. hello, everyone. we're at the start of a crucial week for america. by friday more than half of the states will have relaxed their stay at home orders, health experts are still questioning if the country is ready. the death toll continues to rise, climbing past 66,000 this weekend. according to the world health organization, the u.s. reported the most deaths in a 48-hour period. and while the number of cases continues to drop in some of the hardest hit states like new york, others continue to see their cases rise. mississippi and texas both saw the number of new cases hit highs this weekend. the pressure continues to mount on state and local officials to reopen the economy. >> protesters rallied in

california. while the protesters do not represent the views of most americans, there are more demonstrations scheduleded for state capitols this week. >> but first, revealing new reporting on what's happening inside the white house. states and local governments grapple with the challenge of lifting lockdown measures. "the washington post" speaking to some 82 administration officials outside advisors and experts with detailed knowledge about the conversations being had by trump and his advisors over the last 34 days. they reveal a president focused more on reopening the economy than get essential testing equipment to states who need them in order to successfully reopen. joining us is nbc news political reporter monica alba and meredith mcgraw, white house report for "politico." monica, a former senior official told "the washington post" that the white house's projections analysis was a catastrophic miss.

how so? >> hi there. that's right. you remember for much of march the white house was citing models that predicteded as many as 100,000 to 200,000 americans could die as a result of the coronavirus. but then they revised those models and "the washington post" is now reporting into a picture of why that may have been and why the president believes that fewer deaths were going to come as a result of this health crisis, lowering that prediction to 50,000 to 60,000. of course, we've now passed 65, 66,000 deaths from the pandemic. so those models also appeared to not have been completely correct. what is at issue here is that an analysis the white house did on its own that reviewed the death toll "the washington post" reports was led by kevin hass et who used to be a part of the trump administration left and returned specifically to deal with the administration's response, but he's an economic adviser. they're raising questions about why his projected death tolls may have been such a big part of

the conversation. now hasset denies his specific data on this is what guided the president and advisors to wush push for reopening. that is what we saw, a push and pull over when it was decided it was appropriate to start telling states and governors to open up important sectors of the economy back open again. much as we've seen now, more than a dozen states doing that especially with more of them add md the weeks to come. the question is if there is major second spike and that death toll is much higher again, what did the decisions actually evaluate and was that data reliable? it is raising questions about all of that today, alicia. >> i'm told you're competing the sound of marine i. thank you for sticking with us. meredith, i want to go with you. pick up from where monica just left off which is how much has the president and his advisors focused on the economy hampered the response to this crisis? >> well, the president has

really tried to be a cheerleader for reopening the economy, a strong economy was one of the calling cards for this president. and we've seen it just absolutely be decimated as this virus has affected the way businesses and people, of course, live their daily lives. and will continue to do so. and the president is expected to continue to encourage reopening of state economies. but the difficult decisions are really going to come down to the state and local leaders and many say they simply do not have the adequate supplies that they need to do the type of testing to ensure that their constituencies are going to be able to stay safe if they choose to open restaurants, churches, try to get things back to normal. >> monica, the president has encouraged liberate protesters on twitter, ask governors to begin reopening measures even as the confirmed cases within the

united states hit one million. what is the political calculus behind this? >> yeah, for weeks the president said among those small but mighty groups of protesters might be his supporters. we've seen that in terms of flags and signs that they're waving that say trump 2020 but just this morning white house coronavirus task force response coordinator said it was in her words devastatingly worrisome that some of the protesters we've seen in stunning images storming capital houses aren't wearing masks, aren't social distancing. dr. birx said if the people come to find out that they were sick and infected and contributed in spreading the virus to others, that they will have to live with the consequences of that for the rest of their lives. so you're hearing top health officials really express a concern over those protesters and the president seems to encourage them to voice their

opinions. >> meredith, has there been any acknowledgement inside the white house of the mistakes that were made or any pivots on the part of the administration? >> well, the white house has tried to turn the focus away from the public health aspect of this in terms of the communication because it simply has not been their strong suit. and, of course, the president has pulled back on doing some of these briefings after he was presented with some polling data that showed it was affecting how his supporters were seeing him. but the president is missing out on going to rallies. he's admitted this. so part of his schedule and his agenda is going to be focused on getting him back out on the road. the president was at camp david this weekend huddling with the advisors. but the white house is really eager to get him to just focus on the economy and we're going to see that this week when he traveled on tuesday to a honeywell factory in arizona.

