media yesterday for why he did not hold a briefing took to twitter again today to lash out about so-called unfair press coverage and journalists reclaims one noble prize as his -- i assume he was referring to pulitzer prizes. he received criticism for suggesting disinfectant should be injected to fight coronavirus. today, the coronavirus response coordinator, dr. deborah birx, responded to the president's comments saying disinfectant is not a treatment when asked by chuck todd on meet the press. mean while, the first states are slowly reopening for business this week n. most cases, without heeding the white house guidelines about first waiting

for two weeks of declining infection rates. georgia, that had already allowed bowling alleys, gyms and hair salons to open this week will expand the process tomorrow by allowing restaurants and movie theaters the open. and texas will decide this week whether the statewide stay at home order which is set to expire thursday should be extended. abbott has allowed retail to go options and personal care businesses to reopen. he will also consider letting other non-essential businesses reopen. in italy, the prime minister today announcing the end of the country's lockdown, the lockdown that began may 3rd. and a move that was to end on may 3rd and to move to phase two that includes reopening of bars and restaurants on june 1st. here in the u.s., there are more than 960,000 cases of the virus in this country, including more than 54,000 deaths already.

and let's get right to the white house to talk about all of this. nbc's monica alba joining us. no briefing does not mean that the president is not making his feelings known. >> that's right, andrea. exactly. he's sort of holding his own mini briefing on his twitter account. though it appears to be a lot more airing of grievances than anything on the coronavirus pandemic or response. the president firing off about nine tweets in the last couple of hours, responding to news reports saying that he has been not working as hard as he is himself saying that he has been from the early hours of the morning, to late at night, hard at work on this. but he's take it out on journalists talking specifically as you mentioned about what he spelled as noble prizes, when we assume he means nobel, and beyond that, those would be considered pulitzer prizes in

journalism, of course. the president focused on that as his aides around him are reconsidering the briefing strategy. friday of course was the shortest briefing to date when the president and the vice president didn't end up taking mi questions this. comes if they are trying to see if his daily briefings should be reduced because of those controversial comments on thursday about disinfectants. the president mused yesterday that you no those briefings may not be worth the time and effort. but he has spend a collective nearly 30 hours behind the lectern talking to the american people about both the journalists and the coronavirus. that would be a major shift. we will have to see if the briefngs are added back to the schedule tomorrow and the rest of the week. which is certainly possible, andrea. >> what about the reports this weekend that the white house is so unhappy with hhs secretary azar that some people in the white house are actually looking at a replacement for the health secretary, in the middle of the

pandemic? >> exactly. and the president actually just tweeted about this moments ago, andrea, refuting those reports. we had heard the white house weigh in on it. now essaying directly, reports that secretary azar is going to be, quote, fired by me are fake news. the lame stream media knows this but they are desperate to create chaos and havoc in the minds of public. they never even called to ask. his words, azar is doing an excellent job. when the president says reporters didn't reach out on these stories that's not true. they included white house states in both of them saying while therentr weren't going to be changes to personnel necessarily, they acknowledged that there have been these discussions and rumors going on about the fate of secretary azar. and we have heard so many times from this white house and the president assurances that a cabinet secretary's job is safe before that changes. it could be the case.

for now, it appears the president is leaving his hhs secretary in place. but you know, of course as well as anybody, that secretary azar originally was supposed to be the head of the task force for the coronavirus response before the president stepped in and ask mike pence, the vice president, to actually take charge and be the chair. andrea. >> and some of these reports even had dr. birx as one possible contender to replace him. a lot of intrigue at the white house today. thank you very much, nbc's monica alba starting us off at the white house. let's bring in our panel for more on what caused the president to at least this weekend stay out of the public eye. ashley parker covers the white house for the "washington post." yash shell sender. michael steele is a former rnc chairman, former lieutenant governor of maryland, and dr. patel of the brookings institution. ashley, you and your colleague phil bump writing about how the

president has been spending his briefing time. it is extraordinary, because frankly, he has spent a lot less time, as you have pointed out in your story -- a lot less time on the medical facts than on praising himself. and he also, ashley, doesn't spend a whole lot of time empathizing with the tragedy that 54,000 americans have now died. we are approaching the number of people who died in the last 12 weeks, the number of people who died in the vietnam war over a dozen years. >> that's exactly right. president trump is not playing the role of consoler in chief. and to tell you a little bit about what we did, we went back and we did a very close in and exhaustive analysis on his past three weeks of briefings. so in that time, he spoke for over 13 hours. two of those hours, a little over two were spent on the attack going after democrats, president obama, speaker pelosi, the nation's governors, china.

