good afternoon. i'm chuck todd. here are the facts as we know them this hour. one of president trump's personal valets has tested positive for the coronavirus. deputy press secretary hogan gidley tells nbc use the president has once again tested negative. this hour the senate will vote

on whether to override president trump's veto of a resolution that was designed to limit his power to engage in a war with iran without congressional approval. a two-thirds vote in both chambers is required to undo a presidential veto. could get those numbers in the house. doesn't look like they'll get the numbers in the senate, and the vote is expected to fail. bill de blasio announced his city will work to provide nearly 300,000 antibody tests to residents in the coming weeks. part of a larger attempt to determine who may have already had the virus and who might potentially be immune. but will these be reliable tests? these antibody tests. that doesn't seem like we have a home run there yet. nearly 3.2 million americans filed first-time unemployment claims last week. it now brings the total to more than 33 million since the shutdown began. we'll get a fuller picture of the jobs numbers when tomorrow's april monthly report is due.

it comes out at 8:30 tomorrow morning. it's expected to be a rough number. joining me is my co-anchor for the next two hours, katy tur in beacon, new york. a little more than an hour north of new york city. and katy, before you give us the lay of the land there, once again, the seriousness of this virus, the unpredictability of this virus, showing itself up very close to our president. we've seen the prime minister of the uk. you've got the -- i believe the new prime minister in russia has had it. the virus doesn't know the boundaries or the red and blue and rules the way the rest of us think we do. >> no, it doesn't. i've been continually surprised and shocked at the way the white house has treated the seriousness of this in their own daily dealings. the number of people that were crowded onto the dais.

nobody wearing masks. touching the same things as everyone else is touching. a point where they were still shaking hands. the president refusing to wear a mask at the mask factory. it just seems when so much of america is taking this as seriously as it is wearing masks and avoiding other people, they're not leading by example, and this is showing everybody about how serious this is and how contagious it is. and how close it can get to the seat of power. >> no doubt. all right, katy. where are you? tell us about -- >> chuck, let me tell you about where we are. if there's such a thing as the backbone of america, the vertebrae are made up of thousands of smaller towns and cities like the one i enemy rig -- am in right now, beacon. made up of small towns and

businesses that support the local economy and also support the financial security of a lot of the town's residents. and beacon is taking the shutdown as hard as anywhere else here. shuttered stores up and down this main street that are just waiting for the okay from governor cuomo to reopen. earlier this week, the governor announced that some parts of the state can begin the reopening process this month once certain conditions are met. in hudson valley, it isn't quite there yet. the area still seeing dozens of new cases every day. but county officials are working together to plan out how they are going to get people back to work, what it's going to look like, and they're targeting the middle of this month of may as a potential starting point. i spoke to the mayor of beacon just a moment ago who told me he remains optimistic about the future of his city, even as he acknowledges that not every business will be able to reopen. how many of these businesses are

going to survive? >> i don't have a crystal ball for that, but we're going to lose some. if you ask us how are we suffering the most right now? because we've got so many local businesses on main street, our business owners and many of their workers are suffering. we're going to lose some. i don't know if we'll be worse off than other places. probably about the same rate as elsewhere. we'll come back. we're an incredibly popular community before. we'll be that again. >> chuck, i want to go back to the back injury analogy i was just using. you can get a back injury that can hurt you for the rest of your life, but if you have sprains or breaks in your vertebra or sprains and breaks in these local, smaller town economies, smaller city economies, that can hurt the national economy for a long time to come. these injuries can be haunting. and who knows what it's going to look like on the other side of this. for this next hour we'll explore what these businesses are doing,

how they are trying to survive and what they plan on doing once they are able to reopen. >> yes, and, look, these communities, too, many of these smaller towns and smaller cities over the last couple of years have also been investing into their downtowns. and this is where there could be some -- it was sort of the last of the downtowns that got invested in, and now they're the first ones that are going to feel, i think, some of this pain as all this starts to come undone. let's move now to ohio. the governor there, mike dewine, is in a showdown with fellow republicans. those lawmakers in the statehouse over his stay-at-home orders. dewine, obviously, a republican himself, says he'll veto any legislation that limits the authority of ohio's health director, the state legislature there trying to pull back on how much power she has to shut things down. they passed a republican-backed measure that would restrict the

mandatory stay-at-home orders to 14 days and any extension would require the approval from the state's legislative body, not the health director. lawmakers passed a bill decreasing penalties for violating the ohio coronavirus pandemic order. joining me is laura queso. i'm curious, are there enough votes to override the governor's veto, and if not, is there any sort of compromise that the governor is willing to make with this republican legislature? >> well, they need a super majority in the house and senate. but just to bring you back to all of this, how it unfolded, this is happening as the state of ohio continues to open up in phases, right? we're in the middle of that right now. more than 21,500 coronavirus cases in the state. and now we have what you just touched on. house lawmakers basically

wanting to put a cap on the power of dr. amy acton, ohio's department of health director. now this still has to go to the state senate for approval, but either way, like you said, the governor plans to veto this. now just to set the land of kind of the relationship between the governor and the health director, kind of set the stage here, they've been working together nonstop, and they have received a lot of praise, chuck. locally, but also nationally with articles coming up really nonstop. and dr. amy acton has really pulled in a lot of people, right, for her compassion, her vulnerability. in a time like this, chuck, all we really want is comfort, and she is comfort to many ohioans. and the facebook fan page with 134,000 fans on it, for dr. amy acton. she's on t-shirts. near cleveland, she's on cake pops. people really like this woman, but then you have the others who

are saying, not so fast. we don't want you to have this power. we don't want you to have another stay-at-home order that's longer than 14 days. in fact, here in ohio, the first stay-at-home order was issued back on march 23rd. at that time, we had three coronavirus deaths. so there's two different sides to this spectrum and she's also received a lot of people outside of her house. i'm talking protesters outside of the health director's house. she's not elected. she's a civil servant, and the governor is saying it's really not okay. he's saying if you have issues with what i'm doing, take it up with me. we actually have some sound from the governor. pretty powerful stuff. >> okay. great. let's take a listen to it. >> i'm the elected official. i'm the one who ran for office. i'm the one who makes the policy

decisions. the members of my cabinet, dr. acton included, work exceedingly, exceedingly hard. but i set the policy. so when you don't like the policy, again, you can demonstrate against me. >> now again, we do need a super majority to override the potential for the veto which the governor said he would do if that lands on his desk. 66 house votes and 23 in the senate. it's up in the air as of now. >> it is. governor dewine doesn't usually shrink from a fight on those. he doesn't seem to be as intimidated by some of the more conservative members of his party as we've seen with other governors in other states. so should be interesting to watch there. laura caso with wkyc in cleveland. thanks for your reporting on this. katy, over to you.

>> chuck, let's go overseas. there are over 4 million cases of coronavirus worldwide, but we still don't know when exactly it started infecting people outside of china. now officials in france are retesting samples from a patient that may show the virus was present one month before the first official case was reported in that country. nbc's molly hunter is in paris with us. this is so interesting because there are a lot of people out there who got sick in late december, got sick in early january and are wondering to themselves, did i have it? what are officials in france finding, and how are they trying to figure this out? >> that's exactly right. our personal thought process as we go back and say was that just a fever? was that just a stomach ache? are the same as medical researchers from california to washington to illinois and, of course, here in paris, where we are. they are going back, poring over

medical records. near france what they did, they went back to their icu patients in december. people who came in with influenza-like illnesses, tell-tale covid-19 symptoms. of course what we now know as covid-19 symptoms. they whittled that list down to 14 people who tested negative for pneumonia. they tested those 14 and one person came back positive. that date, december 27th, 2019. that's a full month before the first official case was reported in france. 2 1/2 months before france ever decided to lock down. we spoke with patient zero and with the doctor who found him. the doctor is imploring, urging other countries to do this. go back to medical records, to december, even as late as november and retest. and he also really talks about how this isn't going to help us right now in this pandemic. we're already behind the 8 ball on that. this is for the next one. katy? >> molly hunter in paris. chuck, i find this so interesting. we were talking about it yesterday, what officials are

doing in illinois, as well, going back and tracing. it would be really good to know, obviously, when it first came over and when it started infecting people because you want to know how many might have been affected so far and who might have antibodies. >> there's no doubt, but i'd also like to know that we have a reliable antibody test. every time i hear about that, then every time we test these -- the tests, the tests don't necessarily pass with the flying colors as they're promised. so they do have that hole to fill. retesting early samples could be one of the keys to reopening as we learn more about the timeline of the virus' spread. the cdc is researching how best to reopen the country. two administration officials say a report was written by the cdc, sent to the white house, step step-by-step advice on how to reopen various places during the outbreak, but it was sent back for revision. it was supposed to be published last friday.