arizona's one of the states that's looking to reopen this week. and he's going to be visiting a factory that is making respirators and masks there. the so even though he can't participate in some of the political rallies that he loves and is used to, they're really eager to have him focus on the economy and we're going to see that in terms of his schedule and what he does in the coming weeks. >> all right. monica and meredith, thank you both so much. a city in oklahoma has reversed course on its facemask rule over threats. the rule like in many other states during this pandemic requires that shoppers wear masks while in stores. store employees say they were threatened with physical violence and verbal abuse. i'm joined by the mayor of stillwater, oklahoma, will joyce. mayor, it is great to see you. you tweeted "shame on you" to those who resorted to violence. what went through your mind when you first heard about these claims? >> well, thank you for having me on. i appreciate the opportunity to come in and speak about this.

you know, i think our concern was just that front line store employees were potentially, you know, having to deal with folks who didn't want to comply. and we didn't like having to put them in that situation. and so our changes were really just to make sure that front line store employees were not having to deal directly with folks who were refusing to wear face coverings. >> what did you hear from those employees who were threatened? ? >> we had some reports, you know, friday morning was the first day that we had reopened in accordance with our states' plan. and early friday with folks who had come in and said, you know, weren't wearing masks and they were asked not to come in we had a few people that got shoved past or were the employee themselves was verbally berated for the rule, you know, for them just trying to do their job. so we didn't have mask protests. we didn't have, you know, sort of the armed vigilante i think

that you see at some of the protests. but we did have, you know, folks at the stores that were put in a really difficult situation. you know in, terms of trying to enforce the policy. >> you like a lot of leaders that we've spoken to are trying to keep your constituents safe. how then do you balance those threats against the fact that you had originally asked folks to wear masks for the very purpose of keeping them safe from the virus? >> yeah. it's been a very difficult issue. it's been a difficult issue for the last few weeks. we've had had a strong encouragement in all of our areas to wear face coverings while out in public even while we were still under a shelter in place order. and sort of measuring that against the idea of trying to enforce a broader order which is difficult. we're a small city. we don't have the kind of police force that can go out and try to deal with every single one of the people who may not be

willing to wear the masks. and so it's been a struggle to try to figure the right sort of plan for how we can make people understand that wearing that face covering is an easy and an effective way to help slow the spread of this virus, especially as we start to open up more stores and have people out in more areas. you know, so trying to enforce that versus, you know, just sending that message out to people has been a difficult question for us. and one, you know, i think on friday, you know, we tried to plan it. it didn't go great. and so we reversed it a little bit. we're going to continue to do that. we think it's still important and we'll continue to work on how to make that happen. zblfr mayor, does it complicate things for you that it has been put on local and state governments to come up with these mandates rather than it being a federally unified response? >> yeah, it does. i mean, it's difficult. there are a lot of mixed

messages out there in terms of what is important and what direction we should go. it is difficult from a, you know, being a small community, a small city to try to figure out for us what is the best thing to keep our residence safe and how to get that messaging out in a situation where there's a lot of different messages, i think, being given. and so it is. i think, you know, early on when we were one of the first cities in our state to issue stay at home orders, you know, we were hopeful that our state would come alongside and it took them a couple days to kind of get onboard with that. but that unified effort is really important. and one of the reasons that we decided to go ahead and comply with the reopening as well, even though, you know, we were not sure it was the right thing and the right timing for us, it's better to try to have that unified effort and to have people on the same page. and so we're trying to do that. i think it would be best from a nationwide perspective if we

could have, you know, sort of a unified message. >> all right, mayor joyce, thank you so much for your time. >> thank you for having me. former vice president joe biden has doubled down in denying the sexual assault allegation against him brought on by former senate staffer tara reid. here he is last night with al sharpton. >> i'm saying it never happened, period. believing a woman means taking a woman's claim seriously when she steps forward and then vetting it. looking into it. that's true in this case as well. >> back in march tara reid accused biden of sexually assaulting her in 1993 when she worked in his office. she told nbc news yesterday quote, "i filed a complaint for sexual harassment and retaliation but i am not sure what explicit words on that intake form until we all see it again." william jefr r william jeffries told nbc news that their background check