about an hour, a little less than an hour, was spent praising himself and his administration. nine minutes of that time was spent touting high districts three chloroquine, the anti-malarial that he said could treat coronavirus even though there is no evidence. and of that time, just four and a half minutes were spent expressing any sympathy to the victims who have died of this virus. and it is worth noting that was in his prepared remarks. but when he was talking off the cuff it was more of an attack of his perceived enemies and rivals. >> a lot of those attacks were against reporters, you were a victim of it. and peter zand from nbc, we have seen the i with a he has gone

after jonathan carl. he seems to relish that, because he needs a foil? >> that's right. president trump has shown that he likes a foil, he likes to be able to lash out. we think that's part of the red meat he likes to serve to his base. the president is also frustrated that he can't go out and hold rallies. what we see here is a president who is now starting to hear and understand that maybe these aren't working for him. as a result, white house sources have told me at late as friday and this weekend that the president has been thinking a while about whether or not these press briefngs are still something he should do. and the last that i heard from white house sources was that the president is now thinking after thursday, when there were just so much backlash from his

comments about possibly injecting people with disinfectant that the president is now thinking he might not be holding these daily briefings anymore. white house sources are saying the argument might be made that it is because we are past the peak of the coronavirus. but they are also aware that the president is aware that he got bad backlash and he was pointedly criticized to the point where he feels as though he doesn't want the come out and answer questions about that specific incident when it comes to the disinfectants and the fact of course now in some states we have seen an up tick in people question being injecting disinfectants which of course you shouldn't do. >> we saw the surgeon general, other officials, the fda commissioner as well as governors and health officials who had to send out advisories. i wanted to ask dr. patel on what we saw on meet the press today when deborah birx was questioned by chuck todd. let me play that first for you. >> you said he was digesting

information at the time when that came out of his mouth. do you have any more information? are you concerned that people might take bleach because of what the president said? >> i think i made it very clear in how i interpreted that. i also made it very clear, and so has dr. fauci and everyone associated with the task force in their clarity around this is not a treatment. >> dr. patel, did she make it very clear? she certainly didn't seem to make it very clear today on meet and press. what she had said previously was that he was digesting the information. what is the obligation on scientists on doctors to make it clear when the president is saying things that are not only inaccurate but absolutely dangerous? >> andrea, you are absolutely right. first of all, she did not make it clear. it was clear in the moment on thursday that she was caught off guard. and that can be understandable.

but there should have been a quick and swift clarification. and by the way, i think it is actually misleading to say, this is not a treatment, just to be clear, there is no situation, whether it is for prevention or an experiment or a treatment that you should ever ingest any chemicals. even what she said today as well as kind of changing transcripts or trying to do any of this kind of backtracking is really just irresponsible on behalf of a scientist who has -- she has a very credible career and a long established history and credibility in science. but over the last 48 hours it feels like it has all been disintegrating at the cost of the public. there has been an uptick in calls and actual visit ears from people who heard the leader, the commander in chief, say something, and took it to heart. >> as people would. because they come out and they say this is a factual briefing, and then it isn't. let me just play what the

governors of naerld and michigan had to say about calls that came into their always and their health always -- this is the governors of maryland and michigan. >> we had hundreds of calls coming into your emergency hotline and health department asking if it was right to ingest clorox or alcohol cleaning products, whether that was going to help them fight the virus. so we had to put out that warning to make sure that people were not doing something like that, which would kill people. >> when the people with the most powerful position on the planet is encouraging people to think about disinfectants, whether it was serious or not, people listen. so we have seen an increase in numbers of people calling poison control. >> michael steele, you have been a state official, lieutenant governor of maryland, where larry hogan of course is the governor. what are republicans saying?

