called "rise up, confronting a country at the crossroads." >> you can preorder it right now. >> you can preorder it. talk about your book and the country that really does -- i think most americans would agree with you, this country is at the crossroads. >> i think we're tat the crossroads when it comes to the basic things the country is to stand for. i think we have to choose which way we're going to go. are we going to be a country that pursues real democracy, real voting rights, respect people regardless of their gender, race, economic standing, or are we going to go back to a country that really believes

that it is only set for certain gender, a certain race, and a certain economic standard? and are we concerned? i finished it in the middle of this pandemic. are we concerned more about profit than we are people? i'm urging people, whether they're republican, democrat, black, or white, we need to rise up for what we believe in. you will find that you will have allies that you did not know because you stood up. everybody can't lead a march or run for office, but i tell them practical ways they can rise up. i have you in the book, joe. i talk about how you and i were on opposite sides of american politics and were able to come together on common things without giving up what we fundamentally believed in. i also put you in the book because i wanted to make sure the president read it. anything with joe scarborough, he will pick up. i also talk about my relationship with the president, good and bad, down through the years. some things about president obama. but the objective is to say at

the crossroads, where are we going? >> tby the way, it is important for people to know, you've had a good relationship with the president before he was president. mika and i had a good working relationship with him before he was president of the united states. you still talk to him from time to time. you talked to him some time ago about the problems with inmates and your concern about inmates. we find out the biggest hot spots in ohio is in the prison. just what you were talking to him about, and he took his phone call. >> we're new yorkers. he is a tough guy. i think he is challenged when he has guys like me that are critici criticizing. he'll stand up to us. it is not a question of standing up to us but rising above our own personal self-egos, how we're going to look, to how the country is going to look and what do we do to contribute? that's what the book is about. that's why i don't stop talking to people, even though i may disagree with them, as i do the president.

>> reverend al sharpton, thank you very much. preorder "rise up" now. coming up, how abortion, guns, and church closings made coronavirus a culture war. "new york times" jeremy peters explains how flattening the curve is now one of the most contentious issues in politics. plus, it's a question we ask ourselves nearly every day, journalists are tasked with reporting the truth. so what to do when trump lies? eugene robinson tackles that straight ahead. for nearly 100 years, we've worked to provide you with the financial strength, stability, and online tools you need. and now it's no different. because helping you through this crisis is what we're made for.

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remember, it was all ventilators. the reason it was all ventilators, they said, "there's no way he'll be able to catch this one." in the only did we catch it, we are now the king of ventilators all over the world. that wasn't playing well. then they said, "testing, testing, we'll get him on testing." testing is easier than ventilators.

used to be ventilators, ventilators, ventilators. now, it is testing, testing. >> you may be implying testing is a personal attack on you. can you explain why talking about testing is a personal attack, given the access to testing has been an issue a long time? there is bipartisan outcry today there is not enough testing. why do you think it is a personal attack on you? >> it is not bipartisan, mostly partisan. more importantly, it is incorrect. 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. remember this, we're dealing in politics. we're dealing with a thing called november 3rd of this year. >> welcome back to "morning joe." it's tuesday, april 21st. we hope you're having a better day than the president of the

united states this morning. mika and willie, he is continuing to tweet. as you all know, and as our viewers know, i recommended to the trump several years ago to please stop watching our show. he'd be better for it. the country would be better for it. he'd be able to work more clearly. he just can't get it out of his head. he can't quit us. that makes me sad. willie, the tweets continue. now, he's talking again, as we have deaths, over 42,000, 43,000. it'll be at 50,000 too soon. even though wacko wackos, trum s wackos are spreading conspiracy theories that the lockdowns were a scheme by democrats. the president yesterday said,

"if we departmeidn't have lockd or 2 million people would die." in the middle of a pandemic that killed more than killed on 9/11, afghanistan war, both iraq wars, both americans killed by this pandemic, which the president said was only one person coming in from china and would go away magically in april. more americans died in in pandemic than the entire korean war in combat deaths. in the middle of this, quote, war, as the president called it, he's tweeting about his ratings. "i had great ratings my whole life." >> oh, my god. >> we won't read the rest of that. as america is falling further behind per capita in testing, donald trump is talking about ratings at his afternoon press

conference. you'd think news executives would look and say, wait a second, maybe this guy is not being serious. maybe we shouldn't be running -- >> we shouldn't. these things go on forever. >> -- the vanity projects by the president. no news value. willie? >> the news value comes when the doctors eventually speak, or in the periods between the president's speeches and q&a sessions. we get some kernels of information from the doctors. i want to know from the president which is true. is it that your stay at home orders have worked and continue to work to flatten the curve, as he said yesterday? he said 1 or 2 million people would have died if we hadn't have done what we have done, which is lock down many of the states. or is it true the states need to be, quote, liberated? which is it? some of these governors are taking their cues from president trump, obviously, as they have for many years. in the state of georgia, for example, the state of tennessee,

south carolina, and liberating themselves. in case of georgia, saying, "by friday, we can open some of these businesses." in tennessee, next week, may 1st, the stay at home order will be through, and we can move on. does the president say to those governors who are moving forward, implicitly, perhaps, based on what he said about liberating, and he didn't want to shut down the economies? or is he saying stay at home orders have worked, that social distancing has worked to flatten the curve, and continues to work, and needs to be continued to be implemented in these states so we don't see flare-ups beg again? i would like the president to clarify that. i'm not sure about his ratings or his thoughts about you, joe. i want to know about testing and whether or not he believes stay at home orders work. >> the answer is both. he likes to waiver between the both to have no responsibility. yes, it is reckless, joe. >> talk about the recklessness

also of his biggest lackeys in the media. >> i know. >> i don't want to even use their names. >> not worth it. >> not worth it. >> it's just -- let history -- >> you've known one of the lackeys for quite some thing and, again, we won't mention his name. >> yes. >> hes s's saying the death tols padded. at the same time, the president of the united states is saying a million people could have died. at the same time nurses and doctors across america are saying they think the number of deaths are even higher. at the same time medical officials are saying that more people are dying because they're staying at home, afraid to come to the hospital, to have other treatments done, other than being treated for the coronavirus. yet, these reckless conspiracy -- i just wonder, are a few extra clicks worth endangering the lives of your parents and your grandparents

and your neighbors and the people you go to church with, the people you go to synagogues with? like, what is worth that? >> i don't know. a lot of these folks actually come from the dartmouth review back in the day. they called themselves true conservatives. >> no. >> i'd look in the mirror. >> not even close. >> you've been wasting your time. bill berkeley, your buckley, yo spit, honestly. joining us, former aide to the george w. bush statehouse, elise jordan. associate editor of the "washington post," eugene robinson. and political reporter for the "washington post," and moderator of "washington week" on pbs, robert costa joins us. >> it's so funny. you bring up bill buckley. >> because they all just idol e idolized him and thought he was really the arbiter of all. >> bill buckley thought, willie, that donald trump was a clown. >> yes, he did. someone might want to think

about that. >> years ago. what's happened to conservatism, i mean, when we were growing up, conservatives, we believed that -- and i even remember bill maher basically saying, "yeah, i don't like the republican party, but at least they're grown-ups. i feel like they're the mean accou accountants." he said this in the '90s when we were balancing budgets. they're meet accountants, telling us the truth. i'll take it over santa claus promising things i can't get any day of the week. in the '90s, when we balanced budgets four years in a row, we told people the truth. now, you actually have people who were once conservative, who are now in this cult following the donald trump blindly. i'm not talking about all donald

trump supporters. there are a lot of good people who follow donald trump. i'm talking mainly about the people who make their living, spreading conspiracy theories today that can get members of the greatest generation sick and even, you know, could even kill them. for the life of me, i don't know how you get from bill buckley to donald trump. i don't know how you get from a small government guy to a guy who already was running the biggest national debt in the history of america, even before this pandemic came about. it just makes no sense at all. >> remember deatbts and deficit family values, it all seems to have been pushed aside. elise, you've been outspoken in your opposition to president trump. you're also a southerner. what do you think of the