during the coronavirus task force meetings, they were hinting the cdc guidelines were coming. they were coming. they were coming. but apparently, quote, agency scientists were told the guidance would never see the light of day, according to a cdc official. more reporting indicating the white house thought the recommendations were a bit too stringent. joining us now, dr. lipi roy who has become a familiar face here. dr. roy, it does seem as if -- it does appear as if, perhaps politics or essentially interfered or, you can say it's not politics, it may be economists interfered but either way, whatever the cdc guidance was, the white house didn't like it. what does that tell you? >> good afternoon, chuck. good to be with you and katy again. what a contrast, right? earlier in this segment you just talked about -- you did a great story on governor dewine in ohio

and how he very clearly stated that he is going to -- he has been working closely with his top public health official, dr. acton. and he is making policy decisions based on that data-driven health information. in contrast, at the federal level, we have leadership saying we're not really going to listen or pay attention to this, i'm sure well-researched document by the nation's top infectious disease body, the centers for disease control and prevention. to me, as a physician who practices evidence-based medicine as much as possible with all of my patients, it's alarming, and it's disturbing while we're still in the midst of a pandemic with breakouts happening all over the country. >> dr. roy, some of the reporting has indicated that the -- one of the hiccups the

white house is trying to deal with is what to do with churches and not wanting to put too many restrictions on religious organizations. as a health official, what do you make of special dispensations that may be made for religious gatherings? >> you are now in beacon, new york, right? so november 30th, i was there. i took the metro north train to spend time with my friend diane. we had brunch at this cute cafe, i think on the street that you're on. it's so surreal now. but at the same time, these people in new york are practicing all of these public health data-driven public health measures which is probably a major reason we're seeing the numbers go down. yeah, so it's -- you know, these guidelines, we need to really listen to these guidelines. i have full respect for religious organizations. i grew up in a culture and a family that was devoutly

religious. we went to temple. my mother and father still do. well, not right now. this is my message. feel free to please practice, pray, do whatever you need to do that's respectful to your faith, but do it from home. and try to connect with your other parishioners or other people in your religious community using technology in other ways that keep you safe. this is not about you not practicing your faith. it's about practicing your faith in a way that keeps you and the people around you, including your loved ones in your community safe. that's the message that i would want to express to all of these different religious communities. >> dr. roy, i'm curious. what would your view of how to fight this virus -- how would it change if we confirm that this virus was in this country last november? >> yeah, so, you know, we've

been seeing some information coming out of france showing that they probably had cases much earlier. it really goes back, chuck, to good old-fashioned public health and preventive health measures. i've said this before. we've had epidemics before. this is not new. people who have been working in emerging disease and epidemic and pandemic in these fields for decades already know how to address this problem. it means widespread testing, strategic widespread testing and then community tracing or contact tracing. identifying who is infected and then going back and identifying who else has been infected and keeping them protected and safe. and just communicating. it tells me that -- if we had cases back in november, it tells me that this disease has been around, this virus, pardon me,

has been around far longer than we expected. and going back to, you know, the first case that we know about in china, it's unfortunate that -- remember that ophthalmologist who rang the alarm bells early on and died as frankly, a hero and a martyr. it's unfortunate that the government was -- did not take it seriously and spread the news widely. >> dr. lipi roy, we appreciate you being our medical expert as we kick off this hour of our program. thanks very much for sharing your expertise. katy? >> chuck, i second that. and remember those jobs numbers that we got today put the total number of people who are unemployed at more than 33 million. and that means that about 1 in 5 americans who had a job before the pandemic hit have now lost their job. many of them still haven't received any benefits. we'll check in on what's going

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the economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic keeps getting worse. more than 3 million workers filed for first-time unemployment last week. in the last seven weeks more than 33 million people have filed for unemployment benefits. in every one of those states that's completed that, we also know there are people that didn't get to file that wanted to. so let's bring in msnbc business

and tech correspondent jo ling kent. this number is going to be bad tomorrow. that we know. and, yet, it's just the beginning of what is likely to be three, four, five months in a row where this number is going to continue to go up. the question is, how many months in a row will the unemployment rate go up? that curve go up before we start bending that curve down? >> gosh, if i had a cristic icrl to tell you that answer, you'd be the first to know. the unemployment rate is expected to be at least 15%, according to economists for april. and it probably is going to be an underestimation because of the way that jobs report is put together by the labor department where they take a selection of the month as a way to get a reading on the jobs report. now the jobless claims that came out today, that 3.2 million number, yes, it's better than what we've seen in past weeks. the chart continues to decrease,

which is good, but you're still talking about 3.2 million jobless claims and among the 33 million that have claimed in the past six, seven weeks is a woman named dawn freitas. she allied march 28th. that's six weeks ago. and this has been her experience. listen to this. >> you know, you work. you're an honest, you know, american that pays taxes, and you would never think that this would happen in a million years, but it has. and, unfortunately, it's like nobody cares. >> now dawn has applied for a second time. she's followed up with calls and emails, and she has continued to hear nothing. and she tells us that every night she says a prayer that the next morning when she wakes up

she'll see that unemployment money in her account. but this is really what's happening across the board. yes, millions of people have received their unemployment. they're starting to get that important c.a.r.e.s. act money that's been deployed by the federal government. but there's so much pain when it comes to making ends meet. any delay, no matter how quickly or slowly an unemployment office is working is going to count in the life of someone who is trying to decide between rent or medical bills or grocery store bills. and so it's a really tough time right now. and as we look ahead, we could see millions more jobs. we also have layoffs. just over the past week that have not been counted in the most recent count from the labor department. >> yes, that's for sure. between this week and next week we'll get a little clearer picture from the states as those number comes in, but that's the point here. as bad as these numbers look and as you just expressed, there are worse numbers to be reported

simply because of how difficult it is for so many people to file these claims. jo ling kent in los angeles, thank you. katy, over to you. >> chuck, those numbers are awful. and they are indiscriminately affecting all parts of american society. all towns across america. and cities. the ripple effects of what's happening with this virus go far beyond what's happening in a big place like new york city or los angeles. up through the city's outskirts, the suburbs of the suburbs, including here in duchess county where there have been 3,000 cases of the virus. last month, duchess county executive mark molinaru lost his own father anthony to covid-19. and the county executive joins us now. i'm so sorry to hear about your dad's -- your loss. he was only 67. >> a young man working very hard, very healthy. and it just brought not only the response of this pandemic home to me but really made very clear how very personal this is to a

lot of families, like mine. and there are so many struggling with illness all across the country. >> having experienced it firsthand, how has that affected the way that you have dealt with the issues that you're facing during this pandemic across the county? >> it's a balancing act, isn't it? we have communities like this one, beacon, and small businesses struggling and families dealing with the impact. for me, it's making sure the public knows from our local leader that they can trust the information we're sharing, very specific in what we expect from people. and, really, being very clear and transparent. we know that getting back up on our feet is going to be a real challenge. for some businesses, this will feel like a great depression, not a recession. for some families, they've been broken apart forever. >> duchess county is made up of a lot of small towns. i've been reading articles that wonder out loud whether small-town america can survive this. what is your opinion? >> small-town america will survive. there will be sadly casualties, and we have to be sure we're

standing with them. it's why the federal government has to be helpful to small business owners. but they innovate in downtowns like ours. we grapple and claw our way back, we've learned to lean on technology and on each other. there are businesses that will learn how to be more innovative. but the struggle is going to be real. there's a sense that we come back home in a lot of ways. this rekindled humanity. and you'll see that on main streets when we can finally open the doors. >> a lot of the money made by towns comes from income taxes with people losing their jobs. that revenue is going to go down. where do you stand with taxes? >> the county relies on sales tax. we're likely to experience as much as a $75 million loss in revenue. in counties like ours across the country, we're the frontline response. we are the pandemic response for states and for the country. and we've been calling on congress for assistance. for duchess to be able to overcome $75 million means as

much as 200 million jobs. we also need to help to continue to provide services. >> there's a fight between governors across the country, this governor, andrew cuomo, and the white house, about needing funding and congress about needing funding for the states. where do you stand on that, and what would your message be to the federal government? >> this is an emergency. in emergencies, mamerica comes together to support each other whether it's a flood, fire or pandemic, we have to be there for each other. this country has always come through with fema assistance and greater aid. i'm sorry we're a bigger state. we send a lot of money to washington, but there are counties, especially all across america, when the president wants to test site, we're the ones that set it up. when america wants to test cases, we're the ones that have to respond. so we need that support from congress. i believe they'll summon the political courage. >> wearing of a mask has almost become a political issue with some supportive of the president or -- maybe even party lines, if you believe one thing or another

you'll wear a mask or not wear a mask. as somebody who has experienced this loss, what is your message to those not social distancing, not wearing a mask, not taking this virus serious? >> be considerate. there are families like mine who didn't overcome this challenge. we lost a loved one. doing this is the least selfless think we can do in order to protect one another and slow the spread of the disease. we'll get back on our feet. just be considerate. >> i'm so sorry for your loss. thank you for spending a little time with us today. chuck, over to you. >> much appreciated, katy. coming up, disturbing news out of brazil. despite hospitals being flooded with coronavirus patients, hundreds of deaths a day with no sign of that number shrinking. doctors say in brazil the country's president continues to deny the gravity of this virus. you're watching msnbc. life isn't a straight line.

