good afternoon. i'm ari melber. let's get to the facts as we know them right now. mt. sinai hospital no longer admits new patients in central park. it may take as much as two weeks to treat the remaining patients and decontaminate the tent, a sign of progress there. mean while, the food and drug administration pulling back on a decision that was allowing dozens of companies to sell coronavirus blood tests without proof they work. some companies were making false claims about the accuracy of the tests and now they will require advanced proof before sale.

been just the last hour, the governor of new jersey announcing schools in the state will stay closed for the remainder of the academic year. and jay crew has filed for bankruptcy. the first retailer to do so during this pandemic. we have our nbc news team of reporters spread across the nation, on the ground, ready to help break down today's stories. one question this month is how state leaders will continue to grapple with the mounting public pressure to reopen, particularly in this struggling economy. warm temperatures and sup this weekend brought people from the country to come outside in many places. we saw bustling malls and businesses around atlanta, georgia, all the way out to central park and new york city. meanwhile, in states like virginia, testing has been ramping up. hospital admissions are relatively stable. all eyes on the governor to see how he may extend the ban on non-essential businesses. joining us now is katie beck. katie?

>> reporter: that's right, ari. it's supposed to expire on friday. the question is will governor northam let that ban expire or extend it and how will that pair with his stay at home order that goes until june 10th? the governor said he was going to be spending the weekend trying to come up with the best possible plan for reopening the commonwealth. and he basically said he's going to be thinking about all those things he has been talking ab i about. in virginia, we are seeing a decline in cases, but the governor has said this is going to be phases and a long process, even indicating it could be years before the economy here in virginia is back to where it was. now, at 2:00 p.m. today, the governor is going to have a press conference and give guidance on what is next for the state of virginia. he's facing mounting pressure. there have been protests and rallies here in virginia. many saying the economy is suffering.

and that the dwogovernor needs act faster. president trump saying virginia is acting too slowly. so all eyes will be focused on the capitol and the press conference at 2:00 to see what his plan is next. he did let the ban on elective surgeries expire on thursday, but will he extend possibly the stay at home order beyond june 10th? virginia was the longest stay at home order in the country before the oregon governor recently put his into july. so there's a lot of questions about what is next for virginia, and certainly a lot of pressure on this governor. ari? >> katie beck, thank you very much. today beaches in clear water, florida opening back up. this is the first time since the large crowd of spring breakers were there in march drawing s i criticism. nbc's sam brock is on the ground

in florida. what are you seeing? >> reporter: a lot of people right now, ari. the optics are obviously very important. i don't mean that in a figurative sense but a literal sense. if you would look over my shoulder, there are thousands out here, and there are. but by and large, there's generally really good spacing when it comes to what families and friends are going on the beach right now. you mentioned this is the start of beaches opening in clear water. that's been a topic of conversation, because that spring break episode from six weeks ago was right here on this beach, clear water beach, where there was so much criticism about the way florida is handling the closing of beaches. in terms of what's going on right now, there are roughly 300 law enforcement officers that we have seen up and down these 35 miles of pristine sand that we opened. about 30 of them on atvs. maybe another couple hundred out by the access point and you see

the orange cones. they're driving up and down and making sure people are social distancing. i've seen them so far come into groups of friends and family to tell people to step aside. you can see how many people are coming out to enjoy the sun. so many people i talked to, whether it's college students or family, say they need this as a mental health break, but are trying to be as responsible as possible, because they know like what we saw in california, the beaches opening for a short period only time, it was a bonanza and the governor closed them. they know this is a privilege that can be revoked at any point in time. so we're keeping our eyes out. plenty of police officers frying to ensure if people come back to florida, that if we don't have a repeat, there's concern about what's going on in beaches here

in the sunshine state. >> from our vantage point, it's hard to get a sense of the distance behind you, but in your reporting and walking around, how much social distancing are you seeing from group to group? and where are you seeing it clumped together? >> reporter: a healthy amount. i would say group to group, largely people who are isolated here, are just coming to hang out with a couple of friends. you're seeing a good amount of distance. if i were to go over here, there's a family here with their kids. just over their shoulder is another family. the distance between these two groups i'm going to say is at least 12 to 15 feet. yes, there are people together, but they're families. but the spacing out of these groups is pretty on point so far. but the concern comes when you're seeing large groups of friends beyond ten huddling together with families and more groups of people. that's what would draw a tag. although i have not seen any

citations. >> sam brock, thank you very much. surf's up. potential showdown brewing at a tyson processing plant. the president signed an executive order keeping the plant open, raising all kinds of questions about what do you do with the food supply and balancing that against worker safety? joining us is our reporter, dasha burns. what are you seeing? >> reporter: hey, ari, a lot of interesting developments here. for weeks, county officials in black hawk county asked tyson to close down this plant, which has about 2700 workers. that you were concerned about worker safety, concerned about spread of coronavirus. it turns out they had a right to be. 90% of cases in the county are linked to this plant. the county now has more than 1500 cases.

ari, you will be surprised to learn that people were upset when they heard that order from president trump. but we did talk to tyson and they told us they are not planning to reopen this facility until public health officials here agree that it's safe for workers to return. but i did talk to black hawk county supervisor chris schwartz that led the charge to get this plant to shut down. take a listen to what he said. >> yeah, absolutely. i mean he's the so-called leader of the free world, and when he's mandating that something opens, that's a lot of pressure for a company to be under. and we're worried that he's just going to rush things, that all of the safety mitigation strategies they're working on aren't going to be complete because of this pressure they're receiving from the president. and because the governor has failed to react this whole time, as well. >> reporter: and ari, i also spoke to the sheriff here, sheriff tony thompson who in

close talks with tyson. he told me he's very encouraged by the dramatic changes they've been making here. he's optimistic about the progress, but tells me what happens here in the next week or so is going to be critical. ari? >> thank you very much. now we turn to dr. pa tell, who worked on h1n1 for the obama white house. what do you see as important as we quick off another week in different states and in transition? >> a couple things, ari. number one, as you're seeing, states that have reopened will see a bit of a lag in terms of whether the reopening directly affects positive cases, a spike in cases. but we're seeing some emerging data even from the cdc itself that demonstrates that reopening will in fact probably contribute to an increase in cases. so not only are we going to this

week be looking at these states closely as the reporters have, but look at what they're doing to trace and isolate people, because that is going to be a huge factor in whether or not, you know, virginia reopening can actually be a smart thing to do in the future. and then, ari, just another point. we're seeing that virginia right next to d.c., where we have an increase in cases. you know, the united states is not hermetically sealed, so there's a big if factor from around the world. that if we reopen in pieces that yes, in fact, all the good we're doing in some parts of the country to stay socially distanced could roll backwards. and that's a big issue for the week. >> take a listen to dr. birx, who was speaking out again this weekend. >> it's devastatingly worrisome to me personally, because if they go home and infect their grandmother or their grandfat r grandfather, who has a co-morbid

condition and they have a serious or an unfortunate outcome, they will feel guilty for the rest of their lives. so we need to protect each other at the same time we're voicing our discontent. >> what do you think of the import of what she's getting at there, which most folks there has -- the president was tweeting out people should go to these liberate protests. >> yeah, absolutely. i think she's doing the responsible thing. one could say she should be more emphatic about it every time she can. but she is trying to at least put some signal out there without directly contradicting the president. but ari, we have the president last night talking about a vaccine being available. so we're getting mixed messages. i think dr. birx, dr. fauci, dr. adams, others are trying. buff it's a little chaotic with mixed messages. >> yeah, you mentioned that. we'll play -- here is the

president on fox news. >> certain states are going to have to take a little more time in getting open, and they're doing that. some states frankly aren't going fast enough. you have some states -- virginia, they want to close down until the middle of june. a lot of things -- i believe you can go to parks, beaches. you keep the spread, you stay away a certain amount and i really think the public has been incredible with -- that's one of the reasons we're successful. if you call losing 80,000 or 90,000 people successful, but it's one of the reasons we're not at that high end of the plane. >> how much of this is doable in the sense that we are hearing and people on the ground experimenting with social distancing but the risk rate is higher if you're out of the house. what is the key metric here for

those places? is there a way to say oh, they've overdone it and that you have to retrench? >> yeah, absolutely. so a couple of metrics to keep in mind. we have already talked about the numbers of cases, but we should be looking at how -- what we call the kind of "r" transmission rates, the level of infecttivety. we want to see if one person gets infected, ari, a couple of months ago thatment three or four other people could get covid. we want that number to be below one. if you get infected, the chances of infecting someone else is just one person. and then we look at how health centers and hospitals are doing. if they see an uptick in covid, that's another metric. the other is the preparedness of your city, state. you need 30 contact tracers for

100,000 people and only a handful of place s meet that criteria right now. so those are the metrics we'll be looking at. but it's critical for the public, anybody watching or listening to this, to do what you can to stay at home. and then when you are out, wear a mask, practice hand hygiene and keep the social distancing. >> doctor, thank you very much. coming up, a new report that talks about china, and its roll at the forefront of the pandemic. leaders demanding answers about the origins of this virus. we'll be right back. unpredictable crohn's symptoms following you? for adults with moderately to severely active crohn's disease, stelara® works differently. studies showed relief and remission, with dosing every 8 weeks. stelara® may lower your ability to fight infections and may increase your risk of infections and cancer. some serious infections require hospitalization.

