communicate, having built credibility with 1, and step 2, that there will be better days, that we will get through it, we will make it through to the other side. but when trump stands up there and says, this is going to be gone, it's going to disappear one day, epidemiologically that's just not true. there is no scientist, no doctor that believes that's so. it's another example of happy talk to the american people as opposed to the president talking about what's required. and lastly, ari, and i don't mean to go on here, but steve mnuchin, all the programs he's talking about, the money that he's describing, sounds great. but the truth is, the newspapers are filled, local news is filled, small businesses can't access this money. they can't get through the bureaucracy. they can't manage it. it's being scooped up by bigger businesses. we'll see the level of waste, fraud, and abuse in this program, i suspect, some day.

but right now we see devastation in the american economy with small businesses that won't come back because these programs are not doing what they're supposed to do doing. as opposed to the self-congratulations we see every night, there ought to be honest admissions about what's working, what's not working, what needs to be fixed. and we don't see that. but that's not the purpose of these. the purpose of these events isn't to inform the public. it's a political rally for the president who can't go do the big maga rallies anymore. and the company is subjected to it. it's about his self-interest, not the national interest. >> strongly put. i want to play for you governor cuomo. take a listen. >> the states are in desperate shape. and everything's being left to the states to do the reopening, reopening, reopening. and then they don't provide any funding to the state government. so the president seemed very open and understanding of that.

>> what do you make of these two today, new york, the epicenter of the crisis. they have become in a way a contrast of how to lead. >> it's interesting, when you watch andrew cuomo's news conference today, and you really get a sense, when he's asked a question, who you are you going to deal with this guy, how are you going to walk in there and talk to him, like he's trying to feed a tiger or something. and you hear andrew cuomo then respond, saying, you know, everything's a fine edge in politics, with a wry smile on his face. you really get a sense of how foreign leaders have to prepare to deal with trump. and we've seen the flattery that is expected to be showered on the administration, whether he's been in london, whether he's been in france. we've seen justin trudeau try it. so andrew cuomo i think is almost the president of new york in this circumstance. he's the leader of the governors. somebody from queens who may be

the most able to speak in terms trump can understand about what the reality of circumstances is on the ground. but again, what andrew cuomo is pointing out in the states is the administration says, we've done more tests than everybody. what does that mean? how many tests does the country need to perform on a daily basis in order for the economy to reopen? that's what matters. when donald trump sits there tonight and he says, we've done better than all the other countries, at some point you would hope somebody in the room, in the white house press corps, will say, okay, i'll take the bait, what do you mean by that, mr. president, what exactly is it that we've done that hasn't been done in other countries? what are the countries that we've done a fundamentally better job of, all of them put together? >> and to your point, steve -- >> -- this series of non sequitors that doesn't add up to any reality. >> it's important that everyone

understands the testing, not to settle some score but to make sure people have the facts, because that determines where you want to go next. by many measurements per capita, the u.s. is dead last. we know that because we're first in total deaths. it's not a matter of holding the president to a standard saying we should have had zero deaths. we got hit later, so we were on notice. w.h.o. and others put out warnings in january. and here we are leading the nation in deaths. new york, if it were a state, i would remind viewers, would be, for an independent state or country, it would be the state highest death toll anywhere in the world. so it's not great. steve, before bringing in the medical experts as planned, i also want to play another political part which i think is relevant to you. governor hogan, who has crossed with the president here and there but is not a liberal, talking about what he had to do to go out and procure his own supplies for his state from

south korea. take a look. >> every governor in american has been fighting to guest tests since the beginning of this crisis. and it's 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 on getting their own tests. and that's exactly what we did. his message changed yesterday. i'm not sure why. >> steve? >> republican governor of a democratic state that i think was reelected with nearly 70% of the vote. and you're seeing really a flawless leadership performance from the governor of maryland, larry hogan. but the point that he's making here, is that it should not be the responsibility of the state governments to respond to a national crisis on 50 different channels. this is why we have a national government. in the abdication of it, and now the trump administration, its allies saying, well, this is decentralization, this is federalism, is nonsense. this is the role of the federal

government in a pandemic. the bush administration was exquisitely prepared for it, as was the obama administration. and the truth of the matter is, ari, as you said a moment ago, over the months in january, president trump spent a great deal of time praising the chinese, saying they were completely on top of this, telling the american people when there were 15 cases that soon there would be none and this would all disappear. nothing that should have happened, when this could have been mitigated early, happened, because the president was distracted. it's indecisive. he's unprepared. he doesn't understand how government works. this is a reminder, again, when we look at these campaigns, it's not a sporting event. it's not a joke. it's not a reality show. life and death decisions are made in the high offices that we elect our leaders to serve in for a period of time in this country.