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a crisis is unfolding in brazil as it becomes a coronavirus hot spot. the country reported a record number of new cases and deaths wednesday. this is new dramatic troen footage showing hundreds of grave graves being doug. yet president jair bolsonaro continues to deny the severity of this outbreak. joining us now is villem marx. this has been an issue with bolsonaro since the beginning of this virus, since his -- since he and his team came to the

united states, gave the coronavirus to the mayor of miami among other folks and yet has been in denial about this, and it's my understanding that you've got rio and sao paulo who are essentially governing themselves right now, not looking to the national government. >> chuck, it's the same as in the u.s. to some extent in that you have federal, state and municipal authorities often working in brazil at cross purposes. the president himself, jair bolsonaro" described this as a mild flu. they're very unhappy with the example he sets. does not maintain the social distancing guidelines put in place. they're talking about overwhelmed wards, running out of hospital beds in the big cities. we had a chance to speak to a professor at colombia university's lemon center. >> the support is going to

continue. people have taken -- have elevated him from president to kind of this messiah. they think that he is some kind of, you know, like superhuman being. so i don't know what he actually could do or not do to change people's minds because this is already the worst situation you can imagine, and he still has followers. >> so he maintains this very solid base of support amongst some brazilians but almost half the count now seeking his impeachment according to the latest polls. he's recently fired his health minister. his justice minister resigning out of concerns he's been interfering with federal police business concerning has two sons. so some concerns about the future of bolsonaro and particularly the crisis engulfing this country. >> no doubt. villem marx, that was a great report. thanks. i don't think people realize in this hemisphere, as much as we're a hot spot, what is

happening down in brazil and it really is a major failure of national leadership down there. the department of justice here in this country has opened an investigation into a firm run by two republican operatives on suspicions it may have exploited the coronavirus pandemic for profit. blue flame medical failed to fulfill an order for masks and ventilators after it approved a $12.5 million contract with the company for the ppe. california had separately hired the firm to provide 100 million masks. that contract was abruptly canceled and the state scrambled to get its $457 million deposit back. the money was returned. blue flame acknowledges the orders had been delayed but says it acted in good faith. "the washington post" tom hamburger first reported on this story and joins me now. tom is one of the veteran and great investigative journalists there is in our arena these days. tom, i know it's not unusual that during a crisis you'll see

groups of lobbyists get together and suddenly think, oh, there's a fema contract to be had here and there's -- you see this, some of it is on the up and up and some of it isn't. where does this one fall? >> well, chuck, we don't know where exactly it falls but we know that it has attracted the interest of law enforcement. there's a criminal investigation that's been launched. it involves three separate u.s. attorneys offices. and they are focused on this firm blue flame medical started by a couple of republican political consultants with very good political connections. they launched it in march after the pandemic was unleashed. and their activities in just the seven weeks since then has attracted the attention of law enforcement. it seems that the problem we know about that's occurred so far is, as you mentioned, the contract to deliver masks and ventilators to the state of maryland has not been fulfilled despite promises they would be.

and so law enforcement is looking at it. as you noted, their attorney says they've acted in good faith and not done anything wrong. >> tell me about blue flame medical. are they just brokers? are they just glorified brokers that just sort of are looking for transactions? helping to facilitate a transaction matching a buyer with a seller? or are they more than that? >> chuck, we are interested in blue flame and companies like it that sprung up in the wake of the pandemic. the two political consultants who run blue flame had no prior experience in health care supplies, medical supplies at all. they have political connections. and they began to offer masks, high-quality masks for sale at above the standard list price. the prices they were charging are not as high as some that we've heard of, but this period

has been characterized by chaos, by a kind of wild west atmosphere that has seen broker with no history in the medical supply business in some cases and no history in health care charging 600%, 700% more than the list price. and so it's led to a series of crackdowns. the justice department has several cases, including this one, that it's investigating. but, chuck, it's a problem that's emerging when there's a crisis like this, and there are people who try to take advantage. to emphasize, we don't know yet that blue flame medical was one of those, but we know that they are under the microscope right now as prosecutors look at their record. >> look, and this was -- this is one of the arguments people make about the defense production act is that this is something you avoid when you get the government to essentially take over supply chain because this is one of the -- among the

unintended consequences of allowing a wild west atmosphere. tom hamburger, like i said, a veteran investigative journalist. always good to get your reporting on our air. thank you, sir. katy? >> chuck, coming up next, we're going to go to a borough here in beacon to talk about how the shutdown is affecting their business like so many other breweries which has become a big source of tourism over the years. stay with us. you're watching msnbc. (announcer) in this world where people are staying at home,

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the restaurant and bar industry has arguably been one of the hardest hit industries during this pandemic since they basically can't operate, can't open their doors. if they can, the margins are so slim that takeout isn't really working. we want to focus on one local brewery in beacon, new york. and talk about what is going on there. so john anthony garzulo, what is your brewery called? >> hudson valley brewery. >> what's the business you rely on? >> we mostly rely on tap room sales and people visiting beacon and just direct consumer visiting. >> what have you been able to do in order to try and bridge the gap between closing and whenever you're able to reopen? >> yeah, so it's been kind of difficult in the beginning, but we're able to pivot our business. we do like an online preorder

sale for curbside pick-up which is working really good. and then also we're doing u.p.s. shipping for the state of new york. state government has been really helpful by loosening a lot of the restrictions and allowing us to operate our business in a slightly different way. >> how much has that been able -- how much business are you doing? have you brought your margins back up? doing the same business you were before? >> we're probably operating around like 60% to 70%. we're operating with about 40% of our staff. so that's been kind of difficult and also very sad. >> how long can you survive? >> i think if we continue with this model and we're out of this in a couple of months, i think we'll survive, fortunately. there's a lot of other businesses in a lot harder position than us. >> what would you need in order to make sure that your survival is not an if all of these things come together but an absolutely will be okay? >> i think just a lot of faith. we have such great support from our fans and from all the people

that -- in our community. so i think we're all in this together. and that's what's really going to help us. and we're just going to pay attention to some of the guidelines to make sure we're following everything correctly. >> i know you have a killer sour beer. tell me the name of the brewery again? >> hudson valley brewery. >> some sour beers right here. which we'll wait until later to open until we get home. >> glad to see you got a to-go there, katy. i appreciate that, yes. wait until at least the second hour. you know, just not during the first hour. since the start of the coronavirus shutdowns, more than 33 million people have filed jobless claims across the country. but a dangerous gap as the economist put it this week has developed as the stock market continues to rebound despite high unemployment numbers and what appears to be no end in sight. now in florida, we see a different gap is present. there's over 1 million people appear to be unaccounted for in

the state's unemployment benefits system. nbc's kerry sanders is in florida. he's got the latest on what has just been an ongoing debacle since the start of this crisis in florida. kerry? >> chuck, the unemployment system online here in the state was a failure before coronavirus and now it's collapsed under the weight of so many people. 1.6 million people trying to get unemployment benefits. only about 28% of the people who have applied have gotten any kind of recognition or money from the system. bridget bailey is one of those 72% who unfortunately are caught up in a nightmare of trying to go online, trying to get some sort of answers as to what's happened. she managed a boutique store in florida's panhandle up in santa rosa beach. she was furloughed like so many in the state. she battled through the computer system but has yet to get any

unemployment money or the $600 a week federal pandemic unemployment compensation. how long has this been going on for you? when did you ars ply? >> i i amid on march 15th and have yet to receive any money, state or federal. my bills are probably about $3,000 a month. and my rent alone is $1600. i don't have -- i didn't have any money to pay bills in may. i have $200 left in the bank account and that is absolutely it. >> bridget bailey has now joined a facebook page that has been established in florida where those who are unemployed are trying to assist each other to try to figure out what is going on. on that group, one person that got through to a live human didn't get the answers they wanted but were directed to a food bank which only infuriated them more as you heard bridget

bailey, down to her last $200, wondering how she's going to keep food on the table. the last thing she wants is the unemployment office giving her the money she deserves instead going told where to go a food bank, chuck. >> ouch. kerry sanders, i can tell you, you know this very well this is turning into an interesting political intraparty battle between the current governor and now senator rick scott of pointing the finger awho the created this disastrous unemployment computer system. either way, the question is the republican party going to have to own this in a negative way come the fall? coming up, the flush heard around the virtual chamber. even the supreme court arguments aren't immune to the mute button mishap. you're watching msnbc. mishap u'yore watching msnbc. ♪ thousands of women with metastatic breast cancer,

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trying to figure out how to work from home. there have been some mishaps, most notably on zoom. sweeven a l we've seen a lot of them. we can add conference call to lace of things we have all experienced. the supreme court made history by having opening arguments on the phone and let the public listen in. and here is what the public heard -- c heard -- chuck, we have no idea where that flush came from, from which home that was in. but it is certainly quite embarrassing. you can add to the list of weird things we've seen people do while they're working from home. i don't want to get into the details. >> look, i will just say i'm

just -- -- i don't know if i want to admit certain things, first of all. you have to be very aggressive with the mute button. that's number one. be aggressive with the mute button. that's why they invented the head phones, right? so you can look here. but i am willing to bet on the gender wars here that was a male, not a female that made the mistake. that's all i'm going to say. i'm counting on my gender being the embarrassing one on this one, katy. i'll leave it there. i already confessed too much. coming up from a potato surplus in the northwest to the challenge of securing a migrant labor force here in the northeast, the struggle that farms are having under the shadow of the coronavirus and how it might be impacting what you put on the table. you're watching msnbc. you put on the table you're watchinmsg nbc.

good afternoon, i'm chuck todd. it's 11:00 a.m. out west, 2:00 p.m. in the east. my apologies there. perhaps i was freudian. here are the fablgcts at this h. the united states is close to another tragic milestone deaths from covid-19 are approaching 75,000 this afternoon. that accounts for roughly 30% of all coronavirus related deaths worldwide. in new york, the global epicenter, the death toll has affected 20,000 people. the downward slope of deaths in his state painfully slow. nieman marcus filed for bankruptcy. they have taken a massive hit as americans stay home. chapter 11 filing comes three days after j. crew did the same. a new poll shows americans are remaining optimistic about their own future. the sur fay frvey fount that a majority of furloughed or laid off americans expect to get

their jobs back when the shutdown ends. my co-anchor in the field is live for us in new york's hudson valley. katy, when i saw those numbers about the optimism that furloughed workers thought they're going to get their job back, i was glad to see that. yet, when you watch the federal response right now, it's hard to figure out we'll be in the better place in the next three months. it seems as if it we're going to be treading water. if we're treading water, those furloughs become hard eastern harder to bring back. so i -- i'm glad for that optimism. i wish that federal response matched the optimism. >> well, the federal response might have to match the optimism as we get further into this crisis. when i talk to business owners, i don't hear that same optimism. i hear them trying to make ends meet. i hear them holding out hope for congress to get their account together and make loans that work for their business. but i also hear a lot of just