found no evidence of any complaints of any kind. either of sexual harassment, discrimination, or any misconduct of any kind against then senator biden. he added, "we did not do a complete search of records from his office. if something had come up, we would have looked at the records. i do not recall and do not believe we reviewed his senate records." let's bring in our nbc news political reporter. what is the latest from former vice president biden? >> look, at this point i think the biden campaign is letting the former vice president's two interviews on msnbc with our colleagues al sharpton and they're letting those speak for themselves. we heard in the interviews the former vice president unequivocally denying the accusation being lodged against him by tara reid. on the other hand, you mentioned the text message exchange that i had with tara reid yesterday. i have not heard from her further. but to day was supposed to be the day that we were going to see her on camera for the first time since we saw biden respond

directly to the allegations. she was supposed to do an interview with fox news. she told me yesterday that she canceled that interview because she's getting threats. she wants to make sure she has other own security situation under control before she has a sitdown. >> biden sent a letter to the secretary of the senate on friday insisting they release any documents related to this allegation s that in process? >> i'm not sure if it's in process yet. but there are questions about if that's even the right place to look. on friday, biden said that he was asking the senate secretary to find and release any documents that might be related to this. but biden says that these personnel related documents if they exist will be in the national car iv national archives. i asked them if they would be the right place for this. they said the senate controls documents like this if they exist. now the word controls is interesting there. we know biden has reached out to the senate giving them

permission to find, locate and release them publicly. at the same time, though, i'm not sure exactly where they're housed, the national archives hasn't yet gotten back to me. there is also the question of the trove of document that's is at the university of delaware. biden said on friday that those documents would remain sealed. the university of delaware says the same thing. sealed until he is out of public life. but biden says that's what's in the university of delaware documents are past position papers of his, speeches he's given, things that biden says if they were to come out during the course of a presidential campaign could be taken out of context. of course, all of this happening as other democrats are being asked about this allegation. something that gretchen whitmer said this morning speaks to the criticism that women are being asked to respond to allegations against men for things they had nothing to do with. listen. >> you know what, jake, as a survivor and as a feminist, i'll

say this. we need to give people an opportunity to tell their story. but then we have a duty to vet it. i have read a lot about this current allegation. much i know joe biden. i've watched his defense. and there is not a pattern that goes into this. and i think that for these reasons i'm very comfortable that joe biden is who he says he is. he's -- and you know what? that's all i'm going to say about it. i really resent the fact that every time a case comes up all of us survivors have to weigh in. it is reopening wounds. it is, you know, take us at our word, ask us for our opinion and let's move on. >> and clearly a complex story and as we look forward into this week, it's one that may only get more complicated. >> all right. as always, thank you for your great reporting. straight ahead, nearly two dozen states are relafrming their stay at home orders. but there are a lot of questions about their ability to test and

trace people who get sick. we'll tell what you more needs to be done to avoid a second outbreak. and the new debate over america's colleges and universities. is online learning worth the price of admission? thousands of students are suing over the issue. we'll explain. g over the issue we'll plexain. i just love hitting the open road and telling people that liberty mutual customizes your insurance, so you only pay for what you need! [squawks] only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ still fresh... ♪ unstopables in-wash scent booster ♪ downy unstopables

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the best entertainment experience all in one place. testing and contact tracing is a way to ensure that reopening is happening safely and effectively. as prz president trump claims the united states is on its way, experts warning we don't have the scale we need. we don't even have close to the scale we need. and just this weekend as lawmakers look to return to washington tomorrow, house speaker nancy pelosi and mitch mcconnell declined the administration's offer to deploy rapid covid-19 testing to capitol hill. jointly requesting tests be sent to the front lines. the legislation requiring president trum top mobilize the defense production act and