life and death. and we're dealing with the life and death consequences of the bad decisionmaking in the trump white house and the oval office. and as a result of that bad decisionmaking, we see vast human suffering in this country. we see someone who promised to make the country great again. what we see is death. we see suffering. and we see the attendant economic collapse that followed it. and now we see with some of the maga governors opening up their states against all the public health advice, will we see waves of disease, more death, in those states? and it matters, because it will impede the ability for the national economy to get going again. and the longer we're in this position, the more it hurts working class people who are being squeezed out of these programs, not in terms of how they're intended to function but the reality of how they actually do. >> yeah. yeah. strongly laid out. stay with me, steve, i want to

bring in andy slavitt who ran medicare and medicaid services and a doctor from new york who is one of our medical contributors. good to see you both. dr. roy, your views. >> ari, good to be with you again. a few things that are still deeply concerning to medical and public health professionals. these outbreaks of protests that are happening all over the country, it's deeply concerning, because as i've stated many times before, this is an infectious pathogen that does not discriminate based on political affiliation or color of skin or age. this is going to affect all people from all walks of life. we've already been seeing that, right? so the concern that we all have on the medical side is that one, two, three weeks from now, we're going to see, we anticipate we're going to see a surge of patients going into the hospitals in these various communities, whether it be michigan, mississippi, texas,

wherever. and that's really concerning. until we have widespread testing and contact tracing, we just don't know what the scope of the problem is in terms of who's infected, who is a carrier, who is possibly immune. that's what's concerning. >> let me bring in andy as well on the medical piece of this. andy, we try to keep track of everything. one of the ways this president operates is he throws things out there so people fail to fact check falsehoods. we try to avoid that error. this malaria style drug that the president had promoted, he famously said, what do you have to lose. here's how that's going. ap reporting more deaths, no benefit from this virginia study. 28% were given it and died. 11% of those with routine care, by contrast, a lower death rate.

it didn't make a difference in the need for a breathe machine. again, this is incremental evidence, this is why you do studies, but according to the readout of one study, it may have damaged other organs. andy, given your knowledge of both the way medicine works in the federal government and the reason that there are processes in place, i'm curious, if you could walk us through something that some viewers will remember, and others may not recall, which is the president went out during this briefing previously and told everyone, yeah, try this thing, what have you got to lose. >> i'm about to say what you and your viewers might consider to be the most foolish thing you ever heard, which is that now would be a wonderful time for the president to show some humility. this is a virus that nobody understands. this is a virus that we've never seen before, we have no immunity for. we had literally hundreds of hundreds of papers that are not peer-reviewed.

we have no -- we have yet no double blind trial in place. so there's a lot more that we don't know than we do know. in ten years we'll know a lot about this virus. maybe in six months we'll know a lot about this virus. but the worst thing we could do have nonscientific people clutching at straws, telling people things that they have absolutely no basis in doing. it would be perfectly fine for the president to come out and say there's a lot we don't know, here is all the data we have, we're going to get the greatest scientists and the greatest minds working on this problem, and i'm going to show my optimism by engaging our country in solving this problem, instead of trying to pass off something that i heard in the back of my head might be good news but i brought no skepticism to. i don't think we should let him get away with that. if he does get away with that, i don't think the public, for their own health, ought to be listening to that. >> right. get away with it is a question

of how this information continues to percolate, because i'm going to play a little more of this for your reaction, steve, the question with any situation like this, whether it's viral or whether it's informational, does boil down to inoculation. and it is perhaps a sad observation that as part of the public health strategy of the united states, experts are telling us that people need to have information inoculation from what they hear from that podium, that what you hear from dr. fauci is something you can act on and what you hear at times from the president, you have to inoculate against. steve, take a look at the president being pressed on this. >> reporter: i'm wondering if you're concerned, this v.a. study showed more people died that used the drug than didn't. i'm wondering if governor cuomo brought you back any luflresult. >> no, we didn't discuss it and i don't know of the report.