very blunt predictions about whether or not they're going to survive. i spoke to a bar owner here a little while ago who was also a town councilman. and he told me that he's just not sure that his bar is going to be able to reopen even after he was able to get an sba-ppp loan. let's listen. >> the ppp loan that they touted as being for small businesses turned out obviously has everyone's read that most of the money is going to bigger businesses. and those far more capable of sustaining themselves throughout this time. this is not designed for small businesses. you know, it's a payment protection program. they want us all to hire everybody back right now. we can't even open our doors. >> so, chuck, that's george m z mansfield from dogwood. one interesting point he made to

me, he got a letter from the small business administration saying that he needs to then send a letter to all employees and get in writing whether or not his employees want to come back to work. they may be taking unemployment and making more money than they were making while working at the bar. he's upset because he doesn't want to be in the position of telling them to come back when the wages will be lower than that because kent promise they're going to be able to get tips. he doesn't know what sort of customers he'll have once he is able to reopen. and now he feels that frol governme federal government is telling him he has to be the bad guy. if they say no, they quit and they no longer qualify for unemployment. >> yep. you know, katy, the more we're hearing from small business owners around the country about this it is pretty clear this was an idea that was thought up in a think tank. and not designed by somebody who actually ran a small business n

theory, this should work the way it's going to work. there is a missing common sense here and that is the customer base that wasn't factored in as they designed this product. again, i think good intentions. you get where it was thought up of. but mindset has to be part of that. we have news from washington this afternoon. one of the president's personal vallets has now tested positive for the coronavirus. the valet is a member of the united states military that works in the west wing. joining me now from the white house on this is hans nichols. hans, i assume despite the weird dustup, it's unnecessary to test people every day, people around the president are tested frequently. does frequently mean daily or more than that? >> don't have an answer for that on how frequent frequently

means. what they said is regularly. the protocols are for people that are regular contact with the president, they are getting tests on a regular basis. we just heard that from kellyanne conway. we may hear from the president here, chuck, in just moments. he's going to be speaking the oval office. we'll get a sense for what his reaction was to finding out that someone he's in close contact with has tested positive for covid-19. this say valet. some serves the president's drinks, meals, these are the things that valets do in the residence, the part of the white house. now according to one administration officials, valets are not wearing masks. we'll see whether or not that gets updated. we'll see whether or not the president confirms this individual was indeed not wearing a mask. and kellyanne conway talked about this with a reminder of the importance of testing against the invisible enemy, reiterated this idea that white house officials are regularly tested. at the same time, the president

secretary seemed to suggest that if you think that testing is your only barometer, then people need to be tested every moment to keep checking in every day, multiple times, every hour just to see whether or not they're covid-19 positive. so there is a disparity there. will we'll see if the president tries to brigitte. chuck? >> yea. of the answer is yes. every day. people are going to want to know where is the virus every day. so i think in some ways they're getting the question answered for them right now. hans nichols on the white house north lawn. thank you. speaking of the president, right now he is meeting with texas governor greg abbott. that's what hans is referring to. we may hear from him. he's meeting with the texas governor to discuss coronavirus ahead of tomorrow's texas hair salons, parks and pools which will come with restrictions. but interestingly, in an audio from a private phone call obtained by the daily beast, governor abbott admitted in this audio that reopening his state, he knows, is going to increase

transmission. >> so joining us now is our capitol hill correspondent. garret, what is so controversial about the grofrn sayigovern theg this? what he said is a fact. i know we're shocked when we hear that come out. is he contradicting himself from

the public record? >> well, not especially. i mean, this is a governor who said his decisions are going to be guided by science and guided by data as much as possible. and there you see him saying the quiet part loud. what is the old expression in washington? a flub is when you say the truth by accident? here you see the government saying what the medical experts say, the idea is to flatten the curve, not to reduce it to zero. there you hear abbott saying in private, i think that is probably part of it, any time you get surreptitiously released or recorded audio, no matter what the content, is it sounds worse. but saying, yes, we are taking the risk here that by reopening parts of texas we're going to see the transmission rate go up. and i will say having been in texas for the last month and monitoring the governor, all of the press conferences and public statements, he's been clear that while texas has lagged on testing, we've talked about that quite bate near the very bottom of states in terms of per capita testing, the death rate has remained low. and the hospitalization rate has

remained low. the hospital capacity has been good. if you are going to get sick in this country, you can do a lot worse than to get sick in houston where they have tons of medical beds, tons of capacity. he made that argument in public that texas essentially can absorb some of this and when you're under enormous pressure to reopen the economy and you feel perhaps as the governor says there, he's got the ability to absorb or to take this risk here that more cases may come this is what you do. you see texas start to reopen more and more businesses now on a weekly basis. >> right. very quickly, garret, it does seem as if governor abbott is in a different place philosophically than his lieutenant governor. i think that does, you know, it sounds like abbott is more likely to make a scientific based decision han his lieutenant governor would like. >> i think that's exactly right. the two of them are a political odd couple.

he is extremely polished. he says nothing he doesn't mean. to the lieutenant governor, far less so. but i think his lieutenant governor's outspoken nature probably gives that administration credibility in parts of the state where perhaps abbott isn't even conservative enough for some texas voters. right. it's an important point you just made there, mr. hague. anyway, texas native in our capitol hill correspondent, thank you. in a unanimous decision, the supreme court threw out the convictions of two key players in what was known as the bridgegate scandal that eventually impacted former new jersey governor chris christie and his political future. bridget ann kelly and bill baroni had previously been found guilty in a federal court, supreme court threw it out. joining us now is our justi correspondent pete williams. pete, i'm very familiar with this case and the arguments. it seems as if the overturning

of the conviction of the former virginia governor played a big role in this successful appeal. had. >> in the frame of mind of the justices, what they basically said is the prosecutors made a fatal decision in this case. they basically used the wrong statutes. they charged them with the federal fraud statutes. and what the supreme court said is there's no fraud under the definition of the law. that's when you take something from the government. you take money or property and in this case neither of these two officials, they didn't stick anything in their pockets. they didn't do that. now the prosecution's theory of the case was they commandeered the bridge and they had to keep an eye on this and claim this was a traffic study when it was an attempt to punish the mayor of ft. lee for declining to endor

endorse christie's election. the what the court basically said is this was an attempt by the federal government to -- enforce its idea of what good government is. it was undoubtedly this was undoubtedly dishonest. it was misleading. this was a lie. this was a decision written about the busiest bridge in america by a justice from the new york area who is undoubtedly spent a lot of time on the george washington bridge. >> right. very quickly, pete. one of the two that were convicted, he actually served part of a prison term. does the federal government owe him money? >> he probably can't sue them for wrongful incarceration. at the time he was beginning to serve the sentence, that was a justifiable. he could -- he could try to bring a case for wrongful or x

vicacious prosecution. but to try to say that this prosecution was vexatious, they knew they were going to harass or cause them to fail. i think the answer is probably no. >> got you. pete williams with some court duty. at least we didn't put you on the duty to find out who had the mysterious flush. >> i have my guess. >> pete williams. >> okay. do you want to share it or no? >> certainly not. >> yeah. i figured as much. thank you, pete williams. katy. over to you. >> i feel like i'm going to be e-mailing pete williams in a moment to figure out what his guess is. chuck, let's move on. let's talk about what is happening with farms and farmers around the country as the coronavirus spreads. it broke down parts of the food

supply chain and fractured the workforce which rendered a lot of crops and products that farm woerz normally be trucking out -- off their farms and into and throughout the united states. it rendered them unsellable. watch this video from our boston affiliate. the national guard distributing free gallons of milk which otherwise would have been poured out. we saw a number of dairy farms having to pour out their milk. they didn't have the resources to get it off of the farms. also in washington state, farmers now find themselves with up to a billion pounds of potatoes they can't sell. and that's where we find nbc's dasha burns joining me from a potato farm in washington. last time i saw you -- and there you are again, the potatoes were triple the height of you. what do you find there? >> at least triple, katy. i'm standing next to a pile of about 12 million pounds of

potatoes. it makes me feel pretty darn small. i'm going have the camera man pan up here real quick to show you how high this pile actual sli. it's about 20 feet high. and this extends beyond the length of a football field, katy. this is just a massive, massive pile of potatoes. if you can just zoom in, i'm going to ask him to zoom on to the potatoes. these are russet potatoes. they should be made into french fries and sold to restaurants across the world, but right now globally, restaurants are closed. so there is nowhere for these 12 million pounds of potatoes to go. this is just one of many, many farms just like this across the state that make up that billion pounds of excess, katy. today i spent time with austin and a.j., father-son duo that run this farm. and they talked to me about the challenges that farmers in the

state are facing right now. take a listen. >> just the uncertainty of the situation, you know, farmers, they go out and get millions of dollars in loans to make thousands. so losses that we're going through now, not planting fields you're planning for the upcoming year, they don't know if they're going to survive. >> and katy, they realize that right now there are also so many people in need of food. so what they've been doing is trying to donate as much as this as they can to food banks. but it's not as simple as it might sound. it costs a lot of money to package and transport these potatoes and to actually get them to the people. so far they tell me they donated 100,000 pounds of potatoes. but that's really just a tiny dent in what we see here. if this image doesn't say all you need to know about the problems with the supply chain right now, i don't know what will, katy.

>> dasha, thank you very much. near new york, governor cuomo announced they're going to come up with a plan to help farms off load some of the surplus product into food banks to make sure they still get paid for. that there are more than 33,000 farms here in new york state that account for nearly -- i'm sorry, $6 billion in revenue for the state. and when the restaurants here all shut down, a giant part of the supply chain just disappeared. but it's no the just the restaurant industry that was helping finance the farms. it is also a lot of tourism. i spoke to josh morganthal, the owner and operator of fish kill farms outside of beacon about the impact on his business and the industry at large. listen. how long can you hold on if this pandemic and the lockdowns and restrictions go on through the summer, through the fall? what are you projecting?