what are you hearing after that briefing on thursday. >> i think there has been a general alarm that has been put out there about, you know, how this is being received by the public. and certainly even republican governors like larry hogan and charlie baker and others are having to deal with this in realtime in their states because their emergency lines and their coronavirus hotlines were inundated by people who actually thought this was a possible remedy to either deal with the virus directly or to prevent them from getting it. and so it really is a concern to all the points that have been made so far that how the president comes out and addresses the public -- i think there was never really an appreciation for him, that we didn't see this as a political opportunity the way he did or as a reality tv moment the way he did. there was genuine concern

because people were sick and dying. when you step back and when you look at these briefings, remember, the president wasn't supposed to be doing the briefings. the vice president and the coronavirus team were supposed to be giving us the briefings. it wasn't clear then whether they were going to be daily. but the president saw a political moment an opportunity which it has backfired and it culminates in this comment where he suggests people should inject themselves with disinfectants. now dr. birx has herself in an awkward position trying not get on the wrong side of the president and also trying to maintain to the point that was just made, her credible as a doctor. that's a tough spot to be in. >> as a public health officials she's clearly not comfortable also with the reopenings. but she has been trying to talk around the fact that they are -- these governors, georgia, for instance r opening, first of

all, non-essential places like tattoo parlors and barbershops and hair at that lons and also reopening before they have met the standard, her own standard of 14 days of declining infection rates. the statistic is woeful ly low there in georgia, 17th in ability to test. let's listen to dr. birx about whether we have the capacity to test everyone. >> essentially what you are saying is we don't have -- you don't think we have the capacity to ramp up the testing you will like because we basically need a breakthrough for easier testing? >> i think we have other technology that we think can come on line within the next two to three weeks that will be a breakthrough in the rna type testing. >> dr. patel, where are we on testing? you have heard the president,

the vice president talk about we have all the testing we need. >> we are still woefully inadequate, to your point, and just one fact that can tell you how inadequate we are, that in some parts of the country, you know, not only do we have only about 45 tests per thousand people, but on top of that, we are not even sure what the reliability or the sensitivity and specificity -- how good these tests actually are because they are pretty new, andrea. so the fact of the matter is that we are doing about 180,000 test as day. and as businesses are opening, you can make an argument that we should have at least several million tests day. researchers at harvard have said anywhere from 5 to 20 million. you can just tell the dramatic magnitude. you can't hold dr. birx personally responsible for that. but at the same time it is a bit misleading to say that we have, or even in the next two weeks that we might have an adequate number of tests.

>> ashley, do you expect that the briefings are going to be focusing more on the economy and the reopening and focused less on the health statistics in the coming days. >> that's certainly one thing, even before thursday's fairly problematic for the president briefing that was being discussed was the idea that you would still have the daily briefings. now of course they are talking about scaling them back. even then, add sort of an economic component. inside the white house the president is certainly more comfortable. and they feel like he can be more successful there. now that they are scaling back the briefings and planning on having the president appear less i was talking to people in the white house this weekend and they are saying two things. one is they think the president will go out and have economic focused media events. perhaps meeting with ceos of small businesses beginning to reopen, meeting with manufacturers of ppe.

they are also trying to find a way to get him back on the road in the next few weeks but they don't know quite what that is yet. >> if they are going to be focused on the economy they have to get their story straight or at least their emphasis straight. yamiche, we saw today the treasury secretary being optimistic about the economy bouncing back. kevin hassett, an economic adviser on the new task force talking about how serious this has been, a blow to the economy, how high unemployment is going to be. a very different tone from the newly reinstated mr. hassett? >> that's right. what white house officials are doing are trying to balance the reality, that it is a economic tragedy as well as a health tragedy. they hope in one these companies before the november election that there will be some growth and positive things happening within the economy before the november election. what we are seeing of course is the white house trying to balance the fact that the

president wants to still run on the economic success he was something, rather than focusing on unemployment being sky high and people being scared about their futures. when it comes to what the white house is planning to do, sources tell me the president is still -- while he is scaling back the press briefings he wants to find a way to deal with the press maybe in a way that's more controlled. we might see more pool sprays where the president is meeting with several people and the reporters are allowed a couple questions and he chooses which questions to answer rather than being in a briefings where reporters likely can press him and get to the crux of the question. so a different way so that the president can control the way the press interactions happen. >> it is going to be different we expect in some manner or another. thanks to my panel:

>> still ahead, as joe biden mulls over his vice presidential pick i will be joined by a hillary clinton adviser who says we might have seen a different 2016 campaign if hillary clinton followed his advice on a running mate. up next, how communities of color are being disproportionately affected by the coronavirus and what's being done about it. it. technologies advisor.