obviously there have been some very good reports and perhaps this one is not a good report. we'll be looking at it. >> reporter: a panel of experts at the nih is now recommending against the use of hydroxychloroquine in combination with z-pack which is something you recommended. >> i'm always willing to take a look. >> steve? >> well, exactly. i mean, the first issue is, why is the president of the united states standing behind a podium and giving opinions on what medication to take with regard to a virus that's a novel coronavirus? it's extraordinary. it's the plot out of "contagion" with jude law, the huckster, trying to sell a medicine for a fictionalize ed disease in the movie. it's outrageous that the president would do that. he was trying to survive the moment, trying to deliver happy

talk, trying to sustain, i guess, his sense of whether he's winning or losing that day. we've read accounts that his view of the white house and the presidency is that it's a reality show and each day is a new episode. now, littlejohn and meatloaf can be fighting one day and be enemies the next on "the apprentice" but it doesn't work that way in real life. so there's an accumulation of all of this that comes together. so what we see is the most inept response in american history to a life and death crisis by an american leader. and so every day, the president of the united states gets up there and he misinforms the public. he misinforms the public. purposefully. he does it for politics, for finger pointing, the blame gaming, the campaign that's ahead. we look forward to a ceaseless string of race-baiting, nationalism, populism,

finger-pointing, blame-gaming about all of this. this is the warm-up that we see playing out at 6:00 every night by a president who refuses to accept responsibility, to accept culpability at all on anything, in particular this. but here is the reality. everything that he said and he did, he did on videotape. and it's going to be very difficult, i think, for him to walk away from all of the misleading things he said over time as the american people deal with the consequences of all of this. >> well, you know, steve schmidt, even bit standard of steve schmidt, you're on a roll. dr. roy, you have steve bringing in jude law's character in "contagion," meatloaf, and littlejohn. to quote littlejohn, i would say i'm putting my hands up for steve who ties it all together.

if this weren't such serious times i would say even more about that, but we try to stay as grounded as possible. i'm about to bring in and turn to a governor in our broadcast, our special coverage. but i do that, dr. roy, what is important in your view for folks to understand about the next week or two period as we hear about on the one handsome fl so flattening and on the other hand, some states' struggle. >> i can't match steve's knowledge of "contagion," i'm a big fan. when a person with no scientific training recommends casually a medication, it has adverse consequences to people who really listen to him. nothing in medicine is absolutely benign. tylenol, an over the counter medication that people take fairly safely, also happens to be the leading cause of acute

liver failure in this country. everything we do in medicine is a tradeoff. one of the many lessons we need to learn from this pandemic is we need to really invest in public health. the united states, since 2010, has invested $180 billion a year on counterterrorism. in contrast, on pandemic response and infectious disease response, $2 billion. 180 versus $2 billion. in contrast, in 2019, congress has appropriated $685 billion to the pentagon. cdc got 7. 865 versus $7 billion. that's telling you where you're taxpayer dollars and my taxpayer dollars are going. these are the questions we need to be asking. >> my thanks to dr. roy, andy slavitt, and steve schmidt, each of you. this is our special coverage. we've been looking at the white house coronavirus task force briefing.

we turn now to an interview with one of the governors on the front lines, governor mike dewine of ohio. thanks for joining me. >> good to be with you, thank you. >> you've outlined starting up parts of your state, life, economy, in early may. what does that look like, what are you getting ohio ready for? >> we're trying to get back. we're going to do it very slowly. we're going to do it very carefully. i think the important thing is that we can't go on forever with the economy down as low as it is. we have to get people jobs. but we have to do it in a very rational way. so one of the things we've observed in the last three to four weeks since we've only had essential businesses is that many of these essential businesses have done a really bang-up job, they've done a very good job, they're taking people's temperatures when they come in. they've got the protective gear on. they've got masks on. they're doing the right things. so we're learning from what they have done, consulting the best

experts in regard to that. and so, you know, companies that can fit that criteria in a kind of a slow rollout, we're going to allow them to come back. but at the same time, we're really gearing up. we're doing something similar to what you're seeing in massachusetts. we're working with the partners in health, and really in the tracing, and really being aggressive about this. we've also -- i named a group today to help us continue to grow our testing. i asked two of our former governors to be directly involved in that. we've got good news today from the fda as far as the reagents, reagent or lack thereof has been something that's slowed us down in our major health labs throughout the state of ohio. so we think all those things coming together, you know, we've got to be very aggressive in