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today, leaders in the u.s. and around the world are searching for answers. secretary of state pompeo saying without any specifics that there's enormous evidence that the coronavirus originated in a chinese lab. u.s. intelligence agencies have not pub llicized any conclusionn the issue. i'm joined now by keer simmons. thanks for joining. just walk us through this big picture, what is actually publicly known and what's the context for this apparent blame game? >> yeah, we've been doing a lot of reporting on what you could describe as, you know, where did the coronavirus come from? and the simple answer is, we just don't know. there isn't right now the evidence to come to a conclusion

on that. most scientists who we have spoken to are clear, that it was not in their view deliberately created or spread. the secretary of state saying over the weekend that he does not believe that it was "man made" while at the same time suggesting again that it could have actually have been leaked from a lab in china. >> so when you look at -- >> reporter: chinese leaders intentionally concealed the severity of coronavirus infections, according to a new four-page intelligence report seen by the associated press. a.p. says the documents claims that in january, china increased imports and limited export s of protection equipment and then denied it did so. sunday, the trump administration repeating accusations that the coronavirus originated in a chinese laboratory. >> they made a horrible mistake and didn't want to admit it. >> i can tell you there is a

significant amount of evidence that this came from that laboratory in wuhan. >> reporter: but the world health organization says so far there's been no invitation from china to help investigate what happened. >> we know that some national investigation is happening, but at this stage, we have not been invited to join. >> reporter: a journalist, who visited a laboratory at the wuhan institute of virology just last year. telling nbc news the cite where they study infections like the coronavirus, was expanding. >> the building was under construction. >> reporter: the human institute of virology denying any connection between the pandemic and its labs. a view repeated by chinese government officials in an interview on "today." >> translator: those claims are preposterous. >> reporter: a diplomatic war of words. and even cartoons. this bizarre animation tweeted by the chinese embassy in paris.

>> we discovered a new virus. it's dangerous. >> reporter: propaganda accusing america of ignoring china's warnings. in the middle of the politics, there appears to be a growing consensus that there should be an international investigation. lawmakers in sweden and germany, even australia saying that that investigation ought to take place. representatives from the world health organization there saying they think an investigation is happening inside china, but so far it has not been invited to get involved. and then in australia, where they have made these calls for this investigation, the chinese ambassador there threatening a boycott of chinese wine and food. so raw emotions and tough politics playing out amid what is, in the end, a scientific question.

>> very important stuff. kier simmons, thank you for the breakdown. researchers in south korea say people cannot be infected with covid-19 more than once, as the country will ease social distancing on may 6. our reporter has more from seoul. >> reporter: ari, scientists here in south korea have been looking at these 260 or so patients who looked as though they had fully recovered. they were released from the hospital and tested positive again several weeks later. this is a real head scratcher for them. they were concerned possibly these patients were not developing immunity. they were getting -- worryingly the virus was going dorment and reactivating later. so they looked at the tests they were using, which they were very confident in. and they looked at the test results and found what was happening is that the tests couldn't differentiate between

live viral cells and dead cells. so what the testing were picking up were dead viral cells still in the body residually from that infection. a very positive and encouraging -- [ no audio ] -- popping up, not just here in south korea but in china, italy and japan and other countries. now they're finding not a reactivation, simply remaining virus within the body that is already dead, the person is no longer infect shown. ari? >> kelly, thank you very much. up ahead, arizona kicking off their reopening process. while the president is preparing for a trip to that state tomorrow. what will he do when he's there? we have a report coming up. when you shop with wayfair,

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the cdc has made it clear that you wear a mask to prevent you from conveying the coronavirus to other people. sims the president and i are in the unique positions we're in, we're tested off.

>> we're tested as well, that's why we're without a mask, as well. >> i didn't think it was necessary. but i should have worn a mask at the mayo clinic. >> joined now by vaughn hillyard in phoenix. vaughn? >> reporter: ari, of course, that was vice president's first trip out of washington, d.c. and tomorrow will mark president trump's first visit out of washington, d.c. he's coming here to phoenix. i want to let you hear from him on february 19th. this is what he told a local reporter at the time. >> this coronavirus. how confident are you that china is being 100% honest with us when it comes to this scary virus? >> i'm confident that they're trying very hard. i know president xi. i get along with him very well. i think it's going to work out fine. i think when we get into april and warmer weather, it has a negative effect on that. >> reporter: ari, it's important

to note that president trump's remarks at the time came on the heels just one month after he struck trade negotiations. those configurations of a trade deal with china. you heard him mention april. that was february 19th, that was ten days before the u.s. recorded its first death from covid-19. since, you've seen 65,000 deaths. he mentioned there april, with the hope that warm weather would help the virus subside. but you've seen here in phoenix, it's been over 100 degrees for a week now. if you look across the world in places like ecuador with high temperatures, there's been increases and not stopped the virus completely. here in phoenix, there were 1300 new cases. and still just about 3,000 tests taking place each day. the president will be going to -- coming into phoenix tomorrow. he'll be touring a major air

nautical defense contractor. he's going to be met here by the arizona governor, who is one of does republican governors who has take an deliberate approach with opening up the arizona business economy. governor doosy is going to be narrowly opening it up to retail businesses. but he says arizona is not like other states. he says he will do what is in the best interest of arizona, and that is taking a methodical approach to opening up business here. ari? >> thank you very much. arizona and a growing number of states are doing this gradual reopening. that means that many are grappling with what involves safety when you know you're in a place where there's still a risk. for that, we have a special discussion planned for you. i'm joined by dr. parker, a retired senior u.s. naval officer who served as chief of staff for the u.s. naval service forces. thanks for joining me.

>> glad to be here, ari. >> let's start with what you have laid out, given some of your particular skillset and in planning and execution on these things, what you call policy steps for returning to work. everyone is looking at this together, depending on where they might live. you say there are actual ways that you can run through this, that you test, collect data, you can yes, return to work. look at who shouldn't return. and go on from there. walk us through what you see as important and given what you're saying out, which states or how many folks are getting it right? >> absolutely. so first of all, i think the first step needs to be test, test, and test some more. we need to know how many people are infected. we need to know the mortality rate. once we test and collect that data and we know exactly how many people are infected, who is

positive and asymptomatic and not, we can go from there. the next step is those that are positive and are likely not to be infected again and not likely to pass onto others, they can proceed back to work, with very little possibility of them being infected or causing others to be infected. the next group of people, as you establish a work group of those who tested negative, and those individuals that have tested negative, you put into a separate group, you test them regularly but allow them to go back with personal protective equipment. then there's that group that should not return to work. it's those people whose immune systems have been compromised in one way or the other, include the elderly. we need to take a hard look at those and make sure we have taken care of them. >> tell me about the color coded ppe idea. >> absolutely. so the idea here is that when you have had personal protective equipment, it does expire in a period of time.

so the idea of having it color coded means that people walking around on the streets, you'll be able to tell very quickly whether or not the ppe is expired and what it's from a realistically good source where the equipment is actually being used properly. additionally to that, i think it's very important that we realize we need to put corporate america to work here. in other words, imagine if we told walmart that you couldn't operate and you couldn't allow customers to come into your store unless you provided them a clear plastic bag with gloves and a mask. when they come in, every person that comes in, they get gloves and a mask they have to wear that. if people are caught not wearing it, they are removed or the company that has been use thing equipment, then is fined in some way and not allowed to remain open. >> how do you see this all

ending? >> it's interesting. i think this ends in one of three ways. the first way is we find a vaccine. i think a vaccine is at least 12 to 18 months down the road. there's a lot of testing going on. over 100 different tests happening right now. so that's a good sign. but it's going to take a while to get a test. the second way is herd immunity. that means 70% to 90% of the population is infected, and once that percentage gets infected by herd immunity, it means the virus basically says i've infected everybody i can and i give up. and then the third way is we get 12 to 18 months down the road. at that point, we have started to flatten the curve and it drops off on its own. but realistically, it's very important that we continue to protect each other from spreading the disease. for example, wearing the masks and wearing them properly, make sure we're not spreading it from

one individual to the other. i'm shocked in new york city how many people are wearing the masks upside down or not wearing it properly. >> finally, when you talk about that third option, we hear a lot about flattening the curve, but when you look at how the united states has so many other cases than any other country, what you're getting at is it would be much harder for that to be the windown? >> it would cause a lot of deaths and cost a lot more financially if we allow this ku curve to slowly wind down. if you send people back to work helping the economy but you do it with a strategy that says when you go back to work you have the right equipment, you have the right focus, and you have been trained properly on how to wear the equipment before you go back to work, i think that helps significantly. >> dr. william parker, thank you very much. >> thank you.

my pleasure. coming up, there is history in the making today. the united states supreme court is doing something it doesn't usually do, which is still holding these oral arguments on these critical cases but doing it by telephone. a new development in the history of the courts. if you have moderate to severe psoriasis, ...little things... ...can become your big moment. that's why there's otezla. otezla is not a cream. it's a pill that treats plaque psoriasis differently. with otezla, 75% clearer skin is achievable. don't use if you're allergic to otezla. it may cause severe diarrhea, nausea or vomiting.