announcement out of georgia, south carolina, the state of tennessee, that it is time to start to get back to business? when governors are pressed about which data points they can provide to show, in terms of testing, in terms of hospitalizations, in terms of new cases, that they have their arms around this disease enough to send people back safely into the places where they work, into the places where they eat, into the places where they go to the gym. they're not able to provide that information, other than to say it's their gut telling them they can't go on like this anymore. they've got to get people back to work. >> well, i understand the desperation that there is right now and the need to get back to work, the need to get back to normalcy. the problem is, we aren't going back to normal. we aren't going back to normal any time soon. people understand that. there's so much fear right now over the unknown. as these diagnoses continue to grow, especially the decision to

open georgia is particularly baffling, given what's happening in the southern part of the state. we have stacey abrams later in the show, and she certainly can talk about how well governor kemp administered the 2018 midterms and with what efficiency he operated as secretary of state. so it's just scary that there's this attitude that you can completely disregard the facts as to what is the actual science right now. >> yeah. the politicalization of it. do we have gene robinson? >> yes. >> the politicalization of it -- >> yes, we do. >> -- is really disappointing. again, i don't care whether you're -- i'm going to say, and i think a lot of americans are where i am, labels, i just don't really care. i don't care whether somebody is a republican or democrat. i don't care if they call themselves -- what they call themselves. libertarian, a marxist. i mean, i want somebody that

knows how to run government. i want somebody who knows how to lead people. i want somebody who is competent. right now, you look at some of these governors. i'll bring up the governor of georgia. here is a guy who, a couple weeks ago said, well, he had no idea this could be spread asymptomatically. if he had known, well, that changes everything. >> yeah. >> literally, the asymptomatic spreading of this pandemic had been spoken about and discussed and published for, i would guess, at least a month. for a very long time. this was one of the most daunting aspects of health officials, doctors, and nurses tracing this disease, because of the asymptomatic spread. this guy, like, acts -- comes in from i don't know where to act

shocked about that. two weeks later, he's saying, "let's open gyms, tattoo shops, and massage parlors," when he is not meeting donald trump's own gui guidelines. >> not even close. i mean, just -- yes, it was a month. we knew for a month at least that this disease could be transmitted by asymptomatic people. dpov kno governor kemp is either lying about that or he is spectacularly ignorant about the great threat of our times. the great national crisis of our times. he is the governor of the state in which there is this horrific outbreak per capita, down near albany, georgia. it is just awful. it is one of the worst hot spots in the country. joe, you know who else doesn't care whether you're a republican or a democrat or an independent, the virus doesn't care.

it really doesn't care. doesn't care who is running the state. it doesn't care whether you wear a maga hat or a dump trump bumper sticker on your prix i can't say prius. it doesn't care. the responses have to be similarly apolitical. the trump administration came out with guidelines for reopening. you know, a certain amount of time with declining cases, 14 days, and then maybe can go to phase one, which is very limited opening. this and that. maybe you can go to phase two. these governors are leapfrogging this. they don't have the conditions specified in the guidelines, yet, they're rationing ingracin reopen the economy. hey, massage technicians, nail salons, and places where people have to get up close and personal. it is an invitation to new and

dangerous spread of this deadly disease. >> bob costa, you have new reporting in the "washington post" this morning, talking about the white house mulling the idea of slashing regulations in this country to help small businesses as part of the economic recovery. what exactly are we talking about here? how soon are those going to take place? >> it's a development that will certainly alarm many democrats on capitol hill who have been hoping to legislate any changes and reforms with the economy with republicans through legislation. discussion about small business loans, phase four addressing the pandemic, you see the white house, in many different ways, from the white house council to the economic council to the office of management and budget, all looking at ways to roll back regulations amidst the pandemic, to give small businesses fewer regulations to deal with, to make some temporary loosening of

regulations permanent. that's something we can confirm is going to happen in the coming weeks. a date to be determined about exactly when they roll it out. >> bob, what kind of regulations are we talking about here? >> we're talking about everything from environmental regulations to regulations about how you set up a small business, how many boxes you have to check. we're talking about different rules that have been put in by the trump administration. for example, if you're going to add a new regulation in the federal government, you have to revoke two regulations at the same time. that's part of the conservative agenda inside of the trump administration. we often here about how, as joe was saying, this republican party has become a grievance coalition, supporting president trump. in many republicans, that is a day-to-day occurrence. at the same time, there are many conservative ideologues inside of this white house, inside the

omb, who want sweeping roll backs of regulations at every turn. that's not stop winning this th pandemic. >> bob, tell me though about, from talking to republican senators, talking to republican house members, it seems to me that, from at least what i've heard, there is a concern that they are far closer to, say, governor dewine's position than, let's say, governor kemp's position in georgia. most republicans, not the ones that are trying to get clicks on websites, not the ones that are trying to get listeners on talk radio by taking the most extreme, outrageous position, but a lot of holders are taking this just as seriously as governor dewine in ohio. what are you hearing? >> it is complicated, joe. they look at the president's tweets about liberating certain states, and they feel like they're under political pressure

to go along with president trump. he is their standard bearer for the 2020 election if they're running for the house, senate, or governor. they need his political support. they need his face to base to b them. if he has his statements about poll numbers, ratings on television, liberating states, you don't see them fighting with him publicly. they keep trying to say, "dr. fauci and dr. birx, we're following federal guidelines," because they'd rather not deal with the issue of president trump and his personality during these troubled times. dpov kno governors are taking the lead in many states. dpov kno governor hogan and governor baker are voicing their own concerns. especially hogan in maryland, about how president trump is handling this. if you're in a red state in the s south or the midwest, governors there are muted in how they talk about president trump.

trying to isolate their own situations. >> so let's look at the latest ad by former vice president joe biden's presidential campaign. accusing president trump of not taking responsibility for the federal government's coronavirus response. it is also blasting him for feuding with the governors. take a look. >> the buck stops here. harry truman said it. it means no excuses. it means taking responsibility. the ultimate responsibility for the biggest decisions in the world. every great president has lived up to it. but president trump -- >> yeah, i don't take responsibility at all. first of all, governors are supposed to be doing a lot of this work. we're a backup. we're not an ordering clerk. we're a backup. >> donald trump thought the job was about tweets and rallies and big parades. he never thought he'd have to protect nearly 330 million americans. so he didn't.

>> wow. >> yeah. >> what president says we're a backup? what president says, "we're not in charge of testing," when, of course, yeah, the trump cdc, the trump fda, they are in charge of testing. they were in charge of testing. >> what exactly are you in charge of? >> they botched it so badly, that the president -- oh. you know, the thing is, gene, it is interesting, listening to bob and talking about the position that a lot of these republicans find themselves in. listen, it's not that hard of a position to be in, if you're susan collins and you're down by double digits. or if you are getting pound ed n arizona, for instance. or in colorado. you have a lot of republican

senate candidates whose careers are going up in smoke right now. we ran that biden ad, but listen to these quotes. january the 29th, joe biden said, the outbreak of the new coronavirus, which is already infected more than 2,700 people and killed over 80 in china, will get worse before it gets better. almost a month later, february 26th, the wasted month of february, talk about the deadliest mistake. february 26th, this is 28 days after biden said this is going to get worse, donald trump says, 28 days later, end of february, "you have peop15 people. the 15 people within a couple of days is going to be close to zero." politically, gene, you can't save him, so save yourself. while you're saving yourself, follow the doctors.

follow the medical advisers. follow the scientists. follow the technology geniuses. save people in your community. save people in your district. save people in your state. follow science. follow medicine. follow common sense and not donald trump. >> right. because why are you serving in elected office anyhow, if not to serve the people you represent? you know, what's the most important aspect of serving them? it's protecting their lives. that is increasingly impossible the do, i think, if you're following the pronouncements and whims of this president. those republicans you mentioned, the republican senators who are threatened this time around really are going to have a decision to make. they're putting it off.