regard to the testing, we've got to up that. we have to do the tracing and the reaching out to people, the blocking and tackling. we don't want to be in a position where we're sitting here just, you know, accepting this. we've got to be aggressive about it. and i'm much more comfortable being on the offense than on defense. so we're going to be doing that. >> what are the types of businesses that in your view are the first to reopen and how does your plan compare to those federal guidelines which were released at one of these task force briefings last week. they're optional. there's been a lot of talk about feds versus states. would you describe your plan as matching it off the shelf or do you have your own innovations? >> it's a little of each, i think. the president said he recognized the states are unique, they're different. we're describing this as an ohio plan for ohioans. every state is in a different position. i look at our numbers today in

regard to the hospital admissions. you know, and compare that to the five-day rule, five-day average. we're up a little bit today. but basically we've pretty much flattened the curve and we're almost at a -- looks to be at a plateau. so we're not going down, that's what we want. but we've reached that plateau. so we're designing -- you ask about what companies. we're going to look at some companies to start off with, frankly, that are similar to the ones that we deemed essential. you know, their ability to protect their employees is pretty much the same and protecting, in some cases, their retail customers. that's the real key, how well can they protect their employees, how well can they protect if they are retail, customers. we're going to set the standards. we're going to be good standards, tough standards, but things that they can do. we're going to take one step at a time, we'll watch our numbers. >> yeah.

governor, i want to ask you about elections, not politics, but actual elections. it may seem like a long time ago to folks, but you led in your state basically what you called the delay of your state's ohio primary, that was march 17th. whatever that looked like in the days leading into that, maybe you could tell us about it, obviously now things are so much more severe, all sort of things have been pushed off. but you can't really delay a general election, can you? and that goes above any state's head anyway. so i'm curious, one, do you feel that history proved you right on that, and two, how do you approach november, running such a key state? and we all know, everyone who watches the news knows ohio is one of those states like florida that may decide everything. how do you look ahead to being responsibly able to conduct a november election that can't be delayed? >> good question. as far as looking back, i think it was clearly the right

decision for us to make. we are actually still in that election, people are voting absentee, they've got another week to go. and then it will be over with. but ohio's had long experience in doing pretty extended absentee balloting basically for four weeks, we always allow people to do that and they can do it for any reason they want to just because they want an absentee ballot. we know how to do those things. as far as november, i think it's just too early to tell exactly where we're going to be. i believe that we can conduct a fair election no matter what the circumstances are. i think people in this country can do it state by state, and that will happen. but i think it's much too early to be, frankly, speculating, are we not going to be able to do an in-person voting. in ohio, what we'll do is what we've been doing, about a month of absentee balloting, then you actually hold the election itself on a day when people can walk in and vote.

i made my decision about our primary because it was a question of safety. 35,000 poll workers, many of them older ohioans, expose them for 13, 14 hours, just made really no sense. we also were seeing, frankly, that it had just dawned on people a couple of days before that that this was not safe. and we were -- i remember talking to a couple in their late 70s. they said, look, we decided on sunday, we're not going to vote, it's just too dangerous. that was not right, people should not have to choose between their safety and their constitutional rights. so i think it was clearly the right thing for us to do. i think -- you know, i think it stopped a lot of the spread. i think it was clearly the right thing to do. >> governor mike dewine, i appreciate you making time for us during this busy period, sir. >> good to be with you, thank you very much.

>> thank you. we've been listening to the governor of one of the largest states in the country. let's listen in to governor cuomo who is holding a live briefing right now. >> and that's what we did this afternoon. we agreed that a state government, this state government should be responsible for managing the actual tests in their own laboratories. we have about 300 laboratories in the state of new york. we regulate those laboratories. it's up to a state to determine how many tests, where those tests should be done, new york city versus buffalo versus long island, et cetera. the staff to do those tests, how often you do the tests. those should all be state decisions and state responsibilities. the antibody test, which is one of the tests, how do you use those, when. that should all be up to the states. the tracing function, that is,

the function after testing that actually praises people wtraces that come into contact with it. that's all the state's responsibility. the problem with testing and bringing tests up to scale has been the national manufacturers of the equipment who make the testing kits that they have to send to the state labs. so the state labs can actually perform them. those are done by national manufacturers. those national manufacturers say they have a problem with the supply chain to quickly ramp up those tests. they need swabs, they need vials, and they need chemicals, quote unquote reagents. that is where the federal government can help. states cannot do international supply chains. i guess they could, but not in this time frame, and it's not what we do. and you shouldn't have 50 states