increase testing for covid-19 nationwide. i'm joined by california congressman panetta. thank you so much for joining us. why hasn't this already been done? >> that is the question. i've heard some people say that the lack of testing when it comes to this epidemic is going to be the original sin of this pandemic. and it's unfortunate because you hear over and over and over that there needs to be more testing. and when it comes to ep depices, the way you see it is through testing. and right now we feel blind. and until you start getting more and more testing out there, until there is a coordinated and collaboration on testing, that's how we're going to see it and that's how we're going to get confidence in going into these opening up of governments that we're seeing throughout our nation. but unfortunately, and you no he this best, alicia, you hear certain words. and over the past 24 hours the word that i've been hearing most from the pundits and scientists is patchwork. you're seeing a patchwork of

testing. you're seeing a patchwork of outbreaks. you're seeing a patchwork of government -- different governments opening up throughout our country. and that's because there hasn't been a national strategy. that's exactly why i introduced many i bill mandating that the president use the defense production act to start creating more testing. more supplies for testing and getting testing out there. now, yes, we have improved the amounts of testing that we have had across the country. i think it's 200,000 per day. but that's nowhere near what we need. you're hearing anything from 500,000 to five million a day according to that harvard study that's been put out there. that's the way we're going to be able to see this disease. that's the way we're going to be able to have confidence going forward in opening up our economy again. zblfr congressm zbl >> congressman, have you seen any differences in the projection if there is testing versus if there is not, how much time that actually makes up? >> look, i haven't seen any sort of time line when it comes to that. but i would imagine that once

you have a coordinated effort from the top down, then you'll start to see production pick up at these companies, at these private facilities which can produce these supplies that have been lacking from swabs to the reagents to the kits themselves. and that's why we need this coordinated effort from the top down to do it. and that's why i'm a believer basical basically be able to open up our economy. >> the next relief package is in the works. democrats are pushing to include nearly a trillion dollars for state and local governments hit the hardest by covid-19. what you are seeing as the sticking points in the debate over the next package? >> let's hope a sticking spoint not testing. testing needs to be in there and also contact tracing as well. and that's how we basically surround this disease. not only we see it through testing, but in basically tracking and tracing those people who have been in contact with those who are positive for

it. that's why next week i'm going to be introducing a bill with colleagues basically the help nl resilience force bill along with our colleagues in the senate. bennett and gillibrand to make sure we can test and track and trace as well and provide the wraparound services but also it's a job force as well. putting people back into the economy by basically getting them involved with this health force. look, there's going to be a number of other areas that we are going to need in this bill. the discussions need to be there. because although we had $150 billion for states, you saw cities and counties like every city and county in my district with populations less than 500,000 not get the direct funding we need. so we need to make sure that happens. second of all, yes, the ppp worked to some extent. but, boy, does it need improochlt improochi improvements. we need to have improvements. we need to make sure we dedicate

funding to small businesses that there's clarity and flexibility on the loan forgiveness part of it and we need to spread out the payroll when it comes to payments over a longer period of time is what i'm hearing. we also have to look at our essential workers. a lot have to go back to work. a lot of them have children at school. i believe that childcare needs to be looked at. hazard pay needs to be looked at. i was out -- i volunteer every week at food banks. and i go out and i see these lines that are growing and growing and growing. and therefore, with he need more abilities for snap beneficiaries to use their snap benefits. introduced the snap carry act with chris murphy of connecticut to allow those who have snap benefits to use them at restaurants, for premade meals. it's these types of ideas that i believe need to go into this next round of the cares act. >> all right. congressman panetta, thank you so much. up next eshgs the long road to recovery for america's restaurant owners. what more can be done to help

them? plus, does the road to economic recovery run through the service industry? i'll talk to a candidate for congress who wants to see america create even more service industry jobs. service industry jobs. ing. being prepared and overcoming challenges. usaa has been standing with them for nearly a hundred years. and we'll be here to serve you for a hundred more. ♪ and we'll be here to serve you for a hundred more. tell me, what did verizon build their network for? people. and when people's every day is being challenged... that's when a network shows what it's made of. verizon customers are making an average of over 600 million calls and sending nearly 8 billion texts a day, every day. businesses are using verizon's added capacity to keep them connected with customers. and when people are depending on you for those connections... what do you do? whatever it takes.