susan collins, she gets very concerned about this thing the president said, or that thing the president did. she's way underwater at this point. it's becoming increasingly clear that if she continues sort of tied at the hip to donald trump, i think she's not going to make it this time around. you could look at the same dynamic in arizona, same dynamic in colorado. this is really tough for them. they're going to have to make a decision. they will incur the wrath of the trump base. make no mistake about it, and the president himself. they're in between a rock and a hard place, but they have to jump. the governors are in a different position because they have to -- all the governors, really, republicans and democrats, they have to maintain some sort of working relationship with the federal government and with

president trump. governor cuomo is apparently coming to visit him today at the white house, for example. because they are trying to protect the sit scitizens of th states. they have to do that. i understand why they're trying to walk this tight rope. except the dpgovernor of georgi who lost his mind. >> elise, we talked about the tension between governors and the president, who they need, because they still would like some form of a national testing program, or help getting tests in their states. we'll have governor larry hogan, governor of maryland, on later in the show. he's had to reach out through his wife, who is of korean dissent, reach out to south korea to get test kits into maryland. we've heard of the improvising around the country. new york city getting test kits from indiana. if you are a republican governor, or any governor, you need the president of the united states, but as of now, you're

not quite getting what you need from him. >> how incredibly confusing is it when you hear the message from donald trump, "we're not there for you." you hear from jared kushner, "this federal stockpile, you're not supposed to touch it. it's ours." so you go off and at it alone, and you manage to procure 500,000 test kits for your state. look what happened yesterday. donald trump lashes out at governor hogan. so you're dammed if you do, damned if you don't. you're politically getting the flak from donald trump if you do the right thing and look at for your people and save lives. i never thought in my lifetime i would foresee a scenario where the government was forcing the states to equip and source their own materials in this way. yet you read all these crazy stories about seizures by the feds of materials that governors

and hospital administrators have gone out of their way to procure. it is like a low-level mob scam, except the victims are the american people who desperately need this health care. >> elise jordan, robert costa, eugene robinson, thank you so much for being on this morning. still ahead on "morning joe," back in 2018, msnbc's "all-in" on taped this video of microsoft founder bill gates talking about his meetings with president trump. >> both times he wanted to know if there was a difference between hiv and hpv. i was able to explain that those are rarely confused with each other. >> our next guest, deadpan's quote. relax, the guy who twice asked bill gates what's the difference between hiv and hpv is in

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oil prices dropped so low yesterday, they turned negative. dropping from more than $50 a barrel on monday to negative 30 for the first time ever. partly because of how oil is traded, anyone selling oil would essentially have to pay the buyer $30 to take a barrel. despite a deal among the world's top oil producing nations to slash production, demand for the commodity is falling sharply since the coronavirus pandemic halted flights and slowed international trade. a key reason for the dramatic drop in prices is that there is no place to store oil. with a current glut in the market, barrels of oil are already being stored on barges. as the "new york times," frames it, in every nook and cranny

companies can find. prices rebounded to above zero when markets in asia opened today. as of noon in singapore, a barrel of oil reached $1.38. at the start of the year, oil sold for over $60 a barrel. let's bring into the conversation "new york times" reporter jeremy peters. his latest piece dives into the partisan politics emerging from the outbreak, entitled, "how abortion, guns, and church closing made coronavirus a culture war." also with us, member of "usa today" board of contributors, and a contributor to "the week," windsor mann. good to have you both. >> jeremy, let's start with you. this culture war, if this culture war is being fought, it appears to be being fought by a small percentage of donald trump's most intense followers. i mean, you look a tt the poll, only 6% of americans want dr.

fauci to be fired, or disapprove of what dr. fauci is doing. one in five are criticizing governors nationwide. it does seem to be another example though of how donald trump is reaching out and trying to engage and enrage a small subsection of the republican party. >> right. joe, that's exactly what's happening. the president in one moment will be sitting in the white house residence watching television, seeing footage on fox news of these protesters who are waving trump 2020 flags and, in some cases, confederate flags with semiautomatic weapons slung across their shoulders. he sees that as a raw source of emotion he can tap. we sees that as his people. you know what? those are his people. they're also maybe 30% of the country. there's 30% of the country right now that thinks local and state

governments are going too far in pursuing coronavirus policies that would flatten the curve. not everybody is saying, "well, because i can't go to my church every sunday, i think my constitutional rights are being infringed." there is a subset that is very loyal to donald trump who is saying just that. they have the backing of this white house. you see in policies like we saw from the attorney general last week, who backed a church in mississippi that was holding services in defiance of the mayor's order. so the policy here from the administration is lining up with these elements of society that are saying, "enough is enough." the question is though, how sustainable is that, and how much longer is the president going to contradict the messages coming from dr. fauci and the other people in his administration who are saying,

"no, we need to put the safety and health of the american people first"? >> jeremy, it's willie. the core issue for the base from the moment the president came down the escalator in 2015 and made that speech in the opening lines of it has been immigration. build the wall chants that continue today at his rallies. last night, the tweet that he put out, saying he is shutting down immigration despite the fact that immigration had effectively been closed down anyway, wasn't that just another play to that audience, to say, "yes, immigration is a part of this problem, though there's not evidence of that, and i am still thinking about it for you"? >> right. again, the culture wars in the united states have collided with a global pandemic. the president, because this is his impulse, this is just what he -- the kind of politics he knows how to practice, is going to go for his base. going to go for his people. despite the moments, the glimpses we get of a man who can

be a leader for the entire country. he is primarily a leader for his base, for his people. he is going to pursue the policies, and he is going to speak to those people and inflame those passions. he understands that that's what gets him elected. he also understands that he does best when he has a villain. in ordinary times, the pandemic would be any president's greatest villain. we must defeat this pandemic. but what the president, and a lat lot of his supporters, want to do, it seems, is use this not to defeat the pandemic but turn it into a kind of "own the libs" moment. where they can criticize democratic governors, like he calls the "woman in michigan," gretchen whitmer, with policies they say are overreaching without offering policies of their own that help stem the spread of the virus.

>> windsor mann, you asked the question about why he's not using the full powers of his presidency, and look at whether maybe he's too lazy. wouldn't he be seen as a hero if he invokes the dpa and, you know, got testing going, organized on national level, focused, and got to use the words, "i'm using the full powers of the presidency." i mean, it seems to have revealed him as perhaps not lazy but maybe frightened to step up. >> he's definitely frightened. but i think he would be regarded as something of a hero to normal people but not to his base. if he failed, if he invoked the p power of the ddpa, it didn't wok out and there were lots of deaths, he'd be regarded as a failure by many. his instinct is to avoid anything that would give him any responsibility for any failure

whatsoever. h with great power comes great responsibility. -- irresponsibility. it is what he shows every day. he is talking about -- he is desperate to manufacture a fake crisis, to distract from his failures in the real crisis. he hates real problems, because real problems demand real solutions, which demand real work. also, he's not an awe toruthori in that he wants to take over the government but for himself. it is ad hoc. with regard to this, it requires too much planning. it's not -- it doesn't involve him. it involves other people. he's shown throughout this crisis that his primary concern is his ego and salvaging that and not saving lives. it is a harsh thing to say, but it is true. >> he is a day trader, a guy that can't look ahead to

tomorrow. he can't plan for tomorrow. if you even read the first couple pages of the "art of the deal," it is so revealing. even back then in the '80s, he admitted, he said, "i don't like making plans. i show up to the office and see what happens. pick up the phone and call people." he wrote that in the 1980s. here we are in the middle of a pandemic. it seems he is still doing the same thing. he goes from mussolini or spartacus. i don't know exactly who he was trying to be when he said he had ultimate or total power, whenever he said, to suddenly being a states rights guy, sounding like james madison, to then, i couldn't know, being rivera, talking about liberating virginia, liberating michigan, liberating any state where democrats had governors. yesterday, he's back to the whole, let's listen to the doctors. 1 million to 2 million people could have died if we hadn't have worked really hard to