competing to do international supply chains. one of my colleagues, governor hogan, the chairman of the national governors association who is the governor of maryland, republican, good man, he was bringing tests in from south korea. very creative and proactive on his part. but that's not what states normally do. so let the federal government take responsibility for that federal supply chain for the national manufacturers. and that's what we agreed in this meeting. that is an intelligent division of labor, in my opinion. let each level of government do what it does best. and it ends this back and forth, what do the states do, what does washington do, who's responsible, et cetera. to quantify that situation in the state of new york, we now do on average of about 20,000 tests per day. our goal, which is very aggressive and ambitious, but

set it high and then try, our goal is to double the 20,000 to get to 40,000 tests per day. we would need several weeks to ramp up to that. but it is a very aggressive goal. that is our current system at maximum. that's our current laboratory system, seven days a week, 24 hours a day. the maximum our system as it exists can do is that number. so that's our goal. and it was a very productive conversation. and again, that is the biggest single task we have to do that is identifiable from today. and it ends the whole back and forth and the finger-pointing in a very fair and smart way. it's a smart resolution. so i feel very good about that. and if we could double our tests, that would be a home run. i mean, that is a really, really big deal.

we also talked about funding to the states. the legislation that the congress passed did not have funding for the states. it passed additional money for small business, and that's great, and we need that, and that's a positive, but it did not fund state governments, which to me is a mistake, frankly. >> we've been listening in to a live briefing by new york governor andrew cuomo. we turn now to a msnbc medical analyst and bill kristol. doctor, when you see the back and forth between governor cuomo and president trump today, and you see this sort of extended conversation about what states are doing, what do you think is important for everyone to keep in mind medically? >> well, yeah, ari, look, there's the mechanics to having this done and then there's the science behind it. so i think what governor cuomo is talking about, increasing testing from 20 to 40,000, is still referring to the diagnostic tests, which is

important. this is -- you know, there was a report last week from harvard researchers that said that in order to be able to reopen the economy, we would need to increase testing by two- or three-fold. right now we're doing about 150,000 tests per day. we need to ramp that up to 5 to 700,000 a day. i certainly like to hear that, that he thinks he's able to do that. i also like the breakdown of the mechanics, the states are responsible for this, the federal government is responsible for the supply chain. all those moving pieces need to work and they need to work well together. the problem or the concern that i have still, medically speaking, is in regard to antibody tests -- oh, my god, my dog, i'm sorry. >> what kind of dog is it? factually, i need to know. can we see it? >> literally i've been doing it for weeks now, this is the first time -- >> let's see him. do you have the lab? >> he has a very active social media account, you can find him there. >> doctor, it's a long way from

plush toy to labradoodle. journalistically, we don't know that it's really a dog, it could be a robot sounding like a dog. we need to see it. >> i'm not going to even go there. >> you know what bill kristol is going to say, he's going to say who let the dogs out, because he's always doing that, he's always trying to squeeze in some lyrical reference. go ahead, doctor. >> so the concern i have here is about the antibody testing. and the reason is this. in january and february, there was a lot of criticism of the administration because we weren't getting the diagnostic test rolled out quickly enough. we were saying they're too slow, they're too rigid. dr. hahn today did say they loosened their regulation a little bit, gave manufacturers and developers a little bit more flexibility. and so now we have over a hundred different developers that have -- you know, that have developed an antibody test.

but only four have been fda-proofefda fda-approved. so my concern is -- and by the way, these faster point of care tests, the ones that are being done or being offered in a doctor's office are thought to be not nearly as reliable as the ones that are laboratory-based or hospital-based. so the concern here is that we've sacrificed quality for this convenience, for having these quick tests. so again, from governor cuomo and his conversation with the president today, great, i'm glad they worked that all out but i'm still, you know, concerned about the quality and the validity of the antibody tests themselves. >> bill kristol, we haven't spoken recently since a lot of stuff has happened. but you were someone who warned before president trump's election that this was a person who among other things wouldn't really be able to deal well, competently, with a crisis, with keeping america safe, whether that was in foreign policy, or this kind of unpredictable

crisis. i'm just curious, big picture, because steve schmidt was discussing this at the top of the hour, what you think, here we are, weeks into this one, what do you think this reveals about the president and your warnings, your concern. >> i think he's done a very bad job, and i think it's very bad for the country. we'll pay a terrible price. the sophisticated trump defenders will always say, look, he'll say some things you don't like, he's vulgar, he's a bit of a demagogue, but he'll shake things up, he'll make the government work, you won't always like it, bill, but in the big things he'll be going in the right direction. here was the big challenge. and the government could have used some shaking up, the cdc didn't cover itself with glory in late january and february. the fda made mistakes too. the president did nothing, rhetorically led the country in the wrong direction. we shouldn't underestimate how much damage that did. we had a whole lost month of