>> i think we're staring into the unknown here. and depending on whether we can make up some of the revenue that we normally have with pick your own, with activities on the farm, if we can find other ways to make that up, then i think we'll be okay. but if we take a big hit, we would have to make serious adjustments and find ways to cut costs. >> you are considering any of those things for the future? have you made a list of here's -- if things get really bad, here's what we can do? >> of course, you think about it. but right now i'm trying to be optimistic and believe that, you know, people need fresh food right now. they're cooking more than ever before. and we've seen demand higher demand for produce than usual. so i'm really optimistic that farms may have to adapt but they'll find ways to make it through this season. >> you have a relatively small farm. there are farms all over the country in varying sizes from small to very large. are you concerned about the

industry? >> i'm definitely concerned about certain parts of the industry. i think when you look at a farm like ours, we're pretty much all direct market. we're serving the local community, we're serving new york city and the tri-state area. we don't do a whole lot of wholesale into the commodity supply chain. that supply chain i think is very disrupted right now and broke non a lot of places. and obviously, we heard stories of dairy farmers dumping out all of their milk. that concerns me. you know, i just have to hope that people need to eat and they'll be more conscious of where their food is coming from now and support local farms. >> there is a projection that as many as 40% of new york city's restaurants might not reopen. what would that mean for a farm like yours? >> we don't do a whole lot of

sales to restaurants. so luckily that's not affecting us the way it might some other farms. but i think, you know, looking on the bright side, we have a csa program that stands for community supported agriculture. and it basically means you buy a share of the farm's production for the year. customers pay us money up front and then they get produce weekly throughout the season. and right now our signups are higher than they've ever been at this time of year. so that says something to me. i hope that some of the farms that are more reliant on restaurants and have had their normal markets disrupted will be able to pivot and find ways to get their produce to people who want it and need it. >> so fish kill farm is in a unique position because dhoent rely on the restaurant industry. that by no means is the same scenario that so many other farms are in who do rely on the restaurant industry. but what they have and the problem they're going to be facing, chuck, is tourism. people coming up to pick

strawberries and blueberries, getting out of the city and coming to the smaller rural areas. what this is showing us and all the interviews we've done today is no small town, no city is an island. our economy is interconnected. so when you have one part of our economy shut down, that is going to have a ripple effect. so, yeah, maybe duchess county will be able to reopen before new york city, manhattan county or maybe other parts of new york will be able to reopen in a way before everybody else. but nobody's economy will be back up and running 100% until everybody is back on line. and that is the really difficult problem that this pandemic has poseded for t posed for the entire nation. >> it's also going to change habits. you know, i'm still bullish on the fact that in the semimedium term, driving tourists stops that whether it is beach towns,

et cetera, will thrive first. but we still got a ways to go. there. still to come, change as head for an overnight stay. what you'll likely see missing during your next hotel visit. plus, here's a question you probably haven't asked yourself. what's more safe -- going to a gym or a coffee shop? it's questions like that that could be key to reopening the country. but first, demands for justice in georgia after video surfaces showing a black man shot and killed during a jog. about no no uh uh, no way come on, no no n-n-n-no-no only discover has no annual fee on any card. n-n-n-no-no hey allergy muddlers... achoo! ...do your sneezes turn heads? try zyrtec... ...it starts working hard at hour one... and works twice as hard when you take it again the next day. zyrtec muddle no more.

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the family of a young black man shot and killed two months ago in georgia wants to know why there have not been any arrests or charges in this case. nbc news senior correspondent kate snow joins me now. kate, this is a haunting, haunting story. >> yeah, chuck. it's a story that hasn't gotten a lot of attention until now. 25-year-old said he used to run every day for exercise and she believes that's what he was doing when he was shot and killed. an attorney for the family says the entire investigation has been compromised since the start and even though a prosecutor says he wants criminal charges considered, no arrests have been made. a warning now, the video we're about to show you is disturbing. >> reporter: the video drawing international attention, the man who is african-american is seen running on a sunday afternoon in

february in brunswick, georgia. gregory mcmichael and his son travis are in a puckup truck ahead. both armed. travis fires a shotgun and kills him. the father, gregory mcmichael, a former police officer who once worked for the local da's office said there were several break in ins the neighborhood and i man he viewed as the suspect was running down the street. and his son grabbed their guns and went after him. mcmichael also said he began to attack travis. she says her son was out for daily jog. >> he was into fitness. this something he did. something he enjoyed doing. >> an attorney for his family says he was unarmed and tried to avoid the truck. he says there is no evidence to suggest he was committing a crime. georgia does have a statute allowing citizen arrest. >> however, you must personally observe the crime. you can't be, you believe that someone may have committed a

crime in the area and in the recent past. >> reporter: supporters of his family have organized pro sests, lebron james, viola davis and wanda sykes among those voicing outrage. nbc news has been unable to reach the mcmichaels but attorney allen tucker who has known gregory mcmichaels for 30 years says there isn't a prejudicial or racist bone in his body. he released the cell phone vud yoe to get the truth out. there two prosecutors recused themselves because of connections with the mcmichaels, one of them saying he thought their actions were perfectly legal and traffvis mcmichael wa allowed to use deadly force to protect himself after he fish yated the fight and grabbed his gun. the da responsible called for a grand jury to consider criminal charges. but because of coronavirus closures, that can't happen until june. >> what pains me the most is that he was killed within the

authorities. the they truly let me down. >> the georgia bureau of investigations is now investigating the case. to date fbi said it is also assisting with this. and, chuck, tomorrow would have been the 26th birthday of this young man. and they're going to ask people to mark that day by running and walking in his honor and also to raise awareness about the case. by the way, the governor of georgia is holding a press conference right now. he tweeted yesterday that georgians deserve answers. chuck? >> yeah. i notice this is something that could very much, it's an election year, this could become a political hot potato in georgia as well. it's -- it's -- this is just very disturbing. this is something i have a feeling that we're going to be reading and reporting a lot about anyway. kate snow, thank you very much. >> thank you. katy, over to you. chuck, going back to what we were talking about a little earlier, driving vacations. say you're right about that. and those go up.

what is it going to be like when you get to your location and you want to stay at a hotel? what is that stay going to be like? we'll have more on that next. we'll also speak with a wedding planner here in hudson valley. what are weddings going to look like in the future? stay with us. n the future stay with us challenging it is right now. whether you're facing unemployment. have bills to pay.

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eight in ten hotel rooms across the nation remain empty. data shows that as a result, nearly 70% of hotel employees have been laid off or furloughed. hotels are trying to adapt to a new normal making adjustments to keep guests safe and keep their employees working. our own reporter is outside the four seasons hotel in new york city. all right, for those that do travel and stay in hotels, what is life going to be like? >> it's going to be a little bit different. hotels like this one and across the country, they're talking to medical experts and following their advice about what they can do to help visitors feel comfortable and safe. >> reporter: four seasons new york is known for hands on service. but these days, this is how close it gets. a temperature check upon arrival. >> i give you a virtual hug. >> the hotel replaces an

emphasis on gold star service with gold star safety. it's emerged as a test case in a hospitality industry navigating a new normal. >> service has been put on hold for the time being. and service with a smile is no longer. >> reporter: the trance formation began in march when the hotel announced free lodging to medical professionals working on the covid-19 front lines. >> and we mandate that. >> reporter: dr. robert was quickly hired to make sure they followed cdc guidelines. will we see the safety precautions going forward for hotel guests? >> i'm not clairvoyant but my thoughts are that we have established a benchmark of best practices. >> reporter: among temporary new rules, no more in room dining or restaurant service. it's now all grab and go. the social distancing is encouraged throughout the hotel. you cannot leave the same way you come in. and once you get here to head up to your room, only one guest per

elevator. rooms have been scaled down. good-bye mini bars, robes and extra pillows. places germs can spread. now hand sanitizer and gloves but no in room house keeping. when a guest leaves, a team like this begins deep cleaning. the four seasons is being extra cautious but nationwide hotels like marriott and best western announced new cleanliness protocols last month. so did hilton whose properties including hampton inn and double tree. they seemed up with lysol and the mayo clinic. hilton is also rethinking dining rooms, bars, and breakfast bu buffets. >> we'll have a single serve. the buffet will exist but a team member might serve your breakfast. >> reporter: and expect social distancing in hotel pools and gyms like scheduling fitness times and offering private workout equipment in some rooms. >> one thing we really have to

look at is what does this mean for the luxury market. does your luxury offering become more similar to a mid scale or even more of an economy brand? >> reporter: don't touch anything right here. do not touch the railing. back at the four seasons, there is a longing for what was. >> so this is in our dna. and right now this is all on distance. >> reporter: going the distance so guests can rest easy. when i asked some of the hotel industry leaders whether or not they could afford to make these changes because changes come at a cost, one of the things they said, chuck, is they can't afford not to make some changes. chuck? >> that's for sure. i can tell you, it's the traveling hotels where i've gotten so comfortable with the great breakfasts when you're on the campaign trail. the courtyard by marriott. you're right, i don't know how they bring those back at all. and those are one of the reasons why people love to stay at

those. thank you very much. katy, over to you. chuck, we're entering wedding season, talking about hotels. wedding season usually books a number of hotels. but for those who are still deciding to do their weddings during this pandemic, they look a lot different, either doing them on zoom or having a socially distant wedding. for the venues and the venue owners that normally would be booked this time of year, it is a very difficult situation. let's talk to the gm of round house who joins me now. so round house is a very popular wedding venue just around the corner from where we are. you have a restaurant and inn and the venue itself. how many weddings did you have on tap for may and june? >> all in, we probably rescheduled or postponed about 30 or more weddings at this point. if it continues, we could possibly see up to 50 weddings being postponed which is about

half of our business. >> so what do you tell the bride and groom when they call and say i have a wedding booked for the weekend of may 23rd? i obviously can't make it. >> so in the beginning, we were actually pro actively calling our clients and saying, you know, i'm sorry. we're not going to be able to host your wedding. and then the calls for people who were a little further down the line coming in, we were really at first trying to take a wait and see approach, caution. we were optimistic and hopeful at the time. then reality started setting in. and we realized that it's not just about us and our venue but the clients are also having to work with their other vendors, make decisions around do i print minute i ha invitations? how i do handle getting dress altered. >> when you do reopen and there are restriction that's will be placed on businesses, what does a wedding look like?