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many states across the country allowing some businesses to reopen, the coronavirus crisis is already dilt dealt a devastating blow to the restaurant industry. the national restaurant association predicted the industry may have lost around $80 billion in sales and see that's number spiking to $240 billion by the end of the year. so what will recovery for restaurants look like post covid-19? with me now is derrick thompson, a staff writer for "the atlantic." this has been just absolutely devastating for restaurants. there are some states that are allowing folks back into restaurants with measures in place. but how sustainable is all of that? >> well, the trouble with sustainability here is that when it comes to people going to restaurants, this is not something that the government can control.

the government doesn't have this door over it where the restaurants are closed versus they are open. policy is made with the participation of individuals. if people don't want to go to restaurants because they think they're too dangerous, they're not going to go if their open or closed. what i'm worried about is two things. the next few weeks getting through the next few weeks and make shurg we continue to bend the curve down as previous guests have talked about. but even if we have a soft reopening, i'm not even sure a lot of people are going to want to go back to restaurants. you're going to have to have social distancing inside of the places. you have to have temperature checks at the doors. you may have lysol wipes to wipe down the menu. it's not going to be the same restaurant experience a that a lot of people are used to. i think a lot of restaurants are going to have to change their very, become more focused on delivering curb side pickup to essentially socially distance the distribution of their business. >> yeah, nothing says date night quite like having your temperature taken before you go

to the restaurant. derrick in, your latest piece for the atlantic you write while mom and pops and department stores will close, the industries that survive and are resilient to e- commerce encroachment, grossers and restaurants are more likely in the short term to be dominate bid chains that survive the flood. what does it mean for the entire restaurant ecosystem if chains are what is left at the end of this? >> well, you i think we're looking at a future with they're going to get bigger. they have more cash in reserve. they often have public stock they can sell to raise money. they about better access to banks and more liquidity. the truth of what means for our cities, look are sh h., the thing i love about cities is what makes them different not what makes them the same. i like what distinguishes west aend washington, d.c., from west village new york city. i don't want cities to become this place where there is dominated by chains. every single block you walk down in a down taun area is a cvs, bank branch and a sweet cream.

i don't want everywhere i go feel like everywhere that i've been. and the piece that you just quoted from i quoted the playwrite, the 20th century my write tennessee williams who had a quote where he said there are only three cities in america, new york, san francisco, and new orleans. anywhere else is cleveland. now i don't want to hate on cleveland. but i think what the quote signals is that american cities have been for a long time in a battle with uniqueness. they've been trying to preserve what makes them special and weird and eccentric even in the face of the onslaught of commodity. i'm worried the pandemic will be a tsunami of a lot of the large environment companies getting bigger and a lot of the mom and pop and indpebt stores fail even with ppp. >> all right. derrick thompson, thank you so much for your time. much like the restaurant industry, the coronavirus crisis has frozen our economy and put millions out of work. however, our next guest has an idea on how the government can solve both problems. in an op-ed, the co-founder of

city year writes, the president and congress should enact an emergency service to nation jobs effort to immediately engage 500,000 judge people ages 18 to 26. one million of them by 2022. . in a year of national service to put them to work and meet the nation's pressing needs. with me now is the current candidate for congress in massachusetts fourth district. all right. make the case to me that what we need is to put all of these young people in service jobs. >> thank. great to be with you. so we have millions of young people graduating from high school and college in the next two months. and they're entering an economy just as bad or worse than the great depression. during the great depression, franklin roosevelt within three months created the civilian conservation corps, a national service program that put 500,000 people into work doing conservation work. we've had 25 years of america. we have an fran structure. what we can do is scale it up.