february which didn't have to be lost. there were plenty of warnings in the beginning of february, and lost the first two weeks of march. even now governor cuomo has to go and plead and be nice and struggle to get even the most minimal kind of cooperation that should be just routine in a crisis like this. so forget about trump's things that he says that people like me don't like that does damage. his actual performance has been a terrible failure and now he's encouraging governors to open up early than it seems prudent. he's making it very hard, i'll make this final point, hard to have an honest and candid conversation about where we are. we have a tough year at least ahead, redfield, the head of the cdc, said we're going to have a flu season. we're not going to come back in a month or two months. people shouldn't kid themselves about that. we have a bad stretch to get through here. we need leaders who say, you know, this is going to be tough, but we're a tough country, we can make it. instead trump makes it extremely

hard to say that. >> on that very point, i'm curious what you think about donald trump's illogical policy messaging this week that things are, quote unquote, so good we need to expedite liberating states to reopen. that's how allegedly good things are getting. but things are so bad that now out of the blue, all of a sudden, is the time to shut down all migration regardless of any medical diagnostic type analysis of where it's coming from. >> yeah, i mean, he dumbs everything down. leaving aside the distasteful parts of it, and those are damaging too, the demagoguery, incitement of nativism. he's making our public discourse extremely stupid. we're not having a serious -- and it's hard for people who try to be serious, they spend so much of their time correcting trump. poor dr. fauci and dr. birx have to try to dance around to convey a sensible message. the governors have to be nice to

trump. joe biden doesn't want to look too political but he also wants to criticize trump. the immigration thing, he just pulled that out because i take it his own polls show he wasn't doing very well, people weren't really buying into his message that everything was going to be fine as soon as these recalcitrant public health types got overridden and we open everything up again so let's just blame immigration for a while. he'll keep on doing this. in my view it really is a test of the american people, ultimately. it doesn't matter, all this talk about the media should be meaner to him or shouldn't show the press conferences. americans are adults, do they have the seriousness to judge his performance in a grown-up way, for what he has done and hasn't done, or are they going to get distracted by all these shiny objects that trump is pretty good at throwing out. he's certainly distracted people in the past. it's one thing to distract people when the economy is pretty good and unemployment's low and there's no obvious

foreign policy disaster and maybe people will just decide they can ignore a lot of stuff. here i think you see why presidential leadership matters. >> yeah, all really appointment points from someone who has been quite consistent in dealing with that aspect of this. our thanks to bill kristol. dr. roy, i would like you to stick around, we have a special report coming on about dr. fauci. you're watching ari melber, anchoring special coronavirus coverage. we have a lot more including the chief of police of detroit for a special discussion when we come back. 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

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-- father who has spent 18 years on the front line as a detroit firefighter, her mother was a detroit police officer for 25 years, they've been on the front line and served with honor and integrity. and they did not deserve to lose their child to this virus. nobody does.

>> that was the governor of michigan discussing how this coronavirus has now claimed one of its youngest victims over this past weekend. 5-year-old schuyler herbert, the first child in michigan to die from covid-19 complications. this tragedy affecting the entire community. >> you miss everything, just everything about her. >> reporter: the 5-year-old who loved stuffed animals and one day wanted to be a pediatric dentist, spent nearly two weeks on a ventilator. she developed a rare form of meningitis, a complication of covid, before dying on sunday. >> at first we got the reading that this was strep throat, you know. virus, you know, the covid virus never entered our minds until she got tested. >> schuyler's mom is an officer with the detroit police department and that is a place that had also been especially hard-hit. let me giving you the basics. out of the personnel staff of