does the bride have to wear a mask? do the guests have to wear a mask? is there a first dance? is there a first dance or is there dancing on the dance floor? what are you expecting? >> we're not sure, to be honest. right now what is being offered in terms of some guidance is three phases of the business is reopening with weddings and dancing being in the very end. so for right now, we're trying to reimagine how for those people who don't want to wait, don't want to postpone, is there something we can do now taking social distancing guidelines into account. but for people who want the big, beautiful 200 person wedding, you have to wait. >> you're going to get three ways, restaurant and the venue, are you going to be able to survive? how long can you survive? >> we feel really sure about our positioning. going into this year we had over

100 weddings booked. it was going to be our strongest year yet. so it's heartbreaking for it to happen now. but at the same time, we have a good amount of business to fall back on when we are able to open up. so we're feeling confident that even if we have to postpone and move our clients to next year, we're going to be around to be there and help them celebrate next year as well. >> thank you, katie. chuck, i keep hearing this from people. this year was expected to be their best year yet. 2020 looked so promising for so many business owners. it all fell apart. >> it is a major family vent in our household. we're on our second attempt at rescheduling and we'll see what happens this summer. so a lot of people in that predicament. that's for sure. those are minor compared to the virus itself. up next, wining, dining and working out post pandemic. which activities are high,

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we have breaking news. we're confirming. this we're doing this. the department of justice has just filed a motion with the judge in the michael flynn case to withdraw.

let me read it to you here. here's the motion. the government concluded the interview of michael flynn of mr. flynn was untethereded to and unjustified by the fbi's counter intelligence investigation into in flynn. no longer justifiably predicted investigation that fbi had prepared to close because it yielded an absence of any derogatory information. the government is not persuaded that the january 24th 2017 interview was conducted with the legitimate investigative base you is and therefore does not believe mr. flynn's statements were material even if untrue. moreover, we do not believe that the government can prove either the relevant false statementors their material beyond a reasonable doubt. so katy tur, it's interesting here. it's what michael flynn has been hoping for. he got -- it's a bit confusing. essentially, the government is saying well, he may have lied to us. we now decided this case doesn't matter. so it doesn't matter that he lied to us.

but it's -- there is still the whole thing is bizarre y does he plead guilty in the first place? why did he, more importantly, decide to become a government asset for a while? there's a lot of unanswered questions. maybe it's connected to his son. maybe it's connected to the deal with turkey that he had a lobbying contract with. there is still a ton of unanswered questions here and clearly having a new -- a different attorney general has certainly changed that prosecution with flynn. >> it changed the calculus entirely for michael flynn. remember, he wanted to withdraw his guilty plea as well. but let's remind people, did he plead guilty. and let's go back to the circumstances surrounding this. this was january 2017, early 2017 when congress and federal investigators we now know and other people were trying to determine the links between the trump campaign and the russian

government. and general flynn at the time had a conversation with the russian ambassador. then he lied about it to government investigators and that's what he pleaded guilty for. he also according to the administration lied to vice president mike pence and that was part of the reason why he was fired. the president has been asked about that. and he's kind of dodged that question. but ever since for in the past year and a half, two years, the president has gone from calling michael flynn somebody who lied to the vice president somebody that needed to be fired to somebody that is unfairly prosecuted and he has made some overt signals that he would pardon michael flynn. i guess this would save him the pardoning if the case is just dropped entirely. >> right let's remember, like you said, ambassador, i think --

kislyak, i just said the nevada governor's name. kiss lee 5: kislyak. the outgoing obama administration levelled sanctions on the russian government for their interference in the 2016 election and the question was it appeared to the justice department, the obama justice department that essentially was michael flynn back channeling with the russians and signalling hey, don't worry about those sanctions because the russians never put out a statement and didn't do a -- and that's what raised alarm bells. didn't do sort of oh, you're sanctioning us, we'll sanction you. that didn't happen. so that's where all of this came about on what that was about. we have pete williams with us now. so, pete, i read your report here. the amazing thing is the justice department saying even if he did lie to the fbi, it doesn't

matter. so walk us through how this works and what is missing here. he plead and cooperated. what about the cooperation? >> well, that part is broken out. that is michael flynn is seeking to withdraw his guilt plea. that motion -- >> hang on there, pete williams. you have a -- i think we have to have a microphone issue there. >> there we go, sorry about that. >> the news is breaking so quickly these days that we got to get the mic going. there you go, brother. >> sorry about that. so the posture of this case was that michael flynn had sought to withdraw his guilty plea because the cooperation agreement broke down. he got new lawyers and he said, look, you're not living up to your part of the bargain, i'm withdrawing my guilty plea. i was pressured into this in the first place. he's had very aggressive lawyering. sydney powell has been leading his defense saying the

government in essence tricked him into making these statements. the attorney general, william barr, then appointed the eastern district of missouri to review the case and as a result of that review documents have been bit by bit turned over to the defense which they say bolsters their case. now, back to your question. it is true that just lying to the feds in and of itself is not a crime. it has to be -- and this is the word in the statute. it has to be material. you can't just lie about something that is unimportant. to be a crime it has to be material, and what the government is basically saying here is they had michael flynn under their microscope when the whole investigation of russian meddling started for what many considered to be good and sufficient reasons. he had been to russia. he had been paid to speak at an event. he had been seen dining with vladimir putin, so it was only natural to wonder whether he was

somehow involved. we now know from court documents that have been unsealed that before the fbi interviewed him about flynn's conversations with the russian ambassador during the transition, that the fbi had basically said, okay, we've looked at him for all those things that we talked about earlier and we've determined that this investigation should be closed. period. then comes the question about whether he was being dishonest to people in the white house about his conversations with kislyak, the russian ambassador. that's when they were interviewed, and so what the justice department says here is that interview, those misstatements, were material to exactly nothing, that the fbi wasn't investigating him for anything at the time so his misstatements, if they were a lie, don't count. that's the basis of what they're arguing here today. now, by the way, you and katy were saying, what the heck, he's already pleaded guilty. it is true that the government can withdraw a prosecution even

after someone has pleaded guilty. it's happened before. so that's what the government is doing here and in this long filing, this 20-page filing to the judge, they basically say, look judge, your role is very limited here, you know. you don't have much discretion to say no to this. but the judge, let's be clear, does have the final say. the government is seeking to drop the charges. the charges would be dropped if they are by the judge. >> so let me just add what the president said in the oval office just a moment ago. he said i don't know what's happening at this moment felt it was going to happen. he's an innocent man, a great gentleman. what obama administration did was unprecedented. i hope a lot of people are going to pay a big price. they're scum. he also blamed the media. that's a paraphrasing of what he said or the rough translation coming from the pool report. we'll get an exact verbatim in a moment.

my question to you, pete, though would be about the other people that were involved in this investigation who are currently doing jail time. what happens to paul manafort now with this new a.g. in charge? is there any consideration being made right now about paul manafort's circumstances, any hearing about any pardons, or what about the other investigations that are currently open and pending? >> no, i don't think this would have anything to do at all with paul manafort or rick gates or a doubt it would have anything to do with rick stone. that's the only other question. remember stone was convicted. he was sentenced to three and a third years in prison. he has appealed his conviction based on a claim that there was a biased juror, a claim that the judge rejected. he has not yet reported to prison. apparently that's been delayed because of the concern about the covid pandemic and he's of course in that age group and has

asthma so he says i'm a high risk here, so he's still out. but this development here is limited solely to flynn so i don't think it's going to have an effect beyond flynn. now, of course the attorney general has asked the attorney general in connecticut to take a broad look at the fbi's action, and the attorney general has a couple of times in recent interviews suggested that if that yields any evidence that somebody acted wrongly, there could be charges against people, i suppose, who were involved in the investigation. but in terms of this development, helping anybody else that was caught up in the mueller investigation, i think the answer is no. >> pete williams, back to the mike flynn situation. there was always this other aspect of the mike flynn investigation involving his son in turkey, and there was always a lot of speculation that that had some impact on motivating flynn to essentially -- you know, with whatever deal he did

cut with the justice department. i noticed there's no mention of th that. what's the status with the turkey aspect of this investigation, that lobbying aspect, number one, and is there a tie to this? >> so what we have learned from recent court filings is that there was, according to the earlier -- the early legal team that flynn had, that there was some discussion with prosecutors, some suggestion that if michael flynn pleaded guilty they wouldn't prosecute his son. well of course flynn did plead guilty. the government didn't prosecute his son. but i think that's all over and done with.gotcha. katy? >> between attorney general jeff sessions and attorney general william barr, how do the priorities change and the timing of this? can you talk a little bit about barr's influence over this

decision? >> well, i think it's very big. you know, the first sign that something like this might happen was early this morning when brandon van grack, who is a federal prosecutor that was on the mueller team filed a motion to withdraw from the case. now, remember the same sort of thing happened last time when the government was about to make its recommendations in the sentencing for roger stone, a number of the prosecutors who were involved in that case backed out, said we don't want to be a part of it. so that was the first sign here and i think that's a telling sign that this was something -- the court filing here is signed by -- well, actually, i'm assuming it's signed by the u.s. attorney, tim shay, but not by any of the other lawyers who worked on the case. that's right, it just says at the very end by timothy shay, u.s. attorney. there isn't the usual list of other prosecutors that you would normally see on a filing like

this. so it's clearly -- we'll have to find out whose idea this was, but just a larger theme here is that william barr has been saying that he believes that the fbi's entire investigation of russian meddling, of what led to the carter page fisa application and all of that stuff, he thinks that the fbi did not have sufficient legal reason to open an investigation of someone running for president of the united states which is a sort of ultimate bull wart first amendment protected activity. the attorney general, while not going that far, had some questions about it too. this has been barr's central approach. he wants to go back over the whole thing and this is clearly part of that. >> let's talk about that because i think during this pandemic a lot of the results of the

mueller investigation might have gotten foggy in a number of people's minds. the president has said over and over again that mueller found no obstruction, no collusion, but that's not at all what he found, even though i know william barr had that summary of what he found but that wasn't quite accurate at all frankly. robert mueller could not make a determination or did not make a determination on obstruction, and when it came to collusion -- he didn't use that term. it was coordination, correct me if i'm wrong, pete. my memory is a big foggy on this too. but can you just go back over what the mueller investigation found so we have that all clear in our minds. >> sure, but before we do that let me just say that the michael flynn thing was not directly connected to that. it started out as -- remember, this is before robert mueller was the special prosecutor. this was during the transition and early on in the opening days, in january of the trump administration in 2017.