the previous guest who has been a leader on national service talked about contact tracing. we need 300,000 people just to do contact tracing. they can be in a public health corps. we can't reopen the economy. young people are the best people to do this. they're more diverse and this virus is attacking more people of color and low income people. they understand technology. we could have a quarter million people in an education corps. much so many young people are having learning loss because they're not in school. help them get caught up. we could have a climate action corps. we could have an opportunity corps to fight poverty. we could solve two problems. put our young people to work and fight the covid-19 crisis and that's why i think we need to do this now. >> what are the lessons you learned from city that you would want to see applied to this year of service? >> first of all, young people have incredible energy and idealism. i think if we put the call out, hundreds of thousands would raise their hands and say, yes, let meserve. we learned they can be effective through city and other amare

corps programs on fighting it on improving education, on fighting poverty, on doing public health. they can get the training and they are effective. we learn most importantly that when people serve together, it builds a sense of common purpose and if this virus seecteaches u anything, look at the people on the front lines. i think all of us want to figure out how do we come together? how do we leave as a legacy of this to all the people that tragically lost their lives or been affected that we come out of this as a nation that is more caring, more united, more loving? we've seen that work in city and in every americorps program. that's why it's important for congress to do this. >> if you build a program like this in a moment of crisis, how do you then make the case for it existing once the crisis has passed? >> well, you know, we've been trying to push for national service, universal voluntary national service for years. i think that if we seize this opportunity, put young people to work, they will be on the front lines of fighting this crisis.

the we will realize that we still need them. because we have an education crisis in our kun trivenlt we have poverty crisis in our country and housing crisis. this pandemic is showing the variety of injustices and young people serving together from different backgrounds is the best anti-dote to that and it will instill in us during the depression we emerged with the greatest generation. if it we do this now, every rags will become the greatest generation. i have a petition on my website calling on the congress and administration to do this now. put a million people to work. i hope people will go and sign the petition so we can put the pressure on. there is great leadership, a huge champion of americorps and the bill that congressman panetta is going to introduce, but we the people have to sign this petition, rise up and say we need this. young people want to serve. so i hope people will do that. >> all right. thank you so much.

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on line classes are going to be different. some are still the same price. nbc digital reporter talked to some students who are not happy about it. >> from lecture halls to dining

halls, college is an opportunity to learn new ideas, connect with new people, and start building a future. >> i chose to go to nyu for the incredible resources the school has to offer. >> that's why i chose this school. when i toured the campus, i'm like this is exactly where i want to go to school. >> but now the college experience is far from what students expected or what they paid for. i have student loans and i'm tag for what is supposed to be in class learning. >> it's just wild to think that you have to pay $55,000 for the same thing you could find on a college for $50. >> and not all majors are created equal when it comes to on line learning. >> i'm in a psychics course that has a lab and also an internship with the anatomy lab on campus and we're lucky enough to actually work with real human

cadavers. so we haven't been able to do that. >> the theater is about intimacy. it's about that in person connection. there is detail of what that person is doing. >> many say they want their money back and some are even filing lawsuits. like this person. >> shortly after we got kicked out of the dorm, we felt like we're not getting the experience that we're paying for. and, you know, that's when i decided i needed to take action and stand up for myself and peers. >> he represents granger in a lawsuit against drexel university. his firm has 12 pending lawsuits for tuition reimbursement. >> do you anticipate that list is going to get longer? >> yes. we're receiving hundreds of inquiries from students and their families across the country. and we're investigating dozens of other potential suits. >> what is at the center of the lawsuits? >> these lawsuits are about fairness. the students bargaineded for certain services and access to

facilities, paid for them up front. and are not receiving them. and so they are due some of that money back. >> beyond lawsuits, there are thousands of student lead petitions, they're gaining traction with peers but not so much with administrators. >> once i hit around 10,000 signatures, i believe, i reached out and i e-mailed them a couple times. but no response yet. >> at nyu's renowned tisch school of the arts where the tuition is $70,000, the dean did respond. and went viral. >> for some students, they saw as oh, that's dean crane doing her thing. others did not take it well. >> but while students are struggling with uncertainty, so are schools. >> what is at stake for these universities? >> i think what's at stake is, i mean, out of very, very base level do, they survive? i think just like for students it's making them question what's

the value of college? the once that can adopt are going to survive but it's going to open the conversation about what college is for. >> some colleges and universities have decided to refund fees related to campus housing, meal plans and some course based fees. the many like new york university say since the education of students will proceed through the end of the semester, the university will not refund tuition. up next, we keep talking about going back to work. what will that really look like? will this current crisis force us to rethink work as we know it? o rethink work as we know it your mission: stand up to moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis. and take. it. on... ...with rinvoq. rinvoq a once-daily pill... ...can dramatically improve symptoms... rinvoq helps tame pain, stiffness, swelling. and for some-rinvoq can even significantly reduce ra fatigue.