isolate people. so what -- explain that. what's beginning going on there? how does he have four or five dramatically different positions over the course of one week? >> well, psychologists call it extreme present -- when a person lives in the moment and make impulsive decisions based on what they feel they need in the moment. that's trump. that's why he has so many self-continue dictionself self-contradictions. the other day, he contradicted himself 15 minutes after he talked about the world health organization. i can't remember what he was saying, but it was the opposite of what he said 16 minutes earlier. he just lives in the moment. he, as you said, day trader is so perfect. that's really what it is. i wouldn't even say day trader. i would say minute trader. whatever he feels he needs in the moment is what applies to him. it's scary because we're in a

pandemic. every day, we have to worry about the president's behavior during the pandemic as much as we have to worry about the pandemic itself. he is just -- >> we're having trouble right now, windsor, with your feed. thank you so much for being with us, windsor mann and jeremy peters. >> thank you, guys. willie, maybe i've been giving donald trump too much credit all this time, talking about a day trader. i think windsor may be correct, it is more by the minute. one of the best things i've ever heard about donald trump from a reporter who has known him for a very long time came from maggie haberman who said, if you want to understand donald trump, it's a guy fighting to survive the next ten minutes, for decades. that's how he sees the world. he just wants to survive the next ten minutes. he's been on the run, whether it's from creditors or whether

it's from lawyers or whether it's from the truth, whether, you know -- because of this world that he creates around himself. he's just trying to survive the next ten minutes. >> yeah. way back many years ago, it could, at times, be mildly amusing, to watch him survive the minutes in interviews. but he is president of the united states in the middle of a pandemic right now. when you start a press conference with one position, and meander through a bunch of them over the course of two hours, it leaves confusion for the population. it leaves confusion for governors who now aren't quite sure what you said. let's liberate the states with stay at home orders, so i'm starting to liberate georgia and tennessee, starting to liberate south carolina, but now, yesterday, you're telling me, without the stay at home orders, 1 to 2 million people would have died. when you don't quite know what you're talking about, when you don't quite believe in anything, it leads you to say a bunch of different things, not just day to day but moment to moment. inside the course of one press

conference, it leaves a lot of people wondering what's going on in the country. still ahead this morning, republican governor larry hogan is our guest. also, stacey abrams with her new role in the 2020 election cycle. plus, our next guest just unveiled a national coronavirus testing plan. we'll explain that when "morning joe" comes right back.

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pearl harbor, the cold war, 9/11, and mnow the coronavirus. senior correspondent tom brokaw takes a look at today's national emergency through the prism of the past. and why u.s. leaders throughout history soeem to keep missing ky warning signs. >> i've been a journalist since 1962. you do the arithmetic. that's a long time. i've seen a lot of change in this country, and i've been a student of our history, as well. one of the enduring things that i'll always take away from my experience, and the experience of america, is how we were not prepared for the obvious. beginning with pearl harbor. everyone knew that the japanese were building up, but we missed that attack and had to respond to it very quickly. then after the war, there was a great, great contest between the united states and the soviet union. we always thought we were way ahead of them technologically and otherwise.

until sputnik came along and icbms. we learned, at that point, we had not paid enough attention to what they were up to. followed by vietnam. that was orchestrated by all those people who were senior officers ain world war ii and thought they knew it all. going against the country, fighting on its own turf, for its own beliefs, and it was one of the great disasters of our lifetime. that was not the end of it, unfortunately. as we cruised along, we went through 9/11 in this country. that was described as a failure of imagination. no, it wasn't a failure of imagination. it was a failure of intelligence, of being prepared for what could happen next. we're always kind of looking at the last war. once we got through that, of course, we thought we were cruising again. then, out there in the universe,

first in china, now around the world, a virus, one of the most deadly viruses in the history of mankind. and it will not be the last one. we're going to have to prepare for this as part of our future. i think the new heros shouldn't be the people who make the speeches every day, and sound off on television, guys like me. the new heros are the people that you wanted to sit next to in high school biologist. those are the scientists who started the warning about this early on. the epidemiologists who were out there. they were saying, "it's coming. we've got to do something about it." we were paying too much attention to all the other distractions. let the good times roll. the good times have come to a screeching halt. the question is, this time, will we learn the lessons? i don't have that much time left in my life. i have grandchildren.

i hope we do. >> commentary from tom brokaw. the director general of the world health organization warned yesterday that the worst lies a adding that the global community has to take on the virus as a common en34i emy of humanity in to defy it. according to johns hopkins, almost 2.5 million people have been infected world wide and more than 170,000 have died. this morning there is a radical new plan aimed to tackle the testing issue in the u.s. with the plan, a national covid testing billion -- millions could be screened each week and it would cost $100 billion to implement. joining us now, raj shah.

and the foundation announced a commitment of $20 million of covid-19 assistance. that is great. and thanks for being on. i'll jump ahead. before we talk about the three prongs to this plan, how long would it take if every state, every governor, decided to go forward with this, how long would it take starting now to get the full testing in effect? >> well, thank you, mika, for having me. to get the full testing in effect, we think that -- we've been stuck as a country at about a million tests a week. that is debilitating to our economy and preventing us from getting over this pandemic. we think we can hit a target of 3 million tests per week in six to eight weeks if the very black and pragmatic and i should say nonpartisan actions in this plan are implemented fully. and 30 million tests a week

within six months if we bring on new tech nothing nologies that development but we need to accelerate their supply and distribution. >> so what interest do you have in doing this across the board? you're working with the governors. what is the reaction you're getting. any pushback? any chant all governce all gove join in? >> absolutely. and we're working with the national governors association and dozens of states and cities around the country. we're also working with the federal government. the reality is this is not a time for politics, it is timing for everyone to come together. we are at war. and what the rockefeller plan did is effectively bring together science, industry, government leaders from prior republican administrations, from

prior democrati administrations and what can we do to reopen the economy and prevent the economic outcome so many are facing. and the plan calls for using the lab capacity that exists in universities and small labs around the country. it is going unused and it calls for changes in the way that we reimburse for tests that only the federal government can do. and it calls for a data architecture and backbone that the department of health and human services could build telling with states and cities so everyone knows which lab in their region has excess capacity to process tests. >> and you said you were also working with the government. is there a possibility if the government made a full commit. and maybe put some of the powers of the presidency behind this effort to get testing across the country, could it go quicker than six to eight weeks to get fully implemented? >> absolutely. i mean, i do think practically speaking there are two-thirds of

america's molecular testing capacity are in small labs and research labs and university labs that are not part of the way that the health system provides diagnostic testing and gets reimbursed for it. so the federal government should change the way it reimburses, private insurers and the government should come together and say whether a lab is in network or out of network, everyone should get compensated for doing tests. we can pull together the states that are trying to buy tests. everyone is competing with each other. the rockefeller center is wanting to pool that and offer financial guarantees so states can make much larger purchase orders over much longer periods of time because manufacturers are saying they need that in order to scale up production. and we needed to invest in technology. the playbook is pretty clear. the reality is if we come together as a country across partisan lines and across federal, state and local, we can actually get this done and that

is what the foundation has been trying to do. >> willie. >> this is willie geist. good to see you. i want to ask a fundamental question. why are has this been so signatureed difficult? i think a lot of americans look at our medical system, we have the best doctors, the best hospitals in the world, a wealthy and powerful government. so why has we as a country, not a question of politics, but why has a country have we been so slow to ramp up testing? i know we weren't prepared, but when we knew we needed it, why hasn't has it taken it so long? >> i'm glad you asked that because i'm a medical doctor and i led the effort in west africa against the ebola fight. and the reality is we have an outstanding health care system for those people with acute conditions that have access. but we do not have the world's best public health system. that is why we spend $4 trillion on health care every year and have outcomes that are middling

compared to other industrial nations in terms of public health and population health. so we can make changes right now that would make us more effective at getting america back to work safely and quickly. and put in place the architecture to prevent future pandemics. it simply shouldn't be the case that two-thirds of molecular testing capacity in america is sitting in labs that have no i.t. and information technology connectivity to the american health care system. they are in university and research labs. and we need to use that processing capacity, and fix that now for this current crisis, but doing that will as to tom brokaw just said, help our nation be prepared for the next one. and streets always at times of crises and wars that we make these big changes which is why the rockefeller foundation is i think vesting in these solutions that are making a difference in

detroit, new orleans, los angeles and we want to scale it up. >> we need that. president of the rockefeller foundation, thank you very much for being on this morning. and still ahead, frustrated by a lack of coronavirus testing, republican governor larry hogan took matters in to his own hands and then got attacked by the president. he is good. the governor will be our guest. also ahead, looting in cape town, tenktow tension in chile and armed proel protests michigan. we'll look at the techtat the r around the world. at the reactios around the world