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today, this coronavirus pandemic is forcing change on a different institution in american life. the u.s. supreme court is doing

something unprecedented for oral arguments. it's hearing these cases now over the phone. the nine justices doing what many americans are doing in their own walks of life and work, which is more work mobilely, remotely. it's basically like a conference call. in fact, they will hear ten high profile cases over the next two weeks, including one that can resolve whether president trump's tax records are released. and making history by letting the public listen in realtime. no matter how you slice it, this is a big story and we are joined now by chief justice correspondent pete williams, who has covered many such a case, and now will cover them in this different form. good to see you, pete. tell us what's going on. >> very different from the last time you were at the supreme court, ari. this is not 21st century technology. this was not a zoom call. the justices couldn't see each other. it was audio only.

but lots of firsts. the first time they were not together for an oral argument. first time people could hear the oral argument live. questions today from justice thomas, which was is bit unexpected, since we all thought he would pass over as the chief justice went in reverse order of seniority, acting as a master of ceremony today. the first glitch came shortly into the session when he called for justice sotomayor to ask questions, called for her twice. we heard 13 seconds of silence and then she mastered the mute button. there was a little problem with justice steven breyer's audio. it was garbled for a while and then fixed. they apparently did some rehearsing to see how the system would work. it seemed to work very well in the sense that when the justices talked, it overrode the lawyers, that they were able to interrupt them just as if you were in the

courtroom. it lasted about 16 minutes longer than usual, oral arguments usually last about an hour. you're right, the next nine case also be argued this way, including one on president trump's financial documents. and i think the larger question here is, ari, okay, we'll do this for the next two weeks. what about in october, when the new term begins, is this going to be the way the court does business? i don't think anybody knows the answer to that. and if it is the way the court does business, it's going to be something of a disappointment, but it's not going to cause the supreme court to come to a halt. >> all very interesting stuff. thank you so much, pete williams. now we turn to attorney tom goldstein for a view of what it means to do oral argument in this format. tom has argued over 40 cases before the spoupreme court, is

very well known litigator. good to see you, sir. >> good to see you, ari. >> i'm going to play just a little bit of what it sounded like here on that phone call. take a listen. >> so we'll hear argument this morning in case 1946, united states patent and trademark office versus booking.com. >> and they were off to the races. the first question for you is, why is the supreme court using this opportunity, which was born of the health crisis and necessity, to also be faster in its transparency, to release this faster than usual? >> i think they may have thought they didn't have a choice. once they decided they were going to do oral arguments by telephone, they realized the press had to be able to listen in. and if the press was going to listen in, there wasn't a reason to exclude the public. in addition, the court has been under pressure for not having

enough accessibility because it's so hard to get into the oral arguments. and it was also a very light lift. wasn't difficult at all for them to do. but they haven't made any promises that they'll keep it up once they start hearing arguments back in the courtroom. >> i'm very curious what you think this impact, if any, could be on the actual substantive process of these arguments. viewers may know in other lesser court cases you will have a conference call for what are considered the less important stuff. but when you have a criminal jury trial or an oral argument for the supreme court, it is precisely the import of it that everyone confronts each other, argues out that way. this may be better than halting work entirely, but do you think there is any potential impact on the way these cases go? >> yeah, it could cut in either

of two directions. the first one is that the oral argument is usually the principle way which the justices talk to each other about the cases. they don't really meet before hand. so it's a way of learning what their colleagues are thinking and signaling to their colleagues what the individual justice thinks. that's pretty much lost in this process, because we don't have any of the crosstalk. each justice is aligned a three-minute window to ask questions and get answers. so they don't go back and forth as much. oven the other hand, because of that, there was a lot more listening. there was much less concern about jumping in and asking a question. so it's possible that the justices will gain even a little bit more from the oral arguments than they otherwise might. >> very interesting. this is also a court that has always refused cameras in a town that seeks them. you could argue in a whole system that often seeks them. so what do you see and what is the sort of feeling of them not

only not having the public cameras, but them not being able to see each other. it's being telephonic. is there any upside there that it just focuses completely on the words, on the substance and very little else in the room? one could argue that people may come before the court and you wouldn't know much about some of them, if this is the only way they meet the lawyers in the future. >> that's true. the justices have been very resistant to cameras in the courtroom. they like their privacy. they love to go around when they're able to do that and not be recognized. i think maybe the lawyers or even some of their colleagues will prine for the cameras. in terms of whether it might improve the process, i don't know. probably people will disagree about that forever. it defends on what you think of this interaction between the

justices that usually happens at oral argument and in person that's lost as part of this. >> all really good nuance here for something that has a lot of consequences, including people -- many people in politics interested in the outcome of the trump tax case. thank you so much. some ohio hospitals grappling with finding enough protective gear for their workers. and also finding ways to help out. we'll tell you all about it when we come back. [squawks] only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ confident financial plans, calming financial plans, complete financial plans. they're all possible with a cfp® professional. find yours at letsmakeaplan.org. for adults with moderately to severely active crohn's disease, stelara® works differently.

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time is now running out. election experts say expanding voting by mail by november could require making commitments in the next few weeks. congress must act now to fund such funding and states need to do whatever it takes to make it happen. people should not have to choose between their health and participating in democracy. as states begin to reopen their economies and major issue for many hospitals is the need for facemasks, protective equipment. when the cleveland clinic put out an urgent request for facemasks they needed this he got help from a surprising place, their neighbors in northeast ohio's amish country. we are joined by chris jansing from cleveland. >> hey there. very early on in this pandemic the folks here at the cleveland clinic could tell that they were not going to be able to get some

critical supplies going through the normal global supply chains and some cases maybe only 10%. that's where the ammish came in. it's a remarkable story, really. we're able to tell with an incredibly exclusive interview, almost never happens with, a member of the local amish community. as you'll see, we respected his request to conceal his identity. check it out. the quiet country of amish country is not the first place to go when you think of tackling a global pandemic. that's exactly what happened. the cleveland clinic has 55,000 employees plut visitors and they needed masks. >> we couldn't get them anywhere. the solution had to be local. >> reporter: so they turned to nearby county and the country's largest amish community. while they reject most modern technology, including tv, one man agreed to this rare interview. a request was made and just that fast the amis community

responded. >> with dough try if there is a need somewhere. an scamsoexample is if there ise or sickness in the family. we do try to get together. we try to help. and here we're in need for our neighbors. >> so with the amish could raise a barn in a day, surely they can mobilize to make masks. >> we have four girls in our house. they can all sew. >> so did you ask them to be a part of this? >> they are a part of it. three of the girls and mom. >> so four. >> yeah. >> not myself. >> in this 20 mile radius, there are 5400 amish households with 10,000 seamstresses. >> we have them here and deliver by the box. >> so boxes of supplies were quickly assembled and distributed. operations stopped covid-19 was in full swing. in 48 hours, the cleveland clinic had 12,000 masks, eventually 150,000 of them. then companies were the amish work stepped up too.

dutchman hospitality offered to launder masks. berlin gardens switched from making lawn furniture to 150,000 face shields a day. and keim lumber store is handling logistics. >> the amish care about other people and very gifl. this is a natural way they want to give back to the larger society. >> the amish for those outside the community is the english. and now the english have masks and gowns and shields that global supply chains simply couldn't provide. >> community is what you're about. >> we are tight knit community. and i guess we were taught that from our youth, helping each other out. and we try to continue and plant that in the next generation and continue helping each other. >> the folks here at the cleveland clinic say that the quality and the speed were absolutely remarkable. now they do get paid along with a million other ohioans, many of them had lost their jobs. but they don't take unemployment

in the amish community. and it's no the just the supplies that are going here now, it's going out to 18 different states. >> 150,000 extra masks, it's really striking. chris jansing, very interesting and unusual reporting. appreciate it. we want to end today's show with something a little different. this weekend actor tom hanks delivered a virtual commencement address for graduates at ohio's university. he spoke to so many graunts who won't get to share the traditional right of passage in person with family and friends. >> you have gone from student to graduate when more has been expected of you than just to be an american. you had to be responsible americans. you had to be good americans. good americans who made the sacrifices that saved lives. but your after is not going to look the same as your during or as your before. no one will be more fresh to the task of restarting our measure

of normalcy than you. you chosen ones. >> and in the spirit of education message this is a time where students and graduates alike, we're all learning as we go. we congratulate all the students graduating this year. that wraps up the hour for me. i will be back here though at 6:00 p.m. eastern on the beat if you want to join me. katy tur picks up after the break. some companies still have hr stuck between employees and their data.