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in sight, whatever boundaries remains didn't disappear. more say they are working harder and longer. let's bring in founder and ceo of the flex strategy group. i want you to make this argument to me that working from home has helped the economy. >> the troouts of the mattuth o without it, we wouldn't be doing any work at all. as the safe at home mandate start the ease and we start to talk about what it's going to look like to go back to work, really work flexibility is the only piece of any economic and health recovery plan that's in place. there is no testing. there is no tracking. there is no treatment. all we have is flexibility in the way work has been being done for the last two months and that's going to have to continue if we're going to get the economy up and going again.

there are also a couple very real con strantss that are going away. there's 45 million children who are not in school and have to be cared for and learning as well. also, the medical establishment is cautioning going too quickly. what you have are a heavy percent aage of population sayi they're not comfortable going back to work. early may, 75% of u.s. adults said it would be about three months before they felt comfortable going back to the office. that's something we have to consider. >> i have been following your thought leadership on this for the better part of a decade. what i'm about to say will not surprise you which is there's a gap in who can work from home. a poll says 21% of workers making less than 50,000 per year are telecommuting. that's double for those making 100,000 or more. how do you close that gap?

>> the data is interesting flp was 57% of u.s. adults said they were working from home from the recent harris poll and 24% in, i believe it might have been in the same study said they were working from home for the first time. that's why it has to be a combination of remote work, flexible schedule, staggered schedules, flexible teams and redesign work space. it's going to be a combination of all of those different types of flexibility. it will be a flexibility strategy that's implemented on realities of particular jobs. you may have a workplace where you have to have social distancing and maintain a staggering of schedules in order to allow less people to be in the same amount of work space. >> there are polls that find that about a quarter of americans are working from home for the first time. you have spent a lot of time thinking about this, writing

about. what is your counsel to someone who is doing this for the first time? >> first of all, bravo. to do this on dime which is what happened as they were thrown into the remote work deep end and say swim now. they've done it. i think that's something to really applauds. you're about two months into this. now you have a chance to really step back and perhaps say, what are some of the ways that i can do this a little bet r ater and smarter. look at the way you're communicating with the people you work with. are using technology the best way possible. have you had a clear sense of how you're clab raollaborating people. are you worked with the people you are living with that are trying to remote work and learn. be intentional about what you need to do to be your best self. make sure you're taking time to sleep and eat and do the things that help you regenerate. make sure you have a start and a

stop time. that really helps. put it your calendar. that really makes a difference. you will shut down if you say this is the end of my day and go and do something else. >> in the house we have two children and two jobs. it's so hard to do that hard stop and that hard start. what is your advice for managers? i think a lot of people, in addition to working are also managing people for the first time remotely. when i said at the beginning about how people are working three extra hours. that's bad managers, a lot of the time. >> a lot of these managers are doing this for the first time. i think we have to have a lot of mutual compassion for each other. i think for managers, the key thing you need to be doing is setting priorities for your people. those are probably rapidly changing because this is having in a very difficult economic situation. maybe your organization is shifting its priorities.

make sure people are clear about what you're expecting of them. make sure you have a regular check in. checking in with your team, one-on-one. that communication is very important. also, set up a protocol for communication. make sure people know, don't try to limit the amount that you're e-mailing or communicating beyond traditional hours. just make sure that people are always coordinating with how they are using technology and if people need some help getting up to speed, help them and try not to introduce a lot of new technology right now. i think that could overwhelm some people. wait some time. >> all right. thank you so much for your time. that wraps it up for this hour. my colleague joshua johnson takes over at the top of the hour. he's got a panel of doctors and experts ready to answer your questions about the pandemic. i will be back at 4:00 p.m. eastern. stay with us on msnbc. 4:00 p.m. eastern. stay with us on msnbc. hold my pouch.

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hey there, i'm joshua johnson. good to be with you today. this hour we'll answer more of your questions about coronavirus. we'll take another trip across america as more people head out of the house for retail and recreation. by tomorrow more than two dozen states will reopen businesses in some form. they are home to more than 146 million people. arizona, indiana,