there was no mueller investigation then. robert mueller was in private life, so the fbi was investigating whether any americans helped russians meddle in the election. that's why initially michael flynn was on their hit parade and they concluded in january, no, he didn't do anything wrong. then along come these allegations about lying, about his conversations with the russian ambassador, and that's the whole flynn case. in a very real way it's unrelated to the mueller investigation, but you're right, your summary of the mueller investigation is right and of course one of the great mysteries is why the mueller investigation said we didn't even look at whether the president violated the law because we knew he couldn't be charged with a crime. >> that's a very important point there. pete williams with that breaking news for us. pete, thanks. thank you for trusting us for

these last two hours. thanks for tuning in. nicolle wallace and brian williams pick things up i think right now. take it away, guys. well, good day. brian williams here with you along with nicolle wallace as we begin this hour of the afternoon, 3:00 eastern, 12:00 out west, with the breaking news you have seen being covered live on msnbc and pete williams will be along to help us in a moment. there's the headline, nicolle, justice department asks judge to drop flynn prosecution. there are so many ways to go. it boggles the mind. please begin. >> so i just hung up with a former fbi official who said simply, oh, my god. mike flynn confessed to the crime of lying to the fbi. mike flynn was fired after a

mysterious period in which sally yates came over, warned the brand new white house counsel, don mcgahn, that mike flynn not just had not conducted himself in a manner consistent with a sitting national security adviser but that he may be a target for blackmail, that he was so compromised he himself could be a target for blackmail. mike flynn also lied to vice president pence. there's tape that will live in unfamiliinfamy of the vice pres repeating inaccurate information. and mike flynn's lawyers have been engaged in a smear campaign very, very similar, torn out of the same playbook as the smear campaign donald trump ran against many of the same fbi leaders when he was under investigation by robert mueller. robert mueller did take over some elements of the investigation that overlapped with that guilty or that confession if you will of mike flynn, and he's simply been awaiting sentencing. it's during that period he was

awaiting sentencing that all the politics that have shown up everywhere, that trump associates on the brink of being jailed felons have played their games if you will with law enforcement. it's a stunning, stunning but i guess any close watcher of william barr couldn't describe it as shocking move from this attorney general in the midst of a pandemic to drop a case against someone who admitted to committing the federal crime of lying to the fbi. >> tom winter joins us. tom covers this rt so sort of t for us. nicolle's words there will reverberate, during a piandemic. if it wasn't clear when the mueller report came out, this certainly confirms that the president got the attorney general he wanted. tom, what do you know about the paperwork that's been submitted?

and you can't blame people watching, seeing the headline and wondering, well, can a federal judge object? is there a chain to kick this up? >> you know, brian, it would be -- look, this is extraordinarily unusual that somebody who walked into court, pleaded guilty, said yes, i did the things that i did, and then the prosecutors came back and said, well, your honor, we're actually dropping the case because we don't think it should have been brought in the first place. that's highly unusual. it would be extremely unusual and i don't even know if it would technically be possible in this case for the judge to say, well, wait a minute, i want this case to proceed or i want to hear more arguments. so i don't know, brian. we're going to have to dig beyond the first couple of volumes in the manuals here to figure out where we go from here and if the judge can somehow overrule this. i don't believe that that may be possible but perhaps to kind of -- you and nicolle and pete certainly have laid out very clearly what this case was about

and how we got to today including the political side of this. i think maybe i can just fill you in a little bit on what's in the specific filing from the u.s. attorney in d.c. essentially the argument, the heart of the argument here, brian, is that the justice department now says there was really no reason for this investigation in the first place. the fbi and the justice department had already closed out this look into flynn that occurred towards the end of 2016 and by the first week of 2017 which was a look into his travels to russia, his appearance at a dinner that vladimir putin was at, and any sort of other connections that he may have had involving russia, that that part of the investigation was over. then they say, look, you talk to flynn about his discussions with kislyak, but those discussions would have already been known to the fbi and the justice department because assuredly there was a transcript of them as part of their ongoing counter intelligence efforts involving the russian ambassador.

so what was the purpose of speaking to him if you already knew what that discussion was about? so that appears to be one of the legal legs, brian, that they're trying to stand on here in saying why this case should be dismissed. >> tom winter -- >> brian, i'm just hearing -- >> go ahead. >> sorry, brian. i just heard from another former senior fbi official who said that some of the propaganda being put out by the justice department is flat wrong, but it was ultimately a successful propaganda campaign. this former official says the weasel move was to say we predicated his interview with the fbi on calls with kislyak. no, it was about the lies he told to the vice president about the calls that made us want to interview him. why would the national security adviser be lying about contacts with the russians to his own colleagues? so i think we are right back where we started, at the beginning of the trump presidency with unanswered questions about why the barr

justice department is dropping a case that was at its core about lies told by a senior trump official, someone very close to not just donald trump but jared kushner and ivanka trump, lies that that official mike flynn told to the president. that's what the interview was about. barr dropping the case pulls barr right into questions about why cover up any effort to understand the lies being told by senior trump officials about russia. >> chuck rosenberg, formally of doj, formerly of the fbi. it's been a long time. due to the subject matter that occupies our time every day around here, thank you for calling in to us. i'm very curious to begin with you. what does this do to the fbi and the authority of agents who today and tonight are knocking on doors, pursuing cases and questioning suspects around this country? >> well, brian, if you're

knocking on the door of a friend of the president, it could undermine the work of the fbi. i would hope that in the ordinary case and the flynn case has been anything but ordinary, it wouldn't matter very much, but it's not good for the rule of law. it's not good for morale and it's not a fair outcome in this case. if i may add one thing, earlier in your discussion with tom winter, there was a very good question asked about whether or not the judge must accede to the request of the department of justice to drop the case. the answer is no. the court can allow mr. flynn -- general flynn to withdraw a guilty plea if the defendant can show a fair and just reason for requesting the withdrawal. that's right out of the rule. judge sullivan, the federal district court judge in washington who has this case on his docket, is not a pushover. very few federal judges are, but i am certain he's going to want to know that there is a fair and just reason. right now, at least to me, it

seems pretextual. >> chuck rosenberg, it's nicolle. i want to ask you to take us back in time because so much has happened, so much suffering people are experiencing from coronavirus, but if you go back in time to these very important questions that the fbi had and at the time the counter intelligence investigation was looking at whether donald trump unwittingly or wittingly was in cahoots with the russians and it was in that spirit that these intercepts picked up conversations between mike flynn and the russian ambassador that became the substance of a lie told to mike pence. can you talk about why that was in the range of a counter intelligence investigation, a national security investigation, and what it means for bill barr to say there's no "there" there. >> nicolle, it's not just in the range of the counter intelligence investigation, it's within the heartland of a counter intelligence

investigation. the notion that your national security adviser would be doing things with the russians that he felt the need to lie to the incoming vice president about is really extraordinary. that gives the russians something that they would want over any senior government official, leverage. when the fbi sees that and understands that the russians have leverage over the national security adviser because he lied about his relationship with the russians, that's a big deal. that's a heartland concern of the counter intelligence division. so this notion that they didn't have a predication which is a fancy way of saying a reason to do the investigation and a reason to talk to general flynn, is nuts. i'm sorry, that's not a legal word but it's the one that comes to mind. it's crazy. >> it's one i understand. i'm sorry, go ahead, chuck. >> no, that's it, nicolle.