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good afternoon, i'm katy tur. here are the facts this hour. the fda announced a new crackdown on anti-body testing and any companies selling anti-body tests must provide evidence of its test accuracy within ten days or face removal from the market. earlier in washington, the u.s. supreme court made history. the high court heard arguments by conference call for the first time ever. justices are expected to hear ten more cases by phone in the coming weeks. and j. crew is the first major potential retail casualty of the pandemic. the apparel chain filed for bankruptcy protection today. it is the first but it is not expected to be the last. and in washington, the president now says he believes up to 100,000 americans could die from covid-19. the death toll now stands at over 68,000 with well over a million confirmed cases worldwide. "the new york times" reports today the white house privately

expects that number here to get worse. the times reports the administration projection shows up to 3,000 deaths a day by june 1st. according to an internal document obtained by the paper. nbc news has not confirmed "the new york times" reporting. today at least nine states are taking steps to loosen social distancing restrictions. among them is florida. nonessential businesses can reopen their doors. another wave of beaches are back open as well. in colorado, certain businesses can reopen with restrictions. colorado's governor told msnbc "if you're looking for things to be perfectly safe, that is not in the foreseeable future." other state governors are still cautioning against rushing towards reopening though. new york's andrew cuomo warned this morning that there are just too many uncertainties. >> the truth is that nobody

knows what happens next and when it happens. how can that be? that nobody knows? we're so sophisticated. we have so much intelligence. we have so many experts. this is the united states of america. how can it be that no one knows? because no one knows. >> over a million cases here in the u.s., many i bad, another state in lockdown still in place is virginia. governor is expected to outline the phase one plan to reopen the commonwealth in just a few minutes. let's get to our reporters first in florida, virginia, and at the white house. starting with nbc's sam brock in clearwater beach, florida. of we check in with you. every other day it seems what is the latest there and from the looks of your shot, it looks like that beach is pretty busy. >> it's bustling, katy. i'm standing on the same beach right now in clear water that was filled with hundreds of thousands of people just six

weeks ago for spring break. and the generated all that criticism and controversy across the country. now you're seeing thousands of people more responsibly. i have families and a little girl in front of me that just are coming up for the first time in months on one side. on another i have girls that live in the area, go to college. they said they've been out here for the first time in a couple months. everyone just feels like it's a breath of fresh air as the beaches slowly start to reopen. there are some restrictions. as i walk along here, you'll see there is kind of clusters of people. some are by themselves. others are with two or three friends. there are families sitting in chairs and hanging out together as well. it really depends on what your personal arrangement is. no groups can exceed ten at any given point in time. there has to be six feet of social distancing when you talk about different groups. you won't see any masks. that is not a requirement here. what you'll see is plenty of police officers on atvs, on helicopters, in their cruisers going around and making sure that people are observing all of these restrictions because the last thing they want to see here

is a repeat of what happened a month and a half ago. so they're proceeding cautiously. we talked to a couple of folks out here that were just coming out for the first time in weeks to experience what it's like to get outside and hang outside at the beach. they told us our response to help people and how they're being responsible. >> most everybody seems to be keeping their distance. there are a few that walk down the middle and you have to go around them. but for the most part, people are, you know, shifting out of the way of other people. >> do you think it's a good idea or bad idea to reopen the beach? >> i think it's a good idea for kind of helping people with mental health and everybody is cooped up for a long time. i know i needed some space and fresh air. everybody is doing the social distancing. i think it is a good idea. >> katy, as we come back out here, some aerials to look at how this beach looks from above. and you'll see that there is tons of spacing when you see it

from a different vantage point. it is tougher to tell when you're on the ground level. one of the favorite techniques, some people are building blocks of seaweed around the spots they marked off on the beach to keep other people away for six feet. whatever it takes, katy, here we are in 90 degree weather in tampa and people trying to make the best of it. back to you. >> sam, i'm so glad we saw that aerial shot so we could see the distance between people on their beach towels. we saw some of that seaweed lining to keep others away. we saw at the beginning when you started speaking, i'm not sure if can you see this because it's when the camera is panned out and you were very small. but in the beginning of the frame, there was a couple guys on atvs. are throws the police officers that you were just mentioning? and a beach goer just walked right up to them and shook the guy's hand and started talking in really close proximity. >> that i didn't see. i have seen the atvs. that's a combination of lifeguards and police officers.

shaking hands between crews whether they're officers or whether they be employees of the beach, lifeguards is a blatant contradiction of what they're talking about doing and practicing here. i didn't see. i'm going to take your word for it on. that clearly the messaging, if you look at the signs and what they're telling people right now is no contact and certainly six feet of spacing between groups. >> well that, was a remarkable thing to see. i'm sure folks at home saw it as well. sam brock, thank you so much as always. and now to nbc's katie beck who is in richmond, virginia. so for the last three days, a number of cases in virginia declined. the governor is going to address people today. what do we expect? >> the governor kind of hinted on friday that he was going to be meeting this weekend with his close advisors, top experts in the state trying to determine what the best course forward is for virginia in terms of reopening. he does have a ban on nonessential employees that ends on friday. right now it expires.

whether or not he'll allow that ban to expire or whether or not he'll change the date of the current stay at home order in virginia which is currently as we know the longest in the country. june 10th is the stay at home order here in virginia. it is yet to be determined. he is taking the podium to address those things. he has been under a tremendous amount of pressure recently, whether or not the governor will shift his position, he is firnl on the fa firm he wants to see the new cases declining for 14 days per. cdc guidelines before starting the first phase of reopening the state. >> katie beck in virginia. thank you. we'll keep an eye out for that. and joining me now is nbc news white house correspondent hans nichols. at the top of this hour bhengsed "the new york times" reporting of the private estimates from the white house about deaths per day for the coronavirus. what is the white house saying in response to that article? >> katy, we talk a lot about

social distancing. what is happening with this article is political distancing. and the white house is saying that this document is not part of any inner agency conversation. they're unaware of it. it's kbana combination of dismig it and downplaying and they don't understand thou document how 200,000 additional cases a day where it came from. we're going to show you an official white house statement that says this had nothing to do with the white house. this is a white house official on the record saying that this is not a white house document. nor has it been presented to the coronavirus task force or gone through the inner agency vetting. that is not reflective of the modelling done by its task force or the data the task force analyzed. you covered this building enough and understand the trump administration to understand the speed with which the white house responded to this report and "the new york times" tells us something. and that tells us they're very worried about public perceptions especially on the public health front. because the focus that we're

understanding, that we're hearing about is how you shift to the economy. we're going to get a jobs number on friday for the month of april. everyone in this building expects that to be disastrous numbers. just a question of disastrous they want the conversation to be focused on opening back up, not potentially how bad public health outcomes, whether or not this is coming from the cdc or somewhere else are going to be. so on the president's agenda, he has a couple trips. he's talked about this in the past. he heads out to arizona. he hinted he may also visit ohio. the thing we need to watch is which governor does he talk to and how does he work with the governors on those guidelines that they put out that had all those dating criterias to get to the next phase of reopening up parts of america? katy? >> we'll find out a lot about how the white house feels about the president's response on the health crisis, about whether we see any more of those coronavirus task force briefings that the president was heading up up until last week after the comment about injecting bleach

into your lungs. hans nichols, thank you very much. and with me now is professor of epidemiology at the ucla fielding. i want to talk about social distancing and the reopening of a number of states. there are states across the country starting to loosen restrictions, allowing businesses to reopen. and then there are states like new york where the restrictions are all still in place. the weather is getting nicer. and people are leaving their house. in large numbers. what do you do with a public that's been kept in side for as long as we have sore fash far a understands the risks but are leaving anyway. what is your best advice to keep people safe when they're not willing to keep going? >> this is so important it's

important for the united states, for the world, we're all dealing with this i think it makes sense that people are getting tired. but the risk of getting the virus hasn't changed. and dwoent hawe don't have the r the case identification and we don't have the contact tracing in place yet to be able to do the kind of opening that we would like to see. so i just think we need better communication. we need really good understanding from the public. and we need to draw on other experiences. the outbreak in west africa, we had this problem with being very fatigued with the restrictions in place. we need to really study what happened in other places, other epidemics and really start drawing on the lessons right now. >> there are people out there that still counting on the warmer weather, mitigating the

effects of this virus. mitigating the spread of this virus. is there any evidence out there to support that? >> there is no evidence at present. that is going to tell us with any certainty what's going to happen with this virus. we -- all we can do is to watch the data as it comes in and adjusts as it does. i think governor cuomo today had a very good press conference where he was discussing how they're going to be watching the metrics and watch the data dictate what will happen next. i think this is going key that we're in a totally unprecedented situation here. and we need to be following the data as closely as we can and be ready to adjust and to be ready to keep in mind the things will change over time and you spla to take a step back or with a step

forward with the data and the science should drive decision making. zbl zbl >> the death toll is now at 68,000 people. the president had to re-adjust predictions. he was hoping for 60,000 deaths. now he's talking about 100,000. the health experts are saying that could be higher. are you wore why i had that people are becoming not immune to these numbers but desensitized to these numbers? >> i am. i think that it's very -- as in anything, any situation where you is coming into every day and people are becoming a little bit desensitized. i think that the news and there is a projection again that numbers are being reviseden that we're going to see more cases more deaths most likely. and this is on going and what we

may see with relaxing of measures that people do take notice. again, i think this all comes down to risk messaging. and that people really need to understand where things are. i think some of the mixed messages have been very difficult for the public to try to navigate. >> let me get you on that mixed messaging. what you would advise officials tell americans? is it to wear a mask in public? is it to avoid indoor spaces. what would you be saying if you were trying to communicate that risk clearly? >> there are so many different pieces to this. it's not a single approach. you need to be attacking this from multiple fronts. so those things have not changed. i think we need to remind people of this. first, we need to be sure that people are wearing masks when they go outside.