2,800, 200 members of the force are testing positive. over a thousand quarantined at various points. african-americans make up 40% of covid deaths despite being 14% or so of the population. we're joined now by detroit police chief james cragg. he tested positive for coronavirus in march. chief, thanks for joining us. this is hitting you, your force, your community. how are you all doing, considering? >> you know what, as relates to me, i'm doing much better. as you pointed out at the beginning of this segment, tragic loss of schuyler. certainly her mom and dad, you know, detroit's finest, out serving and protecting. but you know, they were battling this vicious disease as well while caring for their daughter. so it's a tragedy. i was just reflecting on how

many members of this department i've had to call over the last 72 hours because they lost a loved one, parents, grandparents, to covid. not to mention the many officers who have been ill in the hospital, or at home, fighting to recover from this deadly disease. it's been a very challenging journey. but we're moving in the right direction. in fact one of the things that is some good news, i have to applaud mayor mike duggan for going out and getting the rapid testing here in detroit initially for first responders. there was a point when we had in excess of 5, 600 people quarantined. today, 892 have been restored because of that rapid testing. i mean, even when i was cleared, i went in, got tested, and within 10, 15 minutes, i was

negative. that's the great news. when i got tested with a positive finding, it took 24 hours. so it's been a journey. but i've really got to take my hat off to these brave men and women who go out each and every day to fight this unknown enemy. >> people are finding it -- sir, go ahead, sorry. >> no, no, go ahead. i'm good. >> you know, where i come from, when someone says "believe me," you want to hear what they're about to say. >> believe me, when i think about my own career, now 43 years, lion's share of my career was in los angeles, and it's no secret, earthquakes, civil unrest following rodney king, just to name a few, and then having served as police chief in the cities of portland, maine, and cincinnati, ohio, certainly tragedy is certainly not new to

me. i talked to my colleagues across the country, they'll tell, none of us have ever dealt with this kind of enemy. in fact, an enemy who has attacked those on the front line. very different kind of fight. >> that makes a lot of sense. and you are in a business where you face down all kinds of danger but it's a reminder to us of what we're dealing with. stay with me, i want to also bring in as promised, a columbia university professor who writes for "the new yorker" magazine and someone we call on often on issues of civil rights and race in america. we live in a country right now that has far more african-americans in leadership positions, which of course includes chief craig, it includes the surgeon general, it includes the last president. and yet whatever those strides may bring, we are dealing with a health care crisis that's an economic crisis that is exact r

exacerbating and racial disparities that exist and that both of you have worked on. i want to play a little bit from the surgeon general on this and get your responses on that racial disparity. take a listen. >> we know that blacks are more likely to have diabetes, heart disease, lung disease, and i shared myself personally that i have high blood pressure, that i have heart disease and spent a week in the icu due to a heart condition, that i actually had asthma and i'm prediabetic. i represent that legacy of growing up poor in black america, and i and many other black americans are at higher risk for covid. >> i mean, this is very difficult, ari. it's very difficult. it's difficult to talk about this in a detached and analytical way, because when we had this conversation about race in this country, it's so quickly

going to grievances or, you know, personal perspectives or why don't we spend more time at each other's homes and that kind of very superficial analysis of what is a really deeply-rooted and entrenched problem in america. so when we talk about race, the shorthand is that we're talking about probabilities. what are the possibilities of you being unemployed. what are the probabilities of you living in substandard housing. what are the probabilities of you making a lower wage than someone of similar qualifications would be making. the cumulative effect is seen in the most fundamental disparity, life expectancies, how long we will be on this planet. what the coronavirus did was reveal something we already knew. for those of white house were honest about this conversation,

those who were actually looking at what's going on in this country, it is nothing, coronavirus revealed nothing to us other than the kind of cruel, everyday frequency of the injust and unequal and discriminatory legacy, the policies and the histories in this country that we now see having a mathematical face put to them. >> jelani, let me jump in and say, let me put on the screen african-american covid cases nationwide, for those watching and saying what are we talking about here, basically almost triple for african-americans as a percent of the population, jelani. this goes to something you've written a lot about, the notion that this is discussing something that's past and over, the question that some people ask, how long are we going to discuss what's over. this graph is now.

the story we just told is now. this disparity is now, jelani. >> right. and the other thing to add to that, people say, what about heart disease and diabetes, maybe this is something genetic or something ancestral with african-americans. no, it's that people live in food deserts, it's hard to get access to good, healthy food, fresh vegetables, less likely to have gyms and fitness centers in their communities. access to the things we know make interventions in how people's lives turn out. and so it's frustrating and heartbreaking. and it's -- as a father, my heart goes out to schuyler's -- little schuyler's parents and to think that this is being replicated in families across this country is just soul-crushing. >> yeah. yeah.

it's a lot. we wanted to put aside some time for this, i appreciate both of you making the time. we're going to continue to cover these stories in addition to all the other urgent things as america and the world goes through this crisis together. other urgent things as america and the world goes through this crisis together. thanks to both of you. >> thank you. >> thank you. we have one break. when we come back, havisomethin we've been working on. why so many so long have been counting on dr. fauci. to help you through the current health situation cvs pharmacy is now offering