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i've been working under dr. birx leadership to help increase the supply of testing across the united states. >> we have focused on every piece of the supply chain that relates to testing. >> we're testing them with temperatures too be able to make sure that everybody is safe. >> governors are continuing to expand testing and we assure them that we'll continue to work in every way to support their efforts do just that. >> the military and the v.a. have stepped up every step of the way to provide support both in testing and care. >> and by the way not everybody agrees that we need to do that much testing. we're going maximum.

some don't want to do that much testing. >> people don't want to do that much testing. who are those people? >> everybody has been talking wi about testing. the governors, ceos have been talking about testing. small business restaurant owners have been talking. everybody is talking about testing, mr. president, because until you get widespread testing, you can't really reopen the government safely. i just -- >> he doesn't want testing. >> he doesn't want testing. some people don't want to have a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. i don't know. some people. they say, sir, i don't -- by the way, willie, i counted three or four sirs yesterday in the press conference that i didn't want to watch. you wonder if the guy like walks out of his -- walks to the 4 helicopter and he sees a frog and he goes the frog said sir.

like where does he get all the sirs from? he wouldn't even say, isn't that something that the frog is talking? the frog was smart enough to say sir. how would you like to be one of these lackeys that are following donald trump? because think about it, if you are a trump lackey and you have to follow everything he says, first you start by saying it is a hoax, that it is being blown up and blown out of proportion. and i know there is a certain lackey that was attacking me for using the 1 million to 2 million number and then of course donald trump used it like two days later. felt really sorry for him. but just the last week or two, trump talks about i have total authority. he does the full mussolini thing. it is pretty incredible that an american president does the full mussolini thing. but he does. and then he goes, wait a second, no, no, no, you governors, you have all the power. be safe, you guys decide.

and then of course then he is -- liberate michigan! so then he does the liberate thing. and then yesterday he comes back and he said, hey, you know, we got to be safe, it is a good thing we were safe because if we weren't safe, 1 million to 2 million people would have died. and then he had dr. birx going out saying that we don't know who is asymptomatic, we don't know who has underlying conditions, we don't know who will die from this. so yesterday we got the science view with a lot of sirs. to sir with dumb scattered in there. so now we got governors in georgia going, yeah, let's open up gyms and tattoo parlors and massage parlors and let's try to get people as close together as possible. and then they are looking up at donald trump who is saying hey, you know, 1 million to 2 million

people could die from this, this is bad stuff. he just keeps going back and forth and back and forth. i guess beyoi don't know why so can't ever be nailed down by people? but the problem is he just weakens his case every day. >> yeah, he changes obviously from day to day his point of view, from total authority to this is on the governors, we're not doing testing on street corners, it is up to the states. the states should have had the ventilators, in is t s this is governor's fault. meanwhile today governor cuomo will reportedly be at the white house for a meeting with the president. but to your point about the state, they have not provided any evidence, you can start with governor kemp in the state of georgia that they have met even the federal guidelines that the white house put out last week to say, okay, we're through the debating process gat gatesing debatiprocess, we're ro

crowd people on treadmills and everything else that you do at a gym i'm told. >> yeah, i wouldn't know how the gym would look either, willie. i'm told that is what people do in those things. >> i've seen them on tv. but i think you're right that they are following what they believe is the instinct of the president. as he said liberate, which is to open up your state when you are ready, time to get the country back to business. and that is exactly what governor kemp of georgia said yesterday, he said i've got to get my people back to work. we all agree with that, but you have to show data that reveals that you are ready to get back to work. >> and also i think, joe, your bigger point is follow this president with care because 24 hours later, he will leave you high and dry looking ridiculous, opening nail salons and gyms.

because he won't be there for you. i really don't know how many times the hand has to be put on the hot stove so a lot of these republicans especially -- >> his entire exercise is a cya exercise and has been -- >> it won't be there for you. >> first of all, he doesn't want to get blamed for the stock market going down, so he says this is a hoax, it is an exaggeration, that the media skun coverage is an exaggerated hoax, and it is only 15 people, it will go down to zero. he's told that he needs do a china ban and euro ban. and he does a toothless china ban because he doesn't want to offend president xi who he says is doing a great job, refuses to come a european ban for six weeks because he and mnuchin don't want the stock markets to get hurt. and then we go through all of the i amuse lee a mussolini, yo i'm thomas jefferson states rights guys.

and it is always to deflect blame to governors, for testing, the economy, whatever it is. so all these governors, the second there is an outbreak in georgia from a gym or tattoo parlor or massage parlor, donald trump will be the first to say hey, we gave you the guidelines you didn't follow it, i can't do your job for you. >> and we'll get to this, but dr. birx last night basically said we don't know who is vulnerable, we don't know who could be struck down by this, so stay home. that was the bottom line from the president's briefing yesterday. tom meacham has doned this a partisan pandemic because of the divide and how states have responded to it. and we're seeing that play out now as a handful of red state governors are taking steps to reopen their economies now. as joe and willie mentioned, georgia governor brian kemp will allow nonessential businesses to begin reopening this friday with limitations. gyms, tattoo parlors, bowling

alleys, salons and barber shops can reopen as long as they follow social distancing guidelines. you need to explain to me how you can social distance in a lot of these places because people come very close to you. they screen their employees for signs of a fever or respiratory illness, but they won't be able to test them. theaters and dine-in restaurants will be allowed to resume activity on monday. >> by taking this measured action, we will get georgians back to work safely without undermining the progress that we all have made in this battle against covid-19. i will say that, you know, we have more people moving around, we'll probably see our cases continue to go up. but we're a lot better prepared for that now than we were over a month ago. i don't give a damn about politics right now. >> i'm a georgia native --

>> what do you give a damn about? >> i'm a georgia native by the way and watching that, it doesn't fill me with immense pride. i think that is the same spot, that same governor sat and said nobody ever told us this could be spread asymptomatically. really? no, actually everybody told you it could be spread asymptomatically. everybody. and by the way, just for the yahoos out there, whether from the north, west, east, south, hey yeah, he's reopening the government, guess what, he is going against donald trump's own guidelines. right? sois he will i bhe will i beelim the iron grin grip of donald trump? because all the health officials

say you need to meet certain guidelines before you open up. i want to go to jim really quickly. and reverendal. jim, i heard you talking about your concern about people's safety. because of partisan politics. listen, i don't give a damn whether somebody is a republican or democrat or independent. i want them to be safe, i want their children to be safe, i want their parents and grandparents to be safe. but some people are making some really stupid decisions just based on what side of the aisle they are on in the middle of a pandemic where deaths are still spiking, we're at 42,000, 43,000, we'll be at 50,000 dead by the end of the week. and you got a governor that is opening up tattoo parlors and massage parlors and gyms? i mean, i understand state parks.