this is i protect me from you, you pro metect me from you. social distancing. all of the hand washing and the hand hygiene, so critical. don't go out unless you have to go out. these are all the message that's i think need to be reinforced on daily basis. we know this from public health in general that regular messaging and having people understand the risks and what can happen is so critical. and i think that this will help over time. but there is no easy solution. if there was an easy solution, we would have no public health problems, right? i mean this is just complicated and difficult and i think people are beginning to understand the complexity of public health. >> but just like everything else, clear, consistent messaging goes a long way when you have people who are confused who don't understand the risk, who hear one thing from one lead eastern another thing from another leader.

they're going to go with the leader that they most trust or the recommendation that they most like. thank you so much for joining us and thanks for making it clear for our viewers here. and still ahead, as some states begin to reopen, we're going to take you to one town that is being forced to decide between keeping the residents safe and keeping america's grocery stores stocked. plus, we'll check back with a midwest e.r. doctor we've been talking to since the beginning of all. this he was worried about people not taking it seriously a few weeks ago. has that changed now that death toll nears 70,000? but first, the fda issued new rules on anti-body testing. scientists determine what having antibodies means. abilit abilitiy wayfair has way more ways to renovate your home,

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leaders are pledging billions of dollars as they plan to -- as they plan how to reopen the kun tru. this was supposed to be france's final week of lockdown. officials there are now considering extending restrictions for another two months. spain is continuing to emerge from its strict restrictions after reporting a second day of record low infections and deaths. today some businesses are opening their doors. anyone on public transit though is required to wear a mask. germany reported their lowest number of new coronavirus infections and deaths since march 31st. hair salons, museums and zoos there reopened today alongside

churches and schools. and in hard hit italy, europe's longest lockdown is beginning to lift. factories and construction sites began reopening today. public parks are back open for the first time in more than two months. joining me now is richard engel who is our chief foreign correspondent. he joins me now from rome. richard, what are you seeing there in italy as restrictions are being eased? >> this was a breath of fresh air for a lot of italians. this was a seminole moment. they're the first country that fwhee went into a nationwide lockdown. it is the first western country to be hard hit by covid-19 and people had been inside their homes by and large for the last two months. there were some exceptions. you could allow -- you could sign a document and say you were going to an essential work and, therefore, you needed to go out or you could sign a document saying you needed to go to the hospital.

but other than that, it was very difficult for people to be out and about. today the italian government entered what it calls phase two and people are now allowed to circulate. they can go to the park. they can visit close relatives. they can exercise. they don't need to explain where they are going when they come out. there aren't police on the streets by and large asking for papers. so this was an important move. i spoke with the deputy health minister. i spoke with a government adviser who's one of the scientific advisors. he 5:acknowledged this is a cautious move. lots of things here are still closed. what was open today were generally business that's don't attract a lot of crowds. so movie theaters still not open. concerts, clearly not open. funerals are allowed but only if they have 15 people. the list of regulations is a mile long. but they are starting to rollout

some procedures to give people a sense that there is light at the end of this tunnel. and today walking around rome, i saw smiles on people's faces. i met an elderly couple this is the first time they were outside of their home in nearly two months. and they said they felt like it was liberation day for them. so this was an important day for this country. and italy says by just entering into phase two it put more than four million people back in work today. >> that's so great to hear, richard. really great to hear people going outside and i'm sure there are a lot of folks that can't wait to get back to rome. the fda announced new rules for antibody tests. will all manufacturers must submit their test to the fda for review and prove their accuracy. the decision follows a congressional inquiry into the agency's decision to allow more than 100 manufacturers to bring tests to the market without review. a senior fda official tells p

"politico" the new rules are not related to that decision. dr. redleder, i'm going to start with the question of the fda. the new rules about antibody testing. what say you? >> so this is the latest chapter in our failure to have proper processes for the testing. it's just incredible. many of us were shocked to hear that tests were going out with some sort of fda approval or green light without being properly testeden that is a really unfortunate reality. we have to deal it with and make sure the processes get fixed immediately. we can't have test that's are not tested out on the open market right now. >> so what happens to the people who have already had an antibody test? can they be confident that they have the antibody it's they came back post? can they be confident fit came back negative? >> in short, they can't be

confident either way. we're getting false positives and false negatives in a variety of tests. this is a major problem. we're just not there yet unfortunately. >> do we know if you have immunity if you test positive for the antibody? south korea, there was questions about that. but now they're saying it looks like you do have immunity. what do we know? >> you probably do. we still don't know that for sure. there are people who have what they have is a resurgence in korea. people who had formally tested positive, in other words, they had antibodies but they still got symptoms. the data is not available to come to a definitive solution. we're just stuck with one other unknown in this puzzle that is

creating a lot of hafk. and even the policies that we're imposing to deal with it. >> so south korea's cdc found the test results for the relapses patients were false positives and warn the test it used was not able to distinguish between live traces of the virus and the harmless dead samples which remained after patient has recovered. all right. so enough with. that let's talk about social distancing or the reopening of states across this country. you just told me a moment ago that you're disturbed by. that you also had a conversation with a local mayor in georgia. describe it. >> yeah. the governor of georgia imposed an open everything edict without giving the mayor's any opportunity to reject it or

disagree with it. so what we have now are people laucking around attempting to open businesses, customers coming to stores now without knowing whether people are positive or negative. i just saw a modelling demonstration this morning showing that it is highly likely that we're going to see a big climb in fatalities from coronavirus because of this new regulation by the governor. ott other problem is we have 30 other states that are playing the same kind of thing. we don't have enough testing or contact tracing. other people's lives are going to be based on this decision and

premature to open back up. this is no longer about warning citizens about how to use ppe. people are getting that message. but who is not getting the message apparently are 31 american governors and i can't say this strongly enough as you're hearing my voice, it is too early. we don't have the tools we need to open safely, period. katy? >> i'm going to take you to one town that keep meat processing plants open with the safety of the workers. we'll check back in with an e.r. doctor we talked to at the beginning of the outbreak. things will reopen and it is not only a question of science but philosophy, economy, and morality too. lactaid is 100% real milk, just without the lactose.

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state and local officials are trying to figure out how to comply with the president's order to keep meat processing centers open. one plant is still closed, the tyson pork processing plant in iowa believed to be linked to 90% of that area's coronavirus cases. we're in waterloo, iowa, at that tyson pork processing plant. 1

what are you hearing now? >> much of iowa is starting to reopen. the cases are rising. they're above 1500 now. and that is largely due to what happened at this pork processing plant according to local public health officials. and, you know, they say they were pretty concerned when they heard that order from donald trump about reopening. the employees are pretty worried. i spoke to someone that works here at tyson. he tested positive for covid-19 himself. he told me he wants to work. he wants to go and earn that paycheck. but he also talked about the panic that set in among employees fearful for their lives when this plant was still open. i even learned someone he worked with did pass away. the thought of going back to work is pretty terrifying for people like him. take a listen to what he had to

say. >> we have seen a couple things that they were trying to implement before we left. you talk about social distance. it's hard to have social distance and you work side by side. so i don't know what they can do to really ease the tension. >> we did talk to tyson. they told us they're not planning to reopen despite the president's order until they implemented measures to protect workers and until county officials here agree that it is safe for people to go back to work and when we talked to the sheriff here who has been in communication with tyson, he said he's optimistic about the progress they're making and right now he's taking them at their word that they'll wait to reopen until everyone agrees it's safe. katy? >> stay safe out there. i hope you're not too close to that highway. the cars were zooming by pretty fast. thank you. today indiana begins phase

two of the governor's plan to lift restriction as cross most of the state. as we're seeing in many states as indiana moves toward a post coronavirus future, it's health care workers are still in the thick of it. joining me now is dr. stephen sample in jasper, indiana. we last spoke to him a month ago. it's been a month. thoord blechlt i feel like i'm on a hamster wheel locked in this house or doing -- talking about the story every day. the cases have skyrocketed in this country. we're at 68,000 now. how has it changeded or not changed things where you are? >> so in rural indiana, hey, katie, not a lot has changed for us. we're still seeing a nice steady upsi uptick in cases day by day. i looked up our numbers this

morning. my hospital in southwestern indiana serves about eight counties in general. as of this morning, they have reported a total of 233 cases with 25 total deaths out of the eight counties that we service. it's still invisible to the people here. >> that's the number of cases nationally and the debate about whether to reopen whether to wear masks, et cetera, has that changed the behavior of locals around you? >> i did see a real hard turn people mass beik heavily in pub. people doing the best they could to stay away from each other in the stores. over this past weekend, it seems like we've taken a little bit of a turn in the wrong direction. my buddy almost got in a fight because somebody wouldn't keep their distance and wouldn't wear

a mask. he saw 10% to 20% of the people wearing masks, entire families out, kind of still mixed bag. let's put it that way. >> what are local officials there saying? >> so they're being very cautious. they're doing best they can. i think to fall in line with the news that's coming out of our governor's office and trying to participate safely if phase two. phase two started to day. we're all going to try to get an idea how that is going to work. i think we're allowed to have gatherings up to 25 people. the retail stores can start opening at 50% capacity. and then starting next week, we get a lot more stuff opening up, hair appointments, hair salons. people are chomping at the bit to get out. i think our officials are doing a good jofb being cautiously optimistic with the people but still wanting them to take their

time. >> is your hospital expecting a rise in cases? are you ready if it comes? >> nobody knows if they're ready until the wave comes. here's what i do know. because of the sacrifice of all of my colleagues and in new york and louisiana and seattle, i know that i've had an extra six weeks to get my mind right for it. i know that my emergency department has been watching their ppe supply like crazy. more importantly as a physician, i know more about how to treat this disease today than i did six weeks ago. so are we ready? we're as ready as we're going to be. looks like we're about to find out. >> let's hope you're ready. always good to check in with you, dr. sample. >> thanks, katy. still to come, the

importance of wearing a mask. when not wearing one, it puts the people around you at risk. first, the president's adviser and son-in-law squares off with michigan over why more testing is not being done. michigan's lieutenant governor joins me in just a moment. this is decision tech. find a stock based on your interests or what's trending. get real-time insights in your customized view of the market. it's smarter trading technology for smarter trading decisions. fidelity.