>> stay with us. neil, let me bring you into this conversation. two former fbi officials in the last ten minutes telling me that this was ultimately about lies told to the vice president of the united states, information they knew were lies, and the fbi coming in and wanting to understand why mike flynn was lying to mike pence and why that information was being communicated to the american public about contacts with russians during the transition. what does it say to you that bill barr says there's no crime committed if you lie about that to the fbi? >> nicolle, it's not just lies but admitted lies. michael flynn went twice before the court and said i did it. the last time he said, quote, i recognize the actions i acknowledge in court today were wrong and that through my faith in god i am working to set things right. boy, i mean, the idea that the

justice department could do this, you called it stunning. it's past stunning. this is the collapse of the justice department as chuck and i and others who have worked there knew it, and there are tens of thousands of federal prisoners in jail right now. none of them got this kind of review of scouring to find anything that might possibly be construed as showing his innocence and particularly not after they pled guilty. the rule of law, if it means anything, is the idea that justice is blind. this is not blind. this is open-eyed. this is a political and incredibly destructive thing to the rule of law. >> neal, you caught my breath with the collapse of the justice department. there's some reporting in "the new york times" that one career prosecutor is asked to be removed from the case. a second former senior justice department official tells me at this time, it's just from the

case, not from the department. what should we brace for in terms of the offense likely to be felt by career prosecutors who see justice and its administration the way you do, as blind to power or connections to the president or the attorney general? >> i think you have two things going on. one, the withdrawal of this guy, brandon van grack, who's widely regarded as a experienced, level-headed, nonpolitical prosecutor, so he's withdrawn. that may tee up the question in court because rule 48 of the rules of procedure require the judge to actually dismiss the indictment. the justice department can't do it on its own. judge sullivan very well may seek into the circumstances, seek an inquiry into the circumstances behind this dropped indictment and indeed behind van grack's decision to withdraw from the case. that's actually what happened in the census case back last year in which career justice

department officials withdrew and the judge there, judge berman in new york, wanted to have an inquiry into the circumstances of their withdrawal. so there's still a lot for the judge to possibly do here, and i suspect some fairly nefarious things may be uncovered in an investigation. the second is you're asking about justice department prosecutors more generally. nicolle, by and large most of them don't deal with trump or russia or trump's friends or all the corruption that evidently seems to go around him wherever he is. they're just trying to prosecute all the other laws, and for them, you know, it will be incredibly demoralizing but do they really want to leave and abandon the justice department, these political thugs, and i don't think there's any other word for it, that want to undermine everything that the department has done for decades upon decades. i think many will try and stay and hope they're not in the line of fire.

>> neal, can you just underscore and pick up the thread that chuck rosenberg raised about counter intelligence investigations which was was crossfire hurricane, the investigation, opened up into carter page and george papadopoulos and all the swirl of russians and people close to russians in the trump campaign was and that's why it was kept secret, and how did mike flynn lying to vice president pence about his conversations with the russian ambassador, ambassador kislyak, about sanctions, how did that intersect with the counter intelligence investigation that was open, and what did bob mueller do with it. ? . >> this is one of the very first things that was discovered, was that michael flynn was having these meetings, not being forthcoming with the fbi about it, and that was part of the initial reason all of this investigation started. then flynn did what i think any

criminal defendant would do in his circumstance, even one as politically connected as him, realized, you know, the if fbi the goods on him, caught him in a bold faced lie and one that was incredibly damaging to our national security. the russians knew that michael flynn had lied to the fbi so they had to effectively massive come ran on him. the idea that you can leave this guy in as the president's national security adviser, i mean, in two different administrations i served the national security adviser is like one step under god. they're that important. they're one of the two or three most important officials that the president has around him, and that person lying, obviously that started a counter intelligence investigation. how could it be otherwise? >> our thanks to tom and chuck and neal, and we're going to obviously stay on this topic in the run-up to nicolle's

hour-long broadcast at the top of the next hour. we have to take a break. when we come back, the other topic at this hour that has our attention and that is the -- apparently the navy steward who acts as valet to the president, one of several in the residence, serves the president his meals among other tasks, positive with covid-19. it's a big topic of conversation in that building. we'll be back. f conversation in that building we'll be back. who has time for wrinkles? neutrogena® rapid wrinkle repair®. we've got the retinol that gives you results in one week. not just any retinol. accelerated retinol sa. for not only smoother skin in one day, but younger-looking skin in just one week. and that's clinically proven. results that fast or your money back. unless you're attached to your wrinkles. one week is all it takes. neutrogena®.

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let's get the latest on this story about the white house valet who has tested positive for the coronavirus and exactly how much exposure he has to the president on a daily basis. nbc news white house correspondent hans nichols is with us. first of all, the word valet sounds so vague and not of this age. these are customarily u.s. navy stewards who serve the president in the residence when they travel, and presidents are assigned them after they leave office. >> reporter: that's a great way to put it, brian. they are navy personnel. they've usually been in the white house for some time. they're typically the stewards of those that work in the white house mess, the navy mess, and the valets are ones that have direct contact with the president. that's why this is significant.

here's what the president just said. he said, i had very little contact with this person. he says he thinks it's all a little bit strange. he noted that he's been tested yesterday, he came up negative. he's been tested today and he came up negative. the president also appeared to announce new protocols for his white house staff during regular contact with him and that is they will be tested every day. they have the tests here, the 15-minute swab. it's a nasal swab in the front of your nasal passage and you get results back very quickly. typically when you take the test you're told that you will only be contacted if you test positive. if you don't hear anything from the medical staff, you're in the clear. so the president has just wrapped up about 30 minutes talking to reporters. he had governor abbott of texas in there. real quickly on flynn, just to recap, the president reiterating he thought he was a great man, an innocent man, wrongly accused. he said that he would be reaching out to general flynn and remember, just a week ago president donald trump said he would consider bringing michael

flynn back in to his administration. so we're going to hear from the president again here in about 30 minutes but that's the latest from the president on both the covid positive test from someone close to him and his views on general flynn. guys? >> hans nichols at the white house, thank you very much. joining our conversation, dr. william shaftner, professor of infectious disease at vanderbilt medical university center and a cdc adviser, and jonathan la mere, an msnbc political analyst with big scoops of his own today. jonathan, let me start with you and the entire backdrop of the news that brian just shared with our viewers about someone in close physical and frequent contact with donald trump testing positive. this was always the risk of reoperationalizing if you will presidential travel.

just talk about the mind-set around a president who, as you reported in a fantastic piece of reporting, won't wear a mask because of how he'll look in one and because of the signal it sends. that has a ripple effect, right? >> it does, nicolle, and it's all part of the optics this white house is trying to present which is the idea of pushing back to normalcy, of re-opening the economy, of slowly returning to normal life even though of course we are seeing the number of coronavirus cases rise across the nation if you take out the drop in the new york city metro area. having said that, we know the president and his advisers are betting big and frankly betting with the public's health to try to restart the economy which they believe will be the best thing possible for his re-election efforts this fall. the valet testing positive and hans just said the president was dismissive of it. we have reporting that he was stunned to learn of this, but this is what happens. the president -- and potentially

it will happen again. the president traveled to arizona earlier this week. it's a massive footprint that travels with any president when they're on the road. the white house itself is operational again and what we're seeing is very, very few in the west wing are wearing masks. that's a tone set by the president himself. briefly on that, we remember about a month back when the cdc put out the recommendations that people should wear masks, voluntary but said they should wear masks, the president immediately rejected it out of hand saying he wouldn't. we're seeing mask wearing becoming a partisan issue. new polling out today says far more democrats than republicans want to wear them. the president has told people around him it looks like a sign of weakness, that he's too concerned about his health rather than the economy, and yes, he doesn't like how he looks and he's afraid the image of him being in a mask would be used in a negative campaign ad against him. >> nothing that anyone could say

could really do justice to this quote from the piece. trump, who is known to be especially cognizant of his appearance on television, has told confidantes that he fears he would look ridiculous in a mask. doctor, let me play you something that former fda commissioner dr. scott gottlieb said this morning that stopped us in our tracks about the numbers of actual infections in this country. >> remember, for every case we're diagnosing -- and we're diagnosing about 30,000 a day -- there's probably 10 to 20 infections. so we're probably diagnosing 1 in 10 so those 30,000 are really about 300,000 infections a day. >> i think people are still getting their arms around how to do what the president would like us to do, re-open the economy, how to do that safely, than the idea that there are that many more infections that are known to us and we don't know where

they are i think frightens people. >> i'm sure it does, nicolle. dr. gottlieb's estimates may be at the high end of the spectrum, but clearly there are undiagnosed infections out there. we know all about asymptomatic transmission and as we are now having the capability, gradually, to test more and more people, we're obviously finding more and more infections. that's clear. the white house event clearly documents that this coronavirus can go anywhere. secret service and large fences couldn't keep out the coronavirus. >> doctor, as an adviser to the cdc, what do you make of the states opening? and again, this was testimony from a johns hopkins expert yesterday, the states opening without having met all of the guidelines mandated by the white house for re-opening.

>> obviously there's increased risk, brian. when that happens, the concern of viral transmission obviously goes up because we've already demonstrated at the time you're opening up that there's continuing viral transmission at a very substantial rate. here in nashville, we're opening up but we've met most of those criteria and the other ones we're very close to. so we're doing this very gradually. we're doing it in a very conservative fashion, and i would recommend that to everybody. you were talking about masks. masks indicate concern for others, and i think we all ought to be wearing masks. >> let me ask you about the press secretary yesterday, nicolle touched on this, who wanted to talk about the myth of testing, the notion that it's a

snapshot in time. sure, if we wanted to make it a manhattan project, test every american, by her logic we would have to test them every hour, every day to find out who has it at any given time. what's the counter to that view? >> well, the issue is that if we have testing more widely available, we'll make more clinic clinical diagnoses, we can provide more appropriate care, we'll get a much better sense of how pen trant the virus is all across the country and there will be any number of worried well who will want to be tested also. we will get a sense of how intensely the virus is being transmitted in different parts of the country. all of that is very good information so we can focus our both public health and clinical resources. >> jonathan, what is the

mind-set or the posture of this white house who is doing everything to project, i don't know, it's trump so the word that comes to my mind is vir illty, that we're strong enough to stare down and be immune for this virus when it comes literally into his home. what kind of message are they putting out today? is it one of concern for his workforce, that if they didn't work at the white house they might be able to be at home and not circulating and commuting to the office, or what is the tone and tenor behind the stunning announcement about his steward being infected? >> i'm not going to touch your choice of the word vir illty, but in terms of this white house there's been mostly -- it's mostly been dismissive. there has not been much in the way of expressions of concern for the white house staff or even, at least from the president's remarks, the valet himself or herself who was