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as this outbreak continues, we are seeing more and more just how this virus is affecting communities of color. the cdc has reported that appearance are being disproportionately affected by the coronavirus, finding that despite making up just 18% the population in the states studies, african-americans accounted for a third of coronavirus victims. one of the states involved in that study was california, which reported more than 42,000 cases,

including more than 1600 deaths. african-americans were reportedly 7% of those cases but that percentage could be much higher since more than a quarter of the cases did not include ethnicity data. steve patterson is in l.a. and joins me now with more on all this. >> reporter: i think one of the number one reasons you will hear that these communities are so susceptible are because of underlying health conditions. they are disproportionately affected by those factors and it makes the coronavirus worse frankly. i think what is less reported on on the societal, socioeconomic and frankly racial factors that lead to these communities being vulnerable in the first place. and then on top of that a lot of the essential workers still out there interacting with people are from the communities of color. we spoke to a woman who wanted to deliver a message of hope. she first beat cancer, then beat covid and thought it was important to talk to us to get

this message out the air. listen to this. as the coronavirus pandemic spreads to every corner of the u.s. these are especially dark days for communities of color. covid-19 is an opportunistic killer, most dangerous to people with underlying conditions like robbie, who beat uterine cancer ten years ago. didn't find out i was positive until after i came out of the coma. >> reporter: she spent ten days on a ventilator but survived. >> if you do get the diagnosis, you can beat it. it is beatible. zpikt the fact that you might be black or have preexisting conditions. >> african-american and hispanic communities have been hit hard because they have outsized minority populations. >> it is not genetic. >> reporter: dr. anthony fauci joined a popular urban radio show to explain the danger to listeners. >> african-americans have a

higher deof hypertension, obesity, asthma, all of these kind of things that are preconditions that if you do get infected you wind up having a worse outcome. >> reporter: the threat has now spread from city centers to the most remote areas like the navajo nation which has seen more than 1200 cases. per capita that would be the third highest infection rate of any state. >> when one family member contracts or is exposed to the virus they have the potential of exposing most if not all of their family to it because of their close family structure. >> reporter: roughly 50 people died here. with the elderly at elevated risk an entirely culture is at stake. >> some of our oral traditions are going to be lost because of covid-19 because those are the keepers of the stories, the keepers of our histories and our cultural practices are held within these older populations. >> reporter: a pandemic that knows no race or color or class,

yet threatens all of them. another big factor is availability to testing. a lot of people who live in these communities also also are in testing deserts, in other words, they are not able to get testing that's available to everyone else. that's one thing an administrator wants to fix immediately here in california. >> thanks to steve patterson for bringing us that report. as joe biden thinks about his vice presidential pick hear from a top hillary clinton adviser who recommended someone other than tim kaine and he has the memo to prove it. find out about the 2016 ticket that would have really made history. up next. really made history. up next. ow what was happening. she said it was like someone else was controlling her mouth. her doctor said she has tardive dyskinesia, which may be related to important medication she takes for her depression. her ankles would also

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one year ago this weekend former vice president joe biden became the 20th democrat to enter the presidential race.