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how we're helping restaurants open pop-up markets. and encouraging all americans to take out to give back. adversity came to town. so we looked it in the eye. and it won't be us... that blinks first. i do motivational speakingld. in addition to the substitute teaching. i honestly feel that that's my calling-- to give back to younger people. i think most adults will start realizing that they don't recall things as quickly as they used to or they don't remember things as vividly as they once did. i've been taking prevagen for about three years now. people say to me periodically, "man, you've got a memory like an elephant." it's really, really helped me tremendously. prevagen. healthier brain. better life. e # #. jared kushner struck a nerve with some of the nation's governors when he told "the washington post," "we figured out how to get all of the states

enough complete testing kits to do the testing that they have requested. the biggest thing holding us back is not supplies or capacity, it's the states' ability to collect more samples." that's not so according to the michigan governor that said the fault lies with the federal government. >> many of us are still looking to get swabs and reagents and additional test kits and so we never been able to get to full capacity because we are missing things in the supply chain. that's why we've called on a national strategy on these fronts. >> in a follow up statement to cnn, he struck a more diplomatic tone saying, "we have had several discussions with michigan officials where they relaid the ambitious goal to perform 450,000 tests in may. fema and dhs outlined a path way to supply the request.

we're rooting gore governor it with myrrh to achieve the ambitious goal she set and will work with her to get there." i'm joined about it lieutenant governor of michigan garland gilchrist ii. thank you very much for being with us. can you explain this back and forth between governor whitmer and jared kushner? >> we're working hard to ramp up our testing capacity. we can only do that in partnership with the federal government. what the governor expressed is the case. we have a lcapacity but we needa robust supply chain of swabs and reagents to help us get to beyond the 65 or 70% of our lab capacity that we're testing now. we set an ambitious goal. we need more testing in michigan to be able to have people safely re-engage in economic activity.

we're glad that mr. jared kushner updated the rhetoric and response and showing that fema has been working with us this whole time and working to meet aggressive goals so michigan people can get back to work safely. >> so michigan is still a hot spot. tell me where you are when it comes to the supplies you need to get the tests done and how is the federal government helping right now? >> we've had had a really good set of communications with fema and with the health and human services department. and we're still just over 50% of our lab capacity right now. but as we get not only more testing sites but also more testing methods we're looking to enable most testing, walk up testing, drive through testing, targeted testing for vulnerable populations like low income people and nursing homes. we can get there with that supply chain being morrow bust. we're on a path toward that with the testing we want to complete here in the month of may. and i think that the feds are now ready to be able to supply us. they see the work that we're

doing in michigan, how we're working together, what entities all across the state. and we believe this is going to help us not only take care of our vulnerable populations, our people of color who have seen an impact on this -- from this coronavirus epidemic and we're going to be able to get what we need here in michigan. >> can i talk about the impact that you've seen personally? something like 15 people in your orbit have succumb to this disease? >> unfortunately that number is now 18. and the number of people who are infected or who are hospitalized on ventilators or quarantineded has grown way beyond that. and what it shows is that this is real. and, you know, as a person that lives in detroit as a black person, many people in my community struggled with this uniquely. we make up 14% of the population in our state. we accounted for 40% of the deaths. that is why i'm the chairperson of our coronavirus task force and racial disparities.

we're asking for protocol updates. it's killing people every day. >> the president had said in the past few days that governor whitmer should negotiate with the protesters that stormed the capital the other day, some were carrying semiautomatic weapons. how did you interpret that? >> well, to speak to the protesters directly, people carrying semiautomatic waves and waving confederate flags in the chamber that i preside over as the president, it's uncalled for. that was not about public health. that was about politics. and the president suggests that we need to negotiate our public health is not the direction we're taking through this epidemic. we're putting people's health and science first. that's what we're going to do to make sure we keep the people safe. with their confidence comes our economy. but they're only going to be confident if they know they're sauf and we have the public health capacity to take care of

them if they get sick. >> garland gilchrist ii. we're so sorry to hear about the way this disease affected you personally and all those out there who have had horrible times dealing with this disease or have had it affect one of their loved ones or family members. lieutenant governor, thank you very much for joining us. >> thank you, katy, for having me. everyone, please stay safe. and next up, the life you save could be a stranger, it could be a front line woker, or maybe it could be someone you love. stay with us.

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that family doesn't have to take out of their house. it relieves stress off of me to let me know i'm doing something good for the community, not just papa john's.

i'm doing something good for the community, a master'sdgren, youin chemical engineering., and you're technically a genius... and it appears you're quite the investor. i like to trade. well, td ameritrade has pros ready if you need help, say talking through a new strategy... ... just in case things, you know, get a little rocky? i'm sorry on the upside i think that's waterproof. maybe not... ♪ the cdc has recommended anyone who goes outside and cannot social distance to wear a face mask. other states have made it not a suggestion, but an order, like new york and new jersey. as governor andrew cuomo noted today, it can literally be a matter of life and death. >> i think local governments

should enforce it and i think there should be a penalty. you could literally kill someone. you could literally kill someone because you didn't want to wear a mask. i mean, how -- how cruel and irresponsible would that be? >> joining me now is nbc news investigations correspondent, tom winter. so tom, a lot of videos circulating from over the weekend of crowds across new york city and the way that the nypd was responding. bring us up to speed. >> so, katy, what we know is that on saturday alone, there were 86 summons issued, which given the amount of people who were outside, that's probably not that high of a number. in total, that brings just a little over 400 summons that have been issued, according to an interview i did with chief monahan, the chief of department over the weekend in some of those new statistics since this coronavirus pandemic began. so when you look at the, literallily now, hundreds of thousands of social distancing, enforcement stops that the nypd has made, that includes stopping

at restaurants and bars and stores, making sure, rather, that the ones that should be closed are closed, but on top of that, katy, that people are out in the parks, as we're looking at on the screen, that they're also social distancing, as well. that that's going on, on top of that, each officer over the weekend received five cloth face masks that they were able to hand out to people, so if someone forgot one while they were running or someone needed one that was in the a park, they could hand those out, as well. that's what they're doing from an enforcement standpoint, trying to be really cautious about not over-summonsing people, giving out tickets for people for so long, while at the same time, making sure that people are being safe. that's really the delicate balance, katy, that they're dealing with right now. >> it's hard, especially in new york city, where people are cooped up inside tiny apartments. i walked through a park on saturday and there was an nypd officer driving around saying that any groups over five that are not family groups would be separated to social distance.

it's not just new york that's experiencing this, tom. there are places around the country where park rangers or other officers or officials are trying to get more people to wear masks. here's a video from austin, texas, that surfaced over the weekend of a park ranger trying to get somebody to wear a mask. we don't have the sound on it, but the park ranger was politely asking people, and some kid, it shows in the video, went up and pushed the park ranger into the water. there are reports that that young man was then arrested. tom, the way that this is being enforced across the country is unequal. >> you know, katy, the biggest challenge, i think, for all of these departments is each single state, because we don't have a national strategy, each single state within a state, depending upon the county or the city, has all sorts of different rules depending on how many people should be in a group, how many people should be together in a park or a particular establishment. so it's not uniform. it's difficult to get the

messaging out there. and i think one of the concerns that law enforcement has across the country, i know it's a concern here in new york, is, look, you've got a year's long effort here to develop stronger relationships with your communities, to develop a more kind of comprehensive and compassionate response to issues in various communities and now, and i know this is a concern of the new york city police department's largest union, the pba here in new york, the president speaking out earlier today essentially saying, look, this is a real concern for us going forward, how do we enforce this and are we taking our eye off the ball of crime fighting, as these issues come up and where do we go from here? >> it's about developing trust and not wanting to break that trust. nbc's tom winter. tom, thank you so much. and here's the thing about masks, everyone. yes, they're hot. yes, they're uncomfortable. and yes, they may look a little silly, but they are important. not just to protect yourself, but to protect all of those around you. health officials have said they don't know how many of us may be

asymptomatic spreaders. in other words, even if you feel great, you still might be spreading this virus. wearing a mask stops that. according to research, even a cotton mask can stop 99% of your germs from flying out of your mouth and on to someone else. and if we all stop 99% of our germs from flying on to somebody else, this virus has fewer places to live. and then we, all of us, can have more places to live, places beyond our living rooms, parks, stadiums, shops, planes, the entire world. so wear a mask when you go outside. if you don't want to do it for someone else, do it for the part of you that is tired of the lockdown. it is like the head gear that i was supposed to wear at night when i was 10 years old. it was uncomfortable and i thought it looked dumb, so i didn't wear it. then two years later, i had braces again because i didn't wear the stupid head gear the first time around.