people can walk. and there is ventilation. i understand even beaches in florida as long as people walk six feet apart because there is ventilation and a new jersey breeze blowing. i do not understand these petri dishes of pandemic spread being opened. >> i think mika mentioned it earlier, meacham called it a partisan pandemic. there is something broken in our country. we truly live in two parallel universes. like in the beginning i think most people were looking at it through the lens of what is best for my family, what is best for my community. and now it is the partisan phase where you had last night the president of the united states on twitter saying that we'll lock down all immigration including green cards. and republicans will rally around that. you have southern states saying the hell with it, we'll open up for business. and you know that other republicans are going to follow suit. and the truth is, if you're an

average republican, you just live in a different world right now in that you are living in a state that likely has fewer cases and you are consuming a lot of content that is deeply skeptical about the 24re9threat the coronavirus. if you are a democrat, you are much more likely to live in a big city, to know someone who is sick or dying from the coronavirus, you are watching coverage that has a more ominous tone about it. and every single thing that happened in the last decade, even when it should unite people, can almost in-stand tak instantaneously becomes red versus blue. because if you step back, it is so asinine in a moment like this because all that really matters is the science and your family. so i totally get the instinct of a southern governor or any governor or mayor wanting to get your community back to work. and if you have the testing that you guys keep talking about, if you have the capacity at your hospitals to deal with a flare-up, if you have a sound

plan for being able to deal with social distancing in these businesses that you are reopening, then yeah, maybe you can do it, you can do it in a phased way. what i worry about is what you talked about, the testing. i'll talk about it personally. my co-founder had the coronavirus early on. i got tested. and i had some symptoms. it took 11 days before i got the results. and then i get the results, thankfully they are negative and the doctor says by the way, there is a 30% chance that it is inaccurate. i had a family member last night who has to go to the hospital in wisconsin who is in a high, high risk category. goes into the emergency room. they won't even test you for the coronavirus or even the flu because you need to use the same swab that they are using for the flu to use for the coronavirus testing. so the idea localities are ready for this, it doesn't match the facts on the ground. and that is where the mixed messages that the president and the administration sends, it hurts because you need to have

this to be based on science and then make sane decisions so that you can get back to work in a reasonable amount of time. still ahead on "morning joe," republicans in congress may be going along to get along with the president. some republican governors however are walking their own line. we'll talk to one of them when maryland's larry hogan joins the conversation. when we first opened our doors, it didn't take us long to realize ... ...we weren't in the car business. at lexus, we were in the people business. we needed to be helpful . . . . . . respectful . . . and compassionate. to treat people like guests. it's what we all signed up for. and now when people need this most, we will do what we've always done. take care of people first. the rest will follow. however, there is one thing you can be certain of.

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the president was showing his range, guys. because this morning he is doing criticism of cable tv. last night shutting down immigration. he issued a tweet that said he intends to issue an executive order suspending immigration to the united states citing coronavirus and the, quote, need to protect the jobs of our great american citizens. the "washington post" reports the announcement caught some home land security officials

off-guard but yet the move may be too little too late. as you know, numerous health officials and allies of the president's own administration as far back as january had pushed the president on similar restrictions specifically the travel ban from europe. other officials including his open deputy national security adviser joined the chorus in calling for stricter travel measures just days later. yesterday it wasn't until nearly a month and a half later on march 11th that the president shut down travel from europe. let's bring in reporter for nbc news digital shan notice pnon p. we'll get to you in a moment. my thought when i read that tweet, the virus is here. i know this feels good politically perhaps to shut down immigration, but the virus doesn't know about the border, number one. and across the border, it was back sometime in january. >> and by the way, we don't want

people coming here that may be infected. think about if you are in another country. somebody told me three weeks ago a diplomat told me that other countries were scared to death of americans going into their country because we have more cases than anywhere in the world and our testing is so dismal, people are scared to death of americans coming into their country. so again, the thing is, this is symbolic what he did last night is symbolic. just like the china ban was symbolic. because he had already let -- i mean 430,000 people came from china to the united states from the beginning of this. and an additional 40,000 came to the united states from china even after his so-called ban. and willie, as you pointed out, when he put that toothless china ban in, again, toothless because he was afraid the markets may go down, he was begged by his own health officials to shut down

travel from europe at the end of january. but steve mnuchin and donald trump said no, they weren't going to ban travel from europe at the end of january because again, they didn't want to harm the stock market. he finally did it again in march, but by that time, all the travel between europe and new york especially caused a massive outbreak and just as you said people came over here, nobody thought it was a big problem, donald trump said it was not a big problem. and then two weeks later, we start having these explosions, these outbreaks in new york city. and that is a problem. but you're right, people are already in here. and that is why when donald trump is screaming at reporters staying look at me, i did this toothless china ban, i did this toothless china ban back before a single person died, that is like a cop saying i let the front door after you let all the killers inside the house.

a little late, a little late. so let's -- yeah, let's go to shannon. a lot of things going on at the white house, the president is tweeting of course about his favorite twelevision show. he just can't quit us. we wish he could. but also he is tweeting these decrees from the white house at night. one day he says that he is sp spartacus, and then the next day he is powerless, and then he talks about how 1 million or 2 million people could have died. this president can't seem to make up his mind. >> and yesterday he was talks building opening up the country and now this move to essentially close it down to immigration.ta country and now this move to essentially close it down to immigration. this tweet caught white house officials off guard. it had been talked about for quite a while, but the idea of the president tweeting it around 10:00 last night surprised a lot of people. and we're not able to get any

specifics from anyone yet about what countries would be affected or how it would be implemented. and also it is surprising because it 3r0eb8 wonit probabl. we have a nonsense travel ban on mexico, most countries in europe, india is at a nation wired lo wide lockdown. and visa offices are closed in a lot of places. appointments, interviews have been canceled. so there is not a lot of immigration going on. on the other front where this is concerning is for farmers. the administration had been talking about trying it loosen restrictions on migrant workers to get them the documentation they need to come over and work for the harvest season and a lot of farmers have been complaining that they are not getting the farm labor that they need through legal immigration. so the administration had been in the process of talking about how to make it easier and lift

these restrictions on high grm labour. but there is one way that this does make sense and that is politically for the president. he wants to get the conversation back to immigration. this is a topic that he always wanted to be talking about for his 2020 re-election. he made sure to bring up the border wall yesterday in the briefing when the head of the army corps of engineers was there to talk about building hospitals, the president made a segue into talking about the wall and how many miles had been built. so he always wants to be talking about the immigration. it is a number one issue for republicans, a number one issue for a lot of voters in the key swing states. and with all the focus on the pandemic, this is one way that he can get the country talking back about immigration which is where he thinks he has strength in his re-election efforts. >> shannon, thank you very much. coming up on "morning joe," they both eyed the possibility of running for president in 2020. we've got republican governor larry hogan standing by.

and plus former candidate for governor of georgia, stacy aey abra abrams, joins the conversation. abrams, joins the conversation it's best we stay apart for a bit,

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welcome back. italy, france, germany and the uk all recorded their lowest daily death tolls in a week, in a sign that the curve of coronavirus cases is flattening in europe.

governments across the continent are cautiously lifting lockdowns with some shops and work places opening up for business. joining us from rome, matt bradley. matt, we'll start with you around the world we're seeing spots of unrest growing amid those lockdowns. what trends are you noticing? >> reporter: yeah, mika, we can say that there are echos of the same bloats that we're seeing in the states. but throughout the world they are more violence. we just saw some protests in the outskirts of paris. this was just yesterday. these aren't necessarily tied direct li to the coronavir directly to the coronavirus, but it is part of that. poverty will be increasing. we see from the united nations as many as half a million people throughout the world could slide into poverty as a result of these lockdowns. and we're seeing riots in lebanon, in baghdad, we saw them

in kenya as many people have died of covid-19 as have been killed by police for enforcing the lockdown related to covid-19. so when we go around and we talk about how the economic effect and how these governors will be -- in the united states are buckings preside ing the presid we do have to remember that throughout the world especially in places line india where police were clashing with migrant workers who were unable to return home, there are billions and billions of people whose livelihoods will be affected in a way that they wouldn't in america, who will slip from being just poor to being absolutely destitute. and for them, this isn't just about the virus. for people here in italy, there is a major imbalance. in the north of italy, we've seen a lot more cases of the actual virus and that is a much more wealthier place. in the south there aren't as many cases. and so for people there, they

are actually feeling the economic worse. so there is a feeling in some parts of the world that this is a rich person's disease and that is part of the per accepting and one of the reasons why you are seeing unrest and violence. >> matt bradley, thank you. and still ahead, no matter what happens over the coming months, one thing is clear. stacey abrams will be playing a big role in the 2020 campaign for president. she joins us live straight ahead on "morning joe."

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after almost a month of talks, maryland governor larry hogan and his wife were able to secure testing kits from south korea that allwould allow the se to conduct testing after growing frustration with the trump administration. the test which is arrived at the baltimore washington airport on an empty korean air boeing 777 on saturday will help push the state toward its goal of testing 10,000 marylanders a day. but the president criticized the

move during yesterday's briefing. >> the governor of maryland could have called mike pence and saved a lot of money. look at these different places. and that is maryland right there. so could have saved a lot of money. but that is okay. >> did he need to go to south korea for this? >> no, he needed to get a little knowledge would have been helpful. >> joining us now from annapolis, the republican governor of maryland larry hogan, also chairman of the national governors association. governor hogan, thank you so much for joining us. so my understanding, you and your wife were able to secure these testing kits, she speaks fluent south korean. would there be -- have been an easier way to get testing to your state? is the president right about that? are you missing some knowledge? and if there was an easier way, what would it be? >> well, if there was an easier way, we certainly would have taken it. you know, every governor in america has been fighting to get

tests since the beginning of this crisis. and it has probably been the number one problem in america throughout this entire crisis. the president said that the governors are on their own and they should really focus to getting their own tests. and that is exactly what we did. his ma message changed yesterda i'm not sure why. but we were pleased that we had such tremendous success, this half a million tests is more than the top four out of the five states have done in total from the beginning of this crisis. so it will make a huge difference in our state. today is a tough day. we're now in the region here passing 20,000 cases and 1,000 deaths. and these 500,000 tests will help us save the lives of thousands of people. >> and is that an avenue that you plan to use again? is this an example other governors should follow? what is the avenue for states to get more tests because that is our way through this unless

someone has some other scientific way. we're basically flying blind. >> well, the testing is critically important. if you want to talk about trying to get states reopened, it is part of the president's own plan that very important criteria is downward numbers and to make sure that you have the testing and the contact tracing in place so we can identify the people that are sick and have the virus. you can't do that without adequate testing. now the federal government has taken some positive steps in that direction and they are ramping up, using the defense production act to get swabs and they are helping on trying to identify some labs where you can help the states. but states have been competing on the open market and the domestic market and the international market throughout this entire crisis, competing with each other and with the federal government. i'm not sure it should have been that way, but that is the way it is and that is the way the president said it had to be. so that is what we were operating under. i was very pleased, my wife who was born this south korea, we

have a very good relationship with president moon and the first lady of korea, with the ambassador here. and we worked really hard to get in done and this done and i want to thank the people of the republic of korea for their assistance and it will help the people in my state. >> willie. >> hey, governor hogan. it will sound perhaps dumb founding to a lot of americans listening that you had to take advantage of a relationship you have with the president of south korea because your wife is korean american, because she was born outside seoul. that is the way you got half a million test kits. other governors haven't been able to get the testing they need. what is your understanding of the way this should work so that you don't have to rely on your connections in south korea to get people tested in your state? what should be the relationship between the federal government and states in terms of getting testing going? >> you know, at this point in the crisis, it is hard to go

back and i'm not sure how productive it is to monday morning quarterback and to point fingers about what should have happened a year ago or a month ago or a week ago. we're just dealing with the situation we're in and what i think most governors are doing, we're doing what we have to do. and that is exactly what the president has told us do. he said just yesterday he was saying that the governors are responsible for this, they are on the front lines, so just get it done. and then we did get it done and then we got criticized. so i'm not sure how things could be different, but the federal government is assisting us. we had a great conversation yesterday with the vice president and the president's own coronavirus task force. it went very well. and then somehow it went off the rails yesterday in that press conference. but i have no idea why. >> yeah, there has actually been audio released of that phone call that you had -- not just you, but all the governors with the vice president. and it was not reflected accurately by the president in that briefing. was that an acrimonious call,

was there conflict on the call, what did that go like? >> not at all. you know, so i'm the chairman of the national governors association, the vice president and a number of the members of the coronavirus task force made presentations. i thanked the vice president for his leadership. i thanked the president's team for all their hard work. i complimented them on all the progress that they had been making recently on swabs and ppe, on ventilators. and i said that we appreciated the information that they sent out to the governors on the testing labs that were in our s that the information they sent to us in maryland that most of the labs on that list and on that map were actually federally owned labs. and i think the president show that had and basically said we didn't have to go to korea because look at all these things we have in our state. well, they are not tests, they are just labs that don't have any tests and they are all federally owned labs.

so we've been trying to more than a month to get access to use labs at like nih with no success. but yesterday the vice president and the president committed to allowing the state of maryland to use those federal labs which were very appreciative of. we now have the tests. they have the labs. and that should be a great solution. we should be able to now start to get to work together. >> and the president in that briefing accused you of not understanding what is going on. i want to ask you as understand, you are the chair of the national governors association about what is happening around the country because you are in such close contact with all the other governors both democratic and republican. a lot of people focus this morning on the state of georgia which has announced on friday that it will begin to reopen some parts of its economy. i know that you are not the governor of that state. but as you look at the way governor kemp is going about things, governor lee in tennessee, governor mcmaster in south carolina, how will you as a governor know when your state is ready to send people back out into public, to send people back

to work, to send people in restaurants? what is the standard for you? >> so we have had a really smart coronavirus response task force that has been working for weeks on a very detailed plan which we'll roll out by the end of this week, at least a roadmap of how we'll go about that. we'll open up as soon as we possibly can and when it is safe to do so. but the president's own plan says you can't even begin to think about phase one until you have a downward trend in the numbers on hospitalizations and deaths for 14 days. we have numbers going up. so we are not quite there yet. but we have a very detailed plan that we've been working with. some of the members of the president's task force and former fchlt da commissioner gottlieb and some of the places like johns hopkins and top business leaders. we'll open up our state as soon as we can because i want to get people back to work, i want our small businesses back open again. but we won't do it at a time

when it endangers lives. so we'll roll out a very detailed plan. and those governors are all friends and colleague, but i can't speak to their situation in their state. and the president said each state has to make their own individual decisions based on their own situations. and that is what governors are doing. >> all right. governor larry hogan, thank you very much. we look forward to talking to you again very soon. an update now on how new york is fairing. yesterday the state saw its single day coronavirus death toll fall below 500, the third straight day of a notable decline. but still many, many deaths. in new york city, the epicenter of the outbreak, lockdown measures are showing no signs of easing. all major events in the city are canceled through the month of june. several city leaders are urging governor andrew cuomo to temporarily shut down the city's subways to help slam the brakes on the epidemic.

but while the path to recovery could be long, cuomo remains optimistic as he work it is reopen the state's economy. >> we have a lot of work to do to deep the beast under control and we have a lot of work to do to reopen. but we're going it set the bar high and we're going to reimagine. and what we reopen will be better than what we had before. build back better. build back better. bbb. and that is what we're going to do. >> later today, governor cuomo is expected to swris visit the house to discuss the coronavirus response plans with president trump. up next, one of the leading voices for democrats right now, stacey abrams will join us next. and before we go to break, we'll show you this nice piece of video from melrose wakefield hospital in massachusetts where amid the pandemic, they are use

being happy codes when a covid-19 patient is being does his charged as the song "happy" by pharrell plays over the hospital's intercom. that's nice. we'll be right back. ♪ hey, can i... hold on one second... sure. okay... okay! safe drivers save 40%!!! guys! guys! check it out. safe drivers save 40%!!! safe drivers save 40%! safe drivers save 40%!!! that's safe drivers save 40%. it is, that's safe drivers save 40%. - he's right there. - it's him! he's here. he's right here. - hi! - hi. hey! - that's totally him. - it's him! that's totally the guy. safe drivers do save 40%. click or call for a quote today. in these challenging times, we need each other more than ever. we may be apart, but we're not alone. use aarp community connections to find or create a mutual aid group near you. stay connected and help those in need.

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welcome back to "morning joe." so many families are struggling to make ends meet during this pandemic and stay-at-home orders. and now one cash assistance campaign is awarding $1,000 to 100,000 families in need. joining us now, founder of the voting rights group fair fight, former georgia democratic gubernatorial nominee stacey abrams. it's great to see you this morning. want to ask you about this new initiative in just a moment but, first, big news in your home state of georgia. the man you ran against to be governor in 2018, governor kemp, announced a phased reopening of the state, of the economy and

rolling back of stay-at-home orders beginning on friday. some small businesses will be able to open. i lived in georgia for a long time. i'm hearing both sides of this story. there are a lot of people missing that income, missing their jobs, watching their small businesses float away from them who are happy to see this. and a lot of people worried that going back too soon means there's another wave of this and they'll have to shut down again. what's your reaction to the announcement from governor kemp? >> i think it's important to put in context georgia's place in the national economy. we're the eighth largest state in the nation but we have the 14th highest infection rate and the seventh slowest testing rate. what that means is that these jobs that are reopening, businesses reopening will force front line workers back to the work without having been tested, without having access to a health care system to help them if they are in need. georgia refused to expand medicaid. one of the highest rates of closures of hospitals, and we do not have people who have been able to get access to the

unemployment benefits that could allow them to take care of themselves while at home. the worry is that while trying to push a false opening of the economy, we risk putting more lives in danger, and there's nothing about this that makes sense. the mayors of atlanta, albany and savannah have all questioned the wisdom of doing this and the fact is the governor didn't consult with mayors before making this decision. >> as i mentioned earlier, the mayor of albany, which you know very well, has been a hot spot for coronavirus. heard about the announcement because one of his aides happened to catch it on tv and came into his office and told him about it. what do you say to those people in the state where you live and work in places like atlanta and albany and augusta and savannah who are worried about their personal future right now. they're worried about putting food on the table. they're worried the company they work for may shut down for good or the restaurant they work may close forever. there's economic insecurity right now that's deep and you know that very well. what's your message to those

people if the message is, yes, we have to stay closed for a while longer until we can test everyone. what about those getting lost in it because they don't have their income, they don't have their jobs? >> as a small business owner myself, i understand the instinct not only to preserve your family's economy but to protect those who work for you. and the responsibility of a business owner is to first protect your workers. that cannot happen when you have a nail salon where there's no possible way for that technician to be distant from their customer. when you are running a restaurant that requires face-to-face service, the reality is every small business owner should be able to look to the federal government for the paycheck protection act. instead of these large corporations receiving millions of dollars, they need to be directed to the small businesses. we should not be putting people's lives at risk because of the antiquated systems of financial delivery we're facing. that's one reason project 100 is so important to me because it's

about delivering cash payments to the workers on the front lines who still, even though being employed still receive s.n.a.p. benefits because they're not making enough to make ends meet. this project is designed to provide that direct cash assistance and what the federal government should be doing through the next covid package and that should be the solution, not putting people's lives at risk so folks can keep their jobs. >> project 100, a project you were behind, along with many other people is trying to bridge this gap, the one you're talking about right now. you have already raised a ton of money. how does the program work exactly and who gets the money. >> the project 100, if you go to project100.us, you can learn more. it's a combination of propel, a company that provides an app for low-income families to help them manage their s.n.a.p. benefits, give directly, which is an international ngo that provides direct cash payments and stanford children which works with vulnerable families. the goal is to ensure those

communities that are not getting their stimulus payments because they did not file taxes, because they made too little money or because they're not based which happens with our lowest income workers that they get access to direct cash payments they need. as we wait for the stimulus money to reach these communities in detroit, in milwaukee, in albany, i'm part of this because i know those direct cash payments can save lives today. families don't have to choose between food on the table and paying their rent and staying inside their houses. so we're so excited about the fact we'll serve 100,000 families in the next 100 days. >> i'm curious, stacey, about the effort to really get mail-in voting really understood and in place by november. we know it's all right done by the military. a lot of people do mail-in ballots. but the president seems very concerned about them and concerned that there would be fraud and the people would cheat. i mean, these are his words. what do you think is behind

those concerns, and what needs to be done to make mail-in ballots on a mass level ready to go for the presidential election in november? >> when we launched fair fight 2020, we operate in 20 states. two states in 2019 and 18 states this year. battleground states. i can tell you, number one, every state in america has the capacity to do and actually conducts mail-in balloting. the issue isn't one of scale and one of safety. the reality is if we go ahead and get mail-in ballots to as many voters as possible, you shorten the lines which means you can move as many people out of needing to be in person which lets you focus on those who must show up to vote in person. the disabled. those who have language barriers. the homeless and those who have been displaced by covid-19 and do not have mailing addresses that are stable. or those whose absentee ballots don't reach them. we have to follow gold standard which means we do what is necessary to protect those

ballots. here's the thing. voter fraud is, by and large, a myth. the president of the united states, number one, voted by mail just recently. and so it worked for him. the concern he has is that it will actually work for every american. our elections are not partisan. the choices we make are, but the elections themselves should be available to every eligible american citizen. and that is why we are all working so hard to ensure that we cannot only flatten the curve but ensure our democracy. what we saw happen in wisconsin was a travesty and a tragedy. and it does not have to happen. as someone who used to work for the city of atlanta and help the municipal clerk with elections, i know we have to start now to be ready by november. if we do this right, if congress steps up and invests in our democracy, then we'll be able to select the leaders we need to lead us out of this pandemic and into the 21st century safe and secure. >> speaking of election day, stacey, there are an awful lot of people in this party that

would like to see you become the vice presidential nominee alongside joe biden. of course, you almost knocked off a republican in the state of georgia. you came within a whisker of doing that. 15 -- excuse me, 16 electoral votes in the state. only a five-point race there in 2016. a lot of people would like to see georgia swing that way. you told "elle" magazine, quote, i would be an excellent running mate. have you talked to the biden campaign about that possibility? >> i have not had conversations about that. we've talked about voting rights and i've talked about the need to ensure that our census is accurate which will not only help us prepare for the next pandemic but let us prepare for the next decade in the united states. and i'm doing the work that i'm doing on the seven economic advancement project ensuring as we wait for the federal government to reach out to the people who need the help are getting the services they need. my responsibility, whether i am the governor or an active

citizen is to ensure that we're serving the needs of the people. that's why i created a national organization, the unprecedented organization that is helping secure our elections across the country. it's why i'm doing the work with project 100.us to ensure that those who are the most vulnerable get the resources they need and why fair count is doing the work we can to ensure the census is accurate. i look forward to hearing from vice president about his selection process and all i can say is if asked to serve, i'd be honored, but my responsibility is to ensure that today we're doing the work we need to prepare for this election and for the next year. >> and for all those reasons you maintain that you would be an excellent candidate? >> i think -- absolutely. this is a question of competency, of skills and of understanding the intricate nature of our federal, state and local governments. i do have those experiences. but more importantly, i have a deep desire to ensure that the people we serve are getting the

responsive government they deserve. and we're not seeing that happen now at the federal level. unfortunately for some states like georgia, at the state level. but those are correctible problems if we take the time to make sure that we are serving people and that we understand how government should and can work. >> all right. stacey abrams, thank you very much. the initiative is project 100. we appreciate your time this morning. thank you very much. mika? >> yes, willie. in other words, you're damn right i'd be excellent. our thanks to stacey abrams and to all of you for watching this morning. that does it for us this morning. stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now. ♪ >> hi there. i'm stephanie ruhle. it is tuesday, april 21st, and here are the facts this hour. this morning, president trump is arguing the coronavirus is so