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dr. anthony fauci is our country's top infectious disease doctor. >> dr. anthony fauci. >> the one and only dr. anthony fauci. >> he's a source of clarity in the trump administration's response. >> dr. fauch si a trui is a tru science, knowledge, evidence, data. that's what we have to have if we're going to have a cure. >> dr. anthony fauci has emerged as one doctor that just about everyone in america knows, a trusted scientific expert during this pandemic. also, a glaring contrast to a president who has fomented misinformation at this serious time. look at the latest numb thaers show 36% of meshes trust what the president says while 60% further trust fauci. now, this doctor is not the only

medical expert on the task force. so it's not exactly just automatic that any doctor could stand so tall above the administration that he serves in. but fauci has been at this a long time. appointed in 1984 to run the national institute of allergy and infectious disease, the same post he holds now. and he was accustomed to leadership roles before that. he was captain right here of his high school basketball team. and he was the academic leader of his peers when he finished first in his class, right there, at cornell medical school. he stepped into the lead professionally when working at the nih in the early '80s taking on what was then a strange new disease called aids. >> i'm working directly on aids, both clinically and from a basic science standpoint. what i would like to do this eving is review for you some of the most recent advances in aids, as well as provide for you a background for understanding how we got to where we are today

in our understanding of aids. >> that's old school fauci right. there in his no-nonsense trust bui -- approach, he built trust across party outlines. right now, at a time when many are asking why weren't we more prepared, why didn't we save lives and money investing in detection and testing earlier, instate of watching so many other people die? it's worth noting part of the answer resides in how the federal government handles science and empirical information. which is something dr. fauci has helped to provide many administrations. here he was warning about sars in 2003. >> when you have a respiratory illness that can be spread from person to person, and you have something that's global, and you have jet travel, nowhere in the world is completely safe when there's an epidemic raging in one part of the world. and since that's going on in

china, we need to continue to be very vigilant. >> a risk in china means we have to be vigilant here. sound familiar? and look, we went over the archive. beyond the realtime warnings, fauci is part of a group of experts who warned about the signs that specifically a flu-like pandemic could become the big one, which is similar to what coronavirus has become. here he was in 2005. >> right now, and we all admit that, right now if we had an explosion of an h 5 n 1, we would not be prepared. >> you see this as an exercise to improve our capabilities of fighting off a pandemic? >> i don't see it as an exercise, because it could be the big one. it could be. and if it is, our rushing around, doing what we need to do, pushing the envelope is not for naught or in vain. >> fauci's clarity, honesty and

expertise continue to fortify his reputation. in fact, in any evidence based conversation, that kind of approach made him the authority to cite, which leads me to the next thing, how one republican candidate cited fauci in a presidential debate while over the years other presidents have touted him with tributes and even ultimately the medical of freedom. >> tony and his team stepped up and you were ready. tony and i were fondly reminiscing about sars and h1n1. that's what these guys do for fun. [ laughter ] and we were lucky with h1n1 that it did not prove to be more deadly. >> i think dr. fauci, probably

never heard of him, he's a very fine research, top doctor, worked hard on doing something about research on this disease of aids. >> those who know tony admit one flew, sometimes he forgets to stop working. he regularly puts in 80-hour works. and from time to time, he's even found notes on his windshield left by co-workers that say things like, go home, you're making me feel guilty. >> there is value in celebrating hard work, hard work in public service. and empirical honesty. he's been quite consistent over the decades in his scientific approach, as well as the last thing we want to show you, his faith in the human spirit. >> hopefully, our recent advances of being able to isolate, identify, and characterize the agent, together with the advances and understanding the natural history and physiology of this disease will allow us, over the

next year, to come back to you and tell you that we now not only have hope and hypothesis, but we have a real prevention and indeed a real cure. thank you. [ applause ] >> we now have hope. and hope for a cure. those were his words. they resonate today. they're our last words in tonight's broadcast. keep it right here for chris hayes. ♪ good evening from new york, i'm chris hayes. last week, the trump administration put forward its plan for "opening up america again." a clear signal to the states it was time to think about it, to get back to reopening. in fact, the president has been talking about more than that, he's been talking about a future with crowded restaurants, packed football stadiums and encouraging the small groups of very loud protestors, sometimes armed, who are trying to pressure governors to ease restrictions, who do