let's not be dumb like i was at 10 years old. let's not do this lockdown again. wear a mask. that'll do it for me today. brian williams and nicole wallace pick things up after a very quick break. - when i noticed

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hi, everyone. it's 3:00 in the east, 12 noon out west. i'm nicole wallace. brian williams will be back with us at this hour tomorrow. here are the facts as we know them this hour. there are nearly 1.2 million confirmed cases of coronavirus here in the u.s. more than 68,000 americans have now died from the virus. but the actual numbers are likely to be far higher. only about 2% of americans have been tested. new jersey governor phil murphy announced today that schools in his state will remain closed for the rest of the school year. according to "education week," 45 states and washington, d.c.

have announced school closures through at least june. the u.s. senate returns to work at this hour, despite a stay-at-home order for the washington, d.c., area. senators are not expected to focus on pandemic relief, but on the confirmation process for some presidential nominations. and if you have to fly, don't forget your mask. delta, united, and jetblue now require all passengers to wear face coverings while traveling. other u.s. airlines say they plan to implement similar rules in the coming days. and the carnival cruise line, they announced today that they plan to resume some of their north american operations on august 1st, when eight ships will set sail from ports in florida and texas. now, as president trump pushes states to reopen, his administration has evidence that doing so could make things much worse. "the new york times" obtained an internal document which projects that there could be up to 200,000 new cases a day by the beginning of june.

that's almost ten times more than the average of 25,000 new cases a day right now. there could also be 3,000 deaths every day. that's up from an average of 1750 deaths a day right now. "the times" reports those projections are based on cdc models and pulled together by fema, but a white house spokesman said in a statement, quote, this is not a white house document nor has it been presented to the coronavirus task force or gone through interagency vetting. this data is not reflective of any of the modeling done by the task force or the data that the task force has analyzed. one all of comes one day after the president revised his expected death toll during a fox news virtual town hall. >> look, we're going to lose anywhere from 75, 80, to 100,000 people. that's a horrible thing. you said, 60 -- >> i used to say 65,000 and now i'm saying 80 or 90, and it goes up, and it goes up rapidly.

but it's still going to be, no matter how you look at it, at the very lower end of the plane if we did the shutdown. >> but the president's top public health adviser still say that number will be much higher than that. >> our projections have always been between 100 and 240,000 american lives lost. and that's with full mitigation and us learning from each other of how to social distance. >> we are keeping an eye on california governor gavin newsom, who is briefing at this hour. if he makes news on any of the reopening plans for his state of california, we'll bring them to you. joining our conversation, robert costa, "washington post" national political reporter and moderator of "washington week" on pbs, and ben rhodes, who served as deputy national security adviser during the obama administration. lucky for us, both of them are msnbc contributors. robert costa, i want to start with you, and i would like for you to take me through what "the post" reported this weekend. because this white house statement is very curious. they're saying that this

reporting on the numbers doubling, it sounds like, by june 1st, is not coming from the white house coronavirus task force. well, it sounds like that all that happens to numbers and projections, once it gets into the hands of the political people, is a lot of distortion. that's what you're reporting about the document very much driven by the economic pressure the president feels and the political pressure seem to point to this weekend. tell us about it. >> you remember the theme during the watergate reporting. it was follow the money. it is routinely not follow the money, necessarily, but follow the information, and the information flow into this white house, into this administration is often hard to follow, because you have the task force, you have the president, you also have jared kushner, his senior adviser and son-in-law, working with his own team. you have kevin hassett doing economic modeling at the same

time. you have hhs, you have outside groups and universities from the university of washington top johns hopkins doing their own data. so it's hard, even for people inside, sources, officials to sometimes track, what exactly is the president seeing, what are people on the task force seeing and so that's how you have a situation like today, confusion over the actual amount of deaths that are predicted. >> well, bob costa, you evoked hair raising on my arms when you invoked watergate. and there is a scandalous impact of data once it comes into this white house. tell me if there is a single instance, a single line in a single story where anything became more truthful once it went into the political process. it seems to go the other direction. and the president's statement is almost contradicted within 60 to 90 minutes by the things that his public health officials were saying yesterday about the death toll projections.

>> part of the challenge for health experts inside this administration is they do, at times, have a period with the president where they can present information like we saw with dr. birx and dr. fauci, when they told him that reopening around easter wouldn't make any sense. they pulled him back from that. and at the same time, you also see that this administration is struggling at times to figure out, what is actually the death projection going to be when you have states that are reopening that are not following federal guidelines? so we're in this moment now where states are beginning to reopen, often against the way the federal government and dr. birx has advised, and that changes everything when it comes to the calculation of cases and the death toll. >> you know, ben rhodes, i can't read these death tolls without having a physical reaction to the projection that things are about to get worse. there is a grimness and i wonder, and i really -- i'm not

asking you to be a psychologist here, but i wonder if some of the flouting of the recommendations is almost a denial. i mean, we're about to see more people die. we're about to see infections spike if these new numbers or even donald trump's own sort of conceding yesterday that the death toll would be 40,000 people, 40,000 grandparents, mothers, fathers, and in some instances, doctors and first responders higher than what he had said. so if he's giving that much, you have to wonder if these new projections of them going almost twice as high as they've been by june 1st are what we should really be bracing for. >> yeah, nicole. and what's bracing is that behind every one of those numbers, it's a human being and it's a family and it's a community that's lost somebody. and that kind of empathy for what's happening in the country is part of what's been missing here. i think part of what's also so dangerous, nicole, is the mixed messaging that you alluded to, where you're getting sort of one set of messages from the public

health experts and a different set of messages from the president. we saw that two months ago when he said that the cases wouldn't go down to zero. we saw that a couple of weeks ago when he went out and suggested there would be this big success, because the death toll would be 60,000. at every juncture, nicole, the actual facts of what happened have been worse than what has been communicated by the president and his political team. the reason i'm very concerned about that, nicole, in order for this economy to actually reopen, the goal that trump wants, first of all, what we should be doing is that we should be solving the problems around testing and contact tracing that he doesn't seem to be particularly interested in. but also, people are going to have to trust the information that they're getting from the government to have confidence to go back to work, to have confidence to go to a restaurant. to have confidence to get on an airplane. and we're in a circumstance where we really cannot trust the information coming to us from leaders. that's not a partisan statement. that's just the reality that we've lived through the last couple of months. so in the rush to put a rosy spin on these things, to get things open, they're actually

undermining both of their capacity to get the public health response right and their capacity to build that trust with the american people to go back to work. >> i want to ask you -- i want to get both of you on the record on the new reporting on pompeo and trump and their narrative arc, if you will, on what the intel said. but i want to stay with where you are, ben rhodes, and this question of leadership. you've got the sad truth and only a handful of government officials acknowledging it at this point that basically what we're doing hasn't worked as well as we had opened. it may be brought us to our peak, but it hasn't brought us anywhere near the drop-off that i think people had opened for. and certainly not the drop-offs and the avoidance of a high peak in places like south korea. i wonder how much you can attribute to donald trump cheering on the protesters, liberate virginia, telling the governor of michigan to go sit down with the armed, basically, rioters at the state capital

there. how much responsibility do you think the president holds for that? >> well, i think a significant amount of responsibility, nicole. because if you look at the countries where there was an effective response, like south korea, like we're starting to see in places like germany, it was the combination of social distancing with very clear warnings from the government, with the ramp up in testing and contact tracing and the capacity to make science-based decisions about what it takes for people to go back and resume normal activities. what we've seen kind of bizarrely in this country is on the one hand, as you alluded to, dr. birx and some of the public health experts clearly will not advise people to go out in large groups like that. clearly would not advise people to gather like that in public places. and yet the people who are doing that are feeling emboldened and supported by the president of the united states. so you literally have a situation where the president is counteracting his own public health experts. he, and i think his various

megaphones, both in the rk pa y republican party, and in some cases on other cable news networks are leading people to believe that it is somehow okay to be doing this. and we know from the science that those kinds ofga gathering are going to spread the disease. and what's sto frustrating is even if many of us are doing things the right way and staying home and abiding the social distancing guidelines, you can't, as a community, stamp out this outbreak. you cannot contain this disease, unless everybody is in this together. and you have a situation where the president's own words are working against the objectives, the public health objectives of his own team, and frankly, the reality that the country is living through, as this pandemic is not being brought down, the curve is not being bent here in the united states like other countries. again, i think the critical thing is, evacuate our numbers against the numbers of comparable countries. and what you're seeing across the board is that those other countries are outperforming us and bending the curve.