dominating the polls but facing questions about his viable in a crowded field of candidates he lost badly in iowa and new hampshire and nevada but recovered bigtime in south carolina and swept super tuesday. fast forward to today. joe biden is now marking the anniversary of his campaign launch as the apparent democratic nominee. conducting a virtual campaign from his basement, because of the coronavirus and facing his biggest decision yet, his choice of a running mate. joining me is philip reince former deputy secretary of state and former spokesman for hillary clinton and former republican chairman michael steele rejoins us as well. felipe, what is interesting as he goes into this search is what happened back in 2016. and you have a memo to prove that you did not recommend tim kaine. tell us -- >> hillary -- asked me for my two cents and i gave her probably not even that much

worth of advice. but andrea as you know over the past 18 years i have probably given her plenty of bad ideas. it makes sense she avoited this one. >> let me just say, what you wrote was that aside from president obama, nobody has trump's number like she does. this is braurn. nobody gets under his skin more. she's head and shoulders above every other name i have seen floated or out there. i think that would be comforting for you to have such fire power watching your back, someone who can so easily bait him. >> we were waiting for hillary clinton to meet with braurn. in cincinnati they finally came out together and she endorsed and had the big rally. but wasn't there sort an awkward sort of dance before they even got together? >> it turns out there wasn't. in fanything, it was overblown.

people were assuming because of elizabeth warren being a senator they didn't mix but the fact is once they sat down together they clicked and i think had they known each other longer and better that she might have picked elizabeth warren. it is not like she was down to the last dozen. she was one of the finalis. >> it is fascinating because of course tim kaine arguably brought virginia, an important statement massachusetts was not in play in terms of warren's appeal but warren would have energized a lot of voters and you would have had two women on the ticket. how would that have played? >> that would have been fun. that would have been i think close to john mccain's moment where he was talking about senator lieberman joining him on the ticket in 2008. it would have been that kind of an earth-shattering moment. and even though both of them would have come out of the same party, i think the philosophical

as well as the two female idea or concept would have been an interesting term for americans to put their head around. i don't know how it would have played out. but i think she would have been an absolute thorn in donald trump's side in that general election, elizabeth warren, that is. from that standpoint, i think that if nothing else, andrea, it is going to be food for mr. biden to think about in this upcoming choice that he has to make to see whether maybe the second bite at the elizabeth warren an cell something worth taking given just what she brings to the table, how she's able to cross pollinate between the central left and the progressive wing of the party. and of course the work she has done both in the obama administration and as a u.s.

senator. it's worth, you know, looking at and debating out there. and i think that she could bring some fire power in that sense. so we'll see. >> and of course there is a lot of pressure. he's already said he is going to have a women, two of the women who are potential vice presidential picks were on the sunday shows this morning. let me play some of that. >> my question is to say out loud if i am asked the question yes i am willing to sever. i know there is a process played out that joe biden is going to put together the best team possible i think he is going to pick the right person. i of course think a woman of color can bring several attributes. >> he needs to put a woman in the white house. you know i support joe biden and i am excited by his candidacy. you need to put someone in the white house who is going to have long term vision and isn't going to spend day after day dividing people. >> there is pressure to have a

woman of color from clyburn and brazil. stacey abrams put it out there today. how does joe biden deal with that pressure? is this something he has to take seriously? >> he -- a woman of color in order to appeal to that demographic, because by process of elimination, you are down to a field of candidates. but the way you outlined it and the way some people have suggest it,s to he need to do it -- is does he need to do it for political purposes with his stakeholders? the reason joe biden won in south carolina and went on to become the nominee is because he is incredibly popular with blacks. and it is an odd thing to think he needs to compensate for that. there is an argument that he could probably use a person of

color speck more so because that's his weakest demographic. that's an interesting question. once he makes that decision it gets a lot easier. >> michael steele, what is your take on that? >> i think i come at it a little bit differently. i think that the question for the democrats is, you know, how do we win this election against who i believe will still be a formidable opponent donald trump? i don't take any of that lightly. the question, the traditional question has been the vice presidential nominee brings something to the ticket that the presidential nominee either needs or does not have. in this case, i think the biden team will probably look closer at governors. you know, a governor, whittmer, for example, senator klobuchar

is another one, someone that can bring a part of the country that the team does not have right now and that they are going to have to fight. the fight for this election is not going to be in the urban communities, not on the east coast or the west coast. it is going to be if places like iowa, michigan, minnesota, you know, ohio, places like that. so the question for is people is, who brings in the level of balance that the ticket will need to win that ride, right up the middle of the country, right up the gut of the country to help biden secure back wisconsin, pennsylvania, and michigan? and i don't know yet if an african-american female does that necessarily. that's part of the calculation, the phillipe's point, that the team has got to make. >> andrea? i am actually disappointed in michael steele. the one thing that he hasn't said is money. joe biden really needs someone to help raise him money.

in general, he's not a prolific fund-raiser and particularly not a prolific fund-raiser on line. there is a limit to how much money you can raise by sitting in your proverbial basement and zooming into fund-raisers. someone like elizabeth warren, someone who can turn on with just an email or a tweet and raise tens of millions of dollars, that's something he needs to compensate for. in the end the guys pick who they think can do the job. we have had three back to back two-term presidents. thank god nothing to them, but some of our presidents have died in office. [ inaudible ] >> clearly, that is the case,

and joe biden knows better than anyone else the importance of choosing someone you get along with, but also someone who could take over on day one. phillipe, thank you, thank you for the memo. and thank you to michael steele as well. up next, some much-needed laughs, courtesy of "saturday night live." where else? "saturday night live" from home. the second time they have done that. and with a very special "snl"-style anthony fauci in the cold open. stay with us. he cold open. stay with us xeljanz xr, a once-daily pill for adults with moderate to severe ra for whom methotrexate did not work well enough. xeljanz xr can reduce pain, swelling and further joint damage, even without methotrexate. xeljanz can lower your ability to fight infections like tb; don't start xeljanz if you have an infection. taking a higher than recommended dose of xeljanz for ra can increase risk of death. serious, sometimes fatal infections,

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but we can grill together. oscar mayer invites you to take your backyard cookouts to the front. on may 2nd, join us for the oscar mayer front yard cookout. enjoy sharing a meal together but safely apart, while we share a million meals with feeding america. and everytime you use the #frontyardcookout, oscar mayer will donate an additional meal - up to a million more, through the month of may. let's head out front and give back. earlier this month, dr. anthony fauci jokingly said that brad pitt you this portray him if he were ever impersonated on "saturday night live." also night the show delivered just that. >> you can call it a germ, you can call it a flu, you can call it a virus. i am not sure everybody even knows what it is. >> we know what it is. >> and then i see the disinfectant, where it knocks it

out in the a minute, one minute. and is there a way we can do something like that, by injection? supposing we hit the body with a tremendous -- whether it is ultraviolet or just very powerful light. >> i know i shouldn't be touching my face, but -- now there is a rumor that the president is going the fire me. let's see what i said about that. >> today i walk in. i hear i am going to fire him. i am not firing him. i think he is a wonderful guy. >> so yeah, i am getting fired. but until then, i am going to be there putting out the facts for whoever is listening. when i hear things like the virus can be cured if everyone takes the tide pod challenge, i will there to say, please don't. . technologies advisor.

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never drinking water. neutrogena® bright boost with dullness-fighting neoglucosamine. boosts cell turnover by 10 times for instantly brighter skin. bright boost. neutrogena®. my schizophrenia for a while, and then my kids asked me why my body was rocking back and forth. my doctor said i have tardive dyskinesia, which may be related to important medications i take for my schizophrenia. i also felt my tongue darting and pushing against my cheeks. i was worried what others would think. td can affect different parts of the body, and it may also affect people who take medications for depression and bipolar disorder. i know i shouldn't change or stop my medication so i was relieved there are treatment options for td. - if this sounds like you or someone you know, visit talkabouttd.com to sign up to receive a personalized doctor discussion guide to help start a conversation with you doctor about td. you'll also be able to access videos and a free brochure

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i see the disinfectant where it nokknocks it out in a minute one minute. is there a way to do something like that by injection inside or almost a cleaning? because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs. it will be interesting to check that, so that you're going to have to use medical doctors with, but it sounds, it sounds interesting to me. >> and that was president trump, of course, on thursday, floating the deadly idea of injecting disinfectants into people's lungs to kill the coronavirus. the white house has since offered a number of different explanations for what he said. the president said he was being

sarcastic and directing his comments to reporters, even though he clearly was directing his comments to dr. birx. his new press secretary then blamed the media for supposedly taking the comments out of context. although that was not true. and as "the washington post" reports, this incident is just the latest in a long history of medical freelancing from the president. here are a few of his greatest hits. >> autism has become an epidemic. the beautiful child went to have the vaccine and came back and a week later got a tremendous fever, got very, very sick, now is autistic. >> if you have a windmill anywhere near your house, congratulations. your house just went down 75% in value. [ laughter ] and they say the noise causes cancer. you tell me that one, okay. >> the words about a pandemic at this point? >> no, we're not at all, we have it totally under control. >> it's going to disappear one day. it's like a miracle, it will disappear.

>> you look surprised i understand it. these doctors, how do you know so much about this? maybe i have a natural ability. maybe i should have done that instead of running for president. >> now, a drug called chloroqui chloroquine, and some people would add to it hydroxy, hydroxychloroquine. chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine, it's shown very encouraging, very, very encouraging early results. >> it's been out there for a long time. so it's tested in the sense that you know it doesn't kill you. >> well, joining me now are nbc's heidi przybyla and d dr. kavida patel, a fellow with the brooksings institute. heidi, you've bun doing a lot of work with hydroxychloroquine. the "the new york times" pointed out that 32,000 people wrote prescriptions, doctors wrote prescriptions the same day he first proposed it. it was a 46-times increase in

the prescription for this malaria drug when it had not been tested and shown to be efficacious in the -- >> it's a real mystery, andrea. >> it was being described. >> it's a real mystery because, you know, there was kind of a feedback loop here between conservative media which was pushing this even before the president was, and then seeing the president do this on the podium, and then that direct correlation to the prescriptions being written. and the doctors, the cardiac doctors who i spoke with, said that, in fact, it wasn't just the politicians they were concerned about pushing this. it was actual medical doctors writing these prescriptions. and now we have the data to show that there was a direct connection. now, the problem here is that if these two drugs are taken together -- you're talking about two drugs which each have their own cardiac side effects, and the two of them taken together, while they're drugs that have been on the market a long time, the combination in covid patients has never been studied.

and so doctors, cardiac doctors started to get very concerned when they saw this, and now this data is backing up their concerns that, in fact, thousands and thousands of these prescriptions were written and not in hospital settings because that "the new york times" data is referring to commercial pharmacies where people just come in and pickup those prescriptions. so who knows how many americans have taken this drug amid the fanfare around it that the president created without the appropriate screening, without the appropriate cardiac screening that is recommended now by the american heart association and the american college of cardiology. >> well, let me bring in dr. patel because the other issue here is whether we're creating a shortage, or the president was creating a shortage for people who need that drug, and this drug is needed by people who have lupus and other malaria and other issues. >> absolutely, andrea. in fact, i had to help some

patients navigate who have lupus, rheumatoid arthritis and a number of other conditions what they can do in order to try to actually get their own regular valid prescription. and kind of to heidi's point, not only had there been a spike in outpatient and clinic-based p prescriptions, but every doctor admitting a covid-19 patient into the hospital was putting people on hydroxychloroquine. it's not because they were trying to commit malpractice. this really was something, again to your earlier point, andrea, the leader of the free country you would think is informed by the best scientists and public health officials and is telling you something based on that. and so, of course, the public reacted. and, of course, medical professionals were trying to understand this. and as heidi said, unfortunately now we have evidence that when you use hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine plus an antibiotic, a azithromycin, in brazil they actually had to stop one arm of

the study because patients died at a higher rate. so this is lethal in combination and could have been avoided. >> and, in fact, because of the president's direction, the u.s. government bought 29,000-plus of these pills and stockpiled them. we have to leave it there for now. thank you so much, nbc heidi przybyla for your great reporting. dr. kavida patel, your wonderful experience and medical advice. we really appreciate both. that wraps up this hour of msnbc. thanks so much for inviting us into your living room from my living room. thanks for being with us and i'll see you back here tomorrow at noon eastern for "andrea mitchell reports." my colleague kasie hunt picks it up, picks up our coverage after this break with "kasie d.c." have a good night.

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♪ ♪ welcome to "kasie d.c." i'm kasie hunt. tonight on the precipice of a million americans with confirmed cases of coronavirus. businesses from georgia to colorado set to reopen with no ramp up in national testing. i'm going to talk to senator cory booker about his home state of new jersey hit hard with cases and whether new relief money will finally flow to millions of small businesses on the brink. plus the president's reckless suggestions of fighting