>> robert costa, the president tweeted about a lot of things this weekend. one of them was reporting about the intelligence that he saw. he wrote this. intelligence has just reported to me that i was correct and they did not bring up the coronavirus subject matter until late into january. just prior to my banning china, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. i assume "the washington post" stands its by reporting by greg miller and company last week that the pdb was briefing the president or included briefings on coronavirus in january or february, which did not result in much follow up discussion or certainly not any sort of activation of any white house-directed task force? >> "the washington post" does stand by its reporting. and it gets back to my point about the flow of information. follow the information. because just because something is in the presidential briefing book or something is mentioned in a task force meeting, i'm often asking white house

officials or top republicans who are in communication with the president and his team, well, what actually has the president seen, what is he digesting in terms of information? and that's always an open questions, at times. because there is this wide federal apparatus around him that has briefing books, that has different meetings, different advisory groups. but he, himself, is monitoring cable news, having his own outside of council, not beyond the chain of command, and that complicates the federal response of every turn. >> ben rhodes, we're almost out of time, but i can't leave without letting you weigh in. >> well, as someone who led the presidential daily briefing for eight years, it is absolutely inconceivable that information that was being reported in the newspaper in january wasn't in that pdb. so when you look at it and trump is claiming that wasn't in his pdb for weeks while it was being

publicly reported, it's completely unbelievable. what it does tell me, though, is we know that he's politicized intelligence, he's rejected intelligence assessments that he doesn't think make him look good and cherry picked and looked for intelligence or demanded intelligence that makes him look good. we know he has basically a political operative right now who's the acting director of national intelligence. and again, tragically, in a pandemic where we need to be able to trust how our intelligence is being characterized, we're in a big fight with china, for instance, about the origins of this disease. there's just no way you can look at the statements that the president of the united states makes about intelligence and believe that they're true. >> there's no clearer way to put it. ben rhodes and bob costa, a perfect day to hear from both of you. thanks so much for starting us off. as we watch the projections for infections and deaths rise, we're also seeing behavior around the country that has the potential to make things worse. today, beachgoers in florida crowded on to clearwater beach, which reopened under new social

distancing guidelines this morning after making national headlines during spring break back in march. nbc's sam brock joins us live now from the beach in clearwater, florida. i do not see everything going on behind you, but i i cancan't se masks in the shot behind you. >> not a single mask. and nicole, that's not even a requirement for coming on the beach, that you would have to. i haven't seen one all day. let's get sort of the ground rules for what's going on here right now, established. this is not spring break here in clearwater, but it's not nothing, either. if you look over my shoulder, you'll see just rows and rows of people as far as the eye can see. that probably goes down a mile, nicole. there's 35 miles of pristine sand here that are opening up. it's in pinellas county. the sheriff just spoke a little while ago speaking about the fact that many of the beaches in this county are hitting their threshold of what they're comfortable with, which is 50%. and they're having to shift people on to other beaches and asking if they can open up other beaches. that was one of his points. the other is, this is what is

called a compression shot. you're looking at me in a tunnel down the beach. if you would look at this from above, you'll see that a lot of these groups here are generally social distanced. there is at least 6 feet between them. are some people breaking the rules, absolutely? i've seen people tossing around footballs. obviously, everyone tosses a ball when it gets tossed to another person. there are people who are blocking themselves off with seaweed to protect the space between themselves and whoever is next to them. we talked to a woman today who describes exactly why it's so important that they adhere to the rules because they are worried if they don't, it will be taken away. >> it is the right timing. everyone are being responsible and they are going to continue being responsible and following the guidelines, because as i said, we don't want to lose this privilege. and no one does. we don't want to stay home

anymore. >> nicole, this is one county in florida -- you know, i would have to say that there are -- most of the beaches in the state that remain closed right now. governor desantis has not given explicit directions as to what counties can or cannot do. they've left it in their discretion whether they want to open or not. for most part, the areas they've left open are the florida panhandle. the three biggest counties, the economic engine of florida, nicole, would be the miami-dade county, broward county, palm beach county area. those spots remain closed, the beaches do, and this whole ecosystem relies on the beach. the hotels, the restaurants, the stores that are all opening up in other parts of florida today, they're all intricately woven together. that's what's going on here. it is still locked down in southern florida, but we're waiting the see if it's going to be june until it reopens or perhaps an earlier date. nicole? >> nbc's sam brock. thank you for spending some time with us. the beach looks beautiful. stay safe. when we come back, a call for national unity by the 43rd

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when donald trump won the 2016 election and assumed the presidency, he threw out virtually all of the presidential norms of his predecessors, traditionally in times of national crisis, a

president calls on former presidents, regardless of any past political divisions to come together and provide a spirit of unity for the entire nation when they are fearful or grooefg. now that more than 60,000 americans are dead as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, it's former president george w. bush who's calling for an end to partisanship as the country grapples with the pandemic in a video released over the weekend. >> let us remember how small our differences are in the face of this shared threat. in the final analysis, we are not partisan combatants. we are human beings, equally vulnerable and equally wonderful in the sight of god. we rise or fall together and we are determined to rise. god bless you all. >> we are determined to rise, to which donald trump responded in a tweet saturday, quote, nowhere to be found and speaking up

against the greatest hoax in american history, a reference to his impeachment. we're all left to assume. joining us now, pulitzer prize-winning historian and presidential biographer, jon meacham. he's also an msnbc contributor. i don't want to talk about donald trump, but that video from george w. bush lays bare something that i was trying to get at, much less eloquently last week, with brian williams when i said, we've been robbed of that part of the presidency that grievous with us. that when we're alone in our car on the way back from the grocery store, peeling off our gloves and masks and you sob for all the lives lost, there's no feeling that the president is anywhere in that residence sobbing with you. >> no, fdr said in the wake of september 11th, 1932, that the presidency was preeminently a place of moral leadership,

meaning there's a spiritual dimension to the office. woodrow wilson, for all his faults, had the insight that the presidency enables a man to be as big as he can. and what we've seen, tragically, in the last three years is that obviously also the obverse is true, that you can be as small as you can. i think the presidency is a mystical office and people get upset about that and they think that people like me or overly romantic or sentimental about it. but as a matter of clinical observation, the country tends to do better when a president, as you say, is empathetic and signals that his concerns and cares are our concerns and cares. and vice versa. and for all the controversy about george w. bush, for all the controversy about bill clinton, for all the controversy about barack obama, george h.w. bush, we could go back to washington. for all of those controversies, there was this sense in moments

of crisis, that they filled a certain moral leadership. and that's simply not what we have now. >> donald trump did something on fox yesterday in an interview or something at the lincoln memorial. >> yeah. >> and he said that he gets -- he said this. i'm greeted by a hostile press, the likes of which no president has ever seen. they always said nobody got treated worse than lincoln. i believe i am treated worse. do you think he knows what happened to lincoln? >> vaguely, he probably saw a trailer for the movie at some point. you know, it's -- we have to remember, we're dealing with a president who is the human equivalent of an open synapse, right? it's just reaction. it's just nerve endings. and that's all it is. and there's not -- you know, there's not a strategy to it or strategery, in honor of president bush. it's just what we -- what we're

living in this narcissistic drama, where too many of us, including, dare i say it, you and i right now, we're enabling it, right? we're talking about it. he doesn't think, i suspect, that we're swing voters, so he doesn't care what we think. and perhaps this will become fodder to stoke -- so we're all part of this drama. and i think you have to acknowledge that. we have to acknowledge that. my own view, and i think it's your view, too, is if you don't speak up and speak out, as john lewis would put it, then you are not fulfilling your role in a democracy, lower case "d." on the lincoln thing, you know, you don't -- everett dirkson once said, every politician has to get right with lincoln. and i think trump's version of that is, predictably, he's just someone whom he, trump, can outstrip in some way. >> i want to ask you something

seriously and personally. i mean, the take from people like yourself, historians, former officials of democratic and republican administrations, including people who were there on 9/11, some people who were there on the bin laden raid, some people who were there on the newtown shooting, is that we're going to -- we would -- there was always a sense that we would be okay, because there were people who listened to their better angels, there were people who may not have been able to get everyone to vote for them, but they were able to, in moments when the country was on its figurative knees, lead them. do you think we're going to be okay? >> i do, but i think it's going to be despite the president, not because of him. i believe that eleanor roosevelt had a marvelous observation in the last book that she wrote. she sort of kept herself alive in 1962 to finish this book, it's called "tomorrow is now." and she wrote that one thing i am certain of, we make our own history. and the destiny of the nation is

more often shaped by the decisions and voices of the many as opposed to the decisions and choices of the few. and i do believe that. and i think that it's going to be a close-run thing, as wellington said of waterloo, but i think that ultimately, we are a country that just about gets it right a little bit more often than we get it wrong. and it's a close run -- again, it's a close-run thing. it's easy for someone like me, you know, i'm a white southern episcopalian. things tend to work out for me, by and large. it's easy for me to say that. i didn't live under a century of segregation, where i couldn't fully participate in the life of the nation. i'm not a woman, so i wasn't excluded from the suffrage until 1920. i understand that. but i still think, by and large,

people would prefer to be here fighting this fight than being somewhere else. and that speaks for itself, i think. >> i guess i asked the question, too, in that spirit of the people that have less -- have more at risk, you know, the elderly, the most vulnerable population who is seem to be paying the highest price. jon meacham, eleanor roosevelt and waterloo, that's why everyone loves you. thanks for spending some time with us. >> thanks. it's back-to-work day in washington, d.c., but certainly not back to normal. that story, next. ♪ limu emu